The Impeachment Question: Yes or No?
A lot has happened in the last few months regarding the now imminent articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump. And much has been said about these events, by politicians and pundits and lawyers. I am none of these, just a regular person who has listened and read, not just the “analyses” offered by cable news, but the source documentation and testimony as well. This is an incredibly important moment in time for our nation and we all must all land on one side of the issue or the other. Quite frankly, with all the news coverage and voluminous evidence and punditry, most everyone, though not all, have probably already made up their own minds. Please allow me to walk you through a regular guy’s thought process about all this.
Let’s start with just this basic premise, on which I hope all can agree: “The starting point for our democracy and the very essence of our republic is the ability and right of citizens, and us alone, to be able to determine the form our government will take through the free, fair, open and transparent election of those who would represent us.”
Nothing should be partisan about this statement if taken by itself without all the arguing over what the recent events have to do with this or anything else. Our elections, untainted by foreign interference or domestic shenanigans, are the one thing that keeps our democracy safe and prevents the descent into autocracy, either from the right or left. And if you don’t think our electoral process should be protected, then you might as well stop reading now.
The flashpoint for this whole imbroglio was the now infamous July 25, 2019 phone conversation between Presidents Trump and Zelensky of Ukraine. In it, Zelensky asks for U.S. assistance in the form of lethal military aid for their fight against Russian incursion, to which Trump responds “I would like you to do us a favor though”, followed by a request for Ukraine to investigate the alleged, and generally considered to be debunked, interference in the 2016 election by Ukraine and later, the Bidens. The transcript was released by the White House and is available for anyone to read.
This telephone conversation was so disturbing to a number of White House staffers who were tasked with listening in on it, that several well-respected career public servants reported their concern up the chain of command. Another staff member, the “whistle-blower”, was made aware of these concerns and reported them to the Inspector General of the intelligence community, who found them both credible and of “urgent concern”, with the intent to submit the complaint to the House Intelligence Committee.
During the House Intelligence Committee inquiry in November 2019, sworn testimony demonstrated that both the vitally important, congressionally-approved military aid to Ukraine and a similarly important White House meeting between Trump and Zelensky were held up in anticipation of an official announcement that Ukraine would launch an investigation into the 2016 election and the Bidens. While none of the dozen witnesses during these hearings had the entire story, the pieces they were privy to fit together to make a coherent narrative. To be sure, President Trump’s defenders have made multiple attempts to explain away these events, in some cases even to the point of personal attacks on the witnesses. I’ll address those arguments in a separate posting.
These events and the actions of those involved did not occur in a bubble; there is a long history of similar incidents in which there is ample evidence that the American electoral process was threatened:
May 2016: George Papadopoulas, a Trump campaign staffer, admitted to Australia’s top diplomat in London that Russia had political dirt on Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of emails that were stolen in an effort to damage her campaign.
June 9, 2016: The Trump Tower meeting occurs involving Trump campaign officials Donald Trump, Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort and several others, including a Russian lawyer, ostensibly to obtain damaging information on Hillary Clinton from Russia. In an email with one of the organizers of the meeting, an advisor to a Russian oligarch, Trump Jr. responded to the offer of dirt on Clinton by saying, “If it’s what you say I love it.”
July 27, 2016: In a televised campaign rally, then candidate Trump says, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.” U.S. intelligence services determine that agents of the Russian government begin a cyber-attack on the DNC within hours of Trump‘s statement.
July 2016: The FBI opens an investigation into Russian attempts to influence the election after Australia notifies them of the Papadopoulos meeting in May and following the cyber-attack on the DNC.
February 2, 2017: In a press conference, Vladimir Putin pushes the view that it was Ukraine, not Russia, that interfered in the 2016 U.S. election, stating “We all know, during the presidential campaign in the United States, the Ukrainian government adopted a unilateral position in favor of one candidate. More than that, certain oligarchs, certainly with approval of the political leadership, funded this candidate, or female candidate, to be more precise.” This comes days after all the U.S. intelligence agencies unequivocally blame Russia for the massive 2016 election interference. This now debunked Ukraine conspiracy theory is the source of investigation request found in the July 25, 2019 phone call.
May 9, 2017: Now President Trump fires FBI Director James Comey. Director Comey says this came about because he would not drop an investigation into Trump’s short-lived National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, who would eventually be convicted on federal charges.
May 11, 2017: In an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt, President Trump essentially admits that Comey’s dismissal was due to “this Russia thing”.
May 17, 2017: The firing of James Comey leads to the appointment of Robert Mueller by deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein to investigate Russia’s interference with the 2016 election.
July 16, 2018: Despite the consensus opinion from 17 U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia was deeply and solely involved in interfering with the 2016 election, President Trump, standing beside Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, says “President Putin says it’s not Russia. I don’t see any reason why it would be.”
