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No Republican who supports Trump should be re-elected

Just saw this neat headline:

No Republican who supports Trump should be re-elected

Just saw this neat headline: George Will: No Republican who supports Trump should be re-elected

Whistleblower smears, conspiracies and 'no quid pro quo': The GOP impeachment theories, debunked

Some are laughably easy to disprove, some are disingenuous interpretations of facts and some are just conspiracy theories spun to give them a façade of respectability.

As a stream of transcripts from closed-door depositions are released and Congress prepares for public hearings on President Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, defenders of the president are turning from “the process is unfair!” arguments to actual defenses of his conduct — sometimes lurching from one argument to another at a dizzying pace. As former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau put it, “This entire impeachment process is just gonna be all of us knocking down the most offensively stupid arguments from Trump supporters every minute of every day, isn’t it?”

Probably, yes. So far, Congress has taken testimony from at least 16 witnesses who paint a devastating portrait of the president’s conduct both before and after his July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. In the face of this testimony, the president’s defenses have had to evolve to account for new facts that come pouring out daily. Some of these theories are laughably easy to disprove, some are disingenuous interpretations of facts, and some are just conspiracy theories spun to give them a façade of respectability.

So, let’s take the main GOP responses one by one.

The whistleblower is a partisan Democrat and can’t be trusted
Arguably the most dangerous of these theories and defenses is the movement to unmask the whistleblower at the center of the Ukraine call. Republican lawmakers and the president himself are pushing to reveal the person's identity. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has argued that the whistleblower is not protected by any laws and that, in fact, the Sixth Amendment means Trump has the right to face his accuser — a legal right that does not apply in this case.
They have also argued — without evidence — that he or she is a partisan Democrat. In fact, The New York Times has reported that the whistleblower is a career CIA official. But the whistleblower could be Hillary Clinton herself and it wouldn’t make any difference. Law enforcement relies on anonymous tipsters all the time — some have biases, some don’t. It’s irrelevant. Investigators do an independent investigation and see whether the tip is correct. Here, the House investigation has to date shown that virtually every piece of information in the whistleblower’s initial complaint has been verified.

No quid pro quo

Trump and his most ardent defenders have repeatedly claimed there was no quid pro quo, despite much evidence and testimony to the contrary. “No quid pro quo” has become the new “no collusion.” Quid pro quo means something in exchange for something. The call summary put out by Trump himself shows that this is what happened.

But, of course, this isn’t just about one call. Four key witnesses — Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, Ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor, White House adviser Timothy Morrison and Ambassador to the E.U. Gordon Sondland — have all testified specifically that a condition for Ukraine to get congressionally approved military aid and a coveted White House meeting was to publicly announce the opening of an investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden and the 2016 election.

Indeed, on Tuesday Sondland sent in a three-page declaration to the House committees leading the impeachment inquiry updating his previous testimony and making it even clearer that Ukraine knew exactly what was expected of it and was seeking advice on how to deal with the pressure. The fact that Zelenskiy may have recently said there was no pressure is a red herring. Extortion victims are just that — victims. They are going to do and say exactly what the person with power wants them to say.

n the face of this evidence, the newest Trump defense seems to be: just because Sondland and Taylor thought there was a quid pro quo doesn’t mean that there actually was one. Everything about this defense emphasizes words over actions. Saying “no quid pro quo” doesn’t make it true. Volker texted a quid pro quo to Andrey Yermak, an aide to Zelenskiy. Sondland then explicitly communicated a quid pro quo to the same aide. How do we know Trump was on board with all this? Because he reiterated it in his call with Zelenskiy (“we need a favor though”) and because, as almost every witness has testified, Trump repeatedly directed anyone involved in Ukraine policy to talk to Rudy Giulaini. Giulaini has been the most clear about how and what demands needed to be met by Ukraine.

There was a quid pro quo — but the U.S. does this all the time

It is true, as the president’s defenders claim, that the United States frequently withholds foreign aid as leverage to induce behavior favorable to our national interests, including encouraging countries to fight corruption.

But if that was really Trump’s goal here, why did he use his personal lawyer, shut out career State Department officials and bypass the normal channels at the Justice Department, which are explicitly designed to engage with foreign countries on these kinds of topics?

