Being Held Hostage

Mark Penn’s assessment of the impeachment proceedings, posted at The Hill, echo mine pretty closely:

The first count of the two articles of impeachment against President Trump accuses the president of abuse of power by withholding aid in an attempt to force Ukraine to look into possible corruption on the part of Joe and Hunter Biden. He is called corrupt in motive for asking for an investigation of potential corruption over questions that had been raised in the New York Times, Politico, The New Yorker and other media outlets.

Bringing this up on a call to the president of Ukraine was probably a boneheaded thing to do, but not an impeachable one. Aid was not actually held up. No investigation was ordered. The president of Ukraine and other Ukrainian officials deny that any pressure was applied to them. Trump’s overall policy was, in fact, far more helpful to the Ukrainians than President Obama’s policies that denied them much aid for weapons. There was and is no urgent threat to the national security of the United States.

There is definitely something about all this that the American public doesn’t like, that reasonable people can judge as wrong, but that is quite different than removing a president from office through a process designed to use impeachment as a political vehicle. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) was not a truth-seeker — he is on tape soliciting naked pictures of Trump, and he repeatedly exaggerated evidence against Trump over the last three years. He was simply a weapon jamming through impeachment and ignoring fair procedure or legal process.

The last few days in the media have underscored this bias with the release of material from Lev Parnas, who — like Christopher Steele and his dossier before him, or like Michael Avenatti, now out on bail — is a questionable character with obviously wild claims for which he has no proof, including claims against Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Attorney General William Barr, whom Parnas has never met. It was a political dirty trick to release his information and him on the eve of the Senate impeachment trial, and this act alone would have gotten any real prosecutor’s case thrown out.

The second article of impeachment — obstruction of the House by the assertion of executive privilege — is, in my view, wholly without merit. Despite endless allegations of lawlessness, this administration has implemented every court ruling it has lost without exception. Asserting executive privilege is not the same as paying hush money or suborning perjury, as was alleged in the Clinton and Nixon impeachment efforts. President Obama and his attorney general, Eric Holder, frequently asserted privilege in response to investigations and Holder was even held in contempt of Congress, a resolution he promptly ignored.

This article should be immediately dismissed, as there is really no factual basis for it at all, especially since the House deliberately avoided allowing the president to adjudicate the claims in court by failing to subpoena witnesses or withdrawing subpoenas from witnesses who challenged them in court.

I think I called this right back in August. Here we are a half year later and it looks even more right. President Trump’s approval rating, while still extremely low by historical standards, has not collapsed. As long as the economy doesn’t tank between now and November, something that looks decreasingly likely, Trump is likely to be re-elected.

It looks right now as though the Democrats are being held hostage by their most extreme and strident members. It’s not a good look.

6 comments… add one
  • Jan Link

    Mark Pena’s assessments are more worthwhile than most, being that while he is loyal party member, his evaluations and judgments seem to lack the normal tunnel vision of ideological partisans.

    Also, Trump”s corruption concerns, temporarily delaying money being immediately given over to Ukraine, are dismissed by Dems as disingenuous, as they instead make another case against him of “election meddling” – getting dirt on an election opponent, Biden. However, Trump has voiced concerns, many times in the past, before becoming president, about indiscriminately giving aid to countries known for their corruption. This latest Ukraine hesitancy only follows a pattern of legitimate concerns rather than being a mischievous outlier. This observation, accompanied by testimonies by the Ukraine president, Foreign Minister, and other officials saying no pressure was applied, with timely delivered aid in a greater amount than his predecessor – why is this even considered problematic by the Dems?

  • TarsTarkas Link

    Every ‘bombshell’ witness claiming Trump was strong-arming the Ukraine when put under oath admitted that it was their opinion that he was. No proof, nothing, nada. Sondland was told by Trump that he wanted no quid pro quo. Bill Taylor’s testimony turned into a game of telephone. The guy who claimed he overheard a conversation on an unsecured phone melted away. Vindman and everyone else who went over the infamous transcript admitted that it was factually correct, most of Vindman’s objections and corrections were accepted. Ambassador Y wasn’t even in the Ukraine when the call happened. ICIG Atkinson’s testimony has not been released. Eric Ciaramella went from being the most important ‘leaker’ in the universe to ‘oh, he’s not important’.

    I don’t think it’s Joe Biden why the slow-moving impeachment campaign suddenly went berserk. There was something else in that phone call that made Pelosi pull the trigger. The DNC server? Crowdstrike? WTF is it? Why is it so absolutely positively necessary to get this man out of office NOW? Is it because they’re all sitting on a branch and Trump is sawing away at it?

    That’s the scary part. If they’re doing all this crazy ludicrous lying and fabricating and pontificating and claiming existential threats just to cut short this may’s stay in office by a few months, what the hell will they be like when they win? They won’t calm down and act normal, why would they bother to? If a tactic’s successful, keep using it. That’s the lesson they’ll have learned.

  • If they’re doing all this crazy ludicrous lying and fabricating and pontificating and claiming existential threats just to cut short this may’s stay in office by a few months, what the hell will they be like when they win?

    Megan McArdle put it pretty well when she was still a blogger: “The party in power is arrogant and overbearing; the party out of power is insane.”

  • steve Link

    “He is called corrupt in motive for asking for an investigation of potential corruption over questions that had been raised in the New York Times, Politico, The New Yorker and other media outlets.”

    When you phrase it like that, it doesn’t sound so bad so of course we wouldn’t impeach. But, thats a bit like saying Jeffrey Dammer was guilty of dietary indiscretions. Why would we jail someone for that? If we are a bit more specific, Jeffrey Dammer was eating people, then it is different. So if we describe what really happened, Trump asked Ukraine to investigate the son of the politician who in the polls was most likely to defeat him in the upcoming election, it paints a much different picture. And we have it in his own words. He didn’t ask for an investigation of corruption, he asked to have Biden investigated.

    “Trump has voiced concerns, many times in the past, before becoming president, about indiscriminately giving aid to countries known for their corruption.”

    Please list one quote ever when Trump asked for an investigation of corruption in Ukraine, or any country.

    Steve

  • Grey Shambler Link
  • steve Link

    I assume this is a joke. This is not a case of him asking for an investigation of corruption in a foreign country.

    Steve

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