The title of this post relates to the irrefutable fact that the Democrat party has been hell-bent on impeaching this President since before he was inaugurated, before there could possibly have been legitimate articles of impeachment, grounds, or any reason for such action. The initial calls for impeachment began the day after the 2016 election, as I recall. No reason was given; those calling for impeachment simply refused to accept the fact that Trump was elected President. They couldn't defeat him, so they wanted to remove him. It’s the way of the Left: if you don’t get your way in an election, use some other means to get what you want, like the Supreme Court or impeachment.
However, the Dems soon began conjuring up “grounds” for impeachment. Let’s examine each in turn.
1. Colluding with the Russians to undermine the DNC and the Clinton campaign in order to steal the election. This is one of the many, many, many reasons (see what I did there?) that Ms. Clinton has given for her (second, let’s not forget) failed bid to win the White House. Baskin-Robbins must have been her campaign advisor, because she’s given more reasons for her loss than they have flavors.
So Robert Mueller was appointed as Special Counsel to the DOJ, and tasked with launching an investigation into the allegations that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to influence the outcome of the election. To make a long story short, nearly two years and many millions of taxpayers’ dollars later, the Mueller report found no evidence of collusion. Not once was the word “guilty” used (bookmark this fact, as it will be important later).
2. Obstruction of justice. Early in the Mueller investigation, it was announced that the Special Counsel was also investigating the President for this alleged offense, in relation to the Russia probe itself. Again, the Mueller report showed no evidence of such obstruction in relation to the case.
Then came the vaporous “whistleblower,” who is apparently in possession of Harry Potter’s Cloak of Invisibility. This alleged individual alleged that Trump, on a congratulatory call with Ukraine’s new President Volodymyr Zelensky, ordered Zelensky to investigate Hunter Biden, son of former VP and current Democrat Presidential candidate Joe Biden, related to Hunter’s role on the board of a Ukrainian natural gas company. Said role paid the younger Biden more than $50,000 per month, and he landed the lucrative role while his dad was VP, in charge of U.S. relations with Ukraine. In fact, Joe bragged on camera that, during the corrupt administration of Zelensky’s predecessor, he himself had directly threatened to withhold a billion dollars in aid to Ukraine if they didn’t assure him, within a one-hour deadline, that a prosecutor who was investigating Hunter be fired. He was fired, and the aid was released. Interesting.
3. Quid pro quo was the third reason given, and it arose during the closed-door hearings with the House Intelligence Committee, chaired by Adam Schiff. Those initial hearings were unprecedented, indeed bizarre; they were held in a SCIF (sensitive compartmented information facility) in the basement of the Capitol, and only the Democrats on the committee were allowed to participate. Initially, transcripts of the witnesses’ testimony were not released, but Schiff gleefully leaked out any testimony that seemed to support the case for impeachment to a media that was all too happy to run with it, in typically alarmist fashion. It's like a trial with no jurors, and no defense attorney or witnesses, in which the defendant is stripped of his right to face his accuser, and information is selectively released to the press during the proceeding, with the press playing the role of judge. There has never been anything like it outside of totalitarian systems.
So the initial allegation of quid pro quo was related to Trump allegedly having required Zelensky to investigate the Bidens - presumably because Trump was concerned Biden would defeat him in the 2020 election – in order to secure the release of promised aid to Ukraine. So the quid being offered by Trump was the aid, and the quo being required of Zelensky was the investigation. Five problems with this theory: first, Trump trumped the Dems by releasing the transcript of the call, in which he asked Zelensky, “if it’s possible,” to look into corruption in Ukraine, including the suspicious payments to Hunter Biden and the former VP’s possible influence in securing them. (Seems plausible; Biden admitted to such influence, the payments to Hunter were far beyond what is normal for a board member’s compensation, and Hunter neither speaks Ukrainian nor knows squat about natural gas. Could be some corruption there, ya think?)
