In tYesterday, a reporter asked Trump if he accepts any responsibility at all for the events that have led to his impeachment. “No,” he replied, “I don’t take any. Zero. To put it mildly.
e End, Impeachment Was the Only Choice
Photo: Leon Neal/Getty Images
When historians look back at this era, their curiosity will settle not on the question of why the House impeached President Trump, but why it impeached him for this particular offense. Trump has spent three years violating laws and norms, and nearly a year has passed since Democrats took their majority, having no intention of delving into impeachment. Their likely answer will be that Trump’s scheme to extort Ukraine for investigations of his domestic opponents became in the minds of his opposition both an example and a symbol of his boundless sense of Constitutional impunity.
When the first hard evidence of Trump’s most recent scheme emerged, even his staunchest supporters had trouble defending his actions. “If the president said, ‘I will give you the money but you have got to investigate Joe Biden,’ that is really off-the-rails wrong,” said Fox & Friends host Steve Doocy, who normally maintains a relationship with Trump as close as Edgar Bergen with Charlie McCarthy. After Trump released the patently incriminating transcript of his call with Ukraine’s president, Ohio Republican Mike Turner scolded him, “I want to say to the president, ‘This is not okay.’”
Trump could probably have avoided impeachment by acknowledging error. Bill Clinton issued a public apology for misleading the country about his affair (though Republicans impeached him anyway). The Reagan administration was exposed in a far more serious scheme to evade a Congressional restriction on military aid to the Contras. President Reagan cooperated with four investigations of the scandal, and, even though the scheme was probably undertaken without his knowledge or approval, publicly apologized. Even though he remained a fervent champion of the Contras, Reagan did not question Congress’s right to appropriate or deny funding. (Incidentally, the Iran-Contra scandal poses a striking contrast with Trump’s border wall, in which he responded to Congress’s denial by unilaterally impounding funds, arrogating for himself a power Reagan never would have dreamed to claim.)
The importance of those apologies is evident only in retrospect. They show that the president accepts limits on his own power, and grants the premise that his powers are legally bounded. The importance of this concession was not fully apparent at the time because the assumptions underlying them were shared so broadly that they were taken for granted. Nobody imagined a president who would flout it openly.
Yesterday, a reporter asked Trump if he accepts any responsibility at all for the events that have led to his impeachment. “No,” he replied, “I don’t take any. Zero. To put it mildly.” While Trump has obscured, quibbled with, or lied about the evidence of his misconduct, he has also straightforwardly defended his prerogative to do exactly what he is accused of. When asked in October what he wanted Ukraine to do, Trump told reporters it should “start an investigation into the Bidens,” and that China should do the same. (This destroys the ludicrous defense that Trump held up aid and a meeting merely because he was concerned about “corruption” in Ukraine.) That same month, Trump tweeted that he has an “absolute right” to ask any country to investigate any American for any reason he sees fit.
Of all the words that have been uttered throughout this saga, none have more significance than “absolute right.” Trump’s belief in his absolute right mean all his niggling defenses are pretexts — his defense would stand even if he grants every charge made against him.
This is not mere bluster. While his attempt to use military aid as leverage was foiled, Trump has continued to run his “irregular channel” of mafia-style diplomacy in Ukraine. Rudy Giuliani has spent months openly saying that he is negotiating with Ukraine in his capacity as Trump’s personal attorney rather than a representative of the U.S. government. Giuliani visited the White House again days ago, and received yet another public endorsement from the president. He confirmed to reporters yesterday that he is working at Trump’s behest.
All this has happened as two of Trump’s associates have been arrested, Giuliani himself has become the target of a federal investigation, and prosecutors asserted that his client was paid $1 million by a notorious Russian mobster known to be closely allied with Vladimir Putin. This is Trump’s defiant response to the Russia investigation. He has outsourced U.S. foreign policy to criminals being paid by Kremlin agents.
Both the president’s critics and his supporters have attributed this sort of behavior to his character. The positive gloss chalks it up to the pugilism of an outer-borough brawler, while critics attribute it to Trump’s narcissistic personality disorder. But there is also a strong ideological cast to the president’s position, a worldview that is shared by a widening circle of Republican figures who may not share, or even approve of, his temperament and personal style.
