Tag Archives: Ukraine

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Democrats seek to keep it simple in its impeachment strategy

U.S. House of Representatives Democrats have ripped a page out of the book that contains the saying, “Keep it simple, stupid.”

They went for just two articles of impeachment against Donald Trump. They want to impeach the president on abuse of power and obstruction of Congress accusations.

There will be no reference to the Robert Mueller III investigation into the Russia collusion/obstruction of justice matter. House Democrats chose to center on what Trump has done to merit — in their view — impeachment with regard to Ukraine.

So the House will impeach the president on accusations that he solicited a political favor from a foreign government and then stood in the way of Congress doing its constitutionally mandated duty by ordering key witnesses to ignore congressional subpoenas.

To my way of thinking those are clear and obvious grounds to impeach this president.

The House Intelligence and Judiciary committees don’t want to muddy matters up by bringing in Mueller’s report.

That’s a good call. Will it persuade Republicans in the House and Senate to see the light and do their duty to uphold the Constitution, which Trump has flouted through his impeachable offenses? Hardly.

Still, I applaud them for keeping it simple.

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Are we about to complete an impeachment circle?

Maybe it’s just me, but I am getting this nagging notion in my noggin that this presidential impeachment saga is about to end where it began.

That is to say that the House of Representatives vote to impeach Donald Trump will not advance anything other than putting Democrats and Republicans on the record: do they support impeaching the president for high crimes and misdemeanors or do they stand with someone who many of us — including me — believe broke the law?

The House will receive two articles of impeachment. House members will vote on them, likely approving them on partisan grounds; Democrats will vote “yes,” with Republicans voting “no.”

Then it goes to the Senate. Senators will have a trial. Democrats will vote to convict; Republicans will vote to acquit.

What is gained? As near as I can tell, we’re going to complete a weird circle with this impeachment and trial.

Republicans remain beholden to Trump for reasons that escape me. Democrats have embarked on an impeachment journey they hoped would persuade enough Republicans to cross over, to vote their conscience, to support a Constitution they believe has been violated by a president who put his personal political future ahead of what’s good for the country.

He solicited a foreign government for political help; he sought a foreign government’s help in torpedoing the fortunes of a political foe; he withheld military aid until the foreign government delivered the goods; he benefited a hostile power — in this case, Russia — by withholding that military assistance.

None of that is impeachable? Is that what Republicans are telling us?

C’mon! It most certainly is!

However, the circle will be complete once the House impeaches Trump and the Senate likely acquits him.

To what end? All that likely will be left will be to defeat the president in the next election. On that score, I am all in.

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DJT: Hardly the master of impeccable timing

Talk about bad timing, bad optics, bad messaging.

On the very day that U.S. House of Representatives Democrats reveal articles of impeachment against him, Donald John Trump decides to welcome Russian foreign ministry officials into the White House.

Bad timing, optics and messaging?

Well, consider that the president is being impeached by the House over his withholding of military aid to Ukraine, which is fighting rebels backed by — get ready for it — those nasty Russians! He withheld the aid in exchange for a political favor he sought from Ukraine, asking them to announce an investigation into alleged wrongdoing by Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.

So what does the president do when the impeachment articles are announced? He invites Russian diplomats who work for a government is benefiting materially from the very action for which the House is impeaching him.

Remember, too, that he brought these clowns into the Oval Office in 2017 the day after he fired FBI Director James Comey who, not coincidentally, was investigating the “Russia thing.”

It makes my head spin.

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Let the impeachment proceed

There you have it.

U.S. House of Representatives Democrats have announced two articles of impeachment on which they will vote. One of them involves abuse of power, the other one alleges obstruction of Congress.

They are preaching to this choir out here in Donald Trump Country.

I don’t need to be convinced that Trump abused his power when he solicited a foreign government for personal political help. Nor do I need convincing that he has obstructed Congress by banning key witnesses from testifying before relevant congressional committees, ordering them to defy congressional subpoenas.

Democrats, accordingly, aren’t likely to convince their Republican colleagues in the House and Senate, who are standing behind the president, who in my mind has violated his oath of office.

The articles under consideration suggest a narrow focus. Democrats don’t want to make this process even muddier than it is already.

No one’s minds will be changed, or so it appears. Democrats want to impeach Trump. Republicans are resisting that effort.

