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Draft

Do we need a whole paragraph on Trump avoiding the draft? It is also odd that the current paragraph doesn't mention the Vietnam War.--Jack Upland (talk) 00:15, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Why not? Bill Clinton has a four-paragraph section on the draft. Trump's bone spurs have gotten plenty of press coverage. It seems WP:DUE to me. – Muboshgu (talk) 00:21, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
Yes, and George W Bush has two paragraphs and three articles! But there are other issues here. Clinton was protesting the war, and Bush served in the National Guard. In Trump's case, there's no much that's important to say. There is an American political tradition of raising this issue. However, outside the political bubble, it's not particularly notable. Many people didn't fight in Vietnam, for whatever reason. Sylvester Stallone's article never mentions this, for example. I think it's unencyclopedic to go into this level of detail. It wasn't a major part of his life.--Jack Upland (talk) 05:51, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
But there are other issues here.
  • Sylvester Stallone is not president of the United States and commander-in-chief of its armed forces.
  • If it wasn't a major part of his life, that's because he successfully avoided the draft. Had he gone to Vietnam, it would've been a major part of his life and possibly the end of it. It's due to explain why that didn't happen in a wee bit more than one sentence. ―Mandruss ☎ 08:56, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
Stallone has made patriotic films about the Vietnam War. By contrast, Trump is against foreign intervention. There are many events that could have changed Trump's life (accidents, diseases etc). Every able-bodied man who came to adulthood in the US, Australia, etc c. 1970 could have been conscripted into the Vietnam War, but virtually none of their pages, not even Stallone's, have any mention of this, even though it could have become a major part of their life.--Jack Upland (talk) 19:54, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
Stallone is an actor! Not a commander-in-chief. It's important to note that Trump didn't serve, and the reasons why. I remember there being a recent kerfuffle over actors in shoot'em up movies who support gun control. It's nonsense. The point of acting is that you portray something that isn't you. – Muboshgu (talk) 20:11, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
Unless you're Charlie Sheen in Being John Malkovich, anyway. Or Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Apprentice. Or Jesse Ventura in Predator. Or Wes Craven in Wes Craven's New Nightmare. Or the bear from The Bear. Or Omarosa from The Apprentice. Or Nancy Davis as First Lady Nancy Reagan. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:17, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
I don't think Stallone's got much of an acting range. He doesn't even seem to change his haircut. Stallone was not just an actor. He was the co-writer of Rambo: First Blood Part II and clearly played a major part in the production of the film. He was vocal in his support for Vietnam War veterans. It is therefore valid to point out that he was not one himself, though I'm not suggesting he went to Switzerland to dodge the draft.--Jack Upland (talk) 04:16, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Half of the eligible males of that era got deferments, disqualifications etc. and the fact that that war was fought by America's least privileged is old news. That said, the paragragh actually seems to be definitely needed in light of Trump maligning John McCain as well as currently being in charge of our armed forces.--MONGO (talk) 19:45, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

I agree it should be mentioned. But a sentence could cover it.--Jack Upland (talk) 19:55, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
What would that sentence say? What details would it not include? I personally don't see how we can adequately cover the issue with less than what we currently have. – Muboshgu (talk) 20:12, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
The draft evasion paragraph is less than half the size of the religion section and a bit smaller than the New Jersey Generals paragraph. That leads me to think that it's about the right size. It doesn't contain trivial detail and it stays on topic, so I don't see any reason to remove any information.- MrX 🖋 21:34, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
I would say something like "While in college, Trump obtained student and medical draft deferments which prevented him from being called up for the Vietnam War". I don't think the minute details matter. The argument that this needs to be mentioned because Trump is commander–in–chief is very much a political POV. These events or non-events happened 50 years ago.--Jack Upland (talk) 03:55, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
The argument that this needs to be mentioned because Trump is commander–in–chief is very much a political POV. That makes no sense. While there is no avoiding one's personal bias in something like this – which goes both ways, believe it or not – that is not a particularly good example of that. These events or non-events happened 50 years ago. So? It's a biography. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:18, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
Yes, but the argument is that these events of 50 years ago are relevant to his presidency. They weren't part of his biography when he was just a businessman.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:32, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
In that case it was too much then, but it's not too much now. Do I have that right? ―Mandruss ☎ 07:51, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
OK. I propose this has to be part of the US presidential infobox.
Battlefield experience (minutes)= . Amount of draft deferments= . Amount of doobies smoked= . Amount of doobies smoked and inhaled= . Number of friends who are sex offenders= . Number of Mafia connections= . Average time spent doing hair each morning (minutes)= . Amount of family members on the payroll= . Average scandals per week= .
This will encapsulate all the vital information about the presidency.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:58, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
Please propose that at Template talk:Infobox officeholder. ―Mandruss ☎ 08:00, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

The existing paragraph is DUE and important. IMO it is the bare minimum that needs to be said on the subject. -- MelanieN (talk) 22:06, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Why is it important? As we have established, many Americans got draft deferments, but almost all of their articles don't feature this. Maybe the issue should featured in their articles, as WW2 tends to be in many of the articles about people that were young in that period. But I don't think that Trump is an exception. The fact that a businessman had bone spurs in the 1960s is not particularly notable, and that shouldn't change if they become President or Pope. The hypocrisy of this is that many editors of Wikipedia also had draft deferments, but they are pretending that Trump is unique. The current paragraph has much intricate details, including those unexplained symbols. Many people who are, like me, outside the the American bubble have no clue what that even means. And the paragraph doesn't even mention the Vietnam War. As far as we know, a "draft deferment" is what Biden did when he plagiarised for his student essays. It's also crazy to talk about trimming the article and then insist on retaining a paragraph about something that didn't happen 50 years ago.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:12, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
So I went to add a clarifying wikilink for "draft deferment", only to discover that it's already there. There are a number of U.S.-specific things (taking your word that it's U.S.-specific) in this and many other articles that require links for explanation, and that's one of the main purposes for links.
Most of the rest of your comment has already been responded to. This is both "something that didn't happen" and something that did happen; you can't have one without the other. Yes, the importance of BLP content can depend on who (i.e., what) the subject individual is. There is no editor "hypocrisy", as no editor is the president of the United States. Double standard? You bet.
If you feel it's important enough for RfC, go ahead – but you are not going to change any minds here with arguments like that. ―Mandruss ☎ 09:49, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
How do you know no editor is the President of the United States? Some editors seem to echo Trumpian talking points.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:55, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
You shouldn't have to click a link to understand something that is relatively simple. The current text is convoluted, badly expressed, and repetitive.--Jack Upland (talk) 04:00, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
Do you have a specific proposal of what should replace what we currently have? – Muboshgu (talk) 04:05, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
I think what something along the lines of Joe Biden's article: "Biden received student draft deferments during this period, at the peak of the Vietnam War, and in 1968, he was reclassified by the Selective Service System as not available for service due to having had asthma as a teenager." It puts the issue in its historical context (the Vietnam War) and avoids excessive technical details and repetition.--Jack Upland (talk) 05:19, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

I had intended to suggest Trump had too big a smile in articles that were primarily criticizing him. I see there is a different photo which I like better on Impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 18:06, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Okay... So what? This is not a chat room for regular discussion. Mgasparin (talk) 18:50, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
Was there a discussion about changing the photo, or did someone just change it?— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 19:15, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
See #Current consensus item 1. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:55, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
That's for this article. See here.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 17:18, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
Oh, sorry. Since you were on Talk:Donald Trump I assumed you were talking about Donald Trump.
You opened this thread before even trying one at Talk:Impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump. While there has been only one reply there, suggesting that no other editors object to the change, it has been only about 26 hours since you started it. Give it some time.
But don't get me started on infobox photo debates, especially Trump infobox photo debates. I won't be participating in that one. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:43, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
Mandruss I wasn't going to post on the talk page of every single Trump-related article. That's why I thought here would be accceptable.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 14:08, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
User:Vchimpanzee Some explanation -- The norm is to use the official portrait photo of an office holder and then leave it there -- for example George H. W. Bush still shows his from 1989. Hillary Clinton had the one from the start of her first term as Senator until the one from the beginning of her tenure as Secretary of State in 2009. (Though hers did change in August 2019...) That norm seems to be a bit flexible, but there were soooooooo many Trump photo discussions] that unless he gets a new official photo, it seems unlikely to change here. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 03:26, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Survey and discussion

Over at the Trump-Ukraine talk page there is a survey and discussion about lead paragraph proposals. For all who are interested, the discussion is here. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 03:20, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 1 November 2019

Hello, I think Baghdadi's death be should mentioned in Trump's series (that profile which says this article belongs to a series of articles related to Trump). Not only is it an event of paramount importance when it comes to his foreign and military affairs but it is customary to mention this in the series of different president's (such as Bin Laden's death on Obama's series). Thanks, Boorif Boorif (talk) 20:46, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

 Done I'll add Barisha raid to {{Donald Trump series}}. – Muboshgu (talk) 20:51, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for taking notice! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Boorif (talk • contribs) 23:57, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

Trump's Ireland visit and $100 thousand tab

Hi all

Not sure which article/s this should be mentioned in, any suggestions? https://www.businessinsider.my/trump-ireland-resort-100000-security-bill-2019-10/?

Thanks

John Cummings (talk) 11:49, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

User:John Cummings None I think, it’s trivia. And please don’t just paste something from same-day feed here, give it a 48 hour waiting period to see if more info and WEIGHT to show up or if it’s just a 1-day blip. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 19:06, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Also, in the future, please shorten your subtopic titles. Thanks---Steve Quinn (talk) 03:13, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
@John Cummings and Steve Quinn:This items is way more than trivia,it is just another episode in a behavioral pattern and the Business Insider is a very reputable RS. So this definitely bears mention. I would say along with all of the other people and communities he has stiffed, Like the cities where he holds rallies. For instance El Paso sent a bill for $500,000 to his campaign seeking compensation for police protection and city services they had to provide and they haven't been paid, the same goes for every other city in which he holds his emotional support rallies.Oldperson (talk) 00:34, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
@Oldperson: Thanks for bringing this up. I'm sure it belongs in one of the Trump articles - not sure which one. Also, it is best to allow controversy and hub bub to have traction over the a couple of days, so more details can come out. Maybe someone else will provide a pointer to which article for you. Best of luck. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 01:53, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
Steve QuinnYour after the fact edit (re: Oldperson) did not work. I never got the ping. I did catch it on my watchlist though.... :}. I disagree with giving it a day or two to see if it has traction. The fact is that this is another example of the blatant grift in which he has consistently encouraged or directed. There should be a section devoted to "Misuse of Public Funds", Pence in Ireland, use of the military to keep alive the airport that services his golf course and of course forcing the aircrews to use his facilities, expenses which military per diem reimbursement does not cover. or similar including tax payer funding of events at Mara Lago.. Not to mention another section about Frauds and Scams then there is the violation of the emoluments clause using his Hotel.Oldperson (talk) 02:43, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Trump Foundation No Longer Active

The first sentence of Section 2.5 currently states, "The Donald J. Trump Foundation is a U.S. based private foundation..."

This should be changed to "The Donald J. Trump Foundation was a U.S. based private foundation..."

This edit will make the first sentence agree with the body of the section and also the discrete Wikipedia entry for the now defunct Trump Organization.

Thank youJackcrossen (talk) 10:05, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

I agree with this edit Clint.jenkins (talk) 14:49, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
Edit made. Markbassett (talk) 21:21, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Relevance

I tagged a one liner about Trump being scouted by professional baseball. I think that is a hoax, that it appears in an article is not proof of anything, Trump had the custom of calling up radio stations and newspapers using pseudonyms like John Barron and bragging on himself. I doubt that any baseball team would have scouted him, or that he is that good. This needs to be verified by the teams themselves.Oldperson (talk) 00:34, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Additionally the story has all the smell about of his lover (his words not mine) Kim Jong UnOldperson (talk) 00:51, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
By the way, all those stories about the cancer cure, the unicorn, the golf score etc are distortions. They are not real North Korean propaganda.--Jack Upland (talk) 01:35, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
Jack Upland You, of course, can support your statement, that these are distortions by RS. BTW I do not think that North Korea would publish this stuff as propaganda, on the other hand what stories they spread amongst the masses is another thing. it is after all a closed society and it's captive inhabitants have no acccess to outside information or sources.Oldperson (talk) 15:27, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
User:Jack Upland I think the above was meant to ping you. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 21:27, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 7 November 2019

There is a few spelling mistakes Yackvo (talk) 11:00, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Such as? ―Mandruss ☎ 11:08, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
"are"" SPECIFICO talk 16:52, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

RfC: books in lead

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
The first issue for a closer to consider in a complicated and controversial RfC such as the discussion below is the quality of opinions. That is, are there arguments that should be considered irrelevant, such as ...those that flatly contradict established policy, those based on personal opinion only, those that are logically fallacious, and those that show no understanding of the matter of issue. Despite claims from some editors about the !votes of other editors, I see no arguments that clearly and incontrovertibly fall under one of those categories. Indeed, it could reasonably be argued that all of the !votes skirt towards a least one.
The next issue, therefore, is considering whether there is a multiplicity of editors favoring either the original text or favoring changing it. There are 11 editors that wish the original text to be retained, and 18 editors that favored at least one alternative text. (Note: There are 2 editors that favored one of the alternative texts but expressed a secondary preference for the original, resulting in a total higher than the number of editors.) So retaining the original text is not the consensus of the editors who have expressed a preference.
The final step is to determine what the preference is for the new text. With multiple options and many editors favoring more than one, this gets a little complex. The preferences tend to either for A with B as a fallback position or for C and D in one or the other order. Taking the expressed preferences below into account, however, tends to favor Option D. Of the 16 editors rejecting the original text clearly, 11 either preferred Option D over Option C or only preferred Option D. The discussion below therefore expressed a rough consensus to change the text and a narrow consensus to use Option D.
The argument can be made that Option A and Option D have about the same level of support and therefore this is more properly a "no consensus" discussion, which was how it was originally closed. A no consensus close would, however, result in retention of the orignal text and there is a clear majority of editors wishing to not retain the original text. A no consensus close would not accurately reflect the discussion below. (non-admin closure) Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 19:42, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Uninvolved close requested at WP:ANRFC.[1] Latest !vote 22 Sep, latest discussion 21 Sep. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:47, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

A recent discussion saw quite a lot of comments on wanting to change this sentence in the lead: He co-authored several books, including The Art of the Deal. Let's discuss to produce a consensus whether it should remain, or be changed. Which sentence should be present in the lead? starship.paint (talk) 08:10, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

- starship.paint (talk) 08:10, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Survey for books in lead

