Those of you who have read my columns over the years know that a principle is to not write what other people are writing, particularly if the subject is covered ad nauseum. In other words, you (the reader) need to have a reason to spend your valuable time reading what I am conveying. Yet, I am going to delve into the topic du jour because a few things need to be said and others need to be clarified.
First, you really need to read for yourself (multiple times) the transcript of President Trump’s call with the President of Ukraine instead of letting others interpret it for you. I learned to do this in college because a classmate and I had to analyze Richard Nixon’s Checkers speech, a speech which saved his political career in 1952. After about the fifth reading we were finally seeing why this was one of the great political speeches in recorded history and we had the assignment.
After reading this current transcript numerous times, I came to understand one point clearly which is why I recommend you read it more than once. President Trump asked a favor of his Ukrainian counterpart to look into Crowdstrike. This was the beginning of an announced inquiry by the U.S. Justice Dept. into the origins of how the Russian investigation, now judged by Robert Mueller to be insufficient in the legal realm. None of us know whether that new investigation will become anything, but Crowdstrike was potentially central to the entire matter. It was not inordinate for the new Ukrainian President to take a fresh look at that company’s activities since he had indicated he was cleaning house with his parliamentary win.
Was this politically motivated. Yes. And so? Everything in Washington is political, even the cheesecake. Trump had been put through the ringer for over two years and vindicated. It was only normal for someone to want to find out where this whole thing started. In fact, an official Justice Department investigation is ongoing headed by U.S. Attorney John Durham. The favor then was asking a foreign leader to cooperate with an official American government investigation.
He did not ask a favor of looking into the Bidens. But it is reasonable to question whether it was proper to bring them up. Supposedly the Ukrainians had cleared Hunter Biden of any corruption. Since when do we set our standards on the laws of another country? In fact, there is an opponent of Mr. Biden’s running in the primaries who calls virtually every capitalist she knows of corrupt. We have laws against paying a bribe to public officials of a foreign country. You may have heard some defenses for Hunter Biden being paid $50,000 per month, but no one who has half an ounce of integrity would defend this and everyone knows this was a payoff to Daddy. That does not mean Mr. Biden should not run for President, but it should figure into whether one might vote for him.
This and other financial arrangements of Hunter Biden’s stink to high hell and only a partisan hack would defend them. Even without this issue being brought forward through this episode you know damn well it would have been brought forward as the primary got whittled down.
You can understand Trump’s frustration as all of us should. If this were a Bush or Cheney kid, we would have investigations and attempts at criminal charges. Most of this would have blown over if Hunter’s blowhard father had not bragged about shutting down a prosecutor just last year.
The obvious point of contention is how did the whistleblower issue surface. These issues are supposed to be kept secret. There is some controversy because the IG, Michael Atkinson, saw seriousness in the report and referred it up the ladder. Apparently, even though he was a Trump appointee he was not clear on the law. The person who he referred it to said it did not meet the standard and spiked it.
Joseph Maguire, the acting DNI (Director of National Intelligence) put a stop to it. A partisan may say he has extra motivations other than the law and that may be true. But listening to this guy, the likelihood of that happening is nearly nil. This gentleman is the definition of a straight arrow and someone we should be proud we have working for us at the highest levels. No one is free of partisanship, but this may be the last great civil servant we have.
The Democrats have been impeaching Trump for his entire term. They say this is the real issue that warrants impeachment despite already holding hearings defying the imagination. Speaker Pelosi said the focus of the proceedings will be this incident discarding everything going on before that.
Which brings us to the discussion of the real reason this episode is being so hotly pursued. After all, this is the hysteria of the week or, the way things have been going, the half-week. Those seeking impeachment can say this is the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back, but that isn’t it.
Make no mistake: the impeachment of Donald J. Trump has been engineered by the left-wing of the Democrats. Speaker Pelosi has tried to protect her cadre of Congress members elected from more moderate districts for the purpose of keeping her grand title and the associated power. Anyone really watching knows her big impeachment announcement really did nothing except call for the same thing Congressman Nadler (D-NY) had already done.
The fact is the Left sees a chance to kill two birds here. They know they will never impeach Trump unless something egregious is discovered and nothing to date meets that definition. But this is the death of perceived moderate Biden’s campaign. They know he has lurched left during the campaign, but feel he will dump them if elected. This clears the way for their true loves — either Sanders or Warren — to be nominated. They can kill Biden off because of the stink of the payoffs to Hunter Biden and not even leave a fingerprint.
They can now achieve their true goal of having their candidate in the general election against a wounded President Trump. The first will most likely come to fruition, the second is probably a pipe dream. But you got to give them credit for guile. And to them it is worth it to drag the moderate members of their caucus along even if it risks losing the House. They want to replace them with their own comrades anyway.
There it is — the column from Hell.