UPDATE: Trump himself, in the transcript of his conversation with Zelensky released Wednesday, outright boasted about getting off the hook with Mueller, and asked the new Ukrainian president to work with U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr in probing Biden:
"I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance [yesterday] by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine."
Donald Trumpâs boasted, again and again, that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it. Now, heâs gone and done itâand he canât get away with it unless the courts outright ignore the law.
The shots were fired in phone calls, overheard and transcribed, as the president pressed the new Ukranian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to address the madcap Rudy Giulianiâs request that he investigate Joe Biden and son, Hunter. That sent a whistleblower at the Office of National Intelligence to Inspector General Michael T. Atkinson with a complaint that Trump had made nefarious âpromisesâ to a foreign leader. Atkinson, who served at the Department of Justice for over a decade during the years when Justice was blind, found the complaint of such âurgent concernâ that he sent it to the acting director of national intelligence, who is obligated, by statute, to send it to Congress.
But the complaint is stymied, as Trumpâs minions are fighting furiously to withhold it, never mind that the law requires it be transmitted, because they, too, know that this metaphorical shooting might be different than the other metaphorical shootings. The charges are not another breach of norms, or âordinaryâ impeachable offenses Democrats swat at ineffectually.
Theyâre impeachable acts in taped conversations that, as described, verge on extortion. Congress appropriated military funds desperately needed by Ukraine to fend off Russia. Trump held the money up, while dialing his counterpart there to suggest what he could do to a political rival here, that would get that check in the mail. Itâs the âRussia, if youâre listeningâ of the 2020 electionâbut Ukraine-style with bribes on top.
The Washington Post confirmed as much on Monday night, reporting that Trump ordered a hold on military aid a week before his call to Ukraineâs president was madeâastoundingly, the day after he escaped accountability for obstructing justice as outlined in the Mueller Report. Perhaps the president was deluding himself into thinking he could end this line of inquiry the way he got Attorney General William Barr, the replacement for the insufficiently compliant Jeff Sessions, to flick off Mueller like flakes of dandruff on Trumpâs dark blue suit. Expecting trouble even as he set the call in motion, the president, according to the Post, planted the seeds of his coverup, instructing Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney to blame the frozen funds on a delay caused by an unspecified âinteragency process. â
It was only a few days ago when Trump was in full stonewall mode. The president, sitting next to Australiaâs prime minister in the Oval Office, confidently said, âI donât know, I donât know, I donât knowâ about any calls with Ukraine. If that denial sounds familiar, itâs word-for-word what Trump said when asked who could have possibly used his trademark Sharpie to alter the National Weather Service map to show that Alabama was endangered by Hurricane Dorian.
But Trump quickly saw itâs not as easy to pull off an underhanded scheme to affect an election a second time, especially with the specter of a transcript of the calls coming out. By Sunday, red-faced and sweating, Trump began a modified, limited hangout, reminiscent of Watergate, inadvertently telegraphing guilt. Even a practiced liar like Trump didnât know how much to reveal given that he doesnât know if heâll be as successful hiding the tapes as heâs been at hiding his tax returns.
With that in mind, Trump conceded that he mentioned something âabout Bidenââeight times, according to The Wall Street Journalâa small effort to try and stay one step ahead of the Inspector Clouseaus, G-Men, and Barney Fifes breathing down his neck over a charge so much bigger than asking WikiLeaks for help getting Hillary Clintonâs emails.
Ukraine is also bigger than the latest scam involving taxpayer dollars for Air Force crews to stay in luxury at his Scottish resort miles from the airport where they refuel. Or his family crisscrossing the globe to drum up business on his, and their, behalf. This is a foreign official being asked if he can see his way clear to go after a political rival, at which point those appropriations that went mysteriously missing might suddenly show up.