  • Option C first choice, Option B second choice - the amount of ghostwriting done on Trump's behalf leaves me uncomfortable with Option A. Reading his tweets, the ghostwriting seems necessary. Between Option B and Option C, as Trump himself is not a publishing company, Option C is preferable. starship.paint (talk) 08:15, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Option D: omit it altogether as UNDUE for a lead, but will accept published, had published, released, contributed to. Donald Trump CLAIMS to have co-authored the books; other informed parties (including the author and publisher) dispute this. A reasonable reader would not take "publish" to mean he stitched the binding himself, but they would think "co-authored" meant he wrote it, which is not supported by the facts. No one thinks "wrote" means "holds the copyright for." GreatCaesarsGhost 12:53, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Option C or Option D (leaning to D). For me, this is a binary thing. Either we use the accurate "has had published" language (which I freely admit is a little awkward), or we don't have anything at all. Trump is not a publisher or an author, so options A or B would be inaccurate. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:39, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Option B or Option A - One need not be a publishing company to have something published, as per the dictionary definition of the word. May His Shadow Fall Upon You Talk 13:42, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
    @May His Shadow Fall Upon You: You just wrote: One need not be a publishing company to have something published. Absolutely correct, but you do need to be a publishing company to publish something (leaving aside the whole self publishing thing). That fact that you worded your response the way you did argues that option C is the way to go. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:54, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
I think that "published" does not exclude the same meaning present with "has had published". But "has had published" sounds terrible. May His Shadow Fall Upon You Talk 14:06, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
As I said in my comment above, "has had published" sounds a little awkward, but it is at least accurate; however, claiming that Trump published something (or wrote something, frankly) would be wrong. -- Scjessey (talk) 12:09, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Option B or Option A. B sounds much more natural than C, and it's similar in structure to the opening line of the It Takes a Village article. Rreagan007 (talk) 16:59, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Option D first choice with Option C as 2nd. Since there are reliable claims that trump did little to nothing in the authorship of the books best to either leave them off or word it more neutral that he has books published about him but without the addition he was somehow the author of them. ContentEditman (talk) 17:44, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Option C (first choice) or Option D (second choice). The most accurate statement appears to be C: "has had published". Since The Art of the Deal is a fairly commonly known book title, it does seem to warrant inclusion in the lead paragraph. Lindenfall (talk) 21:44, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Option C or Option D (equally weighted). Agree with Scjessey’s reasons above. —Eyer (If you reply, add {{reply to|Eyer}} to your message to let me know.) 21:59, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Option D: omit it altogether as UNDUE for a lead. Since he almost certainly had little to do with their writing, and lies about his role, they do not warrant any mention in the lead, and only short mention in the article. -- BullRangifer (talk) 16:17, 7 September 2019 (UTC)
  • B - The usage "published a book" is fairly common, especially where the instigator of the publication, in this case Trump, is not the author. I don't think "published" necessarily entails a press and a truck. As to D. Yes, we do have body content and a separate article for details about this book, but think it was undeniably a significant factor in Trump's early fame, with a brilliant title, and it preceded a lot of other famous Trump branding, such as his TV career and race-related trolling. SPECIFICO talk 16:29, 7 September 2019 (UTC)
C is also OK. D is preferable to A. SPECIFICO talk 13:19, 22 September 2019 (UTC) Emphasis added 10/31. Better to get it out of the lead than to have wasted this discussion with no change. 13:47, 31 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Option D first choice with (very reluctant) Option C as 2nd. Gandydancer (talk) 16:54, 7 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Option D most certainly. He is not well known for being an author or book publisher, and many politicians have written or published books. If we must include a mention, Option C would be the best method, but removing the word "has" from "he has had". Onetwothreeip (talk) 23:16, 7 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Option C or A seem best of the choices - option A (no change) seems sort of OK because we've not got anything new to really push for a change, and option C seems sort of OK because 'had published' covers the ones he is sole author for as well as the co-authored ones. Though at eighteen, it is "numerous" or "many" rather than "several" books. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 02:33, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
How many books is Trump the "sole author" of? -- Scjessey (talk) 12:11, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
He may be the only one credited, but no one seriously believes he penned a single word. He isn't capable of such a feat. That's what his biographers tell us. -- BullRangifer (talk) 23:37, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Option D. Too messy: you can't easily mention the books without getting into the weeds of his not having written them. Guy (help!) 20:20, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Option A He's a credited author, and that's what we can verify. Art of the Deal is an important book in terms of what it did to his Q score, so I'm against Option D. – Muboshgu (talk) 23:53, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Option A (Summoned by bot) Coretheapple (talk) 19:00, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
  • First choice A, second choice B – Totally oppose D, because The Art of the Deal has been a key element of Trump's notability, decades before he entered politics, hence DUE for the lead section. — JFG talk 11:59, 10 September 2019 (UTC)
    Bankruptcies have been a key element of Trump's notability, decades before he entered politics, hence DUE for the lead section. See what I did there? -- Scjessey (talk) 12:37, 10 September 2019 (UTC)
    Yeah, JFG's argument doesn't really hold up, as Donald Trump "notability" primarily derived from him being a loud and proud sexual predator and racist, and we're certainly not putting THAT in the lead. Trump was a laughing-stock throughout the 80s, and TAotD was relentless ridiculed contemporaneously as everyone knew Trump inherited most his wealth and had no skill as a deal-maker. It's no more important than the steaks or the board game. GreatCaesarsGhost 17:57, 10 September 2019 (UTC)
    @Scjessey: No objection from me to adding a line about Trump's business fortunes and misfortunes to the lead. His casino ventures and related bankruptcies are indeed part of his notability. @GreatCaesarsGhost: Thanks for your opinion. — JFG talk 20:17, 10 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Option A - I agree the focus should be on "author", and A fits the bill. Atsme Talk 📧 21:51, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Option C first choice, Option B second choice - per User:Starship.paint -ColumbiaXY (talk) 19:46, 19 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Option A Regardless of Schwartz's regrets or his claim that he wrote it on his own, there remains the fact that the book cites Trump as the co-author. It is also in the first person narrative. Should we then say that it is Schwartz who is telling the tale? Was he the one making the deals? Furthermore, let us suppose the book is full of lies and it qualifies as a work of fiction. We should remember that it was still Trump who supplied those lies. Also, the lede of the Art of the Deal's page states that the book helped make Trump a "household name" in the U.S. It is probably the book that is most associated with Trump when we talk about him as an author. His name on the book is probably one of the reasons why it sold well. Darwin Naz (talk) 03:51, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
    @Darwin Naz:Your rationale suggests you are not familiar with acknowledged facts concerning the book's origin, including the word of the head of Random House. For starters, please read WP's The Art of the Deal article. Moreover, as I presume you're aware, every ghostwritten volume is in the first-person voice but that does not warrant the personal conclusions you offer to support citing Trump as author. Please consider. SPECIFICO talk 12:34, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
Are we to strike down the authors of these autobiographies or what you refer to as ghostwritten volumes and replace them with the names of their ghostwriters? By the way, in 2019, I still read reports about Ballantine publishing reprints and these still bear Trump's name. Darwin Naz (talk) 00:35, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
Nobody has proposed that. Please be responsive. SPECIFICO talk 04:00, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Discussion for books in lead

Notifying previous commenters:

This RfC does not include options for "released" rather than "published", or for whether or not to include "ghostwritten" (which could be combined with co-authored/published/released/whatever other word), both of which have previously been discussed. I'm on mobile right now, but Starship or someone else, please add them. - Sdkb (talk) 14:13, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
@Sdkb: - I didn't add them because nobody supported them other than you, and we had 10 people in the previous discussion. Too many options makes it harder to achieve a consensus. Furthermore your proposal was the very first one, at the top of the discussion, surely it would have been the most read. starship.paint (talk) 15:20, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
@Starship.paint: There was support from multiple parties for "ghostwritten" in last year's discussion, and nothing has substantively changed since then. Regarding "released", I'm honestly somewhat perplexed, since I think I made a reasonably solid case for it, but no one has voiced either support or opposition. If anyone has thoughts about it, they might be able to persuade me to withdraw it, but until then, I object to your dismissing it out of hand by excluding it from the RfC. Sdkb (talk) 15:45, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
@Sdkb: - reading the old discussions, yes, there was support for "ghostwritten", but there was also clear rejections of "ghostwritten". The thing is, while in the above discussion no one has voiced either support or opposition for your proposal, the important part is that almost everyone in the above discussion voiced support for a proposal other than yours. starship.paint (talk) 01:54, 7 September 2019 (UTC)
  • I regret to say that this RfC seems to be making things worse. We were either at or close to consensus in the previous thread. Now we have a formal RfC that will bring in additional new editors less familiar with the previous discussions or with the decisions made at The Art of the Deal article. Seems like this is excessively formal and likely counterproductive for a relatively unimportant matter. SPECIFICO talk 23:09, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
    I'm sorry. I tried my best on this. starship.paint (talk) 01:54, 7 September 2019 (UTC)
    No personal criticism intended. It's a result of the persistent "consensus required" tactic even after that sanction has been deprecated in favor of incremental improvement via revert and modification. Perhaps in the future an alternative to an RfC would simply be to ask an outsider to close the discussion thread. Dunno. The politics articles have lost many good editors since the "special sanctions" fiasco of the past year. SPECIFICO talk 13:40, 7 September 2019 (UTC)
    Well, nobody invited an outside closer yet... so I did what I thought was right. starship.paint (talk) 05:44, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
    For the avoidance of doubt, I meant absolutely no criticism of you. From what I've seen you have been one of the most active and clear-minded editors on this article in recent months. I was addressing the the idea that the best is the enemy of the better, and I was suggesting we try to go with the 24-hour BRD model rather than rejecting incremental improvements by reverting back to a flawed imperfect version and tying ourselves in knots on the discussion page. SPECIFICO talk 12:53, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
    Okay cool, @SPECIFICO:. I take zero offense. Perhaps we should try that. starship.paint (talk) 15:34, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

@JzG: You do understand that we're only discussing the lead section here? The ghostwriting thing is already undisturbed in the article text. SPECIFICO talk 20:55, 8 September 2019 (UTC) @Muboshgu: Do you have an independent secondary RS that verifies Trump wrote the book? I have not seen anything of the sort, and apparently neither have the editors at the book's standalone article. SPECIFICO talk 00:42, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

SPECIFICO, I didn't say he wrote the book. I said he's credited as an author. – Muboshgu (talk) 01:28, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
Well, I saw that you endorsed option A, which does say in WP's voice that he was the co-author. I have not seen any independent secondary RS verification of that. Have you? SPECIFICO talk 01:50, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
The cover of the book. He's listed as an author. And everything written about it confirms he's credited as an author. – Muboshgu (talk) 01:56, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
Muboshgu, I am trying to be very clear and simple. The article text you endorse, with A states, in WP's voice, that Trump is the co-author of the book. Surely, you do not consider the cover of the book an independent, secondary, Reliable Source for that statement? Your "credited as an author" is not what option A says. Option A says he was the co-author. That's quite a different statement, and it's one that the article text does not support, per the cited references. SPECIFICO talk 12:51, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
SPECIFICO, Yes, very much so. It's fine in the body because there is space for the context. In the lede, not so much. We don't need to list every grift there. Guy (help!) 09:46, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

@Mandruss and JFG: Would either of you mind closing this RfC? If not, could you ask for an admin close? It's just sitting here now, and I believe people have mostly forgotten about it. Mgasparin (talk) 04:03, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

Won't close this myself, as I'm a participant. Too early to ask for a formal close: RfCs are supposed to run for 30 days, unless consensus is obvious (not the case here). Let's wait. — JFG talk 08:19, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
RfCs are supposed to run for 30 days, unless consensus is obvious (not the case here). In my opinion that's a common misconception arising from the bot de-listing interval. If RfCs generally run for 30 days, it's because that's easier than fighting the misconception, not because they generally need that much discussion. This is a relatively minor issue, and I'd ask for formal close whenever discussion falls to some undefinable point. ―Mandruss ☎ 08:28, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
Correction: It's more than my opinion, per Wikipedia:Requests for comment#Duration. ―Mandruss ☎ 08:43, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
Won't close this myself, as it's been shown I'm not good at closing discussions like this one. Too much left brain, I'm afraid. ―Mandruss ☎ 08:23, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
All right, that's fine. I don't think consensus is going to ever become obvious here though. Mgasparin (talk) 17:00, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

Note: It looks like someone has changed the lede to read "credited as co-author", which is different than any of the options listed here. Sdkb (talk) 07:37, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

@Sdkb: Thanks for the notice. I have now reverted to the longstanding text, pending RfC outcome. — JFG talk 15:25, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
I’m sorry, but this isn’t an issue for an RfC. We don’t usually mince words when factual evidence says otherwise. He never authored any of the books, according to both publishers and ghostwriters, nor was he an actual publisher, which would require him owning a press that published the books. Of the three options presented here, “”C”” is the only acceptable option. Can we not just follow policy here? Symmachus Auxiliarus (talk) 19:00, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
We occasionally see editors claiming that their position is clearly dictated by policy so all discussion should cease forthwith. They are never successful. I suggest you !vote in the proper place. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:40, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
This is completely inappropriate. I’m not confused, neither by what I said, nor my understanding of policy. My appeal to policy is simply that NPOV be represented. I’m not “pulling rank”. Mandruss, you’re clearly a capable editor. You know full well how there tends to be an ideological spin on things. As I said, neither A nor B are technically correct, so C remains the only option, and one that’s middling at best. Symmachus Auxiliarus (talk) 21:16, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
  • I wonder how many respondants above realize that the "books" section of this article begins "Trump has published several books" -- it's kind of hard to claim there's a problem with that succinct statement in the lead, isn't it? SPECIFICO talk 02:38, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
    Good point. Lead/body coordination is too often overlooked, here and elsewhere. We should have addressed body first, then lead, but since this already so far along we should do it backwards. Wait for the consensus, then modify both lead and body as needed. ―Mandruss ☎ 02:46, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Alternative view RE: Close

