AKA: “Ukrainian Aid Deal
Breaker” (or not)
(Maybe a classic con and bribery pro)
A lot to unpack on this subject starting with this Washington Post piece here (via MSN) with this headlines (extract edited to fit the blog):
Trump’s Ukraine [phone]
call reveals a president convinced of his own invincibility
INTRODUCTION TO THE
STORY:
When the July 24 congressional testimony of special counsel
Robert Mueller deflated the impeachment hopes of Democrats, Trump crowed “no collusion” and claimed vindication from accusations that he had
conspired with Russia in the 2016 election.
Then, the very next day, Trump allegedly sought to collude with another
foreign country in the coming election — pressing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to dig up what he
believed would be damaging information about one of his leading Democratic
challengers, former vice president Joe Biden, according to people familiar with
the conversation.
The push by Trump and his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani,
to influence the newly elected Ukrainian leader reveals a president convinced
of his own invincibility — apparently willing and even eager to wield the vast
powers of the United States to taint a political foe and confident that no one
could hold him back.
Key Points:
House
Democrats already are probing whether Trump and his personal attorney, Rudy
Giuliani, withheld U.S. military assistance money to the Ukrainian government
until it agreed to investigate possible corruption involving Joe Biden and his
son Hunter.
Trump-Giuliani strategy: This scrutiny of that Trump communications
with Zelensky is welcome because it draws attention to Biden and his family’s
involvement in Ukraine and away from Trump and his woes.
Trump effectively used that kind of strategy against Hillary Clinton in 2016 and it worked.
She was not prosecuted at all or hugely investigated, but Trump won on that argument due to the strong feelings against her that he kept in high gear. Now, here we go again this time with Biden.
Giuliani when asked whether he or
Trump were worried about Congressional investigations, laughed and said: “They’re
a bunch of headhunters and have lost any credibility. The reality is, the more
the Democrats press for an investigation of what I did in the Ukraine, I invite
it. And, I’m just doing my job as a poor, simple, little defense lawyer who’s
defending his client.”
Trump ally former GOP House speaker
Newt Gingrich (R-GA) said: “Trump has calculated that there is
a political upside to spotlighting Ukraine and a story that he believes would
crush Biden if people came to believe it was true,” then he added: “If you’re
going to be Andrew Jackson, there will be consequences (*see about Jackson below), but he will be called ‘the great disrupter’ Trump gets up every
morning and thinks, ‘What can I disrupt?’ He’s not going to back off.”
Trump’s
sense of himself as above the law has been reinforced his entire time in office.
Examples:
(1) As
detailed in the Mueller report, he received help from a foreign adversary in
2016 without legal consequence.
(2) He
sought to thwart the Russia investigation and possibly obstruct justice without
consequence.
(3) Through
the government, he has earned profits for his businesses without consequence.
(4) He has
blocked Congress’s ability to conduct oversight without consequence.
And, now he
is alleged to have leveraged taxpayer dollars and U.S. military might to extort
a foreign government (the Ukraine) for their opposition research (OPPO) on a
political opponent (Joe Biden), and it is unclear what consequences, if any, he
may face.
Highly respected Joyce Vance, former U.S. prosecutor in the Obama administration says: “We
got progressively desensitized. We’re learning progressively about wrongs, and
one part gets absorbed before the next part gets revealed, so for whatever
reason the public doesn’t get excited about it. It’s mystifying.”
One strong
possible explanation is that Republicans in Congress have almost uniformly
fallen in line behind Trump, reacting with instinctive nonchalance and blocking
efforts to investigate his actions or hold him accountable all the while
defending the GOP brand and prospects in 2020 “to take back in total control.”
Their only goal.
*Andrew
Jackson (7th President) highlights: When Jackson was inaugurated, he held a party in the White
House to which anyone was invited. People trashed the place, even snipping bits
out of the curtains as souvenirs. This story confirmed all the worst fears of
Jackson’s critics. His predecessor, John Quincy Adams, who Jackson had defeated
in a horrifically bad-tempered election, was so horrified by Jackson’s triumph
that he refused to attend the inauguration – the last outgoing president in
history to have boycotted his successor’s big day.
Men like Adams – who came from a Massachusetts family
that had fought for Independence and feared for the survival of the republic
(particularly his father, John Adams) – saw Jackson as a profane, unprincipled
demagogue; a would-be tyrant in the Napoleonic mode; a man with no respect for
the checks and balances of the Constitution or the rule of law.
The first president to have risen from lowly origins,
Jackson became famous as the general who had defeated the British at the battle
of New Orleans in 1815. Previously known for buying a slave plantation in
Tennessee (in 1803) and for a high-profile duel (with Charles Dickinson in 1806), after the battle of New Orleans he
went on to win more fame fighting the Seminole Indians.
In office, Jackson was
an aggressive wielder of the president’s hitherto unused veto power.
He stopped Congress from spending money on new roads
or canals, and he prevented the re-charter of the Bank of the United States,
which had attempted to regulate the money supply and served as a lender of last
resort. And whatever political challenge he faced, his language was hyperbolic.
He wrote to the
directors of the U.S. Bank: “You are a den of vipers and
thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the eternal God, I will rout you out.”
When he left office, the country was plunged into the deepest recession anyone
could remember.
My 2 cents:
The following links are reference points and should be read and considered in
this whole Ukraine-Trump-Whistleblower mess:
(1) April
18, 2019: “Mueller Report is an
Impeachment Referral.”
The special counsel has concluded he
can neither charge nor clear the president. Only Congress can now resolve the
allegations against him.
(2) September
23, 2019: “This is one of those vast and complex stories that consume
Washington but frequently confuse ordinary Americans.” The Trump White House appears to be
counting on that confusion to offer a fog of claims and allegations to make it
appear as if Biden had done something wrong.
On top of
that, Trump is arguing that because Biden said he withheld aid from Ukraine in
the name of battling corruption, there’s nothing wrong with Trump withholding
aid from the same country in the name of fighting corruption (i.e., Biden was involved in supposedly
corrupt dealings and should be investigated).
(3) September
23, 2019: “Trump wants to turn
his Ukraine scandal against Joe Biden: Democrats can't let him.” Trump's lies about Biden will spread,
unless Democrats gain control of the narrative and move toward impeachment.
(4) September
23, 2019: “Trump Admits
Everything.” Usually the drama of an investigation
lies in finding out what happened, but the drama of this investigation lies in
what happens next.
Thanks for stopping
by.
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