Sunday, January 26, 2020

JULIE RODIN ZEBRINK - AMERICA HAS HAD ENOUGH OF THE SWAMP KEEPER TRUMP AND HIS FAMILY OF PARASITES

Why We Wear White

No matter the outcome of Trump’s impeachment, Americans will keep pushing back against a lawless president.

If someone had told me four years ago that I would be attending Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, I would have rolled my eyes and laughed. On Tuesday, I did just that.
As one of the few Americans admitted into the Senate gallery on day one of the trial, I wore white. While the sobriety of the occasion would seemingly demand dark attire, I felt otherwise. Women have been wearing white throughout Trump’s tenure—a symbolic but powerful act of defiance. I wore white to represent the women—and men—who have spent the last three-and-a-half years pushing back against a cruel and lawless president.
The scene on the Senate floor, however, was less than inspiring. The two tables of House Managers and defense counsel had a constant flurry of activity and motion throughout the afternoon. There were no cell phones, food, or drinks permitted. The Senators sat as a captive audience as the lawyers took turns at the lectern. Some of them, like Amy Klobuchar and Susan Collins, took notes; others, like John Kennedy and Lindsey Graham, slumped in their chairs. Chief Justice John Roberts sat expressionless in his black robe at the front of the room. And, like clockwork, all of the Senators, whom some hoped would break party lines—Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski, Cory Gardner, and Susan Collins—voted alongside their colleagues time and again to prevent witnesses and documents from entering into Trump’s impeachment trial. In other words, they participated in the most transparent cover-up in American history.
Women in politics wearing white has long symbolized the suffragette movement, whose adherents chose the ethereal color to reflect their purity of purpose. The choice of attire still sends a strong feminist message: Shirley Chisolm wore white when she became the first African-American woman elected to Congress; Geraldine Ferraro wore white when she delivered her acceptance speech as the first female vice-presidential candidate for a major party ticket; and Hillary Clinton wore white to accept the Democratic nomination at the July 2016 convention.
In recent years, though, women wearing white has taken on an added significance: It has emerged as a reaction to the Trump administration’s retrograde policies on women. That’s why Hillary also wore white to Trump’s inauguration. It’s why Representative Lois Frankel and a large group of Democratic congresswomen wore white to Trump’s 2017 address to Congress; it’s why Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wore white at her congressional swearing-in ceremony; and it’s why Kamala Harris wore white as Chief Justice John Roberts swore her in last week for the Senate Trial.
Since Trump’s election, millions of women and men have marched and become activists for the first time in their lives. Unprecedented numbers of Democratic women have run for office—and won—at the local, state, and federal levels. Books have already been written and films have been made documenting the historic pace at which women are placing themselves front and center in politics. An entire generation of children is now watching their mothers and grandmothers resist a president who regularly shows disregard for women, immigrants, people of color, and so many others.
The outpouring of activism and the leveling of the political playing field for women are unintended positive consequences resulting from Trump’s election. Indeed, those efforts directly contributed to the 2018 election of record numbers of women to the U.S. Congress and the flipping of the House.
Those gains, nonetheless, pale in comparison to the harm that Trump has inflicted on our nation. Most Americans seem to agree: A recent CNN poll found that 51 percent of the country believes Trump should be removed from office. That said, few Americans believe that the impeachment trial will result in a conviction. Democrats and their electorate recognize that, despite their best efforts, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is going to get away with conducting a sham trial.
Voters should continue to keep their expectations in check: McConnell’s Republican Senate colleagues voted on day one, in lockstep, along party lines, to prevent a real trial. That show of cohesion, in an otherwise muted Senate gallery, crystallized for all who were watching that this is clearly McConnell’s show.
Roberts has a minor role, limited to the constraints McConnell’s rules have put on him. Donning French cufflinks, he mostly fiddled with his reading glasses throughout the proceedings. For someone used to sophisticated legal discourse, the loud soliloquies of Trump lawyers Jay Sekulow, Pat Cipollone, and Patrick Philbin, replete with faux outrage and their repetitive usage of “stunning” and “ridiculous,” had to have made him cringe on the inside.
On the other hand, House managers Adam Schiff and Zoe Lofgren employed clear, measured, didactic approaches to explaining the fallacy of a trial without witnesses or documents. Schiff struggled at times to curb his sarcasm, but Lofgren performed like a high school civics teacher educating her students.
Senators who are usually incredibly vocal—Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, and Cory Booker—were silent but for their votes supporting Schumer’s proposed amendment to the rules. Former Republican Senator Jeff Flake spent 30 minutes in the front row of the Senate gallery looking down upon his former Republican colleagues, while Democratic actress-turned-activist Alyssa Milano occupied a prominent front-row seat above the fray.
Otherwise, all the actors took their places. Even though the outcome seems all but certain, that doesn’t mean the impeachment process wasn’t worth it. For those of us who have closely followed this presidency, Trump’s impeachment serves as validation of what most of us have known all along. Trump may have evaded repercussions for his misogynist, racist, criminal, unseemly behavior for the first 73 years of his life, and for the first three-and-a-half years of his presidency, but that doesn’t mean that his criminal behavior and abuses of power should go unchecked. This is much larger than just Trump.
Still, Trump’s legacy will forever include the word “impeached.” He cannot sue to get it removed, he cannot threaten to have it locked up, and he cannot tweet it away. Whether the Senate votes to remove him or not, the millions of Americans who saw him for what he was four years ago, and every long day since, can finally feel some sense of vindication. But their work is far from over.
The white flag of surrender never was an option. Instead, we wear white because we refuse to let pernicious forces take over our government. The Senators who rigged this trial may be ignoring us now, but they will hear us, loud and clear, come November 2020.