That worldview is reflected in Trump’s six-page diatribe published yesterday, which rejected any legitimate Constitutional role for Congress to impeach him or for him to cooperate with any oversight, and implicitly claimed for Trump himself the right to determine if any of his acts are impeachable or worthy of investigation. (That the letter was reportedly crafted, or at least assembled, over more than a week with the involvement of several of his aides shows that it was no mere tantrum but also a reflection of shared principle.) That worldview is echoed as well in a series of speeches made by Attorney General William Barr, which presented Democrats as a fundamentally illegitimate and sinister force subverting religion, the Constitution and the culture. And it is reflected as well in a famous 2016 essay by Michael Anton, who later joined the administration, depicting Trump’s election as a last chance (the “Flight 93 Election”) to save the country from destruction.
All these texts share key aspects. They are laced with self-pity, presenting themselves and their movement as the pitiful victims of an all-powerful left. They implicitly or explicitly reject traditional politics as a method of redress. They instead describe a millennial conflict in which final victory must be won quickly to stave off total collapse. Trump has cowed opposition within his party because his beliefs about power are not just a personal tic but a worldview that has overtaken the Republican Party.
Trump’s extraordinary refusal to acknowledge any oversight role for Congress whatsoever, his claim of an “absolute right” to do something even his allies recently considered improper forced Democrats to accept that they had to impeach him simply to assert that his twisted authoritarian vision of the presidency is wrong.
Democrats have wisely grasped that the right’s frantic apocalypticism cannot be met in kind. Impeachment is not going to result in Trump’s removal — not even if Trump was caught on tape taking money from Russian oligarchs will his party declare him unfit. Impeachment serves a symbolic purpose of marking limits to the president’s power. It is no emptier than the Inauguration Day transfer of power from a departing president to his successor. It is a ritual that means nothing and everything. Breathing life and meaning into the republican values they are fighting to save will come in November. There will never be a final victory over Trumpism, just the persistent work of democratic politics.
Citing Nothing but a Few
Talking Points, Legal Scholars Conclude Trump Engaged in Impeachable Conduct
Citing Nothing but a Few
Talking Points, Legal Scholars Conclude Trump Engaged in Impeachable Conduct
As the impeachment fiasco continues,
legal scholars have weighed in and taken sides. Most recently, one such group
enlightened everyone with a joint letter supporting the president’s
impeachment.
While the
letter made for some fairly interesting reading, its drafters ultimately
reached an incorrect conclusion.
In a letter signed
by many self-proclaimed legal scholars, the “factual” basis for impeachment was
summed up as follows:
“In light of these considerations,
overwhelming evidence made public to date forces us to conclude that President
Trump engaged in impeachable conduct. To mention only a few of those facts:
William B. Taylor, who leads the U.S. embassy in Ukraine, testified that
President Trump directed the withholding of hundreds of millions of dollars in
military aid for Ukraine in its struggle against Russia — aid that Congress
determined to be in the U.S. national security interest — until Ukraine
announced investigations that would aid the President’s re-election campaign.
Ambassador Gordon Sondland testified that the President made a
White House visit for the Ukrainian president conditional on public
announcement of those investigations. In a phone call with the Ukrainian
president, President Trump asked for a ‘favor’ in the form of a foreign government
investigation of a U.S. citizen who is his political rival. President Trump and
his Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney made public statements confirming this use of
governmental power to solicit investigations that would aid the President’s
personal political interests. The President made clear that his private
attorney, Rudy Giuliani, was central to efforts to spur Ukrainian
investigations, and Mr. Giuliani confirmed that his efforts were in service of
President Trump’s private interests.”
According to
these scholars, the so-called “facts” referenced in their letter support their
conclusion that the president engaged in impeachable conduct. However, the
“facts” that they referenced were selective in nature and incomplete. A review
of the testimony of the various witnesses reflects the flaws in their reasoning
and analysis.
In their letter, these scholars used
Taylor’s testimony in an effort to establish Trump’s alleged impeachable
conduct. However, they omitted the fact that Taylor didn’t
speak to, or have any direct communication with, the president regarding the
requests for investigations, and that much of his testimony was based on what
former U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations Kurt Volker and
Sondland told him. In other words, Taylor relied on hearsay evidence and
what others allegedly told him, which is inherently unreliable.