The transcript revealed no tie between the request that Zelensky look into corruption in Ukraine writ large, with the specific example of the Bidens mentioned, and the aid appropriated for Ukraine. (It’s not unusual to expect that a country receiving U.S. aid investigate and try to eliminate corruption; in fact it’s basic fiscal responsibility.) So the second problem was that there was no quid, the third was that there was no pro, and the fourth, that there was no quo. The fifth problem was that most Americans don’t speak Latin, were confused by all the quids and pros and quos being bandied about, and it just didn’t resonate with the voting public as grounds for impeachment. So –
4. Bribery. Instead of demanding a quid pro quo, Trump now allegedly bribed the Ukrainian President into investigating the Bidens, using U.S. aid as the payoff. There are three problems with this theory. First, the Ukrainian President already knew the aid was coming. Trump couldn't offer Zelensky anything that Zelensky didn't already have confidence in getting, and Trump never threatened to withhold it. It had been temporarily held up, for reasons that still can’t be confirmed – could be a desire on the part of Washington to ensure that the funds wouldn’t be compromised through corruption, or it could be a matter of one hand not knowing what the other was doing. By the time this allegation was thrown out, the public hearings had begun, and the testimony certainly produced evidence of a great deal of confusion around the delay in releasing the funds. But no matter; again, Zelensky knew it was coming, so Trump couldn’t offer anything new. Further, Zelensky didn’t know the funds had been delayed, Ukraine did receive them, and the Bidens have not been investigated to date.
The second problem with this allegation? Even if Trump had threatened to permanently withhold the funds from Ukraine unless Zelensky specifically dug up dirt on Joe Biden, which is what the Dems and their media outlets want you to believe, that doesn't meet the standard for bribery under the Constitution, which specifically mentions bribery as a potential reason for impeachment. The statutory definition of bribery would include a demand (which again, was never made) for something of value in exchange for something else of value. However, the Constitutional standard for bribery relates to effectively purchasing the President. It would be as if Zelensky offered Trump billions of dollars in exchange for Trump doing certain favors for Ukraine. And that didn't happen.
And the third problem, which is the most important and telling: The Democrats actually used focus groups of voters to determine the charge that most resonated with them as grounds for impeachment. The focus groups were given the choices of quid pro quo, bribery, and extortion as possibilities, and they picked bribery, so Schiff and his minions went with that. You just can’t make this shit up.
5. Extortion, just in case bribery didn’t stick.
6. Attempted bribery or extortion. The argument made by the vapid Rep. Eric Swalwell – you remember him, he lasted about a week in the Democrat primary field – was that “If you get caught with your hand in the cookie jar, then when it’s discovered that you have your hand in the cookie jar, you pull your hand out of the cookie jar without taking the cookie, you’re still guilty.” Really, Eric? Is that the best you’ve got? Your alma mater must be so proud.
Besides, there was no conclusive testimony in the public hearings that proved Trump ever put his hand in the cookie jar, to stick with Swalwell’s second-grade Sesame Street analogy. Former Ambassador Sondland’s opening statement alleged that Trump asked for a quid pro quo, but during questioning he admitted that he made that statement because he assumed it; the President told him directly on a call that he wanted “nothing, no quid pro quo” from Ukraine. Lt. Col. Alexander “don’t call me mister” Vindman alleged that Trump’s request was a demand, even though it was clearly worded as a request and couched with qualifiers such as “if that’s possible” and “if you can,” because of the relative position Trump supposedly holds as President of the United States vs. the President of Ukraine. Uhh, okay. Sounds like two Presidents to me, but then again, I’m just a “mister.”
7. Let’s count quid pro quo a second time, since the Dems tried to hang their hat on it after Sondland’s opening statement. Without a focus group, even.
8. Witness intimidation/tampering. During Ambassador Yovanovtitch's testimony, Trump sent out a mean tweet about her, saying that everywhere she was assigned during her diplomatic career turned bad. Never mind whether his assertion was true; it was mean-spirited. So Schiff read it to her during her testimony, and baited her into saying it was "intimidating."
Well, for one thing, she would never have known of the tweet during her testimony had Schiff not read it to her, so if anyone was guilty of witness intimidation, it was Schiff. In fact, she didn't call it intimidating until Schiff brought up the term and asked her to agree with him. Further, she didn't seem too intimidated. (Nor should anyone in response to a critical tweet from Donald Trump - it's de rigeur.) In fact, she continued to testify against him for the rest of the day. If Trump's tweet were enough to intimidate her, she probably shouldn't be in the Foreign Service.