How Trump Is Broadcasting His Own Guilt

For the sake of argument, allow me to stretch your imagination a bit. Let’s pretend that the president and his enablers are not lying: Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky was “perfect” and he did nothing wrong. Having been impeached wrongly and facing a Senate trial that could remove him from office, wouldn’t any human being pull out all the stops in their defense?
Nothing demonstrates Trump’s guilt more powerfully than his attempt to obstruct Congress and stop any of his staff from testifying during the Senate trial. That is just common sense. And yet, we seem to be living in an era when that kind of rational argument makes no difference to the president’s enablers. It’s, frankly, a bit crazy-making.
The case of John Bolton is a perfect example. During the House hearings, the White House issued a directive banning all administration staff from testifying—including Bolton. The claim was that impeachment was a hoax and the president exerted executive privilege to shut down any attempts to investigate what happened.
After Trump was impeached by the House, John Bolton announced that he was willing to testify in the Senate trial. Now Senate Majority Leader McConnell is doing everything he can to block that from happening. To justify those attempts, the president simply lied, unabashedly.
It was the president and his lawyers that blocked Bolton from testifying in the House. But Trump is counting on his supporters’ willingness to believe anything he says (or tweets).
There is no reason to block Bolton from testifying, except that he will probably make it clear that Trump is guilty. You don’t need a degree in logic to understand what’s going on. Here is what Rep. Adam Schiff said about that during the Senate trial on Tuesday.
But it gets even worse. Knowing that McConnell might not be able to block Bolton from testifying, Trump’s legal team has come up with a plan B.
President Trump’s legal defense team and Senate GOP allies are quietly gaming out contingency plans should Democrats win enough votes to force witnesses to testify in the impeachment trial, including an effort to keep former national security adviser John Bolton from the spotlight, according to multiple officials familiar with the discussions…
One option being discussed, according to a senior administration official, would be to move Bolton’s testimony to a classified setting because of national security concerns, ensuring that it is not public.
Some of us remember that it was only three months ago that Republicans protested the fact that the House Intelligence Committee was taking depositions in a secure setting behind closed doors. They were demanding transparency.
The transcripts from those depositions were eventually released and the House held open hearings for the witnesses to testify publicly—something Republicans always knew was going to happen. But if 51 members of the Senate vote to hear Bolton’s testimony, plan B from Trump’s lawyers is to take it behind closed doors so that the public can’t hear it, once again demonstrating their hypocrisy.
To reiterate, none of that makes any sense if Trump is innocent. The only reason to be that scared of Bolton’s public testimony is if you are sure that it will be the linchpin that forces even the Republicans to admit that Trump is guilty.

