Clear and present danger continues.
President Donald Trump’s impeachment defense team is set to argue that his impeachment does not involve any criminal conduct. Nothing could be further from the truth: Trump repeatedly broke the law in his efforts to pressure Ukraine to open investigations into his political rivals.
What he did was illegal, and if any other person had done the same, they would have been indicted and likely sent to prison. As the House Judiciary Committee noted in its impeachment report, “Although President Trump’s actions need not rise to the level of a criminal violation to justify impeachment, his conduct here was criminal.”
The record is clear. Trump committed bribery. He committed honest services fraud. He likely engaged in a broader criminal conspiracy. He broke the law in withholding the military assistance to Ukraine. And then Trump obstructed Congress to cover up his crimes.
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Desperate to hide his actions from the American public, Trump has engaged in an unprecedented effort to obstruct the impeachment investigation. He ordered the entirety of the federal government to ignore congressional requests and subpoenas for documents and witnesses.
As the House Intelligence Committee report notes:
[N]ot a single document has been produced by the White House, the Office of the Vice President, the Office of Management and Budget, the Department of State, the Department of Defense, or the Department of Energy in response to 71 specific, individualized requests or demands for records in their possession, custody, or control.
Moreover, according to the same report, “[a]t President Trump’s direction, twelve current or former Administration officials refused to testify as part of the House’s impeachment inquiry, ten of whom did so in defiance of duly authorized subpoenas.”
At this point, it is up to a majority of senators to demand a fair trial that includes both witnesses and evidence. Otherwise, they will be little more than accomplices in Trump’s efforts to cover up his crimes.
www.americanprogress.org/...
The new information falls roughly into five categories:
- Trump’s knowledge of the quid pro quo;
- the illegality of the scheme;
- Trump’s outsourcing of the State Department to Rudy Giuliani;
- the involvement in or awareness of the Ukraine scandal by other top administration officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, Attorney General Bill Barr, Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, former National Security Advisor John Bolton, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; and
- Russia’s ongoing interference in American elections.
thebulwark.com/...