A similar argument was brought forth during the Nov. 19 testimony of Jennifer Williams. Trump had tweeted about her the weekend before her testimony, and a Dem Representative brought it up. He mentioned "witness intimidation or tampering" before she had a chance not to. Again, she continued to testify, apparently not intimidated.
Look, I'm not a fan of Trump's tweets. They're churlish, childish, ill-advised, and extreme. But none of that constitutes an impeachable offense. If being a jerk was an impeachable offense, by all reports Hillary would have been impeached. Of course, she’d have to win an election first.
9. We've got to bring up obstruction of justice again, because the Dems resurrected that charge when Trump cited privilege in not allowing some senior officials to testify. Guess what? As the hearings move into the Judiciary Committee, where the GOP will actually have some semblance of due process, if they try to call one of Adam Schiff’s aides to see what contact Schiff had with the “whistleblower,” Schiff can – and, mark my words, will – cite privilege and prevent any such testimony. (He can take the stand himself, but he’s already lied about that topic and others, so he can just stay that course.)
So, to recap: Russian collusion, obstruction of justice, quid pro quo, bribery, extortion, attempted bribery or extortion, quid pro quo again, witness intimidation and/or tampering, and obstruction of justice again. All without any evidence that these “crimes” were committed, or of any impeachable offense.
As for the witnesses themselves, many of them clearly came across as disgruntled former employees. I’ve had to fire people, and I’ve wound up in arbitration with some of them, because that’s the nature of the brokerage business that I spent 21 years in. I know some of the things they’ll try to say, and I can pretty easily tell when somebody has a chip on his or her shoulder over being fired, or having some of their duties removed. Further, other than Sondland, none of the witnesses had ever met or spoken to President Trump. Few of them had listened to the call with Zelensky regarding which they were “fact witnesses.” And Zelensky himself said there was no quid pro quo, no bribery, no extortion, not even any pressure.
Regarding the conduct of the public hearings, it was nearly as absurd as the nature of the secret-chamber ones. If one didn’t know that Adam Schiff started his career as a prosecutor, it certainly was evident. He came across as a caricature of the most smarmy, attention-hungry, unethical, get-a-conviction-and-damn-the-truth prosecutor that has ever put innocent people behind bars. He led witnesses like a shepherd leads sheep, absent the concern for the sheep’s welfare. And while he cut off Republicans the nanosecond that their time expired, and blocked both their questions and witnesses’ answers if it looked like they’d hurt his case, he allowed witnesses like Fiona Hill to bloviate ad nauseum, ignoring the timer, if he thought it would help it. In short, he played the roles of prosecutor, judge, and jury.
Speaking of Ms. Hill (oops, I mean DR. Hill), she sowed a good bit of confusion related to the allegation of some Republicans’ assertion that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election. I’d like to clear that up now, because it's really pretty simple.
Dr. Hill insisted that Ukraine is our ally, and that Russia is the enemy, and that it was Russia, not Ukraine, that meddled in the 2016 election. Here’s the thing: Ukraine is our ally now that Zelensky is President. However, his predecessor was a pretty corrupt guy, as tied to the oligarchs as Putin ever will be – moreso, in fact, because Putin has more power than the oligarchs. So back then, it is very likely (indeed, proven) that Ukraine played a role in trying to get Hillary elected over Trump. Isn’t it interesting that the former corrupt Ukrainian government favored Hillary as the U.S. President, and had ties to Biden and strong relationships with several of the “fact witnesses” in Schiff’s little moot court? Those same witnesses didn’t have anything good to say about Zelensky, who now seeks an alliance with the U.S. and against Russia, against resistance by our own diplomats who favored the corrupt guy. Makes you wonder why, no?
So it’s a tale of two Ukraines: yes, the current government is an ally. No, the previous one wasn’t. Thus it's perfectly plausible that the previous Ukrainian government tried to get Hillary elected, and the current one isn't meddling. End of story. (And I'm not even a Dr.)
So now it goes to the House Judiciary Committee for hearings. That committee is chaired by Jerry Nadler, who, like Schiff, has been calling for Trump’s impeachment since the Russia investigation began, on the basis of “clear and compelling evidence” that neither of them ever produced, nor did Mueller. Nadler has promised a fair hearing that will allow the President and the Republicans the opportunity to participate in the hearings, to call witnesses, and to ask whatever questions they want.