What now? Let’s have that vote in the House before Christmas. Let’s also prepare for a trial in the Senate; and let’s get that trial completed.

Then we can proceed to a presidential election campaign, which gets to feature an incumbent president trying to wipe away the indelible stain of impeachment.

For what it’s worth, Donald Trump lost this voter the moment I watched him ride down that escalator and announce his candidacy for the nation’s highest office.

International news, political news

What has happened to those ‘mainstream Republicans’?

As I watch congressional Republicans and other GOP members around the country seek to defend Donald Trump against the impeachable offenses that have been alleged against him, I am struck by a curious notion.

What in the world has happened to supposed adherents to a political philosophy/ideology that seems so terribly at odds with what has become the centerpiece of the impeachment effort against the president?

Donald Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for a “favor, though.” He wanted Zelenskiy to announce an investigation into Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, before getting a White House meeting. He also held up military assistance appropriated by Congress for Ukraine to use against Russian-backed aggressors in Ukraine.

The Ukrainians are our allies. The Russians are not. And yet, Trump sought to pursue a posture that would benefit the Russians. What in the world … ? Moreover, by seeking dirt on a potential foe from a foreign government, the president of the United States is seeking another government to help him win another election.

Mainstream Republicans used to take great umbrage at any sort of softening of U.S. policy regarding the Russians and their ideological forebears, the communists who formed the Soviet Union after World War I. These days, we have an ostensibly Republican president currying favor with and kowtowing to Russian strongmen and oligarchs. Indeed, the Ukrainian initiative — the withholding of arms to fight Russian-backed rebels — looks for all the world to be yet another example of Trump licking the jackboots of the Russian thugs who run that once-great superpower.

All the while, Republicans in the House and Senate do or say virtually nothing that the president can interpret as stern criticism of this hideous policy. They remain complicit in the president’s violation of the oath he took to defend and protect the Constitution. They look and sound ready to stand by their man even as he continues the hijacking of their once-great political party, twisting and turning into something unrecognizable from the days when the GOP stood for national strength and resolve against an enemy of this nation.

I’ve said repeatedly that Donald Trump has disgraced the nation with his conduct. So, too, have his political allies who once stood strongly in favor of the very values that the president is flouting.

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Four scholars offer words of impeachment wisdom

The testimony today from four legal constitutional law scholars has been far more riveting than I thought it might have been.

Three of them selected by Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee have concluded that Donald J. Trump’s action warrant his impeachment and removal from office. A fourth, chosen by Judiciary Committee Republicans, said the evidence presented so far falls short by a good margin of the threshold of proof needed to remove Trump from the presidency.

Let me state up front that every one of them made compelling arguments for their respective cases. Yes, even the GOP-selected professor, Jonathan Turley, has been impressive in arguing his case.

I remain steadfast, though, in my belief that Trump has violated his oath of office, has abused the power of his office and obstructed Congress sufficiently to merit his impeachment and removal from office at the end of a Senate trial.

At issue is whether Trump sought to leverage a White House meeting and military assistance to Ukraine against a request by Trump that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy investigate allegations of corruption by former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. Three of the law professors testifying today said without equivocation that the action is impeachable. Period.

I realize that I don’t need any convincing. Then again, it doesn’t matter what I think, because I am not going to cast a vote on whether to impeach the president. I am just a chump taxpayer, one of the congressional benefactors whose taxes pay the salaries of the men and women who are asking all these questions.

What has been remarkable, though, has been the continuing reticence of committee Republicans in the wake of the scholars’ insistence that Trump has committed offenses worthy of his removal. I recognize that the GOP resistance to being moved to support the Constitution is no surprise. I am not at all shocked by what they have said in questioning the law professors.

However, it has been edifying — and in many ways riveting — in ways I did not foresee when I tuned in this morning.

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Rick Perry leaves Cabinet under his own power; no small feat

I’ll acknowledge what you may already suspect: Rick Perry wasn’t my favorite Texas politician when he served as the state’s longest-ever tenured governor.

However, as secretary of energy, Rick Perry proved to be, well, a survivor in the sausage grinder that passes for Donald Trump’s Cabinet.

He’s about to leave office under his own power. He’s walking way because he chose to do so, not because Donald Trump kicked him out. Believe me, given the president’s record of booting top-level officials to the curb, that is no small feat.

