The Ukraine Bargain and President Trump's Impeachment Threat
(Baonghean) - Trump is currently accused of illegal behavior when using $400 million in military aid to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political rival in the 2020 White House race, Joe Biden.
45 years after Watergate, 20 years after the Bill Clinton scandal, the impeachment mechanism is once again "revived" in Washington.
In addition to the deep inherent divisions, the Democratic Party's effort to "oust" US President Donald Trump seems to have the potential to "poison" the political life of the country to a greater extent than previous impeachments in the history of this country.
The situation changed in the blink of an eye.
On Monday, Washington got into the swing of things, looking forward to the week's dramatic news that unfolded around their president at the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
But in what seemed like the blink of an eye, everything changed quickly for Mr. Trump, the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives and the Republicans in the Senate.
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| US President answers questions from the press on September 26. Photo: AP |
In the coming weeks, the story of Trump's conversations with his Ukrainian counterpart, and whether he broke the law and violated the most basic principles of the constitution, will be dissected and even distorted in a political "matrix".
But anyway, after a week of leaks, standoffs between Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, shocking revelations, and bets by key power brokers, the truth is starting to emerge.
Trump is currently accused of illegal behavior when using $400 million in military aid to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political rival in the 2020 White House race, Joe Biden.
It seems that Mr. Trump thinks he can prove his innocence by making public the content of his phone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky on September 25.
But it turns out that his move made the situation worse. Although Republicans insist that there was no “quid pro quo,” according to CNN, the document shows that Trump asked Zelensky for “help.”
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| US and Ukrainian leaders met on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. Photo: AFP |
Remember in 2016, Mr. Trump was accused of knowingly profiting from Russia’s plan to interfere in the US election. According to the most recent accusations, he has put the name of “election interference” in 2020 on his own hands.
Things took a significantly darker turn with the release on September 26 of the allegations, which the White House has sought to suppress in an effort to contain what could be the most serious crisis of Mr Trump’s presidency.
The whistleblower – whose identity remains unknown – has accused President Trump of “using the power of his office to solicit foreign interference in the 2020 US election”.
In a significant detail, the whistleblower also accused the White House of trying to cover up evidence of Trump’s conduct. The report claims officials were asked to retrieve the transcript of the Trump-Zelensky conversation from a computer system classified as classified, reserved for the most sensitive national security information.
Roadmap to impeachment
Democrats now believe they have a “roadmap” for impeachment that Pelosi announced on September 25, after months of trying to hold back the liberal tide.
Her hesitation may now strengthen Democrats, who can now argue that it was the fresh evidence of wrongdoing, not the controversial facts presented by special counsel Mueller, that forced them to act.
On Thursday, Pelosi assigned Intelligence Committee member Adam Schiff to lead the impeachment inquiry. Schiff's first move was to release the whistleblower's complaint ahead of a hearing with acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, whom Democrats have accused of obstructing the complaint from reaching Congress.
According to him, this important document will provide a “roadmap” to motivate the committee to conduct interviews with witnesses and request documents related to the case.
For its part, after the initial shock of the sudden turn of events, the White House has now gone on the defensive.
“I want to know who it was, who gave the whistleblower the information? Because that's no different from espionage.”
“We saw many Democrats waste the last two and a half years on baseless accusations and they kept trying to reverse the will of the American people in the recent presidential election.”
So how did the man who was also named in this incident - President Obama's vice president, Mr. Biden - react? Of course, the veteran politician made statements aimed at the central theme of his campaign, which is that Mr. Trump is not fit for the Oval Office.
But in all fairness, Trump's assertions that Biden and his son Hunter were corrupt in Ukraine and China - although currently without evidence - are enough to threaten the former US vice president's political future.
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| Crowd supporting Trump's impeachment in Washington, USA on September 26. Photo: AP |
In response to Biden's statement at a campaign fundraiser in California that Trump "likes to ask for foreign help to win the election," many people spoke out about the "Trump side."
For example, Texas congressman Mike Conaway argued that Trump had every right to ask a foreign counterpart to investigate corruption, borrowing the White House's explanation of the phone call with Zelensky: "It is entirely appropriate for a president to ask another president to assist in law enforcement in a case of suspected wrongdoing."
So, after a week full of ups and downs, America is facing the reality that the new nightmare of the impeachment of their commander-in-chief seems to have just begun. And its development, although difficult to predict, will have a profound impact on political life, as well as the upcoming important election in the land of the stars and stripes.