Not to mention the fact that there have been no other “corruption” investigations into nonpolitical opponents. This was never about rooting out corruption, which is a real problem in Ukraine and arguably also in America as well. If it was, we’d see other investigations.

The quid pro quo didn’t work — so what’s the big deal?

“I look at it this way: The aid is there and the investigations didn’t happen,” Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., told “Meet the Press” recently. “So if there was a quid pro quo, it certainly wasn’t a very effective one.”

Of all the ridiculous arguments, this — it was a failed attempt at extortion — is at the top. First, attempting to commit a crime is, still, a crime. People who failed to successfully complete a murder do not get a pass. But the fact that Trump never received any dirt doesn’t matter — he is still guilty of using the power of the presidency — which belongs to U.S. citizens, not Trump — to seek dirt. Watergate was a failure in the sense that the burglars never completed their mission, but not even Trump's defenders have gone so far (yet) as to argue that Nixon did nothing wrong.

Finally, Trump only released the aid when the facts about the hold started to become public. The White House released the aid on Sept. 11 — just two days after the congressional intelligence committees were formally notified of the whistleblower complaint.

The witnesses are all lying

One consistent argument from Trump and his supporters is that the witnesses and the whistleblower are all liars from the “deep state” who are out to get the president. It’s a lazy argument and a lazy attempt to smear reputable Americans. The testimony that is being given right now comes from career public servants, who have worked for presidents of both parties, and who came forward not eagerly, but because they witnessed unacceptable misconduct.

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CSPAN
President Trump on Ambassador Bill Taylor: "Here’s the problem. He’s a never-Trumper and his lawyer is a never-Trumper."

For example, Vindman and Fiona Hill, another White House adviser, testified that they were so alarmed by what they heard between Trump and Ukraine that they took their concerns to a National Security Council lawyer. At least six witnesses (Sondland, Taylor, Hill, Marie Yavonovich, George Kent and Christopher Anderson) describe an ongoing pressure campaign directed by Rudy Giuliani.

So, in order to believe that Vindman — a decorated war hero with absolutely nothing to gain and everything to lose by coming forward — is lying, we would also have to believe that he and the other witnesses who corroborate him are lying. We would have to believe that Taylor, Hill, Volker, Vindman and even Sondland somehow got another person — the whistleblower — to file a formal complaint as part of the conspiracy. We would have to believe acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and Giuliani’s admissions of guilt were also either impossible coincidences or somehow part of the plot. This makes no sense.

None of this is a crime

The president and some defenders argue his conduct isn’t impeachable because it doesn’t constitute a violation of the criminal statutes. Who cares? Impeachment as contemplated by the Founding Fathers and as written in the Constitution does not require a crime. An abuse of power is sufficient. Even so, there are criminal cases that could be made here as well, namely, solicitation of illegal campaign contributions, conspiracy to defraud the United States, bribery and extortion. It is very difficult to apply criminal statues to presidential behavior, but that doesn’t mean the behavior was legal

In the transcripts, which have dropped each day this week,
Trump emerges as fickle, susceptible to flattery and prone to grudges.

Trump emerges as fickle, susceptible to flattery and prone to grudges.

pompous and fragile as he.

Michael Bloomberg has not yet officially announced a bid for the 2020 presidency, but that hasn't stopped some people from suggesting ways for the former New York City mayor to defeat President Donald Trump if he does launch a campaign.

George Conway, along with several other Twitter commenters, claimed a potential acquisition of Fox News would make a huge impact in the upcoming election, and billionaire Bloomberg was just the person capable of taking over the news network.

In a tweet on Friday, Tom Wright, a senior fellow at The Brookings Institute, suggested Bloomberg, who already owns the Bloomberg News empire, should buy the right-leaning Fox News, which has been notoriously loose with fact-checking and criticism of Trump. "Mike Bloomberg's first major campaign move should be to buy Fox News," Wright wrote.

Conway, a lawyer and the husband of Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway, agreed a potential Bloomberg acquisition of Fox News could be a great benefit to the U.S. "Seriously, that would be the greatest thing that he could do for the country," Conway tweeted on Friday.