How has he done as energy boss, running an agency he once targeted for elimination were he elected president in 2012 — and which he (in)famously forgot to mention when he sought to list the agencies he would eliminate? Not bad, but not great.

My biggest bone to pick with him is that he was virtually silent in pushing alternative energy development. That was not what occurred on his watch as Texas governor, when he presided over the state’s ascent to leading the nation in the development of wind energy. OK, so his governorship wasn’t a total loser.

His energy secretary tenure featured none of that kind of leadership, which I find a major disappointment.

However, he is able to walk away from the Cabinet without being forced out. That is a relatively important aspect of his departure from public office.

He wants to come home. I guess he wants to do something else. Maybe spend “more time with the family.” I don’t know.

There might be some questions to answer, though, as his name has gotten entangled in that Ukraine matter involving his soon-to-be former political benefactor, Donald Trump … the man he once described as a “cancer on conservatism.”

Keep your phone close by, Mr. Secretary. Congress might be on the other end of a call.

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Sen. Kennedy: ‘I was wrong’ about Russia’s attack

What do you know about this?

It appears — and happily so — that Donald Trump’s penchant for refusing to apologize when he messes up isn’t contagious among fellow Republican politicians.

One of them, U.S. Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana, said over the weekend that Ukraine might have attacked our electoral system in 2016. The TV interviewer, Fox News’s Chris Wallace, asked him directly who he thought was responsible for the hack into the Democratic National Committee server. Kennedy said it could have been Russia, or it could also have been Ukraine.

Wallace pushed back, telling Kennedy that the U.S. intelligence community said uniformly that Russia was responsible. Kennedy didn’t take the bait in the moment.

The “Ukraine mighta done it” narrative has become a talking point among GOP politicians seeking to divert attention away from Russia and from Trump’s bizarre affection for Russian strongman Vladimir Putin.

Then Kennedy had second thoughts about what he told Wallace and told CNN’s Chris Cuomo he was wrong. Sen. Kennedy said he misheard Wallace’s question, then affirmed that Russia was responsible.

That didn’t hurt a bit, I’ll bet.

If only the nation’s top Republican, Donald Trump, could swipe a page from Kennedy’s book of contrition.

Alas, it won’t happen. Not ever.

International news

The Russians did it … dammit!

Republicans who have circled the wagons around Donald J. Trump keep repeating yet another lie about Russia and the goons who attacked our election in 2016.

I am about to scream at the top of the lungs!

They keep trying to implicate Ukraine as at minimum a co-conspirator in the attack on our electoral system that aimed to help elect Donald Trump.

Wait a second!

The CIA has said the Russians, all by themselves, did it. The Director of National Intelligence said the same thing. So has the FBI. And the National Security Agency. Same for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The Russians did it! The Russians are fomenting the Ukraine lie and the GOP — led by Donald Trump — is parroting the rhetoric being spit out by the Russian propaganda machine.

I cannot stand listening to this lie. When will the leadership of the once-Grand Old Party listen to the truth?

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Why do they deny hearing what the witnesses have said?

The much-anticipated public hearing on the impeachment inquiry being conducted by the House Intelligence Committee produced a serious exercise in frustration and futility.

At least for me it did.

The Intel Committee took into the public domain what it had heard in private about whether Donald Trump sought a “favor” from Ukrainian government officials who could dig up some dirt on Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. The term of art has become “quid pro quo,” the Latin phrase that translates to “something for something,” or “this for that.”

It is the basis for the pending impeachment of the president of the United States.

White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney acknowledged in the press briefing room that there was a quid pro quo, and then he told us to “get over it.”

Then came the testimony before the House panel from Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, who said that “yes,” the president sought a quid pro quo. He heard him seek it in real time and told the committee what he heard from the president. He said everyone was “in the loop” regarding the quid pro quo.

The memo of Trump’s phone call with the Ukrainian president even mentions the “favor, though.”

Why, then, do Republicans on the House committee and others on Capitol Hill keep saying there was “no quid pro quo”? What are they not hearing? Did they cover their ears when Sondland testified to that knowledge at the House hearings? Did they not hear Mick Mulvaney’s assertion of a favor and his scolding us to “Get over it”?

I know these are rhetorical questions. They won’t produce any answers. They simply serve to symbolize the futility and frustration that this impeachment inquiry has produced … so far.