When it comes to the facts on which impeachment hinges, what are we even arguing about, anyway? The most material facts are plain as day, as is the logic that should accompany them.
Those facts and logic condemn President Trump.
First, we know Trump resisted a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, and we know he put a two-month hold on military aid to Ukraine that was mandated by U.S. law.
Second, we know Trump repeatedly stressed the need for Ukraine to conduct two specific investigations, one into a ludicrous conspiracy theory that Ukraine somehow controls computer servers formerly used by the Democratic National Committee and another into the Biden family’s various interactions with the Ukrainian government and business interests. Trump almost obsessively insisted on the necessity for those investigations.
Third, we know Trump has yet to identify any other “corruption” in Ukraine (or other countries, either) that must specifically be dealt with. We know that when asked, he could not identify any other such specific corruption.
Fourth, we know he mentioned both specific investigations into the Bidens and computer servers during his July 25 phone call with Zelensky but never once mentioned the word “corruption,” much less any broader concerns about corruption. We know he brought up the bogus server issue as an immediate response to Zelensky’s request for military assistance.
Fifth, we know White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney admitted to a quid pro quo, at least for the Ukrainians’ requested presidential meeting, before Mulvaney walked back that admission.
Sixth, we know Trump regularly told his underlings to take instructions from his private lawyer Rudy Giuliani regarding Ukraine, and we know Giuliani and Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland both spoke several times, each as if either or both the meeting and the aid were conditioned specifically on Trump’s two desired investigations. We know the U.S. Justice Department has said it had been conducting no such investigations of its own.
Seventh, we know that multiple diplomats have testified (entirely correctly) that it is inappropriate to pressure a foreign government to investigate a U.S. citizen without identifying a potential violation of U.S. law or an open investigation by U.S. authorities.
Eighth, we know Trump claimed he was frustrated that Europe supposedly isn’t doing its part to help Ukraine, but we also know that claim is completely contradicted by the fact that Europe is giving nearly fivefold the aid to Ukraine that the United States is supplying.
Ninth, we know the administration has barely even tried to provide explanation for the holdup of our assistance, except that Mulvaney claimed Trump said, “I don’t want to send them a bunch of money and have them waste it, have them spend it, have them use it to line their own pockets.” But we know that’s an absurd consideration because the aid in question was almost entirely in military hardware and training, not in cash — so it couldn’t possibly be misspent.
We know of no other good reasons for withholding the aid, especially without informing Congress. We know the legal departments of both the State and Defense departments said the delay of aid was illegal.
Now we’re told that two different people will testify they heard Trump, with their own ears, specifically tell Sondland to pursue the investigations as a primary objective. (This is important to combat Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan’s portrayal of all the evidence as a version of the childhood “telephone game.”)
With all of this knowledge, it takes not just leaps but double-twist-somersaults of logic to invent any reasons for the holdup of aid other than the easy, straightforward conclusion. The obvious conclusion is that Trump’s hardball with Ukraine, both on military aid and a meeting with Zelensky, was directly predicated on his desire to see Ukraine open investigations into his Democratic rivals that his own Justice Department saw no reason to conduct. The administration has barely offered other reasons, and the two they did offer (general “corruption” and “Europe isn’t doing enough”) are blatantly counterfactual.
Republican congressmen cannot possibly say with straight faces that Trump wasn’t using the power of the Oval Office to pressure a foreign government into harming his political rivals and only his political rivals. The evidence is in. That’s what he did and why he did it. If that’s not impeachable, it sets precedent for any other president, any time in the future, to leverage White House power for foreign help with his domestic politics. It is a precedent that cannot be allowed.