A sign that Trump knows that exchanging money, or not, with a foreign official is more serious than exchanging money, or not, with a woman not his wife is how quickly he changed his story throughout Monday. Along with the name Biden, Trump admitted that the word âcorruptionâ might have crept into the conversation. He had an explanation ready: âOne of the reasons the new president got elected is he was going to stop corruption. So itâs very important that on occasion you speak to somebody about corruption.â
And whose corruption would that be? Someone elseâs, you can be sure. Later Monday at the United Nations, where last year world leaders laughed at him when he boasted about how much heâd accomplished, Trump hinted that he himself might release transcripts, but that was false bravado. Shortly afterward, he withdrew that hint on the grounds that he didnât want to create such a âbad precedentâ over such a ânice call.â He then volunteered there was no quid pro quo. âI did not make a statement that you have to do this or I'm not gonna give you aid. I wouldn't do that.â He added his trademark: that if he had, there wouldnât have been anything wrong with it. âI think it probably, possibly would have been OK if I did."
It doesnât matter what Trump thinks about proof. Itâs rare that a prosecutor has a perp talking into a recorder tucked into a vase of roses in the middle of the table about the quo for the quid. Hundreds of thousands of felons are in prison for extortion with far less evidence than that. Whatâs more, thereâs a controlling legal authority hereâthe DNI âshallâ forward any complaint deemed of âurgent concernâ to Congress. âShallâ doesnât mean âover my dead body.â
Weâre long since over the myth that anyone inside the White House knows from one minute to the next what Trumpâs planning (he only let his national-security team know he wasnât going to bomb Iran 10 minutes before the campaign was due to begin). His secretaries of Treasury and state looked foolish as they spouted propaganda in defense of Trump on the Sunday talk shows. Mike Pence, with his mantra ânothing could be further from the truthâ for everything, would never question anything Trump does so as to preserve his place a heartbeat, or impeachment, away from the presidency. Still, according to a new book, Ivanka and Jared want him goneâand after he took a convoy of SUVs last weekend onto the fragile Mackinac Island in Michigan, where motor vehicles have been prohibited for a century, many more in that swing state are in agreement.
In any other White House, what we already know would be a smoking gun of Nixonian proportions. Itâs such that even the hapless Democrats, including the overly cautious speaker, know to go forward with impeachment and to race to court on an expedited basis to force the DNI to turn over the whistleblowerâs complaint to Congress so that this violation doesnât end up in the judicial slush pile where the Don McGahn subpoena molders. Sure, the Senate has stacked the courts with ideologues and partisans, but there is still a Supreme Court that speaks with reverence of the âcheckâ part of checks and balances, and a chief justice whoâs said he wants to preserve the integrity of each branch to keep citizensâ faith in their government intact.
The most important and lasting thing to happen amid the lawlessness in the White House is that two civil servants, a nonpartisan whistleblower and an inspector general, who have served in Republican and Democratic administrations, have stepped up at a risk to their careers to report possible criminal conduct. That puts Republicans in the Senate to shame and should prick the conscience of all those who cower in fear in the face of Trumpâs power over his base, and his terrifying temper. No Republican has called out Trump for his perfidy, unless theyâre retiring like Senators Jeff Flake and Bob Corker. And some retiring ones remain self-muzzled, like Sen. Lamar Alexander.
On the other hand, Sen. Mitt Romney was roused out of his semi-stupor to suggest that âif this is true, then thus and so might happen.â Is that his way of saying he might vote for impeachment? Trumpâs golfing buddy, Sen. Lindsey Graham, said the president is going to be so transparent about Ukraine weâll get tired of all the transparency. That could means heâs telling Trump itâs better to come clean now. Or, not to get excited by the disappointing Graham, he just as likely could be saying do what you want and Iâll call it transparent.
Weâll know the natives are restive, or the transcript are imminent, or thereâs about to be fireworks when the recalcitrant DNI testifies on Thursday if we hear the president re-rattle his saber at Iran. Heâs going to have to wag the dog vigorously to get us to avert our attention from this shooting. This time he could lose a supporterâor thousands of themâand never get them back.
