Imagine the following scenario. A man calls an anonymous tip line and reports that he has been talking to colleagues at work and discovered that a certain Ronald Hump is responsible for a recent bank robbery and that he has deposited the money in a foreign account. When the police question Mr. Hump, he denies the charge but provides bank statements that show that he deposited the exact amount of money that was stolen in the same foreign account that was predicted.
Now, the investigators might still have some work to do before they could bring this case to a jury. They’d want to interview the people who spoke with the whistleblower and possibly use them as witnesses at a trial. But the whistleblower’s job would be done. He didn’t see anything firsthand. He wishes to stay anonymous. There’s not much further use for him. No one is going to care about him when the case is taken to court.
Mr. Hump could try a variety of defenses. But it wouldn’t help him to argue that he can’t be charged based on a tip from someone who wasn’t a firsthand witness to the robbery. He wouldn’t be able to say that he has the right to face his accuser, because the accuser in this case is the bank statement. It certainly would not help if he argued that the whistleblower is a traitor who should be shot. It wouldn’t make sense to argue that the tip line was only recently installed or that the phone number had recently changed.
As for the whistleblower’s loose-lipped colleagues at work, I don’t see how it would matter what the defendant thought of them. But saying that they should also be shot as traitors would not tend to advance a theory of innocence.
So far, these are the types of arguments that President Trump and his defenders have used to excuse his behavior during his July 25 phone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. They are non sequiturs that are simply unresponsive to the charges. At best, their effectiveness can only be measured by their potential to intimidate or silence potential witnesses, and so they really constitute additional crimes.
Witnesses would certainly be helpful, but they aren’t strictly required to establish the main fact. Donald Trump has provided proof that he robbed the bank. We may still want to know who his coconspirators were and how they organized the robbery. We might want to establish a fuller motive than simple greed. We will want to understand how they tried to hide their guilt.
Yet, the whistleblower isn’t necessary for any of this. He already provided all the useful information that he possesses.
Now, some will say that all the charges against Trump are not proven. Perhaps the inexplicable withholding of military aid to Ukraine had nothing to do with his request for dirt on Joe Biden. The first problem with that argument is that it doesn’t matter. Soliciting politically motivated help from a foreign head of state is a crime all by itself. It should be an impeachable crime. The second problem is that, during the phone call, Trump made the sale of anti-tank weapons explicitly contingent on getting dirt on Biden.
The Democrats will want to flesh this part of the investigation out not because it should be necessary but because impeachment is reserved for “high” crimes. The more serious the crime, the better likelihood that the people and the Senate will agree that it warrants removal from office. So, examining how military aid was suspended and for what reasons will be important.
To finish up my analogy, Trump needs to convince people either that robbing banks is perfectly legal (at least, when the president does it) or that robbing banks may be illegal but it is not a “high” crime.
Those are his only available defenses, but he’s not using either of them yet. Instead, he’s just standing in traffic and yelling.
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And in the classic case, he is adding still more crimes to the original “bank robbery” crime in the attempted cover up, by obstructing the investigation of the robbery, hiding the bank statement and refusing to show it, by intimidating the whistleblower (and implicitly his office colleagues too). And on and on.
Diffidently, what you’re missing here is that Trump isn’t attempting to defend or excuse anything. He didn’t do anything wrong to begin with — it was “perfect.”
See LIthwick: Does Donald Trump Even Realize He’s Done Anything Wrong?
Right. It’s not a crime if the president does it. That’s that line of defense, but it’s muted at the moment in favor of these sideline arguments that do him no good.
Again, with great diffidence, I think it’s even worse than that. Trump doesn’t think he’s “excused” for this since he’s President (as Nixon did) — he literally can’t conceive of the crime; he doesn’t see or understand what everyone’s talking about. Biden and his son were involved in an anti-Trump conspiracy (which means, “treason” etc., since he can’t distinguish between political actions against himself and actions against the United States); he wanted to get the Ukranian government to help root out this evil — Who wouldn’t want to help do that? Who would object? — and he enlisted a basic quid pro quo (as any “deal-maker” would) to ensure it happened.
Seriously, where’s the bad part? he’s thinking…and, of course, everyone’s reaction is just more “criminal”/”treasonous” anti-Trump evil.
He has also suggested violence if he is impeached. Imagine the president of the US threatening civil war if things don’t go his way. Sounds like a high crime or misdemeanor to me, or the words of a traitor or somethin’. Just sayin’.
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Manufacturing of vitriol and “unfairness” (i.e. phony victimhood), along with muddying the waters, are time-honored “conservative” ploys because they can never actually win an argument—certainly not when the issue is: “did I break a law/commit a crime?” Also, they always need a cardboard villain, who is being allowed to “get away with” something unfair to them—the poor, misunderstood “victims”. This has been their modus operendi for 30 years, and they aren’t going to stop now. The rhetorical goal is always to build rage that their actions are being challenged, not to defend those actions. The message of rage and unfairness is all, logic is irrelevant.
Remember, too, Der Trumper can never be wrong: he’s infallible (“the call was perfect!”). His brainwashed cultists merely need him to deny wrongdoing in order to clap their flippers and bark for their fishes. As members of a Borg-hive, they can’t think for themselves, and need the blow-dried Borg Queen to tell them what to think. This is what Der Trumper and the Noise Machine are currently doing with this whistleblower demonization. What is being peddled is immaterial to the cult. The Glorious Leader simply has to keep The 46% (mostly) in line, and then McCarthy and the Gravedigger of Democracy can be assured it’s safe for Team Conservative to play along, all yapping the same nonsense.
I’d also note that it appears the corporate media either cannot (or is not allowed to) observe that Der Trumper’s “defenses” (hearsay, partisan whistleblower, etc.) are meaningless when Trumper’s Transcript already fully vindicates the whistleblower’s claims. The empty talking heads and on-the-scene-stenographers simply allow Trumper and Lindsey and Moscow Mitch, etc, etc, to repeat these same irrelevant arguments, so it’s up to Dems to make this point. Indeed, scream it.
Well he just asked China to investigate Biden because the US is strong so it looks like he is rolling out making the practice obvious and no big deal.