https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/a...-defenses-of-trump-are-as-bad-as-the-old-ones New Defenses of Trump Are as Bad as the Old Ones A Republican congressman who kept an open mind is now making nonsensical arguments for the president. By Ramesh Ponnuru December 15, 2019, 7:00 AM CST Chip Roy, a Republican House member from Texas, has handled the Ukraine controversy in an unusual way: He listened to the testimony and took some time to think about it before stating his conclusions. When he spoke in the interim, it was to make discrete observations, such as defending former foreign-policy official Fiona Hill from xenophobic attacks by allies of President Donald Trump. Roy has now organized his thoughts in an article for National Review (where I am a senior editor). It’s a good example of how someone can in good faith conclude that Trump should not be impeached and removed from office. But it’s also an example of the many ways conservatives are finding to minimize Trump’s misconduct. The Democrats have filed Articles of Impeachment. No one is surprised, because impeachment has been the goal for the radical left and others who dislike the president since before his election. Yes, some people have been calling for impeachment from the start of this presidency. Others resisted these calls until after Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy came to light. We can conclude both that some Democrats would be for impeachment regardless of the facts, and that Trump has inspired suspicions about his tendency to corruption and abuse of power from the start. The first point should no more automatically incriminate Trump than the second should exonerate him. In the case of Ukraine, it is clear that President Trump wants Europe to carry more of the burden of supporting their effort, and that he views both a longstanding history of corruption and Ukraine’s nexus to our 2016 elections as a problem. He is most certainly within his rights to believe these things, and act on them. Congress passed a law authorizing aid to Ukraine, and Trump signed it. The law places real constraints on Trump’s discretion. And it is not at all clear either that Trump’s view about burden-sharing was a factor in the temporary withholding of aid, or that Trump has any interest whatsoever in Ukraine’s history of corruption. In the reports we have about Trump’s comments on Ukraine to his aides and to Ukrainian officials, Trump sometimes failed to mention corruption at all. Sometimes he seemed to be using the term solely to refer to his desire for an investigation of Joe Biden and his son Hunter, or of a nutty theory about how Ukraine rather than Russia was responsible for hacking the Democratic National Committee. Indeed, federal law requires he act to stop corruption if American foreign aid is being distributed. The administration was required by law to certify that Ukraine was taking action against corruption - but the Defense Department did that in May 2019. [The Democrats] purposefully obfuscate the obvious evidence … that there were troubling efforts by Ukrainians to influence the 2016 elections …. They do this by conflating it with the less likely technological ‘interference’ (see, e.g., “Crowdstrike” 1 ). To be certain, the president’s continued personal promotion of that angle perpetuates that questionable narrative, but that’s not the core issue. The truth is that we saw Ukrainian leaders — including the sitting ambassador — publicly attack candidate Trump in the press … all of these things raise legitimate questions of Ukrainian engagement in 2016 elections, and thus provide President Trump with reasonable questions to raise to a new, reformist Ukrainian president. Many Republicans have adopted a version of this argument: The core issue is the allegedly reasonable subjects Trump could have raised with Zelinskiy rather than the crazy one he actually did raise. But the fact that Ukrainian officials responded to Trump campaign statements that ran counter to their country’s interests by expressing concern in public doesn’t warrant an investigation anyway. The elder Biden threatened $1 billion in aid to the Ukrainians in part to eject the prosecutor general, who was looking into Burisma — an energy company with known corruption issues and a board that his own son was sitting on with income of $83,000 per month. A former deputy to that prosecutor general has said that the investigation was long dormant when Biden demanded the ouster. At the time, the International Monetary Fund and many Ukrainians were unhappy that the prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin, was soft on corruption. The Obama administration had officially complained that Ukraine was not doing enough to assist British legal action against Burisma’s owner. It’s true that Shokin has said that he was fired because he was going after Burisma, which certainly sounds like a nicer story about him than the prevailing one. Zelenskiy himself denies feeling pressure either during the phone call or after. It’s true that he has said that. It’s also true that he has an interest both in maintaining good relations with the Trump administration and in not appearing weak. In any case, whether Trump’s efforts to get Zelenskiy to investigate Biden or Ukrainian hacking were successful, or competently executed, are different questions from whether it was attempted or proper. It is noteworthy that during the administration of President Trump, the Ukrainians now have a potential reformer president in Zelenskiy, full security funding, and Javelin missiles. American policy under Trump is more supportive of Ukraine overall than it was under Obama. But that fact makes Trump’s abuse of power worse, not better. The Obama administration didn’t believe military aid to Ukraine was in America’s interest and didn’t promise it. The Trump administration did believe it and promise it, and then put a hold on it to get Ukraine to cater to Trump’s personal interests. Congressman Roy ends his argument with his strongest point: that the American people will have an opportunity to judge Trump’s conduct directly next November. But that judgment of Trump should be based on an accurate assessment of all the evidence we have about that conduct, which means it should be harsher than the judgment that the congressman is making.