High paying jobs at Amazon

Have you booked your flight to Moscow in May 2020...Comrade?

The case for weighing the impeachment of President Trump boils down to a few simple points: In an effort to win re-election in 2020, Mr. Trump apparently attempted to extort a foreign government into announcing an investigation of his top political rival. The president did so while also trying to revive a conspiracy theory that casts doubt over whether the Russian government interfered in the 2016 election on his behalf. Witnesses have already testified that in order to achieve those goals, Mr. Trump withheld hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid against the bipartisan wishes of Congress. All the while, the president and his staff have refused to cooperate with the congressional investigation into what transpired.

Republicans find themselves in a tough spot. Lawmakers swear an oath to uphold the Constitution, which obliges them to act as a check on the executive branch and any abuses of its power. Yet instead of considering the testimony, many Republicans have chosen reflexively to defend Mr. Trump — not an easy task in the face of such strong evidence of inexcusable behavior.

Here’s a field guide to some of the lines of attack that Republicans have used so far. See if you can recognize them if they appear during the public hearings scheduled to begin this week.

There was no quid pro quo.
This was the first and cleanest defense of Mr. Trump’s July phone call with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky. Mr. Trump and his allies offered it up after the White House released a partial summary of the call.
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Yet no matter how many times Mr. Trump exhorts Americans to “read the transcript,” the call summary itself establishes that immediately after Mr. Zelensky brought up the military aid, Mr. Trump said he wanted him to “do us a favor though,” and then mentioned investigating the Bidens and the theft of the Democratic National Committee server in 2016.

Don’t believe the president’s own words? Multiple government officials have attested that there was indeed a quid pro quo, and it involved the withholding of nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine until Mr. Zelensky agreed to go on TV and announce the investigations Mr. Trump wanted.

William Taylor Jr., the top envoy to Ukraine, testified to the House Intelligence Committee that it was his understanding that “security assistance would not come until [Zelensky] committed to pursue the investigation.” Representative Adam Schiff, the committee chairman, asked Mr. Taylor, “So if they don’t do this, they are not going to get that, was your understanding?” Mr. Taylor replied, “Yes, sir.” Mr. Schiff then asked him whether he was aware that a quid pro quo literally means “this for that,” and Mr. Taylor replied, “I am.”

How could it have been a quid pro quo if the Ukrainians didn’t know about it?
John Ratcliffe, a congressman from Texas, tried this line on Fox News last month, which the president tweeted. No witness, Mr. Ratcliffe said, “has provided testimony that the Ukrainians were aware that military aid was being withheld. You can’t have a quid pro quo with no quo.’”

Except the Ukrainians did know. The Times reported that “the Ukrainian government was aware of the freeze during most of the period in August when Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani and two American diplomats were pressing President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine to make a public commitment to the investigations.”

This week, Gordon Sondland, ambassador to the European Union, testified that he explicitly told a top Ukrainian official that release of the aid was contingent on a public announcement of an investigation.

It’s all just hearsay. And the whistle-blower is a partisan Democrat.

Not just hearsay, but “triple hearsay.” This argument first appeared in October, as the outlines of the whistle-blower’s complaint came into focus. “Today was just more triple hearsay and selective leaks from the Democrats’ politically motivated, closed-door, secretive hearings,” said the White House Press secretary, Stephanie Grisham.

What about the anonymous whistle-blower? The president’s allies and conservative media outlets have been speculating about the person’s identity and motivations. But the truth is that the whistle-blower could have been Joe Biden himself at this point. What matters isn’t the motivation but the substance of the complaint. Virtually every element has been corroborated by multiple people.

It was a quid pro quo. But so what? This happens all the time.

“Did he also mention to me in passing the corruption related to the D.N.C. server?” Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, offered this during an October news conference. “Absolutely. No question about that,” he said. “That’s why we held up the money.”

For good measure, he added, “Get over it.”

To their credit, not even Trump’s most steadfast allies have signed on to this particular defense, at least not yet. Mr. Mulvaney, realizing the depth of the hole he had dug, later claimed he had not said what he said. Still, his claim did serve one important function, which was to pivot the administration’s basic case away from “no quid pro quo” to “yes, quid pro quo, but so what?”