By a Narrow Margin, 

Americans Say Senate 

Trial Should Result in 

Trump’s Removal

Majority says Trump has definitely or probably done things that are illegal
As the Senate impeachment trial gets underway, slightly more Americans say that Donald Trump should be removed from office than say he should stay in office, with these views starkly divided along partisan lines.
By narrow margin, public wants Senate trial to result in Trump’s removal from office
Roughly half of U.S. adults (51%) say the outcome of the Senate trial should be Trump’s removal from office, while 46% say the result should lead to Trump remaining in office. An overwhelming share of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (86%) say the trial should result in Trump remaining in office, while roughly the same share of Democrats and Democratic leaners (85%) think Trump should be removed.
While the public’s preferences for the outcome of the Senate trial are closely divided, 63% of Americans say Trump has definitely (38%) or probably (25%) done things that are illegal, either during his time in office or while he was running for president. A larger majority (70%) say he has definitely (45%) or probably (26%) done unethical things, according to the new survey, conducted Jan. 6-19 among 12,638 U.S. adults on Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel.
As was the case in public views of the House’s impeachment inquiry in the fall, the public does not express much confidence in either party to be “fair and reasonable” during the Senate trial. About half of Americans (48%) are at least somewhat confident that Senate Democrats will be fair and reasonable, while slightly fewer (43%) say the same about the Senate GOP. Most partisans say they are confident senators of their party will behave fairly and reasonably, while also expecting that those in the other party will not.
Trump’s job approval has changed little during his three years as presidentTrump’s overall job ratings have not changed in the wake of the impeachment process, just as they have remained relatively stable over the course of his presidency. In the current survey, 40% approve of the way Trump is handling his job as president, while 58% say they disapprove. Views are about the same as they were in September 2019 (40% approve, 59% disapprove), prior to the House of Representatives launching a formal impeachment inquiry and voting to impeach the president.

Should the Senate vote to remove Trump?

Wide educational divides, particularly among whites, on whether Trump should be removed from office
Opinions about what the outcome of the trial should be are sharply divided along party lines. More than eight-in-ten Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (86%) say that the Senate trial should result in Trump staying in office. By contrast, a nearly identical share of Democrats and Democratic leaners (85%) say the trial should result in Trump’s removal.
And while a 56% majority of Americans ages 65 and older say Trump should remain in office, 63% of those under 30 say the trial should lead to Trump’s removal.
To some extent this age divide reflects that younger adults tend to be more Democratic than older adults, but younger Americans are more likely to say this even after accounting for partisanship.
Among Republicans, just 7% of those 50 and older say Trump should be removed from office. By comparison, 26% of Republicans ages 18 to 29 and 16% of those 30 to 49 say the outcome of the Senate trial should result in Trump’s removal from office. There are no age differences in these views among Democrats: Roughly 85% of those in all age groups say the outcome of the Senate trial should be Trump’s removal.
Clear majorities of both black (82%) and Hispanic (66%) Americans say the Senate trial should result in Trump’s removal, while 58% of white Americans say the Senate should not remove Trump.
There is a stark difference in these views by education, particularly among white Americans. Nearly two-thirds of white Americans without a college degree (64%) say Trump should remain in office following the Senate trial. But the balance of opinion is reversed among white Americans with a college degree or more education: 53% say the outcome of the Senate trial should be that Trump is removed from office.

