A Spreading Impeachment Wildfire

Terry H. Schwadron

Nov. 5, 2019

Try as I might, I cannot quit the escalatory impeachment wildfires.

There are too many, changing, sometimes contradictory defenses, deflections and downright insulting personal attacks to ignore, despite the conversations I have with friends who say they need to turn off the noise long enough to enjoy their lives.

Meanwhile, Trump is acting the part of a caged, but feral animal, increasingly dangerous as he is backed into a corner. And the issue doesn’t go away.

Finally, Trump seems to have settled on the idea that night that while he personally didn’t do so, asking a foreign government for a quid pro quo in exchange for a political favor is not an impeachable offense.

Basically, where we are is at the end of the beginning, and the very beginning of a more public, more irascible, cruder phase of the impeachment story. That is pretty weird when you think about it, only because Senate Republicans seem assured of stopping any guilty finding for a narcissistic Donald Trump, who is throwing any respect for the law, ethics, morality and logic out the window in pursuit of a chance to skate on inevitable charges arising from demanding Ukrainian dirt on Joe Biden in return for military aid.

Despite all the Republican maneuvering, the constant shifting of “goal posts,” the ever-changing defense lines, it now is clear: What Donald Trump wants is a complete walk, a declaration of total innocence and, indeed, shrewd use of the Oval Office for eliminating “corruption” wherever he finds it.

Yeah, right.

If he wanted to stop corruption, he only need look in the mirror. This whole case is about abusing his office to illegally use presidential powers of national security for personal, partisan election gain. Plus, there is plenty here that upon digging reaches back into findings of the Mueller Report on all-things-Russia.

— Trump wants to break the federal whistleblower law by identifying and crucifying the individual whose written notices about presidential wrongdoing started an investigation that had led to first-hand fact witnesses whose testimony makes the whistleblower report irrelevant. Republican House members have pressed these issues with the witnesses in an apparent attempt to out the whistleblower by name, and right-wing media is already circulating a name, without regard to the warning that this will put the guy’s life at risk.

— The White House continues to tell federal “employees,” otherwise known as witnesses, not to cooperate with Congress. Further, he uses that decision to hold those who cross him as personal on social media, liberally labeling them as “never-Trumpers” who are partisans dedicated to undercutting the president. These attacks ignore the decades-long public service records of ambassadors, diplomats, and national intelligence staff — complete in medaled uniforms. We’ll be seeing these folks again shortly, as Democratic-majority House committees roll out televised, public hearings. In the meantime, Trump is clearly trying to influence witnesses in a congressional proceeding — which is a no-no in most actual legal settings.

— Trump is leaning heavily on senators who show any signs of wavering from total loyalty, including Mitt Romney, Susan Collins, Tom Tilles, Cory Gardner and even Chuck Grassley, using reelection funds and the threat of reelection opposition from his base as virtual bribes.

— Even as House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff, D-CA, a Trump target for unending attack, is releasing the transcripts of closed depositions with those aforementioned ambassadors, diplomats and national security staff, Trump was ordering Republicans on the same committees to release alternative transcripts that told a different story. In other words, Donald Trump once again tells us that he does not understand what an official transcript is or what it contains. You can dispute what to do about such testimony, but we have no business questioning the accuracy of the transcripts — which is different from the White House “transcript,” a heavily redacted version of the July 25 phone call with the Ukrainian leader. Trump appears to be not only deflecting, but ordering creation of alternative facts, a practice which surely must breach a law or two.

The transcripts themselves confirm that the Ukraine bad behavior was much more than the single phone call that Trump dismisses. The former U.S. ambassador, Marie Yovanovitch, testified that she felt threatened by Trump for not cooperating, never could get clarity from her superiors, and was recalled to the United States in the middle of the night. Michael McKinley, formerly top aide to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, described quitting after confronting Pompeo — who denies the meetings — about failing to support his ambassador in favor of supporting Trump’s rogue foreign policy through attorney Rudy Giuliani.

I have calmed myself through all this by telling myself that Trump is totally amoral as well as lacking anything like empathy. He does not recognize the difference between right and wrong, only between what serves his personal needs or not. That not makes for “fake news,” enemies, “never-Trumpers,” and unpatriotic “scum,” even if they are medaled Lieutenant Colonels in the Army with multiple tours in Iraq.

I have reminded myself that this president doesn’t really want to be president, but rather some kind of ceremonial leader who presides over parades and the trappings of office.

But even under the threat of impeachment, Trump is continuing to stomp on the spirit of the Constitution if not its actual legal holdings.

With rising poll numbers in support of impeachment, more senators ought to be paying attention to what it will mean not to keep an open mind.

##

www.terryschwadron.wordpress.com