USA TODAY International Edition
With Trump, this time feels different
Could impeachment bring accountability?
When my 14- year- old dishwasher broke last month, you’d think I’d have had the common sense not to give in to my craving for ribs. For what seemed like hours, I tried to scrub away the greasy filth that corrupted my once honorable baking pan. Despite its wartorn facade, there was never a doubt that righteous dedication would lift the oily stain. Physics told me so.
But since the day he proclaimed he could shoot a man on 5th Avenue and not lose a single vote, political physics has never applied to the moral dumpster that is President Donald Trump. Until now.
Trump is having a bad month. Not bad in a toilet paper dangling from his shoe while boarding Air Force One kind of way. Bad in a way that could imperil his presidency. We’ve heard this before, but this time feels different. This time, every presidential misstep takes place in the context of an active congressional impeachment proceeding.
Next up is Bill Taylor, the acting U. S. ambassador to Ukraine, scheduled to appear today before House investigators. Taylor encapsulated Trump’s Ukraine crime in a September text to Gordon Sondland, U. S. ambassador to the European Union: “It’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.”
Even Taylor might not be able to top the events of the past week.
On Thursday, White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney lit the press room on fire with a quid pro quo admission that Trump held up congressionally appropriated U. S. aid to coerce Ukraine to investigate Trump’s political opponents in the 2016 U. S. election. This rocket booster confession will propel the Democrats’ already amply fueled impeachment inquiry.
It’s unclear whether Mulvaney accidentally stepped on his private parts or whether he was deployed to unfurl the Trump defense playbook: denial, grudging acknowledgment, and finally a ticker tape parade touting that crimes committed in public are not crimes at all but are, instead, a triumph for all Americans.
Giuliani under investigation
Either way, the Ukraine scandal is prompting new GOP defections. John Kasich, former Ohio governor and 2016 presidential candidate, announced support for impeachment Friday. Retiring Florida Rep. Francis Rooney said he was “shocked” by Mulvaney’s admission and may back impeachment.
The president’s former top Russian adviser, Fiona Hill, nailed the heart of the scandal last week with silver- stake testimony that the president’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, ran a shadow foreign policy in Ukraine designed for Trump’s personal benefit. Sondland, the ambassador to the EU, went a step further and placed the blame at
Trump’s feet when he testified that Giuliani’s scheme was directed and supported by the president.
Then, we learned Giuliani is under investigation by the Manhattan U. S. Attorney’s Office he previously led. Worse, two of Giuliani’s associates involved in pressuring Ukraine for dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden were recently arrested for allegeldy funneling money to a pro- Trump political action committee.
More bad news followed Trump’s unilateral decision to green- light Turkey’s invasion of Syria by withdrawing U. S. troops, and consequently let it slaughter America’s Kurdish allies. Republican lawmakers and pundits condemned Trump’s reckless decision to abandon the Kurds. Even Trump’s water boy, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, publicly referred to the move as “a grave mistake.”
The biggest fallout will come if and when one of the many Islamic State terrorists, once guarded by Kurds but freed as a result of the U. S. withdrawal, is part of an attack that targets the United States. As the election approaches, the possibility of an ISIS attack is a ticking time bomb for Trump.
Doral self- dealing debacle
Finally, people should not discount the damage from Trump’s attempt to hold the 2020 summit of the Group of Seven major industrial nations at his Doral golf resort in Miami. The Mueller report was 448 pages of complicated legal theory. Filling vacant hotel rooms with foreign entourages is grotesque self- dealing that would tick off even the Trump loyalists who plan to use MAGA hats as stocking stuffers this holiday season. Saturday’s hasty retreat tweet says Trump quickly assessed an uprising in the making.
A recent Fox News poll found that 51% of Americans favor Trump’s impeachment and removal from office. In a world where common sense and decency carry the day, we’d expect recent events to be followed by a resignation tweet blaming Rosie O’Donnell. But Trump defies gravity.
When I began writing this, I was convinced this time would be different. But then I remembered the “Access Hollywood” recording, the firing of FBI Director James Comey for refusing to bury the Russia investigation, the Helsinki betrayal of siding with Russian President Vladimir Putin over U. S. intelligence agencies, and the infamous reference to neo- Nazis as “very fine people.” They all felt different.
Yes, this time feels different. But maybe it’s not.