Majorities of Americans say it is likely that Trump has acted illegally or unethically

About six-in-ten Americans (63%) think that Donald Trump has probably or definitely done things that are illegal either during the 2016 election campaign or during his time in office. Slightly more (70%) say he has probably or definitely done things that are unethical.
Majority says Trump has ‘probably’ or ‘definitely’ engaged in illegal activitiesMore than nine-in-ten Democrats (91%) and about one-third (32%) of Republicans say he has definitely or probably done illegal things, while 90% of Democrats and 47% of Republicans say he has definitely or probably done things that are unethical.
About two-thirds of Democrats (66%) express certainty that Trump has done things that are illegal, including 79% of liberal Democrats and 55% of moderate and conservative Democrats.
Republicans are much less likely than Democrats to say that Trump has definitely done illegal things, with only 8% saying this. However, an additional 23% say he has probably done illegal things.
About half of moderate and liberal Republicans (48%) say that Trump has probably or definitely done things that are illegal (moderates and liberals make up about one-third of Republicans and Republican leaners). Just 20% of conservative Republicans say this.
The proportion of Democrats saying Trump has probably or definitely done unethical things (90%) is nearly identical to the proportion saying he has done illegal things (91%). Among Republicans, more say that Trump has probably or definitely acted unethically (47%) than say he has probably or definitely acted illegally (32%).
Republicans are only slightly more likely to say that Donald Trump probably or definitely has not done unethical things (51%) than they are to say that he probably or definitely has done these things (47%). About six-in-ten moderate and liberal Republicans (63%) and 37% of conservative Republicans say that Trump has probably or definitely done things that are unethical.

Among GOP, views of whether Trump has behaved illegally or unethically are associated with opinions on removal

Majority of Republicans who say it is likely that Trump committed illegal acts oppose his removal from officeAmong the two-thirds of Republicans who say Trump has definitely or probably not done things that are illegal, nearly all (97%) say that he should remain in office following the Senate trial. While a majority of the 32% of Republicans who say Trump has likely done illegal things either during the campaign or while in office also say he should remain in office (59%), about four-in-ten (38%) say the president should be removed from office.

Partisans express little or no confidence in the senators on the other side of the aisle to be ‘fair and reasonable’ during impeachment trial

Public skeptical about whether GOP and Democratic senators will be fair during impeachment trialAbout four-in-ten (43%) say that Republicans in the Senate will be at least somewhat fair and reasonable during the trial, with just 17% saying they are very confident GOP senators will do this. Slightly more (48%) expect Democratic senators to be at least somewhat fair, though just 18% say they are very confident in this. (Note that much of this survey was fielded before the beginning of the trial and the release of the Senate rules.)
Opinions about the behavior of senators during the trial are similar to views about how House Republicans and Democrats would conduct themselves during the impeachment inquiry in a survey conducted in October.
As in October, these views largely fall along partisan lines. Most Republicans and Republican leaners (76%) say they are at least somewhat confident in Senate Republicans to be fair. By contrast, 85% of Republicans express little or no confidence in Democrats in the Senate – with 53% saying they are not at all confident.
Among Democrats and Democratic leaners, 78% are at least somewhat confident in Democrats to be fair during the trial, while 84% have little or no confidence in Senate Republicans – including 52% who express no confidence at all.
Few Americans have confidence in senators of both parties to be fair during impeachment trial
Only about one-in-ten (12%) Americans express at least some confidence that both parties will act fairly. About three-in-ten (31%) express confidence in Republican senators, but not confidence in Democrats and 36% are confident in Democrats, but not Republicans. One-in-five Americans (20%) are not too confident or not at all confident that either Republicans or Democrats will act fairly and reasonably during the impeachment trial.
Roughly two-thirds of both Republicans (66%) and Democrats (65%) express confidence in senators of their own party but not the other.