It was a quid pro quo, but President Trump was only interested in rooting out corruption in Ukraine.

It’s difficult to imagine Mr. Trump — who just agreed to a $2 million settlement for using his own charity as the family A.T.M. — as an anti-corruption crusader. It’s that much harder to buy given that he has not expressed a similar concern with corruption in any other country, including the United States. Also, Mr. Trump appears to have cared less about an actual investigation than a televised announcement of one.

No one outside the president’s party appears to believe that anti-corruption was the objective. In closed-door testimony before Congress on Thursday, George Kent, the State Department’s top Ukraine official, said there was no doubt what was going on: Mr. Trump “wanted nothing less than President Zelensky to go to microphone and say investigations, Biden and Clinton.” This was wrong, Mr. Kent said. “As a general principle, I do not believe the U.S. should ask other countries to engage in politically associated investigations and prosecutions.”

It was a quid pro quo, but Mr. Trump had nothing to do with it.

“When I get to ask questions, and when you see all of the transcripts, you will understand that there is no direct linkage to the president of the United States,” said Mark Meadows, a Republican congressman from North Carolina.

Mr. Meadows was quick to point the finger at Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer. “There are a whole lot of things that he does that he doesn’t apprise anybody of.”

It’s true that Mr. Giuliani has been openly talking about efforts to get Ukraine to investigate the Bidens since earlier this year. But Mr. Taylor also testified that Mr. Giuliani, who is under criminal investigation by federal prosecutors, was acting on behalf of Mr. Trump.

The same day Mr. Taylor’s testimony was released, Mr. Giuliani wrote on Twitter that he was acting “solely as a defense attorney to defend my client against false charges.” In September, he told The Washington Post, “I don’t do anything that involves my client without speaking with my client.” Of course, Mr. Giuliani can’t withhold military aid to a foreign power. As Mr. Taylor testified, “The directive had come from the president.”

Fine. It was a quid pro quo. Trump ordered it. He did so for his own political benefit. The Ukrainians knew about it. That’s bad, but it’s not an impeachable offense.

Seriously? As described so far by several witnesses, President Trump’s behavior, consorting with a foreign government for his own personal benefit, is literally what the framers had in mind when they established the power to impeach a president for high crimes and misdemeanors. Whether that warrants removal from office is another matter.

It wasn’t a real quid pro quo because the Trump administration is too disorganized to pull off such a scheme.

Senator Lindsey Graham said this last Wednesday. “What I can tell you about the Trump policy toward the Ukraine, it was incoherent, it depends on who you talk to. They seem to be incapable of forming a quid pro quo. So no, I find the whole process to be a sham and I’m not going to legitimize it.”

“I hardly know the gentleman.”

This is Mr. Trump’s go-to excuse when, as so often seems to happen, the people he surrounds himself with implicate him in wrongdoing or get accused of malfeasance themselves. On Friday, Mr. Trump made this assertion about Mr. Sondland, his ambassador and a million-dollar donor to Mr. Trump’s inaugural committee.

That’s the same Gordon Sondland whom Mr. Trump called “a really good man and great American” only one month ago. That was just before Mr. Sondland’s original testimony to Congress, during which he claimed he was not aware of any quid pro quo involving military aid. After multiple witnesses called this account into question, Mr. Sondland suddenly remembered that, yes, in fact, there had been a quid pro quo, and that he had personally delivered that message.

This is a coup by the Deep State! A decorated American soldier is a Ukrainian agent! The witnesses that have testified are “Never Trumpers”!

The barrage of allegations and finger-pointing is so frenzied that it is disorienting for anyone trying to keep up. That’s the point. Let’s hope the hearings this week help sort truth from all the many lies.

The Disorienting Defenses of Donald Trump

The president and his allies ask Americans to reject the evidence before their eyes.

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The case for weighing the impeachment of President Trump boils down to a few simple points: In an effort to win re-election in 2020, Mr. Trump apparently attempted to extort a foreign government into announcing an investigation of his top political rival. what transpired.

And, to me, that is the main issue.

Nikki Haley reveals Tillerson, Kelly privately discussed resisting Trump: ‘It was offensive’