Just one day before the House is expected to pass articles of impeachment for the third time in history, President Trump sent House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a letter containing a bevy of falsehoods and a grain of truth positing his most effective possible defense.
To his detriment, Trump spends pages rehashing his fantastical narrative around Ukraine. In Trump’s telling, Joe Biden didn’t advance democratic interests in firing the corrupt Viktor Shokin but rather wanted Shokin fired because he went too easy on companies involved in Putin-aligned industries such as Burisma Holdings. Trump uses Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s breathless assertions that he didn’t feel pressured by the United States, all while the available evidence indicates that Zelensky felt pressured all the way back in the spring.