August 21, 2018: President Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleads guilty to paying “hush money” to two women to silence them regarding alleged affairs. He states he did so at the “direction” of then candidate Donald Trump “in order to influence the 2016 presidential election”.
April 2019: After months of public speculation, former Vice President Joe Biden announces his candidacy for President of the U.S.
April 2019: Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s new personal lawyer works behind the scenes to tarnish the reputation of Ambassador to Ukraine Maria Yovanovitch. She is formally relieved of her post on May 20, 2019. Later, in a December 2019 interview with the New Yorker, Giuliani states he needed the ambassador “out of the way” as she was going to make investigations into President Trump’s political rival “difficult”.
June 12, 2019: In an interview with George Stephanopolous, President Trump was asked whether he reelection campaign would accept information from foreigners, such as China or Russia, or hand it over to the FBI. Trump’s response was “I think maybe you do both. I think you might want to listen, there isn’t anything wrong with listening. If somebody called from a country, Norway [and said] ‘we have information on your opponent’ – oh, I think I’d want to hear it. It’s not an interference, they have information – I think I’d take it.”
July 24, 2019: Robert Mueller testifies regarding his report and makes it clear that Russia not only interfered with our 2016 election but was actively engaging in doing it again, and that the Trump campaign, while not formally cooperating with these Russian efforts, did expect to benefit from them. During the course of the investigation, criminal charges were successfully brought against a number of Trump associates and indictments were made against at least a dozen Russians as well as number of Russian entities involved in the 2016 election interference. Furthermore, the Mueller report details at least 10 instances where the President attempted to obstruct this investigation.
July 25, 2019: The day after Mueller’s testimony regarding foreign interference in U.S. elections, President Trump asks the president of a foreign country to insert itself in our electoral process. Trump says to President Zelensky of Ukraine, “There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that…Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it. It sounds horrible to me.”
October 3, 2019: Speaking to reporters on the White House lawn President Trump says, “If they (Ukraine) were honest about it, they would start a major investigation into the Bidens. They should investigate the Bidens. Likewise, China should start and investigation into the Bidens, because what happened in China was just about as bad as what happened with Ukraine.” This happened on the eve of trade talks between the U.S. and China.
October 10, 2019: Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, associates of Rudy Giuliani, are indicted for violating campaign finance laws, specifically setting up dummy corporations to funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars from Russian-linked oligarchs to Donald Trump’s campaign. Both men were also working with Giuliani to dig up political dirt in Ukraine and were involved in the ouster of Ambassador Yovanovich earlier in the year. Both men were arrested at Dulles Airport attempting to leave the country.
October 17, 2019: Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, at a news conference, declared that President Trump held up aid to Ukraine to leverage the country’s help in investigating the DNC server, saying, “I have news for everybody, get over it. There’s going to be political influence in foreign policy.” Hours later, apparently realizing what he had said, Mulvaney tries to walk his statements.
December 6, 2019: Rudy Giuliani returns to Ukraine in order to dig up more dirt for President Trump. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Giuliani said that he was part of a “secret assignment” to help the president. He further stated that the President asked him, “What did you get?” to which Giuliani replied, “More than you can imagine.” Following these revelations, Attorney General William Barr reported warned Trump that “he was not being well-served by his lawyer.”
This is by no means an exhaustive list of all the instance where Donald Trump or one of his associates or a foreign power acting on Trump’s behalf attempted to influence and corrupt either the 2016 or the upcoming 2020 presidential election. One only has to look at all of these well-documented events to see a glaring pattern of behavior, certainly not a “one-off” incident like the July 25 phone call. Overwhelming evidence points to Russia’s interference in the 2016 election for the benefit of Donald Trump alone, and Donald Trump’s actions show that the 2020 election is most definitely in danger of a similar attack, both from without and from within.
The question of impeachment in this case is not simply about defining a specific “crime” as would be find in the Criminal Statutes, but rather about the clear and present danger to our very democracy through the manipulation of our electoral process. It has become patently obvious to me that the President is using the vast power of his office to further his own personal political ambitions, and in doing so, creating an existential threat to our democracy. Some say to wait for the 2020 election to remove him from office, but the 2020 election will not protect the nation if the results cannot be trusted. The election will not save us, we must save the election.
Congress has a clear obligation to protect and defend the Constitution and, by extension, the 2020 electoral process. This should not be a partisan issue, but a patriotic one. We pledge allegiance to our country, not to a man, and our defense should be that of the nation’s interests, not the President’s. Congress has no choice but to do its constitutional duty to impeach the president, regardless of what might happen in the Senate. Articles of Impeachment must be approved, the Constitution demands it, and the 100 senators should be offered the chance to do their constitutional duty. All involved will be remembered for where they land on this.