23 September 2019

Continuing Developments

The widening Ukraine scandal continued to swirl through Washington over the weekend. Two cabinet secretaries and eventually Donald Trump himself admitted a transcript exists. Trump also admitted he discussed Joe Biden on the call with the Ukrainian president.

Trump says he might release the transcript, but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that. He also promised to release his taxes and that never happened.

The mere fact that the transcripts haven't already been released strongly suggests they're a serious problem for Trump. This also nicely parallels Watergate, which began to boil over when Richard Nixon refused to release transcripts of the recorded Oval Office meetings.

The Washington Post published two excellent pieces over the weekend that hopefully are being widely read on Capitol Hill. The first is not long (link here) and an excellent piece about how doing nothing only emboldens Trump to continue to violate the law. Failure to act makes him think he's invincible.

The second is a well reasoned column (link here) about how the Ukraine scandal is a perfect stand-alone issue to impeach Trump. Forget about complex investigations into various alleged crimes, the Mueller Report, and whatever.

The author, Jennifer Rubin, makes a convincing point that impeaching Trump just on the Ukraine scandal puts Republicans in a very bad place. If they don't vote to impeach and remove, they're on record for approving illegal, anything-to-get-elected tactics. This could be a particularly damning vote for them only months from the 2020 election.

There seems to be a growing sense that Trump has finally gotten snared in a scandal that he can't quickly shake. He has finally walked himself into a potentially fatal trap.

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