Schumer is not ruling out having the House withhold the impeachment articles if the Senate makes clear there will not be a fair trial.
The House Judiciary Committee released its report to accompany the impeachment articles against Donald Trump, and the committee’s conclusion is that even though impeachment doesn’t require proof of crimes, Trump’s actions were in fact “both constitutional and criminal in character.” In fact, they say, the abuse of power article of impeachment is an umbrella that covers “multiple federal crimes,” including criminal bribery and wire fraud. The full report does a deep historical dive to establish the intent of the framers of the Constitution, but it also puts Trump’s actions in the context of today’s anti-bribery laws, noting that “criminal bribery occurs when a public official (1) ‘demands [or] seeks’ (2) ‘anything of value personally,’ (3) ‘in return for being influenced in the performance of any official act.’ Additionally, the public official must carry out these actions (4) ‘corruptly.’” The report walks through these elements one by one, showing how Trump’s actions meet the standard for criminality.
Not really. That testimony was boring AF with Reps rehashing their talking points a million times over. Nothing important happened in those hearings. The evidence was in the Intel Comm hearings.
Yeah, but his job is still to listen and pay attention. It isn't the worst thing but not all parts of the job are exciting.
Meh. Congressmen miss votes for bills under consideration. Or vote by some informal proxy system by having their friend hit the button for them. It seems pretty sanctimonious to me to complain that a Rep isn't giving you 100% of his attention (and really how much attention can golf really take away? Golf!) on a 14 hour day of trading bullshit.
With what the SENATE is saying, I am now in favor of delaying the vote until the courts decide to force Bolton and McGahn to testify. Let's just keep investigating..... DD
Nope, constantly bang on about how they are trying to get the people in the room to testify, but Trump is obstructing - it strengthens the case - try to get it through the judicial branch by April/May if possible..... But contest it in court - that is the ONLY way you are going to get a fair trial in the Senate, you can't LET OBSTRUCTION work..... DD
If by Obstruction you mean asserting exec. privilege and choosing not to participate in an inquiry where he would not be able to call his own witnesses, then I don't blame him a bit for obstructing. See ya in the Senate.
You mean disregarding checks and balances? You mean too scared to have key witnesses testify under oath? Too scared. You expect them to stop being scared in the Senate and have those witnesses testify? I don’t, too scared. McConnell is already too scared and saying he won’t call those witnesses.
There is no Exec privilege for Bolton - and if Trump is innocent and can prove it, testify, make the Dems look stupid. And FOR crying out loud add the CHARITY FRAUD to the articles of impeachment. That is a provable crime. DD
Bolton is choosing not to appear unless he's compelled by a legal ruling. That's his choice. The Dem's could've gone through the legal processes to get him to testify but they chose not to. Wonder why....hmmm.. let's see.... Oh yeah, it's more important to rush it than to get it right. And please quit the crying on the CHARITY FRAUD. Take it up with your house rep. after the acquittal. You'll have 11 months to work on the 2nd impeachment and quite possibly 4 more years. Here's a hypothetical for you: What if it does come to light during a senate trial that there was rampant corruption in Ukraine and Biden was involved. Would you still cling to the narrative that the purpose of the investigations called for were explicitly to affect the 2020 elections? Would you be a big enough person to say hey... there was something there and the president was right to want to look into it? If your answer is yes, then you've just raised reasonable doubt because at no point in the call or in any testimony has the 2020 elections come up. It's inferred by the dems, the press and a few witnesses who assume that is the ONLY reason. Let's move on to the next impeachment. This one's over.
Disagree. If evidence is shown that Biden was involved in corruption(None has been shown yet.) that isn't the problem. It is a problem if the only case of corruption you ask nations to investigate are ones that damage a United States political opponent and withhold aid passed by Congress until you find out that someone told on you for doing and then release the aid, alter the released transcript, and try to prevent everyone from testifying before an equal branch of the government charged by the United States Constitution to investigate these types of matters. We have indicted heads of state that Trump didn't try and withhold aid packages from. Only caring about corruption from one place and one person while demanding that part of the investigation is a public announcement of the investigation that should erase any reasonable doubt at all.