I'd be more comfortable asking a more experienced editor to review or re-do the close. My concern is that the rationale for "no consensus" seems to be based on vote counts among many alternatives, a circumstance that will rarely find one alternative with a majority. On the other hand, the impetus for this was initially whether "co-authored" is accurate. It doesn't reflect the article text and it's not how the The Art of the Deal article deals with it. If I were closing, I would conclude D, omit, simply because that would be a more appropriate starting point for whatever future solution is found. B, C, and D all have reasonable objections, but there does appear to be consensus that the status quo is not good, and most editors object to A. SPECIFICO talk 02:09, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd prefer to wait for the close via the WP:ANRFC request. It's close enough to the top that it can't be too much longer, and I see little urgency here.
Hey Mgasparin – Your edit summary "strike !vote so I can close this"[2] seems a bit dubious. The point of uninvolved close is that the closer will usually be more objective, and striking one's !vote doesn't render them suddenly more objective. So you're effectively involved here, and involved close should only be used in clear cases that no reasonable person would dispute. Granted, it would be more serious had you closed in favor of your (former) position. ―Mandruss ☎ 02:45, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
I am more than willing to adjust my close if you want me to. (I could also just wait though for an admin close, though). Mgasparin (talk) 06:34, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
If you're that easily influenced by what involved editors think the close should say, you shouldn't be closing discussions. Consensus assessment is not for involved editors except as I said when it's obvious.
(Not to put too fine a point on it, but ANRFC requests can be handled by any competent uninvolved editor, not just admins – despite it being part of an "administrators' noticeboard".) ―Mandruss ☎ 07:07, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I was just trying to help. I thought it was fine at the time, but now I realize it was wrong. Thanks, Mgasparin (talk) 04:56, 31 October 2019 (UTC)
I would concur with SPECIFICO's view that "no consensus" should effectively default to option D, because no language is better than faulty language. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:31, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
A competent closer will probably consider SPECIFICO's viewpoint as part of their evaluation. But any close based on the consensus-assessment opinions of involved editors will result in a request for close review by yours truly, so it's sort of pointless to add what amount to Support or Oppose comments here. We don't form consensuses about consensuses. ―Mandruss ☎ 13:57, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
Yeah, I guess my comment was a bit meta. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:00, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
I was a little off the mark and my self-revert edit-conflicted with you. Who decides what to do with a "no consensus", the closer or involved editors? I'm not sure, and I've seen it done both ways. But regardless, it should not be assumed that the close will be "no consensus", so we're at least cart-before-horse. ―Mandruss ☎ 14:04, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Dismissal of James Comey & Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

Why is this on par with general matters such as Foreign & Domestic policies? Also, how about including "He also ordered the military operation that resulted in the death of Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi." --2A02:1205:5005:440:C508:D886:6D8A:18B9 (talk) 20:00, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Huh?Oldperson (talk) 20:54, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
Both of those are part of Trump's domestic and foreign policy. This doesn't make sense. Mgasparin (talk) 20:29, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
What doesn't make sense is the sectionheader and the IP's statement that follows. I assume that Mgasparin's comment above is a question (there was no question mark so sounds like a statement i.e."This doesn't make sense." Anyway James Comey is one topic,so is Domestic affairs, Foreign affairs is another section, al Baghdadi another they don't belong together. I asked "Huh" because I didn't understand the IP's comment, and still don't.Oldperson (talk) 20:39, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
I wasn't responding to you, I was responding to the IP. If I was responding to you I would have indented my response one indent more than your comment. As you can see, here I am responding to you because my response is indented 3 times. Mgasparin (talk) 20:42, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
On Obama's profile it mentions Bin-Laden's death. It should mention Baghdadi's death here just as well..  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Boorif (talk • contribs) 20:38, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
this has nothing to do with Obama.2600:1702:2340:9470:944D:FD99:1D34:6E3E (talk) 06:02, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

State of Residency Now Florida

The NY Times has reported that Mr. Trump has changed his legal state of residency from New York to Florida (a state with no personal income tax or inheritance tax).[3] Not sure if that has made it into the article but if not, I am guessing it should. -Ad Orientem (talk) 00:20, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Sounds good to me.2600:1702:2340:9470:C4C1:BBD4:10D3:1657 (talk) 03:17, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
Yeah, I'll support that. Mgasparin (talk) 23:42, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Trump Iran links, add?

  • Sketchy Donald Trump Deal Eyed For Ties To Iran on YouTube MSNBC March 6, 2017
  • Adam Davidson (March 13, 2017). "Donald Trump's Worst Deal; The President helped build a hotel in Azerbaijan that appears to be a corrupt operation engineered by oligarchs tied to Iran's Revolutionary Guard". The New Yorker.

X1\ (talk) 22:48, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

X1\ Please suggest relevant text and placement. — JFG talk 14:29, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Another Mueller lead revision suggestion

Choice 1: (Suggested Version) A special counsel investigation found that Trump and his campaign welcomed and encouraged Russian foreign interference in the 2016 presidential election under the belief that it would be politically advantageous, but did not find sufficient evidence to establish criminal charges related to conspiracy or coordination with Russia.

Choice 2: (Current Version) A special counsel investigation did not find sufficient evidence to establish criminal charges of conspiracy or coordination with Russia, but found that the Trump campaign welcomed the foreign interference under the belief that it was politically advantageous.

The current description omits a lot:

1.) The fact that the report/Mueller includes Trump, not just his campaign, in welcoming foreign interference.

2.) Mueller, the report, and reliable sources state that they didn't just welcome Russian interference, but encouraged it.

3.) Fixes the current unclear nature when it occurred.

4.) Fixes the fact that the current version may unintentionally lie by omission by not including #1, #2, and #3. (Users may come across with the impression that Trump wasn't involved)

5.) Fixes improper grammar. ("under the belief it was politically advantageous")

6.) More consistent with the body

7.) More clear

The current lead omits critical information, is inconsistent with the lead, and has improper grammar. This is something that I should have caught before submitting. But the modifications are significant enough to the point where we should probably have another discussion about it. ZiplineWhy (talk) 19:10, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

!votes

  • Choice 1 - Basically, the report says that the successful obstruction of justice by Trump and his entourage, along with the Trump attorneys' ultimate success in dissuading POTUS from being deposed, there was not sufficient evidence to charge a crime. Choice 1 reflects that. We could go on at greater length, but not in the lead. SPECIFICO talk 20:31, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Choice 3: (a more accurate, NPOV version) - After 2 years of investigation, the Mueller report "found no evidence that President Trump or any of his aides coordinated with the Russian government’s 2016 election interference", and did not conclude whether Mr. Trump illegally obstructed justice.NYTimes Atsme Talk 📧 20:56, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
    Atsme, that is not what either the report or RS say about the matter. Moreover, that's been rejected in many edits and the previous poll over the past 4-6 weeks. Please remove it. As you know, adding more alternatives, even when they plausibly reflect the Verified facts, makes these polls break down. You can take your shot after we wrap up the current choice. 😉 SPECIFICO talk 21:42, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
    User:Atsme yes ‘found no evidence’ is reasonable and more pointing to content. A ‘complete exoneration’ or ‘as exonerated as was possible’ would have skipping to conclusion instead. The second part might be a bit tangling history or missing context - the investigation wasn’t about obstruction of justice wasn’t, it’s that numerous behaviours during investigation for non-existent collaboration were listed to Barr for potential consideration. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 22:20, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
    SPECIFICO - the report itself is a primary source, and to extract information from that primary source is noncompliant with NOR - Do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so. It's policy. I quoted the NYTimes so why are you saying that is not a RS? Atsme Talk 📧 01:00, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
OK let's use Bill Barr. He's a secondary source. 😉
I believe I said we use RS and btw, just to sweeten the pot, they actually represent what Mueller said. Namely that no crimes were charged due to successful obstruction and an uncharacteristic shyness on the part of POTUS, who declined to be depotused by the prosecutor. SPECIFICO talk 01:34, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
@Atsme: - here you are, yet again, trying to use a source from March 2019, before the public release of the Mueller Report, which cites the misleading Barr summary. And here you are again, touting the "no evidence" line. You would do well to read the RS that I will provide again. starship.paint (talk) 02:07, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
RS in April 2019: Barr letter of March 2019 was misleading

New York Times

Barr ... quoted several fragments of Mr. Mueller’s then-secret report. But none of the excerpts were in context or even complete sentences, raising the question of whether he was portraying their thrust and tone accurately or skewing them to make them sound better for President Trump.

Mr. Barr omitted words suggesting that there was complicit conduct that fell short of “coordination” ... Mr. Barr took a larger passage in which the Mueller report suggested that the Trump campaign and the Russian government were knowingly dancing together at a distance, and then excerpted a fragment to make it look like a cleaner exoneration ...

Similarly, Mr. Barr truncated the special counsel explanation of what “coordination” meant — and didn’t mean ... In the second sentence, which Mr. Barr omitted, Mr. Mueller again emphasized that there can be a type of complicit conduct that falls short of how the special counsel defined coordination.

-

Washington Post

As it turns out, in some cases, Barr’s characterizations were incomplete or misleading. The Mueller report is more damning of Trump than the attorney general indicated ...

Left out was a key statement from Mueller that came right before what Barr quoted in his letter ... "that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts" ... Expecting to benefit may not be the same as actively cooperating, but the omission in Barr’s letter is significant nonetheless. The full sentence from Mueller casts a different, less flattering light on the Trump campaign than Barr’s letter indicated. In short, Russia wanted Trump to win, and Trump campaign members were aware that they would reap an advantage from the “information stolen and released through Russian efforts.” ...

Barr at some points in his news conference used the word “collusion,” which is not a legal term for a crime ...

Trump Tower ... meeting posed “difficult statutory and constitutional questions,” Mueller said in the report, but his office “ultimately concluded that, even if the principal legal questions were resolved favorably to the government, a prosecution would encounter difficulties proving that Campaign officials or individuals connected to the Campaign willfully violated the law.” (Emphasis on “willfully.”)

-

New Yorker

The events since Barr’s letter have incinerated whatever remains of his credibility. The famously tight-lipped Mueller team told several news outlets the letter had minimized Trump’s culpability ... Then he broke precedent by scheduling a press conference to spin the report in advance of its redacted publication ... Barr acted like Trump’s defense lawyer, the job he had initially sought, rather than as an attorney general. His aggressive spin seemed designed to work in the maximal number of repetitions of the “no collusion” mantra, in accordance with his boss’s talking points, at the expense of any faithful transmission of the special counsel’s report.

Barr’s letter had made it sound as though Trump’s campaign spurned Russia’s offers of help: “The Special Counsel did not find that the Trump campaign, or anyone associated with it, conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in these efforts, despite multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign,” he wrote. In fact, Mueller’s report concluded, “In some instances, the Campaign was receptive to the offer,” but that the cooperation fell short of criminal conduct.

-

Politico


Now that we have seen almost the entire report of more than 400 pages, we know Barr intentionally misled the American people about Mueller’s findings and his legal reasoning. As a former federal prosecutor, when I look at Mueller’s work, I don’t see a murky set of facts. I see a case meticulously laid out by a prosecutor who knew he was not allowed to bring it.

-

Intercept

The differences between Barr’s statements before the report’s release and the contents of the actual report were so striking that the New York Times did a whole story comparing, side-by-side, Barr’s statements and the report.

Barr’s statements prior to the release of the report, however, were also misleading when it came to the issues of Trump and Russian interference in the election. Barr discussed but did not linger on the portion of the report about the Russian cyberattacks against Hillary Clinton’s campaign — attacks that were designed to help Trump win the election. And Barr was disingenuous in the way he sought to cut and parse Mueller’s report to make Trump look better on issues related to contacts and links between the Trump campaign and Russia.

In fact, the Mueller report’s findings on contacts between the Trump circle and Russia are extensive and damning. The report does not exonerate Trump or his campaign; instead, Mueller says he didn’t have enough evidence to bring criminal charges for conspiring with the Russians. The report states that “while the investigation identified numerous links between individuals with ties to the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign, the evidence was not sufficient to support criminal charges. Among other things, the evidence was not sufficient to charge any Campaign official as an unregistered agent of the Russian government or other Russian principal.”

“Further,” the report adds, “the evidence was not sufficient to charge that any member of the Trump Campaign conspired with representatives of the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 election.” But the report went on to say that the “investigation established that several individuals affiliated with the Trump Campaign lied to [Mueller’s team] and to Congress, about their interactions with Russian-affiliated individuals and related matters. Those lies materially impaired the investigation of Russian election interference.”

Far from vindicating Trump, the Mueller report leaves plenty of troubling questions unresolved for Congress and the press to investigate. Above all, the report shows that the Russians interfered in the election to help Trump win, and Trump was happy for the help.

