Donald J. Trump and His GOP Legislative Enablers
I've written literally hundreds of tweets and probably over a dozen post essays directly critical of Trump. It's almost impossible to limit myself to any one issue in discussing Trump's misbehavior in office and I don't want to repeat myself; but here's a short list of relevant misdeeds, not comprehensive in nature:
- his unconscionable first debate performance where he repeatedly refused to play by negotiated rules and repeatedly interrupted literally dozens of times
- his cancellation of the second debate because he didn't like revised policies to hold the debate virtually in the aftermath of Trump's COVID-19 infection. (In part, Trump didn't like the possibility they could mute him while Biden spoke.)
- his unprecedented refusal to concede last month's election to Biden. Furthermore, he has deliberately stoked tensions with his minions by launching frivolous lawsuits and alleged crackpot conspiracy theories; his fragile ego refuses to accept his 4-point loss nationwide and multiple state flips since 2016, despite his underwater approval and favorability ratings, his incompetent handling of the COVID-19 crisis, and a shrinking economy with large-scale unemployment. Even more outrageous, he has tried to convince GOP-controlled state legislatures in swing states that Biden won to send Trump electors instead to the electoral college, manifest violations of state law assigning electors to the plurality winner of the state contest.
- his handling of the coronavirus crisis has been slow and incompetent. To this time, he doesn't understand the criticality of testing in containing outbreaks and relevant government incompetence on his watch, in particular the failure of the initial testing rollout. He has outright lied about the comparative timeline of American leadership and in outbreak statistics. He has sought to scapegoat China for the pandemic and his travel bans were staggered and inconsistent, particularly in dealing with potentially infected returning American tourists. He has basically slammed career scientists and state leadership pushing back against virtual vs in-person education and other policies. Even getting Trump to do something like wearing a face mask and encouraging others to do the same thing was like pulling teeth. At pressers with Fauci et al., Trump seemed more interested in making himself relevant, political posturing and showing people he was in charge than letting scientists take the lead.
- his conflicted (vested interest) pardon of Michael Flynn.
- his petty, unethical firings of Krebs, inspector generals, Defense Secretary Esper and others. Krebs disputed Trump's nonsense of election fraud, and Esper opposed Trump's unconstitutional proposal to use military forces in domestic law enforcement. Trump uses the bully pulpit literally. He bullies companies, individuals, public health officials, former subordinates, legislators, etc., any of whom contradict him in any way. It's like 24 x 7 Whac-a-Mole on Twitter.
But Trump didn't do it alone he had help on the Hill. Republicans have looked away as Trump used Obama's notorious "pen and phone" to expand the imperial Presidency at the expense of the Congress. They silently watched as Trump dealt away hard-earned sequesters under Obama, has basically contradicted GOP immigration and trade-friendly positions for decades, and signed some unprecedented spending bills, adding about a third of the national debt since entering office and not doing anything about looming shortfalls in unfunded entitlement liabilities. Not to mention look away as Trump raided DoD funding for his pet Southern border wall expenditures he couldn't get Congress to approve and going after Mueller, the former FBI chief under the Bush and Obama Administrations.
Perhaps Republicans on the Hill have been fearful of incurring Trump's wrath; he basically targeted successfully 3 pro-liberty legislators, Sanford, Amash, and Flake, not to mention unsuccessfully targeting a fourth, Tom Massie. He even stopped his former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, his first key legislator endorser, from resuming his Senate career. The few legislators who occasionally do speak out--like Romney and Sasse--face Trump's wrath. The Democrats have sought to put Republicans on the spot over acknowledging Biden's election win. The Republicans have tried to sidestep the controversy by paying lip services to Trump's legal rights to seek recounts in close states, etc.
