Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler recently released a statement to the press and a form letter regarding her thoughts on the impeachment inquiry. She acknowledged that Trump did not use good judgment during the call with Ukrainian President Zelensky, but she was not certain he committed an impeachable offense. She is waiting for more information about whether Trump coerced Zelensky to interfere in the 2020 election under threat of withholding aid (he froze aid to Ukraine about a week before the call, although Trump’s own secretaries of State and Defense, the Director of National Intelligence, and the Director of the CIA all asked him to release the aid which had been appropriated by Congress).
It is interesting that she made no statement of concern regarding the plain language of the telephone call. Trump begins by lying about how the U.S. is the only country helping Ukraine. In fact, the European Union has contributed more than two thirds of all aid to Ukraine since 2014. Germany has also contributed millions on its own. Since 2014, the EU has given almost twice as much on average per year than the U.S. Trump seemed to want Zelensky to believe that he better play ball if he wants U.S. assistance.
Then there is the plain language of Zelensky saying,”We are almost ready to buy more Javelins from the U.S. for defense purposes.” Trump immediately says, “I would like you to do us a favor though…” He then floats several debunked conspiracy theories which included ones involving Biden and his son. He also says he will have Giuliani (his personal attorney) call him which makes it clear it is a personal favor he is asking. Beutler made no comment about this either.
FOX News Commentator Judge Andrew Napolitano has an opinion piece on Fox News dated Oct. 3, 2019. Judge Napolitano states that Trump’s conversation with Zelensky “manifested both criminal and impeachable behavior. The criminal behavior to which Trump has admitted is much more grave than anything alleged or unearthed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, and much of what Mueller revealed was impeachable.” The judge also makes clear that Trump was asking Zelensky for a personal favor and that in this one call, Trump violated more than one federal law.
Trump and some of his supporters say Obama was never investigated this much. This is laughable. Kurt Bardella, the spokesperson and senior advisor for the Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform committee during the Obama administration reminded people in a recent statement that the Republicans launched numerous, multi-year investigations involving hundreds of hearings and subpoenas but during those investigations, “we never had anything close to the severity and volume of smoking gun evidence of corruption that exists right now.”
And now Trump is publically calling on China to investigate Biden. Trump is such a corrupt narcissist he can’t help himself. Based upon what Trump has admitted saying, one can only imagine the personal favors he has requested of Putin, and other foreign leaders in private.
Susan Miller
Onalaska