RS: "insufficient evidence" is different from "no evidence."
  • Associated Press, in May 2019: This refrain about the Mueller report stating there was no collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign is wrong
  • Associated Press in June 2019: Allegations of “collusion” were not “proven false” in the Mueller investigation, nor was the issue of “collusion” addressed in the report. The Mueller report said the investigation did not find a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, saying it had not collected sufficient evidence “to establish” or sustain criminal charges. The report noted that some Trump campaign officials had declined to testify under the 5th Amendment or had provided false or incomplete testimony, making it difficult to get a complete picture of what happened during the 2016 campaign. The special counsel wrote that he “cannot rule out the possibility” that unavailable information could have cast a different light on the investigation’s findings. The report also makes clear the investigation did not assess whether “collusion” occurred because it is not a legal term. The investigation found multiple contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia, and the report said it established that “the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts.
  • CNN in May 2019: Volume I of Mueller's report does not say there was "no collusion" or "no evidence" of collusion. The conclusions were more nuanced than that. As Mueller explained on Wednesday, the investigation found "insufficient evidence" to charge a conspiracy with Russia. In his new conference, Mueller said out loud what was carefully written in his sweeping report: "The first volume of the report details numerous efforts emanating from Russia to influence the election. This volume includes a discussion of the Trump campaign's response to this activity, as well as our conclusion that there was insufficient evidence to charge a broader conspiracy." Obviously, "insufficient evidence" is different from "no evidence." To be crystal clear, the investigation did not establish a criminal conspiracy between Trump aides and the Kremlin. But Trump is whitewashing the collusion-related evidence that Mueller documented in Volume I. The special counsel found "multiple links" between Trump's campaign and Russian agents. He found that top people in Trump's orbit were "receptive" to offers of Russian help with the election. And he found that the campaign "expected it would benefit electorally" from illegal Russian interference.
Starship.paint, my response to your selection of RS follows:
  1. Politico Magazine - the article is authored by Renato Mariotti who is a Democrat, and a political pundit.
  2. NYTimes article - [Barr's https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/01/us/politics/william-barr-testimony.html rebuttal], and another opposing view by [4] Andrew C. McCarthy, all of which belong in this article, not just a one-sided POV. And there is also this diff about a "very sloppy New York Times article."
  3. WaPo article - see above NYTimes explanation. As for omissions, it all depends on one's perspective.
  4. New Yorker - ...in 2012, when it endorsed Obama over Mitt Romney,[26] and in 2016, when it endorsed Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump.
  5. The Intercept - Politico writes: In 2016, Intercept reporter Juan Thompson was fired from the site for fabricating quotes and sources, and he was later convicted for making bomb threats to Jewish community centers. The Intercept has also been embarrassed even on its supposed area of expertise; its mishandling of leaked documents helped get a source, whistleblower Reality Winner, thrown in prison. They also favor the progressive left.
We are supposed to apply NPOV when choosing the sources we cite, and I must have overlooked where our PAGs say we can choose only those sources that favor our own POV. Please provide the wikilink to that policy or guideline because I'm unable to find it. I don't see any reason to respond to your second collapsed explanation because as I've said before, in the US, a person is innocent until proven guilty, and when there is insufficient evidence to substantiate guilt, that person is considered innocent. End of discussion. Atsme Talk 📧 04:29, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
@Atsme:, so your response is to attack the sources. Very well. Let me again provide [5] Robert Mueller's letter to William Barr on March 27, 2019, which stated: The summary letter the Department sent to Congress and released to the public late in the afternoon of March 24 did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this Office's work and conclusions. We communicated that concern to the Department on the morning of March 25. There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation. What say you to this? As for your response to my second section, you said no evidence earlier, and now changed to insufficient evidence - that's not the same - and that's my point. starship.paint (talk) 06:06, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
@Starship.paint: If Atsme says "end of discussion", my suggestion is to jump at the chance. ―Mandruss ☎ 06:10, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
There is also Mueller confirming that Barr's memo was not inaccurate.[6] It's easy to pick and choose facts people like. Also keep it classy Mandruss. PackMecEng (talk) 16:15, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
  • NO CHANGE - Choice 2, and move to CLOSE. Opening up what seems ad hoc revotes of every single line every single month has grown tedious. At the very least, procedurally this should TALK over concerns and not just jump into pitching ‘here is my version’ up/down votes. State a compelling motivation for yet again revisiting something THAT HAS NOT CHANGED, and/or User:ZiplineWhy please Please PLEASE self-close and stop this one. Markbassett (talk) 21:53, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
    OP has explained why this modification is proposed. "Move to CLOSE" -- wtf? Are you proposing a roll call vote? What? I move to CHILL. SPECIFICO talk 22:17, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
    Zip stated what concerns ZIP thinks needs address and ZIP proposal about them ... should have done TALK to see if those were general concerns not presume such, or see if other concerns are out there, or if there are better ideas for addressing things. This would have been a good content to bring up back THEN, as PART of a thread, but no we don’t want each individual inputs as individual threads up/down votes, for N users. We should guide Zip to better ways of interacting at this article. So yes, I request Zip self-close before it goes further. Alternatively, we recognise this is not a fully baked discussion and RFC so state “No change to the Lead will be allowed by this, it is not a decision consensus but just a straw poll for now.” Or would you rather Atsme gets to start a thread because he had concern 10 that Zip didn’t mention, and he has an alternative ? Cheers Markbassett (talk) 22:32, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
What? I think everyone here is fine with this being the final discussion for now. The only reason it is being revisited is that we screwed up the original, and some editors felt like it was a substantial enough change that it needed to be confirmed on talk. ZiplineWhy (talk) 23:16, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
Nope. We have obviously Zips concerns and only Zips concerns, with no consensus on which if any are DUE attention. It’s just one editors WP:OR, with those individual fillips put as the priority and ignoring WEIGHT. Atsme obviously has other concerns. So have lots of folks. Shall I start a thread of my proposal and declare ‘everyone fine with it’ when half the respondents are definitely not? Tsk. Consensus of one is not the way to go. Put out an honest call for concerns, ping at least 12 editors previously involved, and then THEIR concerns are perhaps worth calling a consensus. For example, go in order of the most covered and important part, first that Russian interference happened, second that Trumps campaign was not found involved, and third that potential Obstruction to the investigation was detailed. “Insufficient evidence” is misleading, weaselling back to insinuate collaboration still might be there, a Conspiracy theory. And leading with ‘welcoming’ let alone ‘encouraging’ has neither WEIGHT nor practical sense... as if Russia really cared or was affected? That’s just back to the implausibility of ‘collusion’. Markbassett (talk) 04:51, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
should have done TALK to see if those were general concerns not presume such What? We should have a discussion to find out if there is enough interest for a discussion? Mark, honestly I think you should leave process to the rest of us; I'm afraid it isn't your forte.
This particular content is important enough that it merits perhaps more flogging than we're accustomed to at this article. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:44, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
User:Mandruss - if proceeding is done with only Zips concerns considered and only Zips approach to them as an option, it not only feels rigged but it also means 5 minutes later I have precedent to start a thread with only MY concerns for the line and only MY approach in for a vote. And then 10 minutes later a thread with only Snoogans heartaches and notional remedy, and then 15 minutes later someone else.... Nonononono ... if It doesn’t discuss the line and deal with all known concerns of editors present, then it’s only a fragmentary discussion and not a consensus for what the line should be. Reducing the scope of points and the range of options also reduces the authority of the result. Cheers and p.s. you KNOW that 5 minutes after this thread concludes there WILL be a new thread reopening the line for other concerns... Markbassett (talk) 19:46, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
Choice 1 is vastly preferable for all the reasons given. (BTW, it seems that [7] would be the more suitable reference for reason 1, but in any case the point is amply supported by RS.)
Besides, the current article version (choice 2) violates basic writing principles by talking about "the foreign interference" without ever previously explaining what this refers to. I get it that this easy to overlook for people like most of us here who are already very familiar with the context, but don't forget that there are thousands of people every day who hear about this kind of thing for the very first time in their lives. Regards, HaeB (talk) 05:01, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Choice 3 the focal point of the report was that there was no collusion or coordination, so that should be the main wording. Putting Trump's potential encouragement first in the sentence is a little misleading. Mr Ernie (talk) 11:21, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
    @Mr Ernie:, according to the Associated Press, in May 2019: This refrain about the Mueller report stating there was no collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign is wrong For more RS, please read the contents of the second light green box I posted above on “insufficient evidence”. starship.paint (talk) 01:16, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
    Starship.paint, Allegations of “collusion” were not “proven false” in the Mueller investigation - see Argument from ignorance or Burden of proof (philosophy). The Mueller report said the investigation did not find a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia - why is this not the end of the story? Everyone alleged for years they had evidence Trump had conspired with Russia. That conspiracy theory was not supported by Mueller. The special counsel wrote that he “cannot rule out the possibility” that unavailable information could have cast a different light on the investigation’s findings. - it would be preposterous for us to rely on "unavailable information" for any sort of proceeding. A lot of people got this story wrong for a long time; it is time to finally start putting it right. Mr Ernie (talk) 07:35, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
    @Mr Ernie: - it is the end of the story, but we must tell it correctly. There is a subtle difference between Mueller did not establish that coordination occurred (accurate) and Mueller established that no coordination ever occurred (inaccurate). The difference stems from this: Volume 1, Page 10 The investigation did not always yield admissible information or testimony, or a complete picture of the activities undertaken by subjects of the investigation. Given that a complete picture never appeared, it is impossible to conclude the latter statement. starship.paint (talk) 09:09, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
    The reverse is also true...many in the media and government claimed for years there was collusion or coordination, but it turns out there wasn't enough evidence available to support it. Normally we would rightfully call that a conspiracy theory. Mr Ernie (talk) 09:19, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
    But Ernie, there was collusion and coordination. Just not conspiracy, maybe. Who knows, maybe Pence or Roger Stone will flip? SPECIFICO talk 20:59, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
    Yes, the claims can be viewed as a conspiracy theory, but as you sort of acknowledge, that is not the mainstream view now? Perhaps, "conspiracy theory" is one for the historians to debate down the line. Meanwhile, I will reserve my support for the fragment did not find sufficient evidence to establish criminal charges related to conspiracy or coordination with Russia. starship.paint (talk) 13:45, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
  • User:Mr Ernie is correct that to have the potential encouragement first in the sentence is inappropriate. Emphasising a hypothetical speculation above the focal purpose and actual results of the report is UNDUE, and reinforces an impression of a partisan article or WP:BIASED sources that are not attributed. (It may be that most sources on this topic are biased...). Cheers Markbassett (talk) 19:35, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Comment - I think the best choice is somewhere between choice 1 and choice 2. Choice 2 does not give the reader enough context. Choice one gives too much prominence to a fact that is important, but not the most important for a summary in the lead. I would like to see something that speaks to the fact the Mueller started with the premise that a sitting president can't be indicted. There should also be some mention that Russian election interference is happening again. [8].- MrX 🖋 10:41, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
This was my feeling as well. Leaning toward 1, with the caveat and minor modification addressing this. Symmachus Auxiliar0us (talk) 14:58, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
Something among the lines of: "Due to sitting DOJ regulations that a sitting president can not be indicted, Mueller found ten possible cases of obstruction and neither exonerated or accused the president of a crime." sound alright? It could always be modified in the future.ZiplineWhy (talk) 21:38, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
If we use that, I think the "exonerated" part doesn't follow from the "due to". Only the "not accused" part. For example, Mueller affirmed there was insufficient evidence to charge him on "conspiracy", the DOJ policy notwithstanding. SPECIFICO talk 21:44, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
"Mueller found ten possible cases of obstruction, and neither exonerated or accused the president due to sitting DOJ regulations that a sitting president can not be indicted." Something among these lines?ZiplineWhy (talk) 13:45, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
And, if not for that premise, an ordinary defendant would have been deposed or questioned in court -- an circumstance which, according to Trump's team, would have led to him incriminating himself. SPECIFICO talk 15:10, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Choice 1 is much better and includes important context. We should also mention collusion (or some synonym), as it happened on a massive scale. I mention this in the "Discussion" section below. -- BullRangifer (talk) 16:12, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
Your suggestion dangerously gets into the realm of original research and speculation. Although historians may come to a consensus about the situation in the future, it is best to restrict the lead explicitly to what the Mueller report said. ZiplineWhy (talk) 21:43, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Option 3 Appears most accurate and appropriate. While still covering the most important aspects of the result of the investigation. PackMecEng (talk) 16:07, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
    It's inaccurate per the report, Mueller himself, and other reliable sources. It is never stated by Mueller or the report that there was "no evidence" of collusion. In fact, Mueller stated that the report showed that Trump and his campaign "welcomed and encouraged" Russian interference in the 2016 campaign. ZiplineWhy (talk) 14:57, 31 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Version 2 (no change) – The proposed version 1 is less neutral, by focusing on alleged intent by Trump and his campaign to welcome and encourage Russian activities, rather than just react to them as they unfolded. — JFG talk 14:46, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Discussion

An explanation of terms is needed here, because there is a careless abuse of them above, which also reveals ignorance or refusal to believe what RS tell us.

The comments which jumped out at me that need to be rebutted are these:

Markbassett: "That’s just back to the implausibility of ‘collusion’."

Mr Ernie: "...many in the media and government claimed for years there was collusion or coordination, but it turns out there wasn't enough evidence available to support it. Normally we would rightfully call that a conspiracy theory."

  • Conspiracy: A real legal term. Mueller dealt with it and could not prove a formal agreement (either written or verbal) between the Trump campaign and the Russians. (It's also unrealistic to expect that such a formal agreement ever existed. Those who do wrong avoid leaving such evidence.)
  • Coordination: Mueller used "coordination" as if it was a synonym for "conspiracy", so the above applies.
  • Collusion: The Mueller Report lists plenty of evidence of collusion between campaign members and Russians, and they kept it secret and lied about it myriad times. There was a regular maintenance of contacts, with planning and exchanges of information, enough to alarm EIGHT allied intelligence agencies, which, beginning in 2015, reported their findings of these secret contacts to the CIA and FBI.

No conspiracy or coordination was proven (even though it might have happened), but there was lots of collusion.

So Mark and Mr Ernie, please stop it with the denials that there was collusion, regardless of what synonyms you use for it. It happened on a massive scale, and RS and the Mueller Report document it. It is not "implausible". The conspiracy theory is the one pushed by Trump, that he and his campaign didn't collude with the Russians in their successful efforts to help him win.

Also, we deal with the term "collusion" far too little in the article, especially since it was a reality. It needs better coverage. -- BullRangifer (talk) 15:56, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

