The editors of the Wall Street Journal’s critique of the House’s impeachment inquiry report fulminates on for quite a while before making this observation:
The report’s summary sentence reveals the weakness of its case with overstatement: “The president placed his own personal and political interests above the national interests of the United States, sought to undermine the integrity of the U.S. presidential election process, and endangered U.S. national security.â€
Yet every President seeks some political advantage in pursuing foreign policy. That includes Barack Obama when he asked Dmitry Medvedev to tell Mr. Putin to go easy on missile defense until after the 2012 election.
As for undermining election integrity, that was Bill Clinton when he vacuumed foreign campaign contributions from the Riadys and multiple other foreigners in 1996. Or Hillary Clinton in 2016 when her campaign financed Christopher Steele to spread Russian disinformation on Mr. Trump to the media and FBI.
Mr. Trump, in his reckless way, asked President Zelensky for the “favor†of investigating Joe Biden and tried to delay military aid. But as Senator Ron Johnson relates in his recent letter that is a more even-handed account of events, Mr. Trump’s attempts were resisted across Washington and ultimately failed.
None of this undermined elections or “endangered†U.S. national security because there was no investigation and the aid was never withheld. Even if aid had been withheld, that would merely have put U.S. policy back to where it was when Mr. Obama denied Ukraine lethal military aid for several years until Mr. Trump provided it.
As I have been saying since the Ukraine phone call first made the national news, I think it is incumbent on the House Democrats to draw sharp lines about the behavior for which they think that Mr. Trump should be impeached. If that line is political gain, they need to distinguish between the political gain sought by Mr. Trump and that sought by all other presidents in their negotiations with foreign governments.
If they fail to do that they are, essentially, criminalizing politics. I do not support President Trump. I did not vote for him in 2016. I do not plan to vote for him in 2020. I not think that asking President Zelensky to investigate the Bidens was proper in that context. But we need to be very, very careful here lest we set precedents that should not be set.
On criminalizing politics, the horse went out the barn a long long time ago.
“If that line is political gain, they need to distinguish between the political gain sought by Mr. Trump and that sought by every other president in their negotiations with foreign government.”
The notion that the call transcript demonstrates political gain is the thinnest of gruel. Its a very tortured and convenient interpretation. In any event, its not a fact, its an opinion. Period, full stop.
That said, even if so stipulated, so what? Its the very currency of foreign relations negotiations. What else? War?
Curious can blandly observe that criminalization of politics has already occurred, but the current situation is extraordinary and intolerable. We now hear that the House has obtained the phone records of a journalist, John Solomon, (Gee, I wonder why. Perhaps he has them dead in the crosshairs?) the President, the president’s private attorney’s, and another member of the House. Was a court involved? A warrant? And even if there is some legal rationale, was there notification?
I’m reminded of a rationale often invoked concerning the taking of person’s property, taxes. It is often justified by the notion of “what kind of society do we want to live in?” Well, is a society where Adam Schiff can surreptitiously obtain your phone records, and then impute motive to them, a society we want to live in?
For a good explanation on how Schiff may have got hold of the call logs (and possibly f**ked up big time doing so) I refer you to a Roscoe Davis tweet thread:
https://twitter.com/RoscoeBDavis1/status/1202028467790979074
Excuse the pungent language in the thread it is not mine.
If what Davis describes is in fact accurate it is not a good thing.
Not. At. All.
“they need to distinguish between the political gain sought by Mr. Trump and that sought by all other presidents in their negotiations with foreign governments.”
We know of no other time when a foreign government was asked to interfere in an election solely to help a sitting president’s election chances.
“The notion that the call transcript demonstrates political gain is a fact. Period. Full stop. FTFY. Bears season must be addling your brain.
Steve