Riiiiight. Unlike Schiff, Nadler was never a prosecutor. In fact, he’d begun his political career before he got his law degree. However, he’s already threatened to take away the GOP’s rights to fairness and due process if the President dares continue to invoke the executive privilege that his office – like Nadler’s and Schiff’s – affords him.
Another brilliant analogy related to the invocation of privilege by Eric Swalwell (and I paraphrase): "An innocent person would just let everyone go ahead and testify. Only a guilty person would invoke privilege." Gee, I thought the law said "innocent until proven guilty," not "innocent until presumed guilty." Swalwell must have slept through law school.
Under the impeachment process, it’s up to the Judiciary Committee to draft articles of impeachment, which constitute the actual charges that will be alleged as grounds thereof. Of course, that’s assuming that the committee determines that there are grounds. There aren’t, but they will, because this verdict was delivered by the Democrats before Inauguration Day, 2017. They’ll probably conduct another focus group to draft the specific articles.
In the end, if articles of impeachment are drafted by the Judiciary Committee, the full House will vote on them, and the House will most surely impeach Trump on a near-party line vote. I say “near,” because a couple of Democrats broke ranks in voting on whether to proceed with the Intel Committee hearings, and at least that many will break ranks again, while no Republicans will vote to impeach, because there is no evidence. Part of this is partisan, related to the fact that Trump had the audacity to beat Hillary Clinton and become President, and the other part is payback for the impeachment of Bill Clinton. The former is Trump's "crime," the latter is that of the GOP a generation ago.
(As an aside, isn’t it ironic that Monica Lewinsky got to spend more time in the Oval Office than Hillary ever did, or will?)
From there, it goes to the Senate, which, of course, is under Republican majority. The Senate holds the legislative equivalent of a trial, in which both parties can call witnesses, and the President’s attorneys can question them. Unless, of course, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell decides to curtail the Dems’ due process rights, a la Schiff.
He won’t, because he doesn’t want to make it look like the GOP wasn’t fair when it went to the Senate. After all, there's no need to not be. However, the Republicans could drag out the Senate proceedings, which wouldn’t go over well with the Democrat Senators who would much rather campaign for President than do their jobs: Cory “Spartacus” Booker, Kamala Harris (who has already all but conceded, citing excuses in the best tradition of Hillary Clinton), Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. See, while a Senator can miss as many votes as they want while campaigning (right, President Obama?), they can’t miss impeachment proceedings. It would be like jurors skipping out on the trial to go clubbing and take selfies.
In addition, Joe Biden might find himself being dragged off the campaign trail to answer questions about his influence over the former Ukrainian President in demanding that he fire the prosecutor that was going to investigate his son, or risk losing a billion dollars in aid. This is the only evidence that exists of a quid pro quo, bribery, and extortion with regard to Ukraine, and it will be investigated vigorously if this thing goes to the Senate.
In the end, if it does go all the way through a Senate trial, the Senate will not find the President guilty, and this whole fiasco will hurt the Dems in 2020. The American people understand that once the Mueller report found nothing and was a waste of taxpayer dollars, and once the Dems realized that none of the 20+ candidates they could throw in the mix (and continue to) could unseat Trump, they had to try this gambit. Americans are sick of it, and sick of the fact that while the Dems are busy with this nonsense, nothing is happening on healthcare, trade, or any other substantive issue other than what the President can do and is doing daily by executive order. So given this charade and a weak pool of candidates, the Dems are toast next November.
Impeachment by the House with a not guilty verdict in the Senate was also the case with Andrew Jackson and Bill Clinton. However, this is quite unlike the Clinton impeachment. That matter also began with a report from a Special Counsel to the DOJ. A report that used the word “guilty” in relation to eleven specific charges, among them a felony that got the former President disbarred.
Guilty on eleven counts, and yet the 2019 Dems could only come up with nine charges – two of them repeated and none of them alleged to be true by a Special Counsel – of which to accuse Donald Trump? The Democrats clearly need to up their game.
1 comment:
Thank you for keeping me updated. I know I should stay informed but with you and some other friends you do the job just fine.
Post a Comment