  • Conspiracy Theory - A conspiracy theory is an explanation of an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful actors, often political in motivation, when other explanations are more probable. (Face it, after serious looking there is no conspiracy and 'collusion' just was never very plausible anyway. Why on earth would Putin coordinate with Trump ? HOW on earth is Trump to have been at all involved with the cited Russian Interference of hacks and social media campaigns ? ) Cheers Markbassett (talk) 05:10, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Markbassett, thanks for a good laugh. Yes, I know the definition. We don't know that Trump and Putin ever "coordinated" anything. They have others who do that kind of thing. They had a common interest in electing Trump because he would disrupt the order of democratic republics, help Putin make Russia great again, and let Putin dictate American foreign policy. That is what we're witnessing. The motivation is certainly still there, hence their secret meetings (nothing gets out) and why Trump never criticizes Putin. -- BullRangifer (talk) 06:26, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
  • BTW, there is a fourth "C" after Conspiracy, Coordination, and Collusion, and that is Cooperation. That word fits exactly what happened in 2015-2016 and continues to happen every time that Trump agrees with Putin that the Russians didn't interfere, denies that they interfered, or that his campaign didn't welcome and aid that interference (that's "cooperation"). It may not be criminal, but it's certainly unpatriotic and wrong. -- BullRangifer (talk) 07:47, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
  • BTW, Mueller found no ‘aid that interference’ either, and definitely no Cooperation (‘groups or organisms working together’) as that would have been conspiracy of interference with the election. Trumps not in the room with the hackers cracking passwords, and he’s not in the room with the social media group attacks. He’s not getting to tell Putin what to do or being told by Putin when the attackers are doing and what. You seem conflating 2015-2016 election interference with post-election 2017-2018 Trump behaviour. It definitely is not criminal, and the article should not by WP:BLPCRIME be stating or making it appear as if there is. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 20:12, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
"Remember this: Mueller uncovered a vast Russian conspiracy that pulled off something the Watergate burglars never could. Russians or their allies successfully stole information from Democratic Party officials that was used to bolster conspiracy theories that eventually cost the Democratic nominee the election. Mueller also discovered that Trump knew about this conspiracy, encouraged it publicly, and attempted to get involved but apparently failed —probably because the Russians concluded he was unreliable, and involving him was more trouble than it was worth. Mueller also discovered that Trump conducted a lengthy campaign to cover up the Russian conspiracy, resulting in a list of 10 incidents that, if Trump were not protected by his office, could result in federal charges of obstruction of justice.
"Just because the Mueller investigation is over doesn't mean Trump's efforts to cover up for Vladimir Putin's campaign against democracy have ended. On the contrary, the obstruction of justice campaign has expanded. Now, under the guidance of Barr, it's being run by the Department of Justice itself."[9]
That sums up the factual narrative found in RS quite well. Anything else is a lie and cover-up, and that "anything else" is what we find from Fox News talking heads (not their best News people) and on all the right-wing media machine of unreliable sources, the only ones Trump doesn't label "fake news" because they make him look good and refuse to tell the truth about what he's been doing. That's why they are considered unreliable sources. They don't tell the truth, and they promote false narratives that are contrary to proven facts. -- BullRangifer (talk) 23:11, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
To make sure we're on the same page - Democrats believed Trump conspired (colluded) with Russia and their belief was based on a theory they formulated that also involved election interference - but no evidence of Trump collusion materialized; therefore, for 2 years the Democrats promoted a conspiracy theory against Trump; one that was not proven by the Mueller investigation and still lives on. The take-away is simply that (according to Vox) Democrats think Trump’s conduct is bad (though maybe not bad enough for impeachment), and Republicans think the whole thing is no big deal. Atsme Talk 📧 21:04, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
Atsme, we all love you, but I don't think anyone's on your same page. There have been dozens of discussions of the differences among Conspiracy, Collusion, Cooperation, Coordination Collaboration Welcoming (hospitality biz term) etc. etc. SPECIFICO talk 21:26, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
Well, being loved is all that really matters anyway. 😊 Forgot to add this link and Collusion. Atsme Talk 📧 21:47, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
Yes, we do love you, but conspiracy and collusion were treated differently by Mueller, as explained above. Conspiracy was not proven, and collusion occurred on a large scale. Those are the facts regardless of party. Neither one is a patriotic act. Both involve unpatriotic collaboration with en enemy power to subvert our democracy. -- BullRangifer (talk) 22:00, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
Excellent! Collusion: "Collusion is a secret cooperation or deceitful agreement in order to deceive others, although not necessarily illegal, as a conspiracy." That describes exactly what the Trump campaign did. They had over 100 secret meetings with Russian assets, hid it and lied about it. They knew what they were doing was wrong. -- BullRangifer (talk) 22:02, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
"GIULIANI: Collusion is not a crime. Everything that's been released so far shows the president to be absolutely innocent. He didn't do anything wrong." No, even if collusion isn't necessarily illegal (it can be), it can be wrong, and the election interference was indeed wrong. Trump is not innocent. -- BullRangifer (talk) 22:04, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
Conspiracy describes what the Trump campaign did, except that the formal "agreement" part was not proven. The actions still fit what happened: "A conspiracy is a secret plan or agreement between persons (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder or treason, especially with political motivation,[1] while keeping their agreement secret from the public or from other people affected by it. In a political sense, conspiracy refers to a group of people united in the goal of usurping, altering or overthrowing an established political power." -- BullRangifer (talk) 22:09, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
Conspiracy against the United States, specifically. X1\ (talk) 00:04, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
Atsme, you've got it exactly right. Mr Ernie (talk) 09:13, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
Quoting from the report "the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election iterference activities." I'll take Mr. Mueller's word for it, not yours. Additionally Mr. Durham is currently investigating those intelligence agencies to determine if they acted improperly in reseraching and then reporting their findings to the FBI. It was announced yesterday that Mr. Durham has expanded his investigation into a criminal one. Let's see what he finds. I like you Bull but some of the things you are convinced are true are not backed up by any evidence. Mr Ernie (talk) 09:13, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
Actually, our article must reflect what reliable sources say about the Mueller Report, rather than the report itself. And as for the Durham investigation, I think we can all agree it is little more than a disgusting perversion of the normally impartial Department of Justice by an Attorney General disgracing himself and his department. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:15, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
I don’t agree with that at all. Durham, like Mueller, has a stellar reputation. Don’t attack him because you’re afraid of what he will find. Mr Ernie (talk) 13:46, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
What's he "investigating"? (according to what RS?) SPECIFICO talk 13:58, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
SPECIFICO - NPR and NYTimes for starters. Does anyone know if a new article was started about this investigation? Atsme Talk 📧 23:46, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
Atsme, it is not an investigation. NPOV: It's something he calls an investigation. SPECIFICO talk 20:53, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
@Mr Ernie: I didn't attack Durham. I attacked Bill Barr for allowing Trump to politicize the Justice Department and for behaving like Trump's personal lawyer instead of representing the American people. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:07, 25 October 2019 (UTC
This seems like a violation of WP: CrystalBall, regardless. It has no significance for the article's body or lead as it currently stands. ZiplineWhy (talk) 15:41, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
WP:CRYSTAL only applies to articles, not talk pages. Speculation in articles in only permitted if it forms the prevailing view in a preponderance of reliable sources. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:35, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
I'm aware. But I assumed that people meant that we should add that he "colluded" with Russia in the lead. ZiplineWhy (talk) 20:13, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
That shouldn't be added to the lead. Though I don't understand why it was thought people meant that or how Durham now being a criminal investigation led to that thought. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 05:25, 26 October 2019 (UTC)


Sources

  1. ^ Collins Dictionary: conspiracy

Results of Mueller Report

The fifth paragraph of the Lead states:

A special counsel investigation found that Trump and his campaign welcomed and encouraged Russian foreign interference in the 2016 presidential election under the belief that it would be politically advantageous, but did not find sufficient evidence to establish specific criminal charges related to conspiracy or coordination with Russia. Trump was also personally investigated for obstruction of justice and was neither indicted nor exonerated.

This is not sufficient, as it leaves the reader zero indication of why he was neither indicted or exonerated, and since this is not covered further in this article, but merely in one of its spinoff articles, some detail is needed to clarify this. I added those details to the paragraph, taking citations from the Mueller investigation article, so that it read:

A special counsel investigation found that Trump and his campaign welcomed and encouraged Russian foreign interference in the 2016 presidential election under the belief that it would be politically advantageous, but did not find sufficient evidence to establish specific criminal charges related to conspiracy or coordination with Russia, though the evidence gathered during the investigation had been incomplete due to encrypted, deleted, or unsaved communications as well as false, incomplete, or declined testimony.[1] Trump was also personally investigated for obstruction of justice, with the Mueller Report finding ten instances in which Trump could have obstructed justice,[2][3] but indicated that it would be the purview of Congress to decide whether Trump in fact did so, and take appropriate action.[4][5][6]

The paragraph is enlarged by just a couple of lines, which is hardly excessive, as it still summarizes the conclusion of the Mueller Report, and now gave the reason why, despite the Report's ostensible conclusions, no action was immediately taken after it was published.

This was then reverted by Mandruss, who stated in his edit summary: "Too much detail for the lead of this top-level biography. This article does not use citations in the lead."

Regarding the first part of this rationale, this is obviously a question of opinion, which obviously varies, per its subjectivity. I would argue, as I mentioned above, that does not explain to the reader why he was not indicted or exonerated. The passage right before this does indicate what he wasn't charged with criminal conspiracy: Because the investigation did not find sufficient evidence to establish that crime. But to then say "Trump was also personally investigated for obstruction of justice and was neither indicted nor exonerated," and leave it at that is vague, and poor writing. According to policy, readers should not have to go chasing another article to understand the one at hand. The material should be restored.

Regarding the second part of this rationale, the article can use whatever citations are needed per WP:V, WP:BLP, et all., in the Lead section or anywhere else. Since the topic is clearly contentious, and since the article body does not go into further detail on this, the citations have to be placed in the only location where that information is given.

Sources

  1. ^ Ratnam, Gopal (April 19, 2019). "Mueller says messaging apps likely destroyed Trump-Russia evidence". Roll Call.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference FactCheck11 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Desjardins, Lisa; Alcindor, Yamiche (April 18, 2019). "11 moments Mueller investigated for obstruction of justice". PBS NewsHour. Retrieved April 23, 2019.
  4. ^ Strohm, Chris (April 19, 2019). "Mueller's Signal on Obstruction: Congress Should Take On Trump". Bloomberg News. Retrieved April 20, 2019.
  5. ^ Mascaro, Lisa (April 19, 2019). "Mueller drops obstruction dilemma on Congress". Associated Press. Retrieved April 20, 2019.
  6. ^ Mueller Report, vol. II, p. 8: "With respect to whether the President can be found to have obstructed justice by exercising his powers under Article II of the Constitution, we concluded that Congress has authority to prohibit a President's corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice. [...] The conclusion that Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the President's corrupt exercise of the powers of office accords with our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law."

Nightscream (talk) 07:43, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Since the topic is clearly contentious, and since the article body does not go into further detail on this, the citations have to be placed in the only location where that information is given. - Lead summarizes body and should never include content not covered in the body. And there is plenty of content in that lead that is "clearly contentious" but lacks citation there, and this has sufficed for years at this article. Otherwise no comment at this point ―Mandruss ☎ 07:54, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
I totally agree with removing this material. It is way too much detail for the lead, and already covered in the body of text. If even more detail is needed, it should be added to the body, not the lead. -- MelanieN (talk) 18:57, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
It is not covered in the body of the article, Melanie. Nightscream (talk) 02:45, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
  • You'd like to think that something of this magnitude would dominate a political biography. In the article on Bill Clinton, accusations of perjury and the Lewinsky affair are in the first paragraph of the lede. But in the article on Richard Nixon the lede skates rather blandly over the whole Watergate awkwardness, which merits about half of the shortest paragraph. Guy (help!) 00:19, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
The Nixon lead is weird, as the largest paragraph does not deal with his presidency at all. I don't think it's a good model to follow.--Jack Upland (talk) 01:18, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
This is not a political biography, as Trump is not a career politician. Both Nixon and Clinton are false equivalences (and I'd be hard pressed to think of a true equivalence in American politics). Hence the hazards of looking to other articles for comparisons or precedence. ―Mandruss ☎ 15:38, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
The text can be shortened a bit, without losing any meaning, I think:

A special counsel investigation found that Trump and his campaign welcomed and encouraged Russian foreign interference in the 2016 presidential election but did not find sufficient evidence to establish criminal charges related to conspiracy or coordination with Russia. The prosecutor noted that the evidence gathered during the investigation had been incomplete due to encrypted, deleted, or unsaved communications as well as false, incomplete, or declined testimony.[1] Trump was also personally investigated for obstruction of justice, and the Mueller Report identified ten instances in which Trump may have obstructed justice.[2][3] Mueller noted Justice Department policy that a sitting president cannot be indicted and accordingly did not consider whether to bring charges for obstruction.[4][5][6]

SPECIFICO (talk • contribs) 01:37, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
Sources

  1. ^ Ratnam, Gopal (April 19, 2019). "Mueller says messaging apps likely destroyed Trump-Russia evidence". Roll Call.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference FactCheck11 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Desjardins, Lisa; Alcindor, Yamiche (April 18, 2019). "11 moments Mueller investigated for obstruction of justice". PBS NewsHour. Retrieved April 23, 2019.
  4. ^ Strohm, Chris (April 19, 2019). "Mueller's Signal on Obstruction: Congress Should Take On Trump". Bloomberg News. Retrieved April 20, 2019.
  5. ^ Mascaro, Lisa (April 19, 2019). "Mueller drops obstruction dilemma on Congress". Associated Press. Retrieved April 20, 2019.
  6. ^ Mueller Report, vol. II, p. 8: "With respect to whether the President can be found to have obstructed justice by exercising his powers under Article II of the Constitution, we concluded that Congress has authority to prohibit a President's corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice. [...] The conclusion that Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the President's corrupt exercise of the powers of office accords with our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law."
That's still way too long for the lead. The sentence about incomplete evidence and testimonies should be removed, as that is the case with virtually any investigation, and Mueller did gather truckloads of evidence and testimonies, so it's a bit misleading to insist on what he was not able to gather. Anyway, more relevant to the Mueller probe article than to this biography. The phrase on obstruction has become redundant: either keep the first part "Trump was personally investigated for obstruction of justice", or the second part "Mueller identified ten instances in which Trump may have obstructed justice", which is more precise while saying the same thing. Finally, the last sentence is a bit convoluted; I think "Trump was neither indicted nor exonerated" is clearer for uninitiated readers. — JFG talk 14:40, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
Yes, except that Mueller's report emphasized the factor of destroyed evidence, incomplete testimony and lack of cooperation. Mainstream discussion of the report has emphasized this, particularly in the context of the Section 2 discussion of acts that may have constituted obstruction of justice. I really wonder whether a lot of the disagreements on this page don't just reflect the fact that some editors have carefully read a lot more of the relevant documents and RS reporting on the subject matter. We've identified several instances of that over the past few months, and it's much more productive to discuss content in terms of sources and their quality than less readily objectifiable factors such as due weight or what might mislead a reader. SPECIFICO talk 16:04, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
The second sentence is very important, but it's a bit lengthy for the lead. Perhaps something like this would work:

A special counsel investigation found that Trump and his campaign welcomed and encouraged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election but did not find sufficient evidence to establish criminal conspiracy or coordination with Russia. The investigation was hampered by incomplete evidence.[1] Trump was personally investigated for obstruction of justice, and the Mueller Report identified ten instances in which Trump may have obstructed justice.[2][3] Mueller noted Justice Department policy that a sitting president cannot be indicted and accordingly did not consider whether to bring charges for obstruction.[4][5][6]

- MrX 🖋 19:21, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
Knowledgeable readers will understand what the shortened sentence refers to. It's increasingly clear, however, that most users, and many WP editors, do not know the conclusions of Mueller's report. The shortened version sounds too much like "too bad, we couldn't get more evidence, happens all the time, investigations are always less than perfect" when Mueller (very careful with his words) was saying something much more specific and significant related to possible obstruction. SPECIFICO talk 19:54, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Keep the existing long-standing para, or make it shorter. Not a major content change or Policy issue here forcing change, just an editor want to free edit into lead, and this is going the wrong way. These proposals instead about double the para in an already too-long lead, and give false impressions by the UNDUE emphasis added, making misleading insinuations.
  • The phrasing about how there might be something missed is given *more* words than the combined saying Russians interfered plus Trump campaign not being found a part of the interference. The main message of the report text and coverage was *not* about how close they were except for a specific bit missing. It’s basically half in Russians with no Trump coordination found, then the other half on potential Trump Obstruction instances.
  • The phrasing at cases of potential Obstruction does drop the unnecessary ‘neither indicted nor exonerated’, but now goes on about it for another two lines going into specifics like “ten” and a half-dozens cites that are neither a summary nor clarifying.
  • Even the existing phrasing “encouraged” interference, and the technical-but-misleading “insufficient evidence” has been pressing the bounds - like saying “innocent”, it’s technically correct but not proper to use misleading jargon in the article. The result simply ‘did not find the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the interference’, and it can say it that simply.
  • There’s also a tendency to awkward and overlong phrasing — “to establish specific criminal charges related to” can be shortened into “for charges of”, “also personally investigated” can be just “investigated”.
  • So no, leave it as is. The proposed phrasings are too long and seems worse content than the existing. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 01:16, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
I wouldn't say the current version is "longstanding". Anyway to your other concern, MrX has proposed shorter wording. SPECIFICO talk 01:36, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
Nope, not shorter than the existing. And I again see awkward phrasing and UNDUE emphasis. Note the “did not find sufficient evidence” is misguided, then followed by a repetition “The Investigation was hampered by incomplete evidence.”. A simple “did not find conspiracy or coordination” is what the result and coverage was, as a distant third to the two volumes main messages of ‘found Russian’ and ‘possible obstruction’. A footnote to the conclusion ‘did not find’ should be smaller than “did not find”, and not repeated twice. You are correct that it is not “long-standing.” Cheers Markbassett (talk) 04:11, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Mixed-Martial Arts/UFC

