Sunday, November 24, 2019

When Both the Facts and the Law Are Against You, Pound the Table!



Republican efforts to defend Donald Trump from possible impeachment are making less and less sense. 
 

Trump held up Congressional-mandated aid to Ukraine to bully Ukrainian President Zelensky into opening an investigation into Hunter Biden, son of the 2020 Democratic Presidential candidate Trump most fears. The delay, amidst rumors of a whistleblower's formal complaint, sparked questions by senators, making it too hot for Trump and his minions to carry on.


To distract us, Republicans scream that the Whistleblower must testify; but s/he stated s/he lacked first-hand knowledge; and Trump's “transcript” and sworn witnesses with more firsthand knowledge are confirming what s/he alleged. 
 

Trump repeats, “there was no quid pro quo” like a mantra; but Gordon Sondland, who gave Trump a boatload of campaign money and got appointed Ambassador to the E.U., says “There was a quid pro quo.” Sondland sure ain't part of “the Deep State” – or a Democratic pawn. 
 

Currently, the main argument for Trump is that since the aid was eventually released and Zelensky didn't investigate Biden, Trump couldn't have been attempting extortion! But a misfiring gun doesn't clear you of attempted murder. Or say a man told a woman he'd publish nude photos of her unless she slept with him – then her big brother took the photos from the man. Would we buy a defense argument that there'd been no criminal extortion attempt because it failed? 
 

Republicans add that Zelensky denies he was pressured. What alternate universe do they live in where Ukraine's President, dependent on us to survive Russian aggression, would voluntarily embarrass Trump? Ukraine needs us, Trump leads us. You do the math.


More foolish yet is arguing Trump was deeply concerned about Ukrainian corruption. Our Government had already certified sufficient Ukrainian progress on corruption to warrant the aid. Trump cared about Biden and about trying to portray Ukraine as interfering in the 2016 election. Sondland, under oath, verified the nature of Trump's concern. Meanwhile Trump vilified and fired the U.S. Ambassador who had pushed Ukraine to clean things up. 
 

Trump, constantly tweets comments on the hearings he insists he's not watching. Harmful tweets. Tweets trying (unsuccessfully) to intimidate witnesses oughtta be impeachable acts. Retweeting the debunked Russian allegation that Ukraine “interfered” with our election can only help Russia's efforts to minimize Ukrainian support here. 
 

Trump's conduct (subordinating Ukraine aid to personal interests) has likely emboldened Russia. When Zelensky meets with Putin shortly, Trump's apparent affection for Putin, and his minimal concern about Ukraine's security, won't strengthen Zelensky's hand.


The hearings, featuring some very admirable witnesses, have established the facts. If Trump were not forbidding his people to testify, we'd have more and clearer facts. (It's not likely that the folks Trump is keeping away from Congress could exonerate him.) Steve Bannon, the Trump supporter who mocked the Trump-Sondland efforts as “a drug deal,” won't be fun for Trump to watch.


Unfortunately, too few folks are watching to increase pressure on Republican Senators to do right. Too few of us are capable of changing our minds based on facts. Sadly, too many root for Blue or Red as if they were team colors. I'm an Aggie, you're a Lobo.


The facts are clear. They are not pretty. The question Republicans should focus on is whether or not Trump's misconduct warrants the drastic step of impeachment. I think so, but we do not overturn elections lightly. That's the robust debate we ought to be having.
                                                       -30-

[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 24 November 2019, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper' website and KRWG's website.  A spoken version is on the latter, and also will air during the week on KRWG and KTAL, 101.5 FM, Las Cruces Community Radio.]


[As Frank Rich wrote of Sondland's confession of a quid pro quo, "If the Republicans cared about the facts or the gravity of the crime being investigated, the answer would be apocalyptically damaging. But they don’t care, and they will continue to defend Trump even if those testifying under oath include an eyewitness to a criminal conspiracy hatched in the White House like Sondland, or patriots like Fiona Hill, Alexander Vindman, and Marie Yovanovitch, who not only provided irrefutable evidence of the crime but detailed the existential threat that crime poses to America."
He added that "Had Trump pulled out that (so far) proverbial gun and shot someone on Fifth Avenue, Republicans would trot out the exact same defense they have this week: The shot was fired at 2 a.m. and there were no eyewitnesses. [Witnesses] who claimed to have heard the shot had actually heard a car backfiring. The closed-circuit video capturing the incident is . . . a hoax concocted by the same Fake News outlets that manufactured the Access Hollywood video. . . . Election records show that the cops who arrived on the scene were registered Democrats and therefore part of a deep-state conspiracy to frame the president for a crime he didn’t commit but that the Democrats did. . . .  And even if Trump [fatally gunned down a young woman], the argument advanced by Trump’s lawyer last month would apply: 'The person who serves as president, while in office, enjoys absolute immunity from criminal process of any kind.' Next case!"]

[There's still every likelihood that the matter will be decided by the voters in November 2020, after the Democrat-controlled House impeaches and the Republican-controlled Senate declines to convict.  But in theory --or if, as doesn't yet appear to be the case, public sentiment in favor of impeachment grows -- the "real" question is, "Does what Mr. Trump did here warrant impeachment."  Of course, the Mueller Report demonstrated numerous acts of obstruction of justice, one of the impeachment charges prepared against Richard Nixon. (Trump is also obstructing justice with regard to the Ukraine issue.)   
How does Trump's "high crime" stack up against burglary? Well, burglary has the advantage of being a criminal act with which we have all been familiar since childhood, and one which we may personally fear we could be victims of.  But I'd argue that Trump's "crime" is "higher" or more severe.  Rather than going over the legal line in partisan politics (which Nixon did with the burglary and Trump with his extortion and abuse of power), Trump's act had real-world international consequences that arguably weakened U.S. security  Congress mandated aid to help Ukraine survive the Russian aggression; not only was Ukraine a fledgling democracy, it was important in world politics -- in that, as many have said, Russia without Ukraine is just another country, but with Ukraine it becomes again an empire.  Trump was quite willing to endanger Ukrainian support to embarrass Joe Biden and push a lame conspiracy theory that Ukraine was attacking our electoral process in 2016.
That would seem to matter in a sane world.  It's hard to imagine FDR undermining some country holding out against the Nazis, just to embarrass Wendell Willkie; but the question is at least reasonable to ask, whether it warrants removal from office.  Nixon's conduct clearly warranted removal. (Of course, the real difference between Nioxon and Trump is the times they lived in.  The 1960's attacked corruption and government abuses of power, and by the early 1970's we were in a period when we expected and demanded more than the usual amount of honesty in our politicians; but one would hardly say that of the current citizenry.)  Clinton's misconduct clearly did not, and his impeachment purely political in nature.  Trump's would seem to, but in the considered judgment of his fellow Republicans in the Senate, it will not. It's a shame, since it seems to regularize extreme and even open misconduct and abuse of power.  On the other hand, impeachment should be a rarely-used weapon of last resort.]

[Of course, a second difference between Nixon and Trump is that the former had at least some knowledge of law and understanding of what was right, even if he chose to do wrong to strengthen his power.  Running through much of the defense of Trump is the idea that he may not have understood that obstruction of justice was a crime, or that he is merely being what he appeared to be when we elected him, whereas Nixon, the sneak, tried to appear a choirboy while playing legal and illegal "dirty tricks."  Trump was obviously who he is, and won election, so what's the big deal?]

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