26 September 2019

A Very Bad Day

Yesterday was a very bad day for Donald Trump as he finds himself drowning in the biggest crisis of his presidency.

Early in the morning, the White House released a rough transcript of Trump's call with the Ukrainian president (fully searchable copy here). It quickly revealed both that Trump was lying repeatedly in the last several days about what was said during the conversation and that the primary focus of the call was not on strengthening relations between the two countries but instead on what Ukraine could do to help Trump personally.

Trump talked at length about Joe Biden, who may be his 2020 election revival, interspersed with a great deal of self-puffery. He never once mentioned the issue of gravest concern to Ukraine, which is its oppressive neighbor Russia. Not one peep.

The consensus quickly emerged that the release served to make a stronger case for impeaching Trump (details here and here).

Late in the afternoon, the Trump White House released the whistleblower's report to the House and Senate intelligence committees. This remains classified and can only be seen by members of those two committees and their staff at this date.

Once again, the release was devastating to Trump. Per one Republican who has now read the report, it is really bad for Trump (details here). The report "paints a clear path to impeachment" with sufficient information so Democrats can make appropriate document requests and subpoena witnesses in a focused effort.

Trump almost certainly thought release of these two documents would dampen impeachment fervor. The opposite result happened, and now a majority of House members back impeachment. Stay tuned.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Speak up!