28. INTO THE AGE OF TRUMP

DEEPENING SOCIAL DIVISIONS

Failing to get any traction with the Mueller report, the Democrats soon stumbled onto what they hoped was a new opportunity to move the planned impeachment proceedings forward.  At first the House's Democratic Party leader Nancy Pelosi was strongly set against continuing the impeachment movement, fearing that this was serving merely to work against the party's national standing. 

But then in August (2019) an "unidentified whistleblower" passed on to the Democrat Adam Schiff's House Intelligence Committee a report that on July 25, Trump in a phone call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky requested of him help in getting information concerning possible Ukrainian interference in the 2016 American elections.  But Trump also asked him to look into the involvement of former Vice President (also a leading 2020 Democratic Party presidential candidate) Joe Biden in a huge Ukrainian corruption scandal.  This corruption had become a matter of great importance to the Obama administration because the U.S. was funding heavily Ukraine's efforts to hold on to its independence in the face of enormous pressures coming from Putin's Russia.  But much of the American funding seemed to have been funneled off to the pockets of very corrupt individuals high up in Ukrainian politics.

Included among those corrupt organizations was the Ukrainian natural gas company, Burisma Holdings, a company closely tied in with the Ukrainian government and famous for its political corruption. Trump was particularly interested in Burisma because while all this back and forth between Biden and Ukraine was going on in 2014, Biden's son, Hunter, was placed on Burisma's board of directors.  Hunter thus served from 2014 up until April of 2019 – receiving $50,000 a month in compensation (at the very least) for his services. 

Was Hunter's involvement part of the corrupt "insider deals" rampant at the time? Or was he placed there to try to block those same deals?  That question was the matter of interest to Trump.

Trump's request in itself was not exactly illegal, though politically questionable – depending on his motive for doing so.  Anyway, Trump admitted to just such a phone call.  The real question was, did the president tie this request to his decision earlier to suspend $391 million in military aid to Ukraine as "quid pro quo" (this for that) pressure solely to undertake this Biden investigation (the money was finally released in September anyway)? 

Trump said no, there was no connection.  He stated that he was concerned simply about the high level of corruption in general in Ukraine and reluctant to release funds until there was greater assurance that the Ukrainian government had a better grip on the loss of money through graft.

But those wanting Trump impeached said yes, that the ultimate purpose of the withholding of the funds was solely to utilize foreign (Ukrainian) intervention in order to undercut the candidacy of Biden – an illegal act under America's political campaign laws.  So what were the exact grounds for impeachment here?  At this point it got to be a case of whose version of Trump's motives one was to believe.

In any case, Trump was in no mood to be dragged before Congress to be interrogated by a hostile Schiff and his Democrats – and simply refused to appear on Capitol Hill.  So now the issue for the committee became one, not of activity involving the national elections or the Ukraine connection … but of Trump's "obstruction of Congress" and "abuse of power." 

So those two very vague procedural matters were what the Democrat-controlled House finally decided to impeach Trump over.

The Ukrainian issue was dropped because it had become increasingly clear that pushing on that issue was not going to work well for the Democrats … and in fact might actually do some considerable damage to Biden if there was too much digging into the details of the event.  So that part got dropped.

Thus on December 18th (2019) the House passed impeachment charges against Trump on those two counts, "obstruction of Congress" and "abuse of power." Unsurprisingly, the vote was almost completely along party lines … again, making the matter one of pure politics rather than the law.  But then on February 5 (2020) it was dismissed by the Senate.  There was no way that any Democrat-dominated House impeachment was going to get even close to a 2/3s vote needed to convict in the Republican-dominated Senate … although the "abuse of power" article did get the support of Republican Mitt Romney, another Republican whom the Trump mouth had succeeded in converting into a dedicated political opponent.

This was clearly a case of partisan politics, not the law, as indeed the impeachment urge had been since its origins in early 2017 … in fact every time it had been brought into play since the 1970s. And unfortunately, what the American public would be forced to make of this now on-going event would be shaped (as always) entirely by the way the media wanted to present the "facts" of the case itself.

In any case, it appeared that "impeachment" was now going to serve as a regular instrument of American politics, to be called on to cripple the White House by a hostile Congress … even though the 2/3's Senate vote requirement was going to make it difficult to ever get a conviction.  But the impeachment proceedings would of themselves offer all sorts of political opportunity for an anti-White-House congressional opposition … not to mention a scandal-hungry national press.

This was a very bad policy to be bringing into America's national political arena.  But it was there … fully supported by Congressional leaders who should have known how dangerous such a new political procedure could make America's national political life.  This was nothing more than sleazy Third-World political antics ... used regularly to negate national elections that did not go in the direction that certain politicians were wanting them to go.  That is to say, elections themselves would no longer be treated as final in their outcomes.  There would no longer be any graceful concessions by the defeated contestant … but instead simply an on-going contest of the election decision.