But if I had to single out one glaring unethical lapse, it was the morally unconscionable GOP-controlled Senate trial and acquittal on Trump impeachment charges in February, with only Romney voting to convict, on one of 2 charges (obstruction of justice). Now I made it clear I favored Trump's impeachment and removal from office based strictly on the facts, not simply my personal and political differences againt him. I don't want to reargue the facts (you can look at past posts around the impeachment/trial period), but a short review:
Hunter Biden, son of then VP Joe Biden, won a seat on the board of Burisma, a natural gas subsidiary of a Ukrainian oligarch. Now it is clear that if Hunter had a different surname, he probably wouldn't have been appointed, but recruiting high-profile names to corporate boards is not at all uncommon; it's also clear when Joe was significantly involved in Ukraine matters, at minimum there's an appearance of a conflict of interest (not that Trump would understand that, given his own practice of nepotism involving Ivanka and her husband in the administration) The oligarch, at one point a government minister, was suspected of money laundering and/or other improprieties, and incidents of alleged Burisma misdeeds preceded Hunter's recruitment. Particularly galling to the IMF, EU and the Obama Administration were reports of corrupt Ukrainian prosecutors; in fact, the oligarch was cleared of British money laundering charges by local prosecutors. So Joe Biden was particularly incensed by chief prosecutor Shokin, who, along with his staff, was suspected of soliciting bribes not to prosecute deep-pocketed Ukrainians like the oligarch, and demanded that the Ukraine parliament dismiss Shokin (Biden wasn't the only one, and the IMF package was far larger than US aid). The Congress would then tie vital Ukraine military aid to evidence of progress in addressing corruption.
Before the infamous Zelensky phone call, there had been at least two findings of Ukrainian compliance with corruption reform by the Administration. It is clear in Trump's distorted view of reality, Biden was on the take from the oligarch through the board seat to Hunter. (Burisma said Hunter's compensation was the going rate for board members, and we should note that Hunter continued to serve well into the Trump term until his dad declared his candidacy.). Trump bought into the fired "fine man" Shokin's scapegoating excuse he was fired because he was serious about going after the oligarch. In the phone call, Trump preps Zelensky for the setup pointing out how Ukraine has no dependable allies than the US, and Ukraine has done nothing in return. Trump then argues he wants a favor; he wants Ukraine to open a politically damaging investigation into Presidential rival Joe Biden and/or Hunter. At some point within the general timeframe around the phone call, Trump orders, without explanation, a suspension of Ukraine aid, clearly a quid pro quo for the desired investigation. Then National Security Advisor John Bolton was well aware of Trump's "drug deal" (re: Fiona Hill).
By any objective analysis, Trump was trying to extort Ukraine for personal/political reasons, not national. This is manifestly corrupt and an abuse of Presidential foreign relations authority. Trump had a vested interest in the consideration of Biden, specifically identified during the phone call; even if the US government had had a lawful inquiry into Biden's activities, Trump would have had to recuse himself as a matter of professional ethics.
The Senate trial was a joke. There was no attempt to investigate Trump's egregious self-serving behavior. Even when Bolton agreed to testify, the Republicans decided by a party-line vote not to call him.
Now you can argue Trump released the funds when his hand got caught in the cookie jar. You might even argue his offense wasn't significant enough to warrant the extreme of his removal from power. But you cannot argue there was no abuse of power and/or it was purely partisan. The facts are objective. If Obama or Biden had done the same, I would have concluded the same. I was actually amazed that the impeachment issue never really came up (that I noticed) during the general election campaign, odd given Biden's role in the kerfuffle. I have no doubt if the House was controlled by the GOP, the impeachment would have been buried. The problem is that this is not simply an isolated incident but part of an ongoing pattern of abusive behavior, starting at least as early as when he fired Comey for not being his bitch (and I'm not a big Comey fan). I don't doubt the Dems would do the same; look at all the little minion trolls on Twitter telling others to shut up and do what Cuomo, Whitmer or Newsom say during the pandemic. It's sad and no excuse. I've lost jobs by doing the right thing. I can live with that.