Views of Trump

Partisan and demographic differences in views of Trump’s job performanceThere are familiar partisan and demographic differences in assessments of Trump’s overall job performance.
Men, whites, older adults and those with lower levels of education continue to have more positive assessments of the president’s job performance than women, black and Hispanic adults, younger adults and those with higher levels of education.
About nine-in-ten Democrats and Democratic leaners (92%) disapprove of the way the president is handling his job, including 79% who say they disapprove very strongly. By contrast, 80% of Republicans and Republican leaners say they approve of Trump’s job performance (64% approve very strongly).
As with Trump’s overall job approval rating, public views of Trump’s ability to handle key aspects of his job have not changed substantially in recent months.
Roughly half of Americans express confidence in Trump’s handling of the economy, trade agreementsOverall, 53% say they are very or somewhat confident in Trump to make good decisions about economic policy. Half say they are confident in Trump to negotiate favorable trade agreements with other countries. Ratings of Trump in these areas were almost identical last August.
As in the past, Trump receives lower ratings in areas outside of the economy and trade. For instance, 43% say they have confidence in Trump to make good decisions about health care policy; a larger share (57%) say they are not too or not at all confident in Trump to do this. Similarly, more say they are not too or not at all confident in Trump to make wise decisions about immigration policy than say they are very or somewhat confident in his ability to do this (57% vs. 43%).
Views of Trump’s ability to use military force wisely – measured shortly after the Jan. 3 U.S. airstrike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani – are similar to those in August 2019. In the current survey, 45% say they are very or somewhat confident in Trump to use military force wisely, compared with 55% who say they are not too or not at all confident. Last August, 44% said they had confidence in Trump to handle this aspect of his job.
Little change since last August in the public’s confidence in Trump to use military force wisely Democrats and Democratic leaners are 9 points more likely than last summer to say they are “not at all” confident in Trump to make wise decisions about the use of military force (68% today, compared with 59% last August). However, the combined share who say they are not too or not at all confident in Trump on this measure is about the same as it was last summer.
Among Republicans and Republicans leaners, 82% are very or somewhat confident in Trump to make wise decisions about the use of military force; views are little changed from August 2019.
For more on views of the U.S. airstrike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, see: “Majority of U.S. Public Says Trump’s Approach on Iran Has Raised Chances of a Major Conflict.”
About half of the public says they trust what Trump says less than previous presidentsOverall, 52% say they trust what Trump says less than what previous presidents said while in office; 26% say they trust what Trump says more and 22% say they trust what he says about the same as they trusted what previous presidents said.
A large majority of Democrats and Democratic leaners (84%) trust what Trump says less then they trusted what previous presidents said while in office.

Views among Republicans and Republican leaners are more mixed: 52% say they trust what Trump says more than previous presidents, compared with 33% who trust what he says about the same as what previous presidents said and 14% who say they trust what he says less. Conservative Republicans (62%) are much more likely than moderate and liberal Republicans (39%) to say they trust what Trump says more than previous presidents.



