Releasing the transcript of his July 24 phone call with 40-year-old Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, 73-year-old President Donald Trump opened up the book for all to see. Trump insists he did nothing wrong asking Zelensky to look into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, for any corruption that happened during the Obama presidency. Hunter Biden served on the board of Burisima Holdings, a Ukrainian natural gas company where he made $50,000 a month, unheard of sums for serving on a for profit board. Trump wanted to know whether the former VP, now the Democratic front-runner for president, influenced former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to fire chief prosecutor Viktor Shokin. Biden once bragged in 2016 at the Council on Foreign Relations about getting Shokin fired, some say to protect his son, Hunter, from a corruption investigation.
Trump’s transcript released yesterday prompted 79-year-old House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to authorize formal impeachment hearings for Trump asking Zelensky to dig up dirt on Joe and Hunter. While possibly inappropriate, that’s a far cry from calling it high crimes and misdemeanors, the litmus test for impeachment. For the last two years, during Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia, Pelosi resisted constant calls for Trump’s impeachment. When Mueller delivered his final report March 23, it cleared Trump of coordinating with the Russians to win the 2016 election. Democrats, led by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerold Nadler (D-N.Y.) and Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Califl.), continued to cherry pick Mueller’s findings to potentially impeach Trump on obstruction of justice.
When they couldn’t get Trump on obstruction of justice, a recent whistleblower complaint charging that Trump withheld $450 million in military funds until Zelensky delivered dirt on Joe and Hunter. Trump denied any quid pro quo, yet Pelosi acquiesced to pro-impeachment Democrats led by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez [AOC] (D-N.Y.) to start impeachment hearings. AOC insisted Sept. 22 that the bigger scandal was not Trump’s lawbreaking but Pelsoi’s refusal to impeach Trump. Two days later, Pelsoi capitulated to pro-impeachment Democrats regardless of the fallout to the 2020 campaign. For months, Pelosi feared blowback from any impeachment hearings, giving Trump an advantage heading into 2020. Speaking today at the U.N., Trump said the impeachment inquiry would help his chances in 2020, despite the negative publicity from the impeachment hearings.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) reviewed the phone call transcript and called he matter a real “nothing burger.” Calling the transcript with Zelensky “a nothing [non-quid pro quo] burger,” Graham said it was “insane” to start impeachment hearings based on Trump’s phone call. “From my point of view, to impeach any president over a phone call like this would be insane,” Graham said. Ukraine’s president [Zelensky] “did not feel threatened” and “felt fine with what happened, calling Trump’s call appropriate. Trump’s detractors, like Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Ut.) told CBS News’ Alan He, “what we’ve seen from the transcript itself is deeply troubling.” Romney’s been making disparaging comments about Trump since the 2016 election, reacting to Trump’s criticism of the 2012 campaign against former President Barack Obama in which Trump said Romney “choked like a dog,” “didn’t show up.”
Democrats looked for any excuse to start impeachment proceedings with Pelosi finally capitulating to the pressure from her caucus. Democrats believe that their best chance of beating Trump in 2020 is damage his credibility with endless hearings, now impeachment proceedings. Pelosi knows that its highly unlikely that Schiff and other House prosecutors will convince a reluctant Senate to convict Trump of high crimes and misdemeanors for simply asking a foreign leader to give him information on Joe and Hunter Biden. However inappropriate or crossing the line, as Graham said, it doesn’t rise to the level of impeachment. House Minority Whip Steve Skalise (R-La.) agreed with Graham that, “there was absolutely no quid pro quo,” meaning Trump held nothing back, as alleged by Democrats, when it came to Ukraine’s military aid. Democrats don’t care what Republicans think about impeachment.
Asking Zelensky to help get to the bottom of the Biden scandal, Trump opened himself up for criticism There’s a big difference looking into corruption than trying to impact the outcome of a presidential election. No mainstream media outlet wants to ask what Hunter Biden was doing in the Ukraine making millions of dollars. Nor do they want to ask why Joe boasted at the Council of Foreign Relations in 2016 about getting Ukraine’s chief prosecutor Viktor Shokin fired. Trump’s inquiry to Zelensky reflects the extent to which he was subject to scrutiny by the Mueller investigation for nearly two years. Trump wants to know who, in the Obama administration, including Joe Biden, authorized the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into his campaign and presidency. Asking Zelensky about Biden’s role in Ukraine when his son Hunter made millions of easy money doesn’t seem that off-the-wall.
