It was a major miscalculation for President Trump to build his first defense against the charge that he withheld military aid to Ukraine in a pressure campaign to hurt Joe Biden on a foundation of discrediting the initial whistleblower. It now appears that additional eyewitnesses of parts of the scheme are coming out of the woodwork. In addition to that, State Department employees and others in the Executive Branch now appear to be willing to defy the White House and willingly comply with congressional subpoenas. The story is coming out and the president’s first effort to save himself is in ruins.
It never made sense to attack the whistleblower while, at the same time, releasing a loose transcript that appeared to verify everything he had alleged. There were only two operable defenses: that what he did was justified or that what he did was a mistake but not one serious enough to warrant removal from office.
He has opted to try the first of these rather than the second, and I think that was a major blunder too. It’s also very bad for his party and for the country, because anyone unwilling to admit that what he did is wrong is on morally and legally insupportable ground.
This is going to become clearer and clearer as we hear the testimony of one witness after another who had a serious problem with the president’s decision-making and behavior.
Trump clearly committed an egregious crime here, but he could have done a much better job by arguing that he erred and won’t make the same kind of mistake again. This would have placed the debate on the appropriate punishment, and that’s a place where Republican lawmakers would be much comfortable waging battle.
As it stands, few want to be near the president at all, let alone go on the record excusing him.
Here’s where Trump’s inability to admit he is ever wrong becomes (hopefully) the Achilles heel that topples him.
It could be really important to get a release of the complete transcript of the phone call. Or, assuming that you will never pry that out of the White House, at least get some people to testify that the transcript it NOT complete. Although I am not certain that there is more there, there is some reason to believe we have a 10 minute transcript of a 30 minute call.
The reason this is important is that Trump can get away with practically anything if he just admits it openly and pretends it’s fine. Once people see that he actually tried to hide something, then even people who know nothing about the specifics will conclude that there is something bad there.
I say this as someone who believes that Trump is impeachable even with the transcript we have, which shows that he used his position to conduct foreign policy not to the benefit of the United States, but to his own personal and political benefit. Legally and morally, this is an impeachable offense even there was no quid pro quo (which there obviously was). But as a political matter, if we want to force him from office, we need to up the pro-impeach bloc from 50% to 60-65%. I think this could happen as more facts come out. There seem to be a lot of people who want to testify, so I expect the dam to burst.
When I see what Trump has done or revealed in the past few days, the MN rally, his comment on the whistle blower, the Ukraine issue, and his abandonment of the Kurds,I see an evil, hate filled and immoral person, same as he always was in pursuit of personal gain. Then I wonder how can anyone support this man? I have no answer. Trump presents as a king. What shall I think of my neighbors?
It is getting to be hard to keep up with all the schemes that seem to be unravelling. Besides the Ukraine business, there’s what Trump said on the phone to other leaders like Xi of China, the catastrophe he’s creating in Syria, and the exposure of another money laundering scheme to get Russian money into Republican candidate’s coffers. I don’t see how they can control things at this point.