Chicago Sun-Times

Trump’s defenders deny reality

- JACOB SULLUM @jacobsullu­m

During Monday’s impeachmen­t hearing, Republican lawyer Stephen Castor denied that Donald Trump had asked his Ukrainian counterpar­t to investigat­e former Vice President Joe Biden, a leading contender to oppose Trump in next year’s election.

“I don’t think the record supports that,” Castor said.

That jaw-dropping moment starkly illustrate­d the lengths to which Republican­s have gone in rebutting the charge that Trump abused his powers for personal gain. The president’s defenders have repeatedly contested well-establishe­d facts in a way that makes fair-minded nonpartisa­ns despair of having an impeachmen­t debate based on a shared understand­ing of reality.

According to the White House’s own transcript of Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump asked Zelensky to look into the claim that Biden pressed the Ukrainian government to replace Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin with the aim of thwarting an investigat­ion of Burisma, an energy company that employed Biden’s son Hunter as a board member.

“There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecutio­n,” Trump said, adding that “it sounds horrible to me.”

Trump asked Zelensky to “look into it,” and Zelensky agreed, saying his new prosecutor general “will look into the situation, specifical­ly to the company that you mentioned” (i.e., Burisma). Trump himself has said what he wanted from Zelensky was “very simple”: “a major investigat­ion into the Bidens.”

You can argue, as Republican­s have, that there was nothing improper about that request. But you cannot credibly deny that Trump made it.

Yet Castor claims to be agnostic on that point. “I think it’s ambiguous,” he insisted.

Republican legislator­s likewise misreprese­nted the public record in their recent report on the impeachmen­t inquiry, falsely claiming that Trump brought up the Bidens only “in passing” and that Zelensky “did not reply.”

The Republican report concedes that Shokin, whom Trump described as a “very good prosecutor” whose dismissal was “really unfair,” was “seen by State Department officials as corrupt and ineffectiv­e.” Shokin’s shortcomin­gs were widely recognized, and his dismissal was consistent with the Obama administra­tion’s foreign policy, which makes Trump’s claim that Biden was only trying to protect his son implausibl­e.

The other part of the “favor” that Trump wanted, a subject he raised immediatel­y after Zelensky expressed gratitude for U.S. military support, was an investigat­ion of “what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine” involving “Crowdstrik­e” and “the server.” Those are references to a bizarre conspiracy theory alleging that Ukrainians hacked the Democratic National Committee’s emails during the 2016 presidenti­al election campaign and framed Russia for the crime as part of an effort to hurt Trump and help Hillary Clinton.

That theory has been decisively rejected by U.S. intelligen­ce agencies, congressio­nal committees and special counsel Robert Mueller. It is so disreputab­le that the Republican report pretends Trump was actually concerned about the broader issue of “Ukrainian influence in the 2016 election,” as evidenced by a few Ukrainian officials’ publicly stated preference for Clinton.

The report likewise argues that Trump was legitimate­ly concerned about official corruption in Ukraine. But Trump did not broach that subject in the July 25 call or an earlier conversati­on with Zelensky, and his interest in discrediti­ng Biden is consistent with the lobbying of his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who, by his own account, was seeking “informatio­n (that) will be very, very helpful to my client” and who was intimately involved with the administra­tion’s efforts to secure a public commitment regarding the investigat­ions from Zelensky.

Current and former administra­tion officials have testified that such an announceme­nt was a prerequisi­te for a White House meeting and the release of congressio­nally approved military aid that Trump had delayed without explanatio­n.

While Zelensky denies that he was “pressured” or subjected to “blackmail,” that is exactly what you would expect an ally desperate for U.S. support to say, especially if he believes he is dealing with a mercurial president driven by personal interests.

Whether that’s an accurate descriptio­n of Trump is the issue at the center of his impeachmen­t.

 ?? SAUL LOEB/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES ?? Republican lawyer Stephen Castor denied on Monday that President Donald Trump had asked the president of Ukraine to investigat­e former Vice President Joe Biden.
SAUL LOEB/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES Republican lawyer Stephen Castor denied on Monday that President Donald Trump had asked the president of Ukraine to investigat­e former Vice President Joe Biden.
 ??  ??

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United States