What We Know About Trump Going Into 2020


Photo: ERIN SCOTT/Bloomberg via Getty Images
There is merit, at times, to thinking about what might have been. Counterfactual history can help us see what our factual history has actually told us.
So reflect for a second on the campaign of 2016. One Republican candidate channeled the actual grievances and anxieties of many Americans, while the others kept up their zombie politics and economics. One candidate was prepared to say that the Iraq War was a catastrophe, that mass immigration needed to be controlled, that globalized free trade was devastating communities and industries, that we needed serious investment in infrastructure, that Reaganomics was way out of date, and that half the country was stagnating and in crisis.
That was Trump. In many ways, he deserves credit for this wake-up call. And if he had built on this platform and crafted a presidential agenda that might have expanded its appeal and broadened its base, he would be basking in high popularity and be a shoo-in for reelection. If, in a resilient period of growth, his first agenda item had been a major infrastructure bill and he’d combined it with tax relief for the middle and working classes, he could have crafted a new conservative coalition that might have endured. If he could have conceded for a millisecond that he was a newbie and that he would make mistakes, he would have been forgiven for much. A touch of magnanimity would have worked wonders. For that matter, if Trump were to concede, even now, that his phone call with President Zelensky of Ukraine went over the line and he now understands this, we would be in a different world.
The two core lessons of the past few years are therefore: (1) Trumpism has a real base of support in the country with needs that must be addressed, and (2) Donald Trump is incapable of doing it and is such an unstable, malignant, destructive narcissist that he threatens our entire system of government. The reason this impeachment feels so awful is that it requires removing a figure to whom so many are so deeply bonded because he was the first politician to hear them in decades. It feels to them like impeachment is another insult from the political elite, added to the injury of the 21st century. They take it personally, which is why their emotions have flooded their brains. And this is understandable.
But when you think of what might have been and reflect on what has happened, it is crystal clear that this impeachment is not about the Trump agenda or a more coherent version of it. It is about the character of one man: his decision to forgo any outreach, poison domestic politics, marinate it in deranged invective, betray his followers by enriching the plutocracy, destroy the dignity of the office of president, and turn his position into a means of self-enrichment. It’s about the personal abuse of public office: using the presidency’s powers to blackmail a foreign entity into interfering in a domestic election on his behalf, turning the Department of Justice into an instrument of personal vengeance and political defense, openly obstructing investigations into his own campaign, and treating the grave matter of impeachment as a “hoax” while barring any testimony from his own people.
Character matters. This has always been a conservative principle but one that, like so many others, has been tossed aside in the convulsions of a cult. And it is Trump’s character alone that has brought us to this point. That’s why the editorial in the Evangelical journal Christianity Today is so clarifying. Finally — finally — an Evangelical outlet telling the truth in simple language:
[President Trump] has hired and fired a number of people who are now convicted criminals. He himself has admitted to immoral actions in business and his relationship with women, about which he remains proud. His Twitter feed alone — with its habitual string of mischaracterizations, lies, and slanders — is a near perfect example of a human being who is morally lost and confused … To the many Evangelicals who continue to support Mr. Trump in spite of his blackened moral record, we might say this: Remember who you are and whom you serve.
It is this profound immorality that made this week inevitable. Yes, inevitable. Put a man of this sort — utterly unprepared, utterly corrupt, and with no political or governing experience at all — into the Oval Office, and impeachment, if there is any life left in our democracy, is inevitable.
Yes, some partisan Democrats were out to destroy him from the very beginning and have merely been seeking a pretext ever since. Yes, some have overreached in their Russia fixation. And I’m not going to deny the troubling facts outlined in the Inspector General’s report on the FBI’s dangerously sloppy FISA requests when the Russia question first emerged in summer 2016. These are parts of the truth that demand inquiry and reflection. But they are largely irrelevant to the question in front of us.
The impeachment was inevitable because this president is so profoundly and uniquely unfit for the office he holds, so contemptuous of the constitutional democracy he took an oath to defend, and so corrupt in his core character that a crisis in the conflict between him and the rule of law was simply a matter of time. When you add to this a clear psychological deformation that can produce the astonishing, deluded letter he released this week in his own defense or the manic performance at his Michigan rally Wednesday night, it is staggering that it has taken this long. The man is clinically unwell, preternaturally corrupt, and instinctively hostile to the rule of law. In any other position, in any other field of life, he would have been fired years ago and urged to seek medical attention with respect to his mental health.
I fear the consequences of impeachment. I fear the resentment it might stir up, the divides it could deepen, the rancor it will unleash. But I fear more profoundly the consequences of not impeaching. And there is something clarifying — something that pierces the strongman atmosphere that now dominates Washington — about the sheer fact of it. We live in a republic whose forms have not completely degenerated into meaninglessness. Despite near-insane attempts to describe a constitutional process as a “coup,” despite senior senators declaring they will violate their oath to be an impartial juror in the forthcoming trial, despite machinations from Mitch McConnell that he intends to turn the trial into a damp squib, the Constitution’s mechanisms just worked. We now need to believe in these mechanisms, in the cooling process of constitutional norms, which are now in operation. The Speaker should not step on her own smart strategy and play games with the articles of impeachment. Send them to the Senate now. Then hold the Senate responsible for what it does with them.
And enough of the world-weary cynicism that all of this is futile! It is, in fact, deeply regenerative of the norms of accountability that we have allowed to erode too easily for too long. A Senate trial could further illuminate the damning fact pattern. Around 50 percent of the public already backs this process. Some Republican senators may wish to behave according to the Constitution and the rule of law — and if that gives us a small majority for impeachment, if nowhere near enough to remove him, that helps cauterize this experiment in one-man rule for the record. An already-impeached president may have more of an uphill fight to get reelected. There are glimmers of hope still around.
We can’t know the future. But we can know our duty. The only way past this is through it. And this is not a depressing truth. We can keep this republic. We can isolate this presidency as a cautionary tale. We can refuse to be gaslit. We can become Americans again — in the restless, querulous refusal to be any tyrant’s plaything and any con man’s mark.




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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