Trump's Ukraine call is different than the Russian collusion witch hunt. And more serious.
Donald Trump does not have the moral bearing to be president of the United States.
The political complication is that there was ample evidence of this before votes were cast in 2016. And the American people elected him president nevertheless.
Is anyone really surprised that Trump would ask the leader of another country to investigate a political rival?
GOP had reasons to defend Trump
Up to this point, congressional Republicans have had reason to defend Trump regarding the many-headed investigations that have been launched against him.
The Russian collusion investigation was a witch hunt that never should have been launched. The investigation of the investigation by Attorney General William Barr will help determine whether the launch was a result of incompetence or maliciousness.
Trump risked our national security: Ukraine investigation: Donald Trump's defense only makes him look worse
The myriad of investigations House Democrats have initiated are thinly disguised opposition research endeavors, to better make the case against Trump in 2020. They aren’t to inform legislation, the passage of which is Congress’ actual constitutional duty. And, until recently, they also weren’t part of a genuine impeachment deliberation.
But Trump and Ukraine is different
The Ukraine deal, however, is different. Republican efforts to whitewash Trump’s behavior are pathetic. And they ought to be embarrassing, if anyone in today’s politics has a sufficient sense of probity to be capable of the emotion of embarrassment.
Trump was calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in his official capacity as president of the United States. In the call, according to a rough transcript released by the White House, Trump asked Zelensky to “look into” allegations of misdeeds by former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who received lucrative compensation as a board member of a Ukrainian energy company.
In that investigation, Trump urged Zelensky to work with former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Giuliani, however, doesn’t work for the U.S. government, which Trump was supposedly representing in the call. He is Trump’s personal lawyer.
The impropriety of a president asking a foreign leader to work, not with official representatives of the U.S. government, but with an outside wheeler-dealer is stunning in any circumstances. Doing so for an investigation of a political rival is morally obtuse.
This is the investigation we need
There are several things regarding this that need additional investigation. And Republicans shouldn’t cavil about it.
The Trump administration withheld, for a period, military aid to Ukraine that Congress had authorized. The question is whether this was done as leverage regarding the investigation of the Bidens. If so, the impropriety multiplies considerably.
But, at present, that hasn’t been established. Congress, which authorized the dough, should seek to discover, to the extent discoverable, the basis for the temporary suspension.
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According to the whistleblower’s complaint, the actual transcript of Trump’s conversation with Zelensky was inappropriately stored in a computer dedicated to classified national security material. That raises the question of whether the rough transcription released by the White House, as damaging as it was, had been sanitized.
Finally, a detailed account of Giuliani’s Ukrainian activities should be rendered. Trump, acting in his official capacity as president, urged Zelensky to cooperate with him. That expunges any claim that Giuliani’s activities were private or privileged.
Democrats are still playing politics
Although Republicans should support a congressional investigation into these specifics, Democrats are still more playing politics than truly engaging in an exercise of constitutional checks and balance. That makes Republican cooperation highly unlikely.
Before the transcript or the whistleblower complaint was made public, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the various House investigations already underway were now impeachment proceedings.
The speaker has no authority to make such a decision or denomination. In the past, House impeachment proceedings have always been authorized by a full vote of the body.
The Ukrainian deal is different. But by overplaying investigation and impeachment politics all along, Democrats have made that difficult to discern and communicate.
Robert Robb is a columnist at the Arizona Republic, where this column originally appeared. Follow him on Twitter @RJRobb.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Trump's Ukraine call is different from Russia. And more serious.
