Sometimes in blogging I have to do the equivalent of counting to 10 before publishing on a topic, particularly one in which I was vested. Let's be clear: I supported Trump's impeachment and conviction/removal from office. I have not been silent during this cycle; I've published numerous anti-Trump tweets in the interim. I predicted an acquittal even before Trump was impeached. I pointed out the Dems would need to flip 20 GOP senators to get to the 67 votes needed to convict. Not one GOP representative voted to impeach--which was merely a vote on whether there was substantive evidence to hold a Senate trial. I felt it was likely that the Republicans would do what all the Senate Democrats did in the Clinton trial--basically argue that Trump's actions were inappropriate but weren't serious enough to warrant removal from office. And though I disagree, I felt this conclusion (given the fact Trump's extortion failed) was not unreasonable. And I felt that the impeachment process and exposure of Trump's wrongdoing, the stigma of being the third President impeached had been a de facto punishment to Trump in terms of something he values most of all--his legacy. He just might think twice before the next time he abuses his power, running the risk of another impeachment and trial.
There were various signs that few, if any, Senate Republicans felt pressured to vote otherwise. If anything, Trump's approval numbers have risen during the process, Trump's support among Republicans is near 90%, and less than 50% of independents supported removal from office; it wasn't clear of any price to pay in backing Trump's acquittal; yeah, their state's Dems were strongly supporting removal from office, but they weren't counting on that support anyway. So looking the other way was politically expedient, and any senator looking to get reelected was risking a likely primary challenge for not backing Trump. They similarly didn't want to open Pandora's box with extra witnesses and see the trial run long, potentially spinning out of control.
I have written about the abuse of power charge repeatedly, but the case is compelling. Burisma, a Ukraine natural gas company, is primarily owned by a Ukraine oligarch through a holding company, Mykola Zlochevsky. At the core of the Burisma issues are money-laundering, tax violations, and licenses accrued by the oligarch while he served as a natural resource minister in the Ukraine government, including suspicions of embezzling millions of dollars from the central bank. In April 2014, around the time Hunter Biden was recruited to serve on Burisma's board, the British initially froze some $23M of Zlochevsky's assets in their banks on suspicion they were ill-gotten Ukraine government assets. They requested supportive documentation from Ukraine's prosecutor general office, which not only ignored the request but sent Zlochevsky letters, saying there was no substance to the allegations. Zlochevsky subsequently got the British courts to release the assets. Note that corruption cases went over and beyond something like a dozen involving Burisma/Zlochevsky. Joe Biden had been pushing for Ukraine to reform its corruption for years before Hunter joined the Burisma board. Reportedly Biden and Ukraine never discussed Hunter or deferential treatment for Burisma.
Shokin was appointed prosecutor general in February 2015. He was a controversial nominee from the start for a variety of reasons, including having refused to go after those who had shot demonstrators the prior year. Evidence gathered under predecessors had "disappeared" and he basically refused to pursue cases against the politically connected (including Burisma) Local anti-corruption groups and international entities including the US and EU, the IMF, etc. increasingly became impatient with Shokin; he took a brief absence in early 2016--and came back to target a local anti-corruption group. Biden, fully backed by the Obama Administration (and some Republican senators), threatened to freeze $1B in Ukraine aid if something wasn't done to replace Shokin with a reform-minded prosecutor. The US wasn't alone; the IMF also froze many more billions in loans. Eventually Shokin "resigned under pressure" or was fired by the Ukraine parliament.
So that's the general context. What seems to be Trump's crackpot rationale for a Biden investigation is that Biden went after Shokin (a "very good" man) to protect the financial interests of Hunter Biden who was reportedly earning up to $50K/month while serving on the Burisma board. Hunter Biden had no relevant industry experience, and no doubt Burisma was attracted by his high-profile surname. But inexperience and/or political connections are not that unusual; consider, for instance, Dick Cheney was named Halliburton CEO after a long period of public service. Burisma claims Biden received comparable board compensation.
There have been no allegations of wrongdoing by the Bidens by the Ukraine government. In fact, the GOP House didn't open a relevant investigation through the 2018 election. Hunter continued to serve on the Burisma board until his father's campaign launched his candidacy for POTUS in April 2019. Trump was President during the last 2 years of Hunter's tenure at Burisma, and I'm not aware of any allegations that Hunter violated US laws or that Washington has asked Ukraine for supportive evidence related to any investigation.
Now one of the sycophant excuses for Trump's illegal hold on Ukraine aid (GAO) was that Trump wanted to pursue "corruption". Never mind the fact he called Shokin "very good" and never discussed corruption allegations in his introductory celebratory phone call in April 2019 to Zelesky or in the infamous July phone call with a vague allegation Joe Biden forced out Shokin to protect Hunter's job. His briefing notes for the April call did list salient comments, but they were never discussed. In any event, the fact is DoD has TWICE certified Ukraine compliance in July 2018 and May 2019. Moreover, the Trump Administration had disbursed Ukraine aid nearly 50 times prior to Trump's July 2019 freeze without raising corruption issues. So Trump's rationalization of protecting the American taxpayer from foreign corruption simply is grossly inconsistent with the facts. Let's also add here that Trump reportedly wanted to relax regulations on American businesses so they could pay bribes and thus be more competitive overseas.
Now about the quid pro quo, as I've repeatedly written, Trump is clearly setting Zelensky up for his "favor". He points out that the US has given a lot to Ukraine and gotten little in return. He reminds Zelensky that Zelensky can't count on the EU. He wants Zelensky to meet with his PERSONAL lawyer Giuliani. Multiple witnesses have claimed that Trump tied release of frozen aid to Ukraine announcing an investigation into Biden. It should be noted that the Ukraine foreign minister confirms discussion of a Biden investigation but denies knowledge of Sondland's claim of a link to military aid. Sondland seemed to respond by saying Trump was also negotiating other things including conditions for an official state visit that Zelensky wanted and an investigation into an alleged Ukraine plot to aid Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election, so the quid pro quo regarding military aid may have been implicitly but not directly discussed.