Donald Trump has a longstanding relationship with the sport of mixed martial arts, specifically with the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) promotion. On Saturday, November 2nd, President Donald Trump became the first sitting United States President to attend a mixed martial arts event when he attended UFC 244, Diaz vs. Masvidal for the BMF title. In an interview during the post-fight press conference, UFC president Dana White spoke with reporters about the president’s attendance at the event. According to White, he and Trump have been close since the UFC was purchased by Zuffa LLC, owned by Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta, with Dana White as the company’s president. During this time, the UFC battled controversy surrounding the public perception of MMA. Such controversy made it difficult for the UFC to find venues willing to allow their events. Donald Trump, unlike numerous other venue proprietors, gave the UFC a chance, hosting the first two Zuffa LLC run UFC events at Trump’s Taj Mahal hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The relationship between Trump and Dana White has continued since, resulting in White making repeated visits to the White House, and speaking at the 2016 Republican National Convention. After UFC 244, UFC president Dana White also stated what an accomplishment it was for the sport of mixed martial arts to have a President of the United States attend an event. The symbolism of the president’s attendance at UFC 244 was further exacerbated by the fact that the event was held in Madison Square Garden in New York City, New York; the last state in the United States to legally recognize the sport of mixed martial arts in 2016. In addition to Dana White, fighters Derrick Lewis and BMF champion Jorge Masvidal both spoke positively after their wins at UFC 244 about President Trump’s attendance, reiterating Dana White’s statement that: “As fans of the sport, I think all of us can sort of appreciate, whatever political side you sit on, that the President of the United States came to one of our events.” — Preceding unsigned comment added by RobertZulloIII (talk • contribs) 00:45, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

All right, what do you propose we do with this information, given that you have provided no references? If you do choose to provide the requested references, could you please also give a few sentences summarizing that paragraph above for possible inclusion in the article? Remember, by Consensus #37, whatever we include here must be relevant to either his presidency or personal life. It also must be significantly important that it will affect either his presidency or his personal life in the long-term. Thanks. Mgasparin (talk) 07:20, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
This doesn't seem at all significant to me. The only significant aspect of Trump's attendance, from the point of view of reliable sources, was the fact that Trump was received by a deafening chorus of boos, and even that wasn't significant enough for inclusion. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:07, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
It wasn't even significant enough for inclusion on the big screens in the same room it happened, while it was happening. Just a PPV extra. Every single prelim fighter entered in glorious Grapplevision that night, for contrast, and there were fourteen (including six clear losers). InedibleHulk (talk) 00:29, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
Yeah, add it to the Ultimate Fighting Championship article. It would be of more interest to folks likely to read that article. O3000 (talk) 16:22, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
Put it in..it`s relevant. 2600:1702:2340:9470:AD6A:B88F:5C9A:87D4 (talk) 22:46, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
Too trivial to include in this article. He goes to events all the time; we don't report them all. And if we are going to report every time he gets cheered or booed in public, we will need a whole separate article. (No, that was NOT a suggestion.) -- MelanieN (talk) 22:34, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
Then why did you bring it up ? There are uncountable trivial articles here a lot less significant then the president of the US being jeered by his constituents on a regular basis.2600:1702:2340:9470:801A:F03D:9F40:E92 (talk) 23:33, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
Of all the reaction articles on this site, none is perhaps more strangely absent than Reactions to Donald Trump. We've all seen and read about them, in some category or another. Melanie's right, it's time we gave the mob a cohesive and comprehensive voice, be they a raining chorus of boobirds, piping with rage or howling with laughter. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:10, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Amend consensus #13

#Current consensus #13 currently reads:

Auto-archival is set for discussions with no replies for 7 days, manual archival is allowed for closed discussions after 24 hours.

Number 13 has proven to be very helpful, but I propose two improvements, as follows.

  • For a long time we have treated "answered" edit requests as closed discussions for the purpose of manual archival per #13. There is no reason to keep answered edit requests around for the full seven days. I personally have allowed exception to that if there was any follow-on discussion after the "answer"; i.e. in that case I treated it as a normal discussion thread. There has been some confusion about this on a couple of occasions.
  • While we're at it, we could clarify that we can't manually archive a closed discussion after 24 hours if there has been a challenge to the close in that time. Again, that has been the practice, but it's better to have the consensus and the practice in agreement.

Proposed text:

Auto-archival is set for discussions with no replies for 7 days. Manual archival is allowed for (1) closed discussions, 24 hours after the closure, provided the closure has not been challenged, and (2) "answered" edit requests, 24 hours after the "answer", provided there has been no follow-on discussion after the "answer".

Amend #13 counter-proposal

  • Counter-proposal:

    "Auto-archival is set for discussions with no replies for 7 days. Manual archival is allowed for (1) closed discussions, 24 hours after the closure, provided the closure has not been challenged, (2) "answered" edit requests, 24 hours after the "answer", provided there has been no follow-on discussion after the "answer", and (3) edit requests that do not conform to instructions, archivable at any time.

This will help keep frivolous requests and trolling off the talk page.- MrX 🖋 15:36, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Why did I think this would be simple and straightforward? I'll Oppose that as a bit harsh even for me. Obvious trolling obviously goes straight to the trash, and no reasonable person would interpret my proposed text as protection for obvious trolling. Per AGF, if there is any room to believe that the user might be acting in good faith (even total incompetence is not bad faith), then they deserve a response and the 24-hour wait.
    For example, the edit request immediately preceding [now archived]. It's just possible that the user actually saw some spelling errors, didn't know they had to be specific, and would be specific if challenged and given the chance. And we would fix some spelling errors that we weren't aware of.
    Similarly, an edit request that is more specific but not specific enough, but otherwise looks like good faith, deserves a response and the 24-hour wait. We could even write a canned response and save it somewhere. Remember, these requests rarely come from people who know how to use the page history, so they won't see your edit summary on the removal; all they will know is that their request disappeared. Oh but wait, the One-Click Archiver doesn't let you enter an edit summary, so knowing how to use the page history would be no help as to understanding what they did wrong.
    Let's err on the side of trust, particularly when the cost of doing so is so low. Simply throwing things away should be used with extreme discretion. ―Mandruss ☎ 16:13, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
    Who knew it would be controversial to move an unactionable edit request to the archives. There is a reason why Wikipedia is not based on firm, bureaucratic rules. If you think such a request merits a response, then perhaps responding on the user's talk page would be best. I'm suspicious about an ungrammatical request to fix unspecified spelling errors on a 15,962 word article. - MrX 🖋 16:37, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
    If you're right, and you probably are, that request will harmlessly occupy a little space on the page for the next 18 hours and then will be gone. If they respond with something that makes their trolling intent clearer, it will be gone even sooner. ―Mandruss ☎ 16:43, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Sorry but this seems unnecessary. I think it is best to keep it as it is. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 07:03, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Amend #13 counter-counter-proposal

  • Counter-counter-proposal:

    "All archiving is handled by Mandruss as Mandruss sees fit, because if it ain't broke...

You know it makes sense. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:15, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Damn skippy. And that's Mr. Mandruss from now on. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:16, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Support, but oppose giving him the title until he's paid his dues and proven himself more reliable than Mr. Sigmabot III. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:44, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Support. The obvious is never a problem. Guy (help!) 23:17, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Comment - I took this counter-proposal as satire, but if we can't get a quorum of participation on this I will treat it as a mandate to change #13 as I see fit (maybe it would be easier to get forgiveness than permission). If this seems trivial to you, which I could dispute at length, a !vote here requires a trivial amount of your time and brainpower. Please !vote Oppose or Support in one or both of the preceding subsections, preferably both. ―Mandruss ☎ 06:35, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Support This is obviously a real solution, even if some people laugh. It takes grit and guts to be inventive and to go against the grain. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 06:48, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
    @Steve Quinn: Since you Opposed my proposal above, I take it you mean I should actually do all manual archiving myself, based on criteria known only to me. Sorry, that's a non-starter as I could lose interest in this article and move on tomorrow. Not only that, but putting one editor in charge of anything is simply never done and would not be sustained by the community. Just imagine: A new editor arrives and manually archives something, and they get reverted with a pointer to the consensus that says all manual archiving is to be done by Mandruss. What do you think their reaction is likely to be? How would you react? ―Mandruss ☎ 07:11, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
Mandruss. Can I get an answer in (here) edgewise? This could be a nightmare, but you wanted the job, absent or not. Sorry, but consensus is breaking your way, and we all know that consensus is central and binding on Wikipedia. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 07:25, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
@Steve Quinn: but you wanted the job Huh? When have I said I wanted any job? ―Mandruss ☎ 07:32, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
@Mandruss: My mistake. You did not say you wanted this job. I see now this was someone else's proposal. Well, this might throw my premise(s) out the window, on which my recent responses are based. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 08:17, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
Bar that window! The man was offered an unenviable position of power and knew it made sense when he typed "Damn skippy" and clicked "Publish changes". Backing out after informed consent is legal, but it's political suicide to seem wishy-washy in front of a bot one wishes to topple (even fleetingly); opportunity does not knock twice in this game. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:41, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
@Mandruss:My responses are similar to the sound of one hand clapping. Know this and you'll understand, Grasshopper. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 07:32, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
I fixed the wikilink for "one hand clapping" so it goes to the correct subsection on that page. I don't know if I would go so far as to say, I did this for the sake of clarity. Steve Quinn (talk) 07:40, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

@Mandruss: I was only partly being satirical. You have been doing a fantastic job when it comes to archiving, applying the appropriate tags to RfCs, etc. In all seriousness, I hope you continue to do what you've been doing until you get bored of this article and move on. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:20, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

@Scjessey: Thanks very much, nice to be appreciated. I'm not so good at the more important stuff, so I try to do a lot of the administrative clerking to free up some time for editors who are. Indirectly, that helps improve the article. Others editors help too, but if I named any of them I'd be insulting the ones I don't (always a problem with any kind of recognition). They know who they are. ―Mandruss ☎ 13:32, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Amend consensus #2

Per MOS:OVERLINK, "New York City" should not be linked. If a reader wants to read about New York City during their visit to the biography of Donald Trump, there is a link at words 6–8 of the lead of Queens. Need consensus to amend #Current consensus item 2 to de-link it there. ―Mandruss ☎ 06:41, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Notwithstanding the OVERLINK guideline, it is customary to link to people's places of birth, death and residence in their infoboxes. See {{Infobox person}} documentation of the |birth_place= parameter, that only advises not linking countries. — JFG talk 14:35, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
Re your first sentence, this would not depart from that custom, as we would still link to his place of birth, Queens. A second link to NYC is redundant, especially when an easy second click gets you to the same place.
Re your second, obviously there is not enough room in the template guidance to duplicate MOS:OVERLINK, so it shouldn't be taken too literally. "Countries should generally not be linked" does not imply "but everything else should be". It links to OVERLINK, precisely so you can easily read the full guidance there. I see no rationale for giving that field special treatment with regard to OVERLINK, and you haven't offered one. ―Mandruss ☎ 15:01, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
Fine, we disagree on interpretation of policy and guidelines. In other words, just another Tuesday on Wikipedia... Regarding the link to birth place, I don't think that Queens would be sufficient for an international readership, and I'm not sure whether you suggest specifying the borough in the infobox, in addition or in lieu of New York City. Let's see what other editors have to say. — JFG talk 14:28, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
I'd be happy to see what other editors have to say, if they had anything to say about this. So far, the interest level is zero, and zero interest always means maintain status quo. ―Mandruss ☎ 14:32, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
I'm not sure whether you suggest specifying the borough in the infobox, in addition or in lieu of New York City. The borough is already in the infobox – the infobox says "Queens, New York City" per #2 – and I propose nothing except de-linking New York City. ―Mandruss ☎ 15:01, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
Hmmmm. My first inclination would be to agree that linking New York City would be redundant, and I would still support that position if pressed; however, unbeknownst to me until just now is that fact that there is another Queens in the United States. Who knew? Moreover, while "New York City" appears several times in the body of the article, I find it is not linked to its article anywhere. So I suppose a person could make a flimsy argument that linking NYC this one time wouldn't do any harm. So I'm easy either way. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:03, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
LOL. I guess that's better than no comment. Your flimsy argument is incompatible with the OVERLINK concept, which is not about too many links of the same thing but about whether the thing should be linked at all in most articles. MOS:DUPLINK suggests one link in each article, but that's clearly only for items that pass OVERLINK. We link "American" and "United States" zero times – also per OVERLINK.
So it's not a matter of how we interpret the PAGs – the PAGs are clear enough on this question – but about how much we care about applying them consistently. ―Mandruss ☎ 06:37, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
Purely from a point of style guidelines, I think you are correct in that the link is not needed. I don't think having it will do undue harm, but your argument for consistently applying the guidelines is sound. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:56, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
Very few MOS vios do undue harm, and yet we have an extensive MOS. There seems to be fairly wide support for following MOS just as a matter of pointless pseudo-professionalism. Sorry for belaboring the point. ―Mandruss ☎ 08:22, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

@JFG: You haven't commented since I cleared up your confusion about what was being proposed.[10] Does that change your position at all? ―Mandruss ☎ 16:20, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Corporate raider revisited

In May I added this under Side Ventures... 

The New York Times reported in May 2019 that in the late 1980s Trump fashioned himself as a corporate raider by buying minority stakes in publicly-held companies and announcing he intended to acquire majority stakes. The announcement would cause a "bump" in the stock's price, at which point Trump quietly sold his stake for a profit. The Times reported that Trump ultimately lost back most or all of his gains after other investors concluded he was not seriously attempting takeovers.

...which was reverted and discussed, without an apparent consensus, then just kinda...faded away. Funny how that happens sometimes.

