Trump impeachment inquiry will dominate
ON the face of it, there are good grounds to launch an impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump. The evidence to date seems to be categoric, although we must await all available evidence before a definitive conclusion can be reached. The inquiry is now proceeding with due haste, as is commonly the case in the United States. The impeachment inquiry is set to dominate the final year of Mr Trump’s turbulent first term as president and, in all likelihood, will dictate whether he gets an opportunity to seek a second term. The president has behaved in an increasingly volatile fashion even by his standard since the inquiry was launched, at one point referring by tweet to “civil war” should he be removed from office. These are difficult times in the US. The institutions designed by the founding fathers to safeguard the fledgling democracy will be tested by this process.
Mr Trump is accused that he, in a July 2019 telephone call, asked Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to mount an investigation into his potential rival for the White House in the 2020 election, Joe Biden, and son Hunter Biden — and also to investigate a Fox News-space conspiracy theory that Ukraine, instead of Russia, was behind foreign tampering in the 2016 election. Mr Trump presented the requests as a “favour” after he reminded his counterpart that “the United States has been very, very good to Ukraine”. Overshadowing the conversation was the fact that Mr Trump had recently suspended hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid that congress had approved for Ukraine to defend itself against Russia.
Since an edited transcript of that conversation was released, further material has been put in the public domain, notably a text message from Bill Taylor, a US acting ambassador in the Ukraine, who said: “I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.” Other than his own words, to date this is the most damning evidence against the president. Mr Trump does not dispute public accounts of what he said in the call, but has argued there was no ‘quid pro quo’ in the conversation, and latterly has also suggested that he has a duty to investigate “corruption”. He has also ratcheted up his criticisms of the media, which he has called “corrupt”, of his political investigators, and also of the whistleblower, and his sources, who initially called out the president’s behaviour. He has accused them of treason and referred to them as spies. Even by Mr Trump’s standards, this is deeply questionable behaviour and troublesome in the extreme. It is to be expected that the whistleblower concerned, and the media, as well as those leading the impeachment inquiry will not be deflected from their paths.
Mr Trump has said in a tweet that if he is removed from office, a “civil war” might erupt in the US. The president was quoting a Fox News contributor and host, who suggested that impeaching the president, would lead to “civil war”. As extreme as this may seem, such talk is relatively common among the president’s more fanatical supporters. For all of that, it is dangerous talk, fuelled by a president who frequently acts in an outrageous fashion. The protective institutions of the United States must be on their guard, while also acting fairly, swiftly and in the public interest.