Gordon Sondland, the U.S ambassador to the European Union, testifies
before the House Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill on Nov. 20, 2019. Chip
Somodevilla/Getty Images
To further
bolster their conclusion, these legal scholars conveniently pointed to one
specific portion of Sondland’s testimony. However, they seemingly overlooked
Sondland’s subsequent testimony.
Specifically, when questioned by Republican
counsel Steve Castor, Sondland stated,
“I never heard from President Trump that aid was conditioned on an
announcement of [investigations].” Sondland made further concessions when further questioned:
Steve Castor: “The president never told you about any preconditions for the aid
to be released?”
Gordon Sondland: “No.”
Mr. Castor: “The president never told you about any preconditions for a White
House meeting?”
Mr. Sondland: “Personally, no.”
Additionally, Sondland admitted that
his initial testimony about the existence of a quid pro quo “arrangement” was
based on his “beliefs” or “assumptions” as opposed to any direct evidence.
During his testimony, he also confirmed that the president personally
told him, “I want nothing, I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo,” which was
consistent with his prior deposition testimony,
where he said Trump told him, “I want nothing. I don’t want to give them
anything and I don’t want anything from them.”
Finally, their
reliance on the president’s request for a “favor,” as set forth in the
transcript of the telephone call between Trump and the president of Ukraine, is
petty and, in and of itself, doesn’t constitute impeachable conduct (the
transcript speaks for itself). Moreover, the fact that Giuliani may have played
a role in the president’s desire to investigate corruption in Ukraine doesn’t
constitute impeachable conduct, as the president is entitled to investigate
such corruption.
While it’s not
unusual for people to reach different conclusions on a given set of facts, it’s
vital to consider all of the facts when doing so and not let personal
animus cloud one’s judgment. In this case, there was no direct or firsthand
evidence of any impeachable conduct. Rather, there was testimony that amounted
to nothing more than speculation, conjecture, assumptions, and hearsay.
It goes without saying that such so-called
evidence shouldn’t form the basis of a presidential impeachment, no matter how
much those on the left and some in academia want it to, because of their strong
dislike of the president (i.e., Pamela Karlan, who recently testified as an impeachment expert and agreed that
impeachment was warranted, “previously told a 2017 American Constitution
Society panel that she couldn’t stomach walking past the Trump International
Hotel in Washington, D.C.,” according to Fox News).
As a matter of fact, it wasn’t too long ago
when more than 1,700 law professors nationwide
signed a letter urging the Senate to reject Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh:
“Judge
Kavanaugh exhibited a lack of commitment to judicious inquiry. Instead of being
open to the necessary search for accuracy, Judge Kavanaugh was repeatedly
aggressive with questioners. Even in his prepared remarks, Judge Kavanaugh
described the hearing as partisan, referring to it as ‘a calculated and
orchestrated political hit,’ rather than acknowledging the need for the Senate,
faced with new information, to try to understand what had transpired. Instead
of trying to sort out with reason and care the allegations that were raised,
Judge Kavanaugh responded in an intemperate, inflammatory and partial manner,
as he interrupted and, at times, was discourteous to senators.”
Kavanaugh was
ultimately confirmed, despite the partisan attacks and incorrect conclusions
reached by some in academia.
While
professors and legal scholars are free to form their own opinions, they should
do so objectively and in a manner in which they consider all of the
facts, as opposed to those selective “talking points” that appear to support
their desired conclusions.
In this case,
the recent letter supporting Trump’s impeachment was “incomplete” and
unsubstantiated. Sadly, the alleged “facts” cited in the letter appear to have
been selectively chosen in an effort to paint a grim picture of the president’s
alleged conduct.
In reality,
the testimony, when considered in its entirety, painted an entirely different
picture that easily refuted this unsubstantiated conclusion.
Elad Hakim is a writer, commentator, and
attorney. His articles have been published in The Washington Examiner, The
Daily Caller, The Federalist, The Algemeiner, The Western Journal, American
Thinker, and other online publications.
Views expressed in this article are the
opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch
Times.
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