I propose we reconsider this material, and actually consider expanding it because there's quite a lot of historical reliable source reporting about it, some of which is in the Talk link above. soibangla (talk) 03:06, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Too minor for the main biography. Worth including (briefly) in Business career of Donald Trump. — JFG talk 08:44, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
This is very interesting biographical information. I would support it if someone can identify at least three strong sources to show that it's noteworthy.- MrX 🖋 13:30, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
Soibangla, I'm with JFG on this one. Guy (help!) 14:08, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
Honestly, I think this is unremarkable. There are thousands of these types (individuals and corporations) doing this sort of thing. It makes Trump look bad, but so does literally everything else he does. I agree with JFG's proposal. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:34, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
Everything else he does, sure, but this paragraph describes a resourceful, trustworthy, influential investor who kept some of his winnings some of the time. Even if it was just a penny, that's still a penny he didn't have before he increased the value of whichever public company with minimal effort. But yeah, whether this is a compliment or not, it's clearly more about his business, so I'll also bet everything on JFG's shrewd restructuring plan paying off in the end. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:23, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
That other people have done this is irrelevant..put it in leave it in..it is central to his character. 2600:1702:2340:9470:B098:C314:EA12:9BBE (talk) 19:06, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

"may have" included withholding military aid

Mandruss, your reversion of my change needs examination. The comment I changed seemed to be general in nature, IOW about all possible witnesses, and together they confirmed that it is a fact, not a "may have", that the pressure campaign "included withholding military aid". That the quote from one witness says "may have included..." is thus specific, and I did not change that quote. The sum total of witness testimony and other evidence confirms the fact that military aid was withheld. Even Trump confirmed that he withheld aid. It's a fact which should be plainly stated in the lead. Am I missing something here? -- BullRangifer (talk) 03:14, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Got any RS, or are you synthing? ―Mandruss ☎ 03:16, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
The article makes it plain that the aid was withheld, a fact not denied by the GOP, Trump, or Ukraine. This is a "sky is blue" type of fact, but the article does contain the information. If the aid was not withheld, we would not have this article: Trump–Ukraine scandal. -- BullRangifer (talk) 03:21, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
Here's what we have on Trump:
  • "Trump confirmed he had indeed temporarily withheld military aid from Ukraine, while offering contradicting reasons for his decision."[1][2]
I don't engage in synthesis in articles, and I don't engage in speculation on talk pages that is not backed up by RS. I may not produce the sources on the spot, but I can when necessary. -- BullRangifer (talk) 03:25, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
Sources

  1. ^ Forgey, Quint (September 24, 2019). "Trump changes story on withholding Ukraine aid". Politico. Retrieved October 1, 2019.
  2. ^ Wagner, John; Sonmez, Felicia; Itkowitz, Colby. "Live updates: Top Democrat warns White House 'we're not fooling around' on impeachment inquiry". The Washington Post. Retrieved October 2, 2019.
I look forward to your compelling, non-opinion RS that says linkage is a fact. Not just one or two, but to use wiki voice we need fairly widespread agreement, something approaching the degree of agreement about his proclivity for falsehoods. ―Mandruss ☎ 03:29, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
Mandruss, okay, I'm back now. When I first read your last response, I was blown away. I had to take a break and think about it to try and make sense of it. My first impression was that you were denying that the military aid was withheld, but I knew that just could NOT be the case, because that is beyond doubt a fact. That would be like denying that the sky is blue. So what is going on here?
Then it dawned on me that we have been "talking past each other". Rather than you denying the aid was withheld, maybe you mean the pressure campaign is a "maybe", and allegation, a Democratic opinion. In that case, we just need to move the qualifier to a different spot in the sentence. Let's see how that looks:
  • Current version: "exposed a wider pressure campaign which may have included withholding military aid to Ukraine."
  • Proposed version: "alleged a wider pressure campaign which included withholding military aid to Ukraine."
Am I totally off-base here, or does this address your real concern? (I believe the pressure campaign is backed up by enough RS and witnesses to also be stated as a fact, but let's not deal with that now.) -- BullRangifer (talk) 05:42, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
I would be ok with "Ensuing witness testimony before Congressional committees alleged a wider pressure campaign which included withholding military aid to Ukraine." That doesn't make it entirely clear that, yes, aid was in fact withheld for a period of time – that it's only the linkage that's unclear at this point – but it's about as accurate as we can expect within the limited space available in the lead.
Or, we might say that the situation is too complicated to summarize this with sufficient clarity and accuracy within the limited space available in the lead, and so that sentence should be omitted entirely. I'm leaning in that direction, since (1) the lead suffers from chronic length problems and (2) I think we're too deep in the weeds for the lead of this top-level bio. ―Mandruss ☎ 06:15, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

User:BullRangifer - That doesn’t seem a large part of the section, so per WP:LEAD should not be in lead. If it’s in there, then it should summarize the content wording of “alleged” and “pressure campaign may have included” cancelling Pence visit and withholding aid, with the words “alleged” and/or “may have”. The linking of aid as part of a pressure for personal benefit is what the untried case may be about, it currently is *NOT* a ‘fact’ for wikivoice nor “all possible” witnesses. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 03:50, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Markbassett, now I've read your comment. I have a hard time making heads or tails of it, but I suspect my reply above your comment may address your point. We may be saying the same thing, even if I believe the pressure campaign is now so evident that we should treat it as a fact. All RS treat it that way now. Yet, even if it's a fact, we may still have to wait a while and just qualify it as an allegation for the time being. -- BullRangifer (talk) 05:47, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
User:BullRangifer Closer, though I’m coming at it from looking at the content supposedly being summarized and not seeing enough to really deserve LEAD mention, plus that what’s there is the “alleged” and “may have” language. (Just whistleblower and William Taylor there, no mention of other witnesses and opposing testimonies.). Cheers Markbassett (talk) 07:18, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

FYI I have enacted the version agreed by BullRangifer and Mandruss: "Ensuing witness testimony before Congressional committees alleged a wider pressure campaign which included withholding military aid to Ukraine." — JFG talk 07:30, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Improvements to current version

Before noticing this thread, I edited this version for two reasons. First, it was poorly-written English, with needless passive voice and barbarisms like "witness testimony". While we do have nouns that act as adjectives in common idioms, e.g. "dog food" "fist fight", there are better ways to refer to what a witness testifies, which sounds more like an "artist painting" "chef cuisine". Second, the version I modified omitted the key point of the whistleblower report, namely, that Trump was soliciting foreign interference in the 2020 US election. From an NPOV standpoint, the Bidens are more or less roadkill incidental to the impeachment inquiry. So the older version, which has now been reinstated, needs to be improved. Here is a shorter alternative, which I am inclined to insert unless there are objections or improvements. Comments welcome.

The House of Representatives launched an impeachment inquiry after a whistleblower stated that Trump had withheld congressionally-mandated military assistance from Ukraine and had pressured Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to interfere in the 2020 United States elections by asking him to investigate Democrat Joe Biden. In depositions before the House Intelligence Committee, witnesses subsequently testified to broader improprieties.

SPECIFICO talk 16:30, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

I object to that sentence. The whistleblower did not mention interfering in the 2020 election, so it is incorrect to attribute that to him/her. The whistleblower said Trump asked for investigations into Biden. It is later interpretation to say the purpose was to interfere in the election. See if you can come up with a followup sentence that mentions the 2020 election effect (sourced, of course). I'll see if I can do something along those lines. My thought would be go directly to impeachment inquiry without mentioning the whistleblower. This has gone way beyond him/her. -- MelanieN (talk) 16:40, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
I echo MelanieN's thoughts on this. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:42, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
MelanieN, I like skipping the whistleblower. That makes it much better and greatly shortens it. I took the interference bit from our article on the Trump-Ukraine Scandal here [11]. I didn't check it and I've lost track of the timeline of each disclosure - initial report vs. subsequent testimony. SPECIFICO talk 17:04, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
@Scjessey, MelanieN, and MrX: Let's please resolve the point about election interference. Here is the quote from the opening statement of the whistleblower report
"In the course of my official duties, I have received information from multiple U.S. government officials that the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election."
Is there some reason not to use this succinct statement of the underlying allegation that led to the investigations? SPECIFICO talk 02:39, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
I don't object to including it.- MrX 🖋 17:24, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
(edit conflict) For comparison, here is the current barbaric version:

The House of Representatives initiated an impeachment inquiry following a whistleblower complaint alleging abuse of power when Trump pressured Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate activities of former U.S. vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter in Ukraine. Ensuing witness testimony before Congressional committees alleged a wider pressure campaign which included withholding military aid to Ukraine.

I favor the barbaric version as being slightly clearer. Mentioning the witholding of miltary aid before the pressuring seems unnatural. I'm also not found of the phrase "broader improprieties". That said, I can live with either version if other editors are inclined one way or the other. - MrX 🖋 16:56, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
Could you propose a better-written edit of that version? -- that would eliminate the simplest-to-fix problem. SPECIFICO talk 17:03, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
I would be happy to oblige:

The House of Representatives initiated an impeachment inquiry following a whistleblower complaint alleging abuse of power by Trump and a White House cover-up. The complaint focused on a July 2019 telephone call in which Trump pressured the Ukrainian president to investigate his political rival Joe Biden, and his son Hunter Biden. Ensuing witness testimony before Congressional committees exposed a wider pressure campaign which may have included withholding military aid to Ukraine.

- MrX 🖋 17:25, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

OK, so I am taking another try and here is what I think is short and lead-worthy, avoids teasing detail that's too complex for the lead, and summarizes where things stand today:

In September 2019, a whistleblower report alleged that Trump had abused his presidential power by withholding congressionally-mandated military aid to Ukraine and pressuring its government to interfere in the 2020 US election. Following this disclosure, The House of Representatives launched an impeachment inquiry. In testimony before the House Intelligence House Committees, witnesses testified to a broader pattern of misconduct by Trump and his cohorts.

SPECIFICO talk 22:29, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Seems okay, but I feel like we're jumping the gun a little bit with the last sentence, since the testimonies are still ongoing. -- Scjessey (talk) 22:51, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
Well this is what we know now. We already know parts of what several key witnesses have said. If another half dozen appear and credibly contradict this, well -- that's the beauty of software. We change it. SPECIFICO talk 00:04, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
This would be fine except testimony was given before multiple committees, not just the House Intelligence Committee.[12] - MrX 🖋 00:46, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
Yes. Easy fix, thanks. SPECIFICO talk 00:56, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
Not even a link to Trump–Ukraine scandal? That is the key matter that triggered the impeachment hearing. No link to the actual impeachment inquiry either? And the link to foreign interference in 2020 looks POV. And earlier there was editor agreement (including by SPECIFICO) to drop the whistleblower, but now s/he's back in the text? And what of the last sentence weaseling away a "pattern of misconduct by Trump and his cohorts"? State what the alleged misconduct is, or remain silent. This proposal needs further tweaking and broader approval. Meanwhile, I'll revert; sorry, no time to offer a better text today. Hopefully other editors will chime in. — JFG talk 14:21, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
Please review the discussion of this edit in this section and the following section of this talk page that followed your previous revert. Several editors participated and the issues you cite were hashed out. The edit you've reverted reflected consensus in that discussion. You can easily add any links you find helpful without a blind revert. It would have been helpful if you had joined @MelanieN, MrX, Scjessey: and me in the discussion. SPECIFICO talk 15:25, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
I'm going to restore the version that was agreed among myself and the 3 editors pinged above yesterday. JFG, if you have improvements such as adding a link or others that you're confident do not change the meaning, by all means when you have time, make them or propose more extensive changes without another wholesale revert. Thanks. SPECIFICO talk 01:40, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
Contrary to your assertion, I have not seen MelanieN agree to this version. Her comment at the top of this thread "objects" to a prior version of yours, and she has apparently not commented at all on your latest proposal. Scjessey expressed some reservations about your proposed last sentence "jumping the gun". And thanks for adding some of the links that I suggested, but you still re-inserted the "whistleblower" when most editors commenting in this thread agreed to remove him/her at this stage.
Generally, the wording of this paragraph is contentious and actively debated; you should not force your preferred version upon readers without a more robust debate. I'll revert, and then we can open up various proposals to scrutiny in this thread or a new one. Or if you feel that consensus cannot be achieved by informal discussion, you can open an RfC. — JFG talk 08:57, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
I see that my attempted pings of the consensus editors was redlinked, so I'm repeating and they can confirm or change their agreement with the improved replacement text, now reverted. Note that the version you seem to prefer also refers to the origin and the whistleblower. Yes, we initially agreed when @MelanieN: preferred to remove the whistleblower, but that was before I provided the red text that is the lead of the whistleblower report document that precipitated the impeachment proceedings. See her strikethrough above. Anyway, this is just to fix the pings to @Scjessey: and @MrX:. SPECIFICO talk 13:05, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
I would alter it very slightly:

In September 2019, a whistleblower alleged Trump had abused his presidential power by withholding congressionally-mandated military aid to Ukraine and pressuring its government to interfere in the 2020 US election. The House of Representatives launched an impeachment inquiry to investigate the claim, and witnesses have subsequently testified to a broader pattern of misconduct by Trump and his cohorts.

This eliminates the redundant words "report" and "that" from the first sentence, and the change of language in the second indirectly implies the inquiry is ongoing. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:29, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
I prefer a version that keeps "The House of Representatives launched an impeachment inquiry..." at the beginning. That's the most significant fact for this material. I also prefer not to start a sentence with a date (although I'm guilty of dong it myself on occasion).- MrX 🖋 14:11, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
Okay, how about this?

The House of Representatives launched an impeachment inquiry to investigate a September 2019 claim alleging Trump had abused his presidential power by withholding congressionally-mandated military aid to Ukraine and pressuring its government to interfere in the 2020 US election. Witnesses have subsequently testified to a broader pattern of misconduct by Trump and his cohorts.

It eliminates mention of the whistleblower, which satisfies the wishes of some editors. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:20, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
Either of MrX or Scjessey or the reverted version are OK with me. Scjessey, I think it would be better to say "report" instead of "claim" which we know is a loaded word. I'm not sure we gain much from omitting "whistleblower" now that we are using the words from the report "interfere...". @MelanieN: I think that if you could share your view on this, we can wrap this up and deal with other things. SPECIFICO talk 18:59, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
@Scjessey and SPECIFICO: - although we've moved past this, I would like to correct the record. I believe that the whistleblower was not sure whether the military aid was tied in to the pressure campaign - or a genuine policy decision. See page 8 As such, a whistleblower alleged Trump had abused his presidential power by withholding congressionally-mandated military aid to Ukraine is inaccurate. starship.paint (talk) 23:58, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
@Starship.paint: Thanks for keeping an eye on this and for citing the primary source. My strong preference was initially for the wording that included the top-level concern stated by the whistleblower. That was the red-quoted text above alleging that Trump was "using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election." That was the serious issue that precipitated the impeachment inquiry. Withholding military aid, although grave and unlawful, has been reported as a tactic in the campaign to coerce foreign interference. I would be happy to see the "interference" language instead of the "withholding aid" bit. My initial version of this was in this edit. I still like that better than the subsequent versions, but there was a very tortured discussion thread, made more difficult by serial reverts back to a much worse version, and so the current text was written by committee. I would certainly not object to you replacing the "miltiary aid" bit with the "interfere in the election" bit.@Scjessey:. SPECIFICO talk 02:48, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

Sorry to miss the last few days, I’ve been busy IRL. Offhand comments: in the lead I don’t think we should focus on (or possibly even mention) the whistleblower. I think we need to mention the phone call, the impeachment inquiry, and subsequent testimony showing that the issue is broader than just the phone call. Just for context, this is what is currently in the lead: In September 2019, the House of Representatives initiated an impeachment inquiry following allegations of abuse of power when Trump pressured Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate activities of former U.S. vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter in Ukraine. Ensuing witness testimony before Congressional committees alleged a wider pressure campaign which included withholding military aid to Ukraine.