Trump has also disingenuously pointed at statements by Ukrainians including Zelensky, suggesting that Ukrainians were not even aware military aid had been halted, so how could there have been a quid pro quo? But we know that Ukraine officials were at meetings where, as Bolton put it, Trump's "drug deal" was discussed, and the former deputy foreign minister Zerkal said she got a cable by July 25, which she immediately shared with Zelensky's office, where the hold on military aid was confirmed. It was clear that Zelensky didn't want to get caught in the middle of a dispute between the Congress and Trump, so they didn't publicly disclose what they knew. And, in fact, Trump was the 800-lb. gorilla in the White House that Zelensky had to deal with, at least as long as he remained President.
The White House has pointed out that the hold on Ukrainian aid was lifted in September 11 (before the end of the fiscal year), apparently without a Ukraine investigation into the Bidens. Ryaboshapka, the new prosecutor general, is now auditing past Zlochevsky cases (not necessarily involving natural gas company operations) predating Biden's joining the board but is not aware of any Hunter Biden issues. Trump faced bipartisan pressure from the Senate to release the aid and by then was aware of the whistleblower's expose of the July Zelensky call.
Trump has clearly abused claims of executive privilege to block testimony of certain high-standing witnesses to the Ukraine "drug deal", including John Bolton. Now it's clear that the House didn't want to wait indefinitely for the courts to resolve Trump's stonewall of salient witnesses (I'm fairly certain the courts would have ruled in favor of the House). I don't think the extra witnesses were necessary to establish Trump's abuse of power; they would have made the case more overwhelming. So the response to the obstruction of Congress has been essentially, you didn't do your due diligence by getting a ruling in the courts to force the witnesses to testify. I believe that the Democrats' response is, we have gone to the courts, and we are still pursuing the cases. The issue is the nature of Trump's sweeping assertion of privilege. We know at least in the case of Bolton he was prepared to testify if subpoenaed by the Senate, but not by the House.
You could make a case on the second charge (obstruction of Congress) that the House didn't wait to see if Trump's stonewall persisted after an adverse court decision, but clearly Trump was in a state of denial about the Congress' constitutional oversight authority and it was a de facto cover-up. And I think the Senate Republicans had a due diligence requirement in the interests of justice to look at the evidence; in real life, the prosecutors aren't limited to the evidence presented to a grand jury (in this context, House impeachment). When Hill had testified to Bolton's reaction to Trump's "drug deal", the Senate had a moral responsibility to interview Bolton, who was willing to testify.
I've already ranted on GOP talking points during the impeachment hearings, and we've heard the same talking points. This whole talking point about impeachment being totally political, about "stealing" the 2016 election is rubbish. Yes, some Democrats have wanted to impeach Trump since the get-go. But Pelosi had consistently fought back against impeachment--until the Zelensky phone call changed things. Trump's own abridged transcript showed that he brought up Biden in the phone call where he's asking for a favor. We know Trump had put a hold on Ukraine military aid around that time frame. We have witnesses reporting on a quid pro quo over Ukraine investigations. These were no partisan fabrications. Trump got caught engaging in official misconduct. He has repeatedly tried to make the whistleblower the issue. The Republicans sought witnesses, not involving the quid pro quo, but to make Hunter Biden, alleged Ukraine involvement in the 2016 election, etc., the issues, the very same things Trump tried to extort the Ukraine leadership over. Even if you believe Hunter violated US laws, there are channels between governments for collaborating on related investigations. The POTUS should not be getting involved, especially when he has a vested interest in the process, i.e., Joe Biden's candidacy for the Presidency. No, attacking your political rivals through an abuse of foreign relations authority is NOT standard operating procedure; this is merely a logical consequence to constitutional elements like the emoluments clause.
I was not impressed by the White House defense lawyers, particularly Dershowitz. trying to rationalize Trump's extortion of Zelensky. You cannot argue using foreign aid to bribe a government into launching an investigation of your political rival serves US interests.
To some extent I was unexpectedly surprised by Romney joining the Dems to convict on abuse of power. I do know he supported more witnesses against the GOP caucus consensus. Now, of course, there has been a history of testy relations between Romney and Trump, including a blistering Never Trump speech in 2016. So I'm sure many Republicans will dismiss this as little more than an extension of that feud. Kudos to Romney for being a profile in courage. While Trump enjoys one of his highest job approval ratings in Utah, Romney's own ratings have taken a huge hit.
Many took offense as Romney stated his vote was based on conscience and principle. "Are you saying that other senators cast votes otherwise?" Um--YES. I have already ranted against Rand Paul here. I am particularly offended by the Trumpkin votes of Massie (House) and purportedly pro-liberty/conservative senators Paul, Lee, Johnson, Toomey, etc. Rand Paul particularly incenses me because in other contexts, he has fought for whistleblower protections. He tried to trick Chief Justice Roberts into identifying the suspected whistleblower. He has tried to argue Trump has been denied his Sixth Amendment right to face his accuser. In fact, Trump's own released transcript validated the accusation, and he himself refused to testify or allow others to testify.
I'm disappointed with the result of acquittal, but for months I've tweeted that I expected acquittal. We are about 9 months away from the general election, and the American people will decide Trump's future. I'm not sure I agree with Democrats that the trial was a sham, but I do think a longer trial would have served as more of a deterrent to future misconduct.
