Trump's Day of Reckoning: Walls Closing In; Abyss Bottomless; Noose Tightening

So, I broke the law, so what…

And: Was there Quid Pro Quo? The answer is yes

Get ready for this: 

The “so what defense” for Trump from various rightwing views and such with Fox’s Hannity #1 leading that pack with crazy opinions and hunches but no legal foundation for Trump to use as his Senate trial “defense” strategy team take shape.

Central to the “so what defense” is the idea that Trump was 100 percent correct in pressing Ukrainian President Zelensky to announce an investigation into then-Vice President Joe Biden’s ousting of a Ukrainian prosecutor (Viktor Shokin) — because that was, as Trump tells it, corrupt.

Two Notes: Related to the Joe Biden story of getting Viktor Shokin fired is this wild-tale from the author the #1 whacky source discredited conspiracy-opinion writer John Solomon – this rundown on him lays it out perfectly: do not trust or believe him – but Hannity and those of that ilk give him huge credit and plenty of airtime to fit their pro-Trump agenda nearly 24/7.

What Joe Biden actually did from here (Axios) about and why he got Viktor Shokin fired, and a lot here on Hunter Biden (Vox) and his ties to Burisma and that scandal (which BTW did not involve him one bit).

Trump constantly says this. His call with Zelensky was PERFECT. 

He has claimed an “obligation” to look into the Bidens “corruption.” 

He openly told reporters he wanted Zelensky to announce “a major investigation of the Bidens.”

On Hannity’s show, it was treated as a given that Biden and his son Hunter acted corruptly. In demanding an investigation, Hannity said, Trump carried out his “duty and that justified him withholding the military aid and justifies calling Hunter at Trump’s trial as a witness.”

The narrative undergirding is this — that Joe Biden pushed for the ouster of a prosecutor investigating Ukrainian company Burisma to protect Hunter Biden, who sat on the board — but that is entirely fabricated.

The prosecutor was not sufficiently combating corruption; the prosecutor’s removal was U.S. policy, backed by several international institutions; the Burisma investigation was dormant at the time; Hunter Biden’s role was irrelevant.

Even if you question Hunter Biden’s wisdom, the narrative about Joe Biden is still an invention. But the self-assumed power to transform lies into truths through sheer repetition, and through the ability to deceive millions into believing them, is the key here. 

It’s the lifeblood of the “so-what defense.”

One side (Dems) wants real witnesses and documents. The other side (GOP) doesn’t.

In the real world, Hunter Biden has zero direct knowledge of the conduct for which Trump was impeached. But the demand to hear from him can, through disinformation, be placed on a plane of equivalence with the Democratic demand for former national security adviser John Bolton and acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, who actually can testify directly to Trump’s motives in freezing military aid.

The game is this: Testimony from the corrupt Bidens is necessary to show Trump was right to be concerned about corruption, and thus to withhold military aid!

So if Republicans muster 51 GOP votes for no witnesses, as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell hopes they will, the spin will be that this was a “fair” outcome, because we didn’t hear from witnesses on either side. 

The “so-what defense” flows into the claim that we didn’t hear from witnesses who could show Trump acted correctly all along. Neither side got its way!

What’s truly perverse here is that if Trump did nothing wrong, then no one could speak to that more forcefully than the witnesses Democrats want to hear from, and who Trump and McConnell desperately do not. If withholding the aid was correct on the merits, why not hear from those directly involved in that decision?

The answer is simple: Trump and McConnell both know that Trump engaged in profoundly corrupt, impeachable conduct.

Trump used the power of his office — and the conditioning of official acts, including withholding hundreds of millions in appropriated military aid from a vulnerable ally — to strong-arm that ally into manufacturing disinformation to corrupt the 2020 election on his behalf.

Trump is corrupt, and Joe Biden is not:

Meanwhile, Lev Parnas has now claimed that Giuliani, taking direction from Trump, directly ordered the message conveyed to Ukraine that the military aid was conditioned on doing Trump’s bidding.

In fact, nothing the Bidens did or did not do can render Trump’s conduct defensible. A nonpartisan government watchdog has concluded that withholding the aid was illegal. It may amount to a criminal conspiracy to solicit a bribe from Ukraine.

And the Biden narrative that justifies the “so what if he did it” defense is made up: Trump cannot make it true, which leaves only his corrupt motive — getting a foreign ally to smear a 2020 rival — behind. The “so-what defense” relies on neutral media portraying what’s to come as “partisan combat,” without clearly conveying that one side’s narrative has been entirely fabricated for purely instrumental purposes and also that that side has zero interest in learning the full truth about what actually did happen.

Proof Meet Pudding Except for Senate GOP

But, we can choose a world in which facts matter. In such a world, the two sides’ arguments cannot be sanitized into equivalence with phrases like “partisan combat.” 

In such a world, the “so what defense” must neutrally be described as a “so what if he’s guilty defense.” 

My 2 cents: Two other posts related to this topic are here (Jan 14) and here (Jan 15). Covers the the Lev Parnas document  and eye witness trail of evidence.

Proven and stated several times: Joe Biden and his son did not engage in corruption in Ukraine – that from several key Ukraine officials.

Trump actually did things he’s accused of, not out of defensible public policy motives as Joe Biden did, but out of profoundly corrupt personal gain reason.

If Republicans converge on the “so-what defense,” which I am sure they will – that’s all they know other than being scared to death of Trump and GOP base lock, then their merger with Trump’s actual, unvarnished position — that he has the absolute authority to abuse his power in any manner he sees fit — will be complete.

Finally, Trump he will feel free, unfettered, and emboldened to do whatever he wants in the future regardless of what it is, or who it is with, e.g., Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong-un, or some other international tyrant and thug that Trump emulates – all the while ignoring professional experienced advisers around him.

That is all Trump knows and practices. He has been this way his whole adult life. It’s his nature and now it’s in full display right in the country’s collective face. 

Pity us, but more so, pity those who are firmly lip-locked on him.

Thanks for stopping by.