That’s actually not bad but it could be better. I might go for a slight rewording of it, or a slight modification of Scjessey’s latest proposal. Something like this: The House of Representatives launched an impeachment inquiry following a September 2019 claim report that Trump had abused his presidential power by pressuring the president of Ukraine to undertake actions which would have the effect of helping Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign. One form of pressure was withholding congressionally-mandated military aid to Ukraine. Witnesses subsequently testified that Trump and his surrogates had been carrying out that pressure campaign for months. -- MelanieN (talk) 20:23, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

MelanieN: Thanks for the quick reply. I think we are basically on the same page here and I suggest you place your text in the article so we can at least work on any further improvements from what we've accomplished over the past week or so. SPECIFICO talk 21:01, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
I don't really like the next-to-last sentence. I'll see if I can tweak it a little. -- MelanieN (talk) 22:07, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
How about if I replace the next-to-last sentence with Among other inducements, Trump ordered congressionally-mandated military aid for Ukraine to be withheld. Still good? I checked to make sure that our article text does say that Trump was the one who ordered the withhold. -- MelanieN (talk) 22:15, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
I agree, that's better. Since this is as close to a consensus as we have been on this material, I have edited it into the article.- MrX 🖋 23:17, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
I prefer the word “delayed,” as it was eventually released. Mr Ernie (talk) 18:19, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
Most sources say withheld. - MrX 🖋 18:32, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
@Mr Ernie: - Trump ordered the aid to be withheld, and later apparently rescinded the order after the hold became public. While a delay occurred, that doesn’t mean he ordered a delay in the first place. starship.paint (talk) 15:21, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
I'm good with either the Scjessey or the 2nd MelanieN version, except for the word "claim" which should be replaced by "report" or "complaint". "Claim" reads as an expression of doubt in this context.- MrX 🖋 21:22, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
I'm OK with that. -- MelanieN (talk) 22:03, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Here is the version that we have arrived at based on this discussion:

The House of Representatives launched an impeachment inquiry following a September 2019 report that Trump had abused his presidential power by pressuring the president of Ukraine to undertake actions which would have the effect of helping Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign. Among other inducements, Trump ordered congressionally-mandated military aid for Ukraine to be withheld. Witnesses subsequently testified that Trump and his surrogates had been carrying out that pressure campaign for months.

- MrX 🖋 23:20, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks @all for the discussion and suggestions. This latest version bothers me in that it only ascribes electoral motives to Trump without mentioning the underlying Biden affair, or general corruption in Ukraine. "Among other inducements" is vague and unnecessary. And we must obviously add a link to the main article Trump–Ukraine scandal. Let me suggest a change:

The House of Representatives launched an impeachment inquiry following a September 2019 report that Trump had pressured the president of Ukraine to investigate his electoral opponent Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Earlier, Trump had temporarily withheld congressionally-mandated military aid for Ukraine. Several witnesses testified that Trump and his surrogates had been carrying out that pressure campaign for months.

Comments? — JFG talk 08:41, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
The investigations and the impeachment inquiry have nothing to do with the Bidens, the Clinton server, Ukrainian corruption, the Deep State, etc. The lead-level fact is that the president was reported to have abused his official authority. It might be helpful for you to review many discussions and rejected edits on the Trump-Ukraine scandal article and the Hunter Biden and Burisma articles where attempts to insinuate the Trump/Giuliani/Barr narratives into those articles have consistently been rejected. At the lead level, of all the detail we might add, debunked insinuations of the Bidens should not be not on the list. However the link to Foreign interference in the 2020 United States elections (which is the top-level concern cited by the whistleblower) would improve the current lead text. This was discussed at some length but is not in the current version. For the avoidance of doubt, do you believe that RS reporting tells us that the impeachment hearings are about actual investigations and wrongdoing and corruption in Ukraine? If so, we can discuss sourcing and content rather than WEIGHT and lead-summary narration. SPECIFICO talk 14:37, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
@JFG: Forgot to clarify by pinging, I am asking JFG whether he has RS he believes support the narratives about Ukraine corruption, Biden narratives as credible and noteworthy, and if so which sources. Disagreements about which sources seem to underlie most of the content disagreements on this article. SPECIFICO talk 19:04, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
I would very strongly oppose the idea of bringing the Biden family into this. Exactly who Trump was trying to attack by abusing his power is not relevant, and by including the Biden family we would essentially be assisting Trump with his totally unfounded smear campaign. Absolutely not. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:41, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
This would have been a pretty good version about four weeks ago, but so much has been revealed since then that the Biden aspect is simply a distraction. It would certainly be something that we could cover in the body of the article, but it does not serve as a proper summary of the affair. Your version also omits the central accusation that Trump abused the power of his office, and the widely reported allegation that Trump's actions appear to have been politically motivated to affect the election. - MrX 🖋 14:46, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
"...the underlying Biden affair, or general corruption in Ukraine"??? Both are just excuses. There is no real "underlying Biden affair", and Trump has no real concern about corruption anywhere. We all know where he is usually located whenever there is any corruption. (Some might consider that his middle name.) -- BullRangifer (talk) 17:48, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
@JFG and MrX: - September 2019 report? The whistleblower complaint was submitted in August 2019 (although it was publicized in September, is that you two were going for?) JFG - I feel that Earlier, Trump had temporarily withheld congressionally-mandated military aid for Ukraine - seems misleading in the sense that Trump did not order a temporary withholding, he simply ordered withholding, and only released the aid in September after the withholding became public knowledge in late August. [13] Two weeks later, amid withering pressure from inside and outside his administration, Trump relented. starship.paint (talk) 23:58, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Impeachment section in the article text: maybe a major trim?

We currently have three highly detailed paragraphs (“In September 2019…”, “The impeachment inquiry…” , and “During October…”) about the origins of the impeachment inquiry. I believe that is way too much for detail for this biography. I propose condensing them into a single paragraph, and I will do that if people think it’s OK. (I don’t want to go to all that work if people prefer the three current, highly detailed paragraphs.) What do you think, should I give it a shot? -- MelanieN (talk) 16:49, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

@MelanieN: I assume you're referring to the body of the article. The length of the material about impeachment in the body seems about right, but not every detail is equally significant. I'm in favor a rewrite, but not a trim per se. I'll expand on that in a moment... - MrX 🖋 17:01, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
Here is an outline of the points I think we should cover in the body:
1. Pre-inquiry hist (keep material as is)
2. September 24-ish events
a. Revelation of whistleblower complaint
b. Brief summary of whistleblower complaint
c. Pelosi's announcement of an impeachment inquiry
3. Subsequent events
a. Depositions (briefly, what was revealed in closed door testimony)
b. Admission of quid pro quo by Giuliani, Mulvaney and others
c. House floor vote on procedures}}
I think we could cut the specific mention of Taylor, some repetitive material, and everything in the fifth paragraph except for the last sentence. Then we could reword the material to make it considerably tighter.- MrX 🖋 17:22, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
It's likely to be a very inefficient use of editor resources to try to keep up with news and nonsense relating to impeachment-related reporting. And due weight is just about impossible and WP:NOTNEWS. I think what's most important is to refer to events that are being pretty well updated in other articles that can be linked and above all not to validate various self-serving narratives and twists of language, e.g. unduly referring to a Ukranian "investigation" when RS tell us that Trump/Giuliani/Barr are engaged in soliciting and propagating false narratives, not investigations. SPECIFICO talk 17:29, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
Hi, SPECIFICO. We have disagreed on this before. It is true that "investigation" is a euphemism for "get me dirt". But "investigation" is the wording used by the president, by the witnesses, and by the vast majority of Reliable Sources. Unless and until a significant number of neutral reliable sources begin saying "Trump asked Zelensky to propagate false narratives", we cannot say that here. Or not in Wikipedia's voice; not without attributing it to the speaker. -- MelanieN (talk) 17:52, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
Which witnesses? As to "investigate" -- That doesn't fit the bill for a euphemism, which is a word that is intended to fully convey the meaning, but avoids certain words. Trump/Giuliani/Barr are using the word "investigate" in a way that is patently false. What they are requesting or requiring or directing has none of the elements of an investigation and is instead a scripted enactment of something that is falsely called an investigation. The American media was initially gun-shy about these propaganda tactics earlier in the Trump presidency. But that has changed. Moreover, in tertiary sources, which we should be using -- and not deprecating as "opinion" -- there is very clear language that invalidates "investigation" in this context. SPECIFICO talk 18:44, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
Well, SPECIFICO, you have been arguing against the word "investigations" for some weeks now, but I have not seen anyone agree with you that instead of using the words Trump or other participants actually used, we should use your description of what those requests amounted to. In particular there is no consensus here to do that when attributing words to certain individuals - something I have cautioned you about repeatedly. As for "which witnesses?", if you have seen any witness quoted as saying anything like "Trump asked Zelensky to promote false narratives" or "Trump asked Zelensky to interfere in the 2020 election", please provide a citation. Not a citation for the opinion of the writer, mind you; a citation for what the witness said. -- MelanieN (talk) 18:48, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
MelanieN, in response to your previous request, I yesterday provided you not only a link to secondary RS but also, later, a red-text quote from the whistleblower report that has been cited in WaPo and other top sources. This is the "interfere in 2020" bit. Have you seen that? And MrX's reply that this would be OK for the lead text, I'd appreciate hearing any rationale from you to the contrary. It's sounding to me as if you feel I am being disruptive here, so I'd rather hear your reply to my having given you the citation to the whistleblower report that you requested and that I'd initially presumed you had read. I pinged you here for your thoughts. Thanks.
With respect to the false narratives, investigations, etc. First, I'm not arguing, I'm trying to articulate an general point about the language we use in article text. I have not falsely attributed words to individuals, I don't know what prompts you to say that, and I'm certainly not forcing bad language into article text if my bold edit is not supported. On the other hand, you may have noticed that my concern about the Mueller Report language in the lead (concerning the context-free use of the word "establish") did finally result, after an extended poll, with my approach having been adopted. SPECIFICO talk 21:27, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
I missed your link to the whistleblower report; sorry, and I have struck my mistaken impression that he/she did not say that. So we can certainly include it in the article text as part of what the whistleblower said; I still don't think it belongs in the lead. In fact I see that several people have agreed with the notion of de-emphasizing the whistleblower since this issue has now gone way beyond that point. If I do come up with a "major trim" version to propose (and I will certainly propose it here before implementing it), I will mention the whistleblower but focus on the subsequently established facts. -- MelanieN (talk) 22:56, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
I totally agree with your point that there are main articles on this subject which are linked from this article, and that the blow-by-blow details should be in those articles, not in this biography. -- MelanieN (talk) 18:05, 2 November 2019 (UTC)


Yes, MrX, I am referring to the three paragraphs in the "impeachment" section of the article text. But I am not talking about a minor trim. For the purposes of this biography, I do not think that the amount of current coverage is "about right"; I think it is far too detailed, virtually a play-by-play coverage of the last few weeks. I am proposing a drastic (maybe 50%) reduction of that material by doing a lot of summarizing. My proposal would be something like this:
1. The paragraph on pre-inquiry history: Keep it as it is.
2. The three paragraphs describing the whistleblower complaint, the slow unveiling of the specific allegations, the various depositions, etc.: Reduce to a single paragraph along the lines of: the Ukraine phone call came to light. What Trump said in the call - that he repeatedly asked Zelensky to open a investigation into the Bidens, told him to work with Giuliani and Barr on it, and hinted that military aid was contingent on those investigations happening. The fact that the transcript and multiple witnesses (not naming all of them) confirmed that military aid to Ukraine was being withheld contingent on Zelensky opening the investigations. The point (need a good neutral reference) that asking for dirt on Biden amounted to asking for foreign help in the 2020 election. I think I can do all this in one paragraph.
3. The existing paragraph abut the House actions (your fifth paragraph): keep it as is.
Let's see, through discussion, which approach people favor: your slight rewrite or my major trim. -- MelanieN (talk) 17:40, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
It's possible that we could get all of the most relevant facts into one paragraph. I was not suggesting a slight rewrite— more of a do over, but without regard to size.- MrX 🖋 18:23, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
OK, thanks for clarifying. What do folks think about this idea? -- MelanieN (talk) 20:49, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

We should definitely have what the White House confirmed: The Trump White House has corroborated several allegations raised by the whistleblower. A non-verbatim transcript of the Trump–Zelensky call confirmed that Trump requested investigations into Joe Biden, his son Hunter Biden, as well as a conspiracy theory involving a Democratic National Committee server, while repeatedly urging Zelensky to work with Giuliani and Barr on these matters. The White House also confirmed that a record of the call had been stored in a highly restricted system. White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney stated that one reason why Trump withheld military aid to Ukraine was Ukrainian "corruption related to the DNC server". This isn't the whole proposed text, just a portion. starship.paint (talk) 06:28, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

I totally agree that the revelations and confirmations from the White House, and from Mulvaney, are important to include in the article text, and this is a good summary. -- MelanieN (talk) 22:59, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
Does it not need to be mentioned that there was no subsequent investigation into Biden and the aid was released before the deadline? Mr Ernie (talk) 14:21, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
Would that be "the aid was released before the deadline" or "the aid was released after the withholding of it was publicly reported and received bipartisan condemnation"? That publicity was also why Zelensky never undertook the investigation; reporting is that he had actually agreed to read the mandated statement announcing an investigation, on CNN as required, but after the scheme went public he was able to back out.[14] Or as the NYT headlined it, Zelensky Bowed to Trump's Demands, Until Luck Spared Him ... IMO this would be too much detail for this article, even for the text section, but I'm open for discussion. -- MelanieN (talk) 23:41, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
Well, if we go into detail about accusations, we should also get into detail about events that contradict the accusations. My view is that both points are too detailed to belabor in the lead. — JFG talk 14:48, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
This thread is not about the lead. As MelanieN has explained, non of these "contradictions" should go in the article -- nor do they contradict the allegations of misconduct. SPECIFICO talk 23:47, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Typo

In the "early actions" sub-section of the "Presidency section", there is a typo in the sentence that makes up the third paragraph. "On January 31, Trump nominated U.S. Appeals Court judge Neil Gorsuch to fill the seat on the Supreme Court previous held by Justice Antonin Scalia until his death on February 13, 2016" It should be "previously held", not "previous held". WesSirius (talk) 02:59, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

  • Also, in the "ISIS and foreign wars" section, there's a sentence with what I believe may be a typo. "On January 6, 2019, national security advisor John Bolton announced America would remain in Syria until ISIS is eradicated and Turkey guaranteed it would not strike America's Kurdish allies." Unless there's some grammar convention I'm unaware of, it should be "ISIS was eradicated", not "ISIS is eradicated." WesSirius (talk) 03:18, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
"Is" is correct when speaking of a future event. The timespan when ISIS was eradicated extends from that point indefinitely, way too vague. Should be "Turkey guarantees", as well. But yeah, "previous held" is just plain wrong. As far as I know, anyway. InedibleHulk (talk) 05:07, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
I think according to traditional grammar it's "was" because the tense should be consistent.--Jack Upland (talk) 05:11, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
And now it is. I also changed "foreign wars" to collective singular "war". What was the qualifier good for? Absolutely nothing. Just invokes the fictional (fictitious?) New Civil War. The adverb is an adverb now, which was previously the important thing. Thanks, Wes! InedibleHulk (talk) 05:27, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
Just noticed you and I both took small steps toward consistency at precisely 05:11, but on completely different sides of the sentence and entirely opposite ends of the article. Neat. InedibleHulk (talk) 08:20, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
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