Trump's Telephone Call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky Reveals Why Trump Must be Impeached

On Wednesday morning, the White House released damning evidence which revealed that U.S. President Donald Trump deliberately sought information from a foreign country that Trump hoped would be damaging to a political opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden.  Specifically, the White House released a memorandum of a telephone conversation between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that took place on July 25, 2019.

The phone call was at the heart of an allegation by an unnamed member of the U.S. intelligence community, who filed a whistleblower complaint with the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, Michael Atkinson, on August 12, 2019.  Prior to the release of the transcript, all that was known of the complaint was that it concerned an allegation of an inappropriate promise made by Trump to a foreign leader through a telephone call.  The complaint was deemed credible and of an urgent concern by Atkinson, who turned over the complaint to acting Director of National Intelligence, Joseph Maguire.  Because it had been deemed of urgent concern, federal law required Maguire to turn the complaint over to the intelligence committees of the House of Representatives and the Senate.  When Maguire failed to do so in the time proscribed by statute, Akinson alerted Congress to the existence of the complaint.

While the Administration dragged its heels on releasing the text of the complaint, the Wall Street Journal published an article on September 21, 2019, asserting that Trump had pressured Zelensky about eight times in the telephone call to investigate Biden and his son Hunter.  Despite initial denials and cries of  "fake news," Trump himself acknowledged that he had pressured Zelensky into investigating Biden and his son.  Trump's admission, along with his Administration's intransient stance on withholding the text of the complaint, prompted the House Democrats to meet on Tuesday night.  As a result of that meeting, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who had been opposed to impeachment over the findings of the Mueller Report, announced that the House would now begin a formal impeachment inquiry.  Feeling the political pressure on him growing, Trump agreed to the release of the transcript of his telephone call after obtaining consent from the Ukrainian Government.

It should be noted that no real word for word transcript of the telephone conversation exists.  Rather, the White House released a memorandum of the telephone call pieced together by government officials whose job included taking notes of such conversations.

Nonetheless, despite Trump's claims that the telephone call was "perfect," and that the transcript would exonerate him, the memorandum instead provides a smoking gun of an abuse of presidential power for personal political gain.

A review of the conversation demonstrates how Trump brazenly ignores his constitutional oath, and seeks to use his office for his own personal benefit.

Specifically, the memorandum confirms that Trump requested that Ukraine cooperate with his private attorney, Rudolph Guiliani, and the Attorney General, William Barr, specifically mentioning Trump's belief that Biden stopped a prosecution in the Ukraine that involved Biden's son, Hunter.  After Zelensky agreed to cooperate, Trump stated that he would have both Giuliani and Barr call Zelensky.

Joe Biden, of course, seeks the Democratic nomination for the 2020 presidential election, and currently leads the pack of potential nominees in most polls.  Indeed, in head to head polls, Biden leads Trump by wide margins.  Receiving information that Biden acted corruptly from Ukraine could potentially help Trump in his bid for reelection.

Trump faces the problem, however, that no evidence exists showing that either of the Bidens did anything wrong.  Before Zelensky was elected Ukraine's President, Vitkor Shokin served as Ukraine's top prosecutor.  He was supported by Russia, who was interfering in Ukrainian internal politics.  As is well known, once Ukraine started to turn more towards the West, Russia supported armed Ukrainian separatists, and even invaded Ukraine, occupying the Crimea and claiming it as Russian territory.

Shokin was viewed by Western European governments and the Obama Administration as being soft on corruption.  President Obama sent Biden on a mission to Ukraine to pressure the Ukrainian President to remove Shokin by withholding about $1 billion in U.S. aid.  The intention behind the move was to pressure Ukraine to be tougher on corrupt oligarchs through more aggressive investigations.

At the time, Biden's son, Hunter, held a position as a paid member of the board of a Ukrainian oil and gas company, Burisma.  While Burisma had been under investigation by the Ukrainian Government, under Shokin, the investigation had stalled.  Thus, by insisting on the appointment of a tougher prosecutor, Biden was not only representing official U.S. policy, but risking a renewed investigation of the company that employed Hunter.  No evidence exists that Biden was using his office for personal gain, or that Hunter himself had engaged in any sort of corruption.  Trump's goal. therefore, was simply to manufacture as much alternative facts as possible to cast dispersions on Biden, and hopefully use that to whittle away at Biden's lead in the polls.

In addition to claiming that his request to the Ukrainian President was appropriate, Trump has also claimed that the memorandum shows that there was no pressure placed on Zelensky, and no quid pro quo (or an exchange for something of value to Ukraine for providing the requested information).  Trump's defense again strains credibility.

At the beginning of the telephone conversation, Trump reminds Zelensky that the United States has been Ukraine's biggest supported.  Trump denigrates the actions of European allies, such as Germany, for not doing as much as the United States in supporting Ukraine.  Zelensky responds by fawning all over Trump, agreeing with his statement "1000%."  Most of Zelensky's responses transmit his desire to stay in the good graces of the Trump Administration.  Specifically, Zelensky is quoted a saying, "We are ready to continue to cooperate for the next step specifically we are almost ready to buy more Javelins from the United States for defense purposes."  A Javelin is a missile used by the U.S. military, and would presumably be used by Ukraine in defending its territory from Russia and Russian backed separatists.

This reference to Javelin purchases must be placed in context.  Congress had approved about $250 million in military aid to Ukraine.  However, just days before this telephone call, Trump had ordered that the disbursement of this aid be suspended.  It should also be noted that Trump's admiration of Russian President Vladimir Putin is well-known globally.  In fact, not long after this telephone conversation, Trump publicly stated his support for the readmission of Russia to the G-8, even though Russia had been thrown out because of its invasion of Ukraine.  Clearly, Zelensky had reason to believe that Trump's continued support of Ukraine in its struggle against Russia was soft at best, and could be withdrawn if Ukraine did not do as Trump requested.

In that regard, Trump is quoted as stating, "I would like you to do us a favor though," immediately after Zelensky brings up his desire to buy more Javelins.  The juxtaposition of this request from Trump immediately after Zelensky's spoken desire to buy more missiles, as well as his use of the word "though," indicates that Trump's willingness to provide additional aid was contingent on Ukraine's cooperation with his request for a favor.

What is interesting, however, is that Trump requests more than one favor.  The first one concerned a matter Trump refered to as "Crowdstrike."  Crowdstrike is the company that the Democratic National Committee used to investigate the hacking of its email server.  The Crowdstrike, the FBI and Robert Mueller's investigative team all concluded that Russia was responsible for that hacking.  Yet Trump refused to believe his own Government in reaching that conclusion.  One reason for his belief is because Crowdstrike never turned the physical server over to the FBI.  Trump believed rumors that Ukraine was in possession of the server.  He therefore asked Zelensky for his help in proving that Trump's convoluted conspiracy theory was true.

It is beyond odd that Trump demanded of the Ukraine that it find evidence Trump hoped would exonerate Trump's buddy, Putin, from the conclusion of the U.S. intelligence community, the FBI and the Mueller team that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.  It demonstrates Trump's refusal to accept the conclusions of the Mueller and his team, who spent about two years investigating Russia, the Trump Campaign and the Trump Administration.  That investigation resulted in numerous criminal indictments, including the indictments of Russian officials.

Indeed, the timing of the telephone call further demonstrates the contempt that Trump held for Robert Mueller and his investigation.  Mueller had testified before Congress on the day before this telephone call.  Through his investigation, Mueller presented evidence of Russia's interference in the election, that the Trump Campaign had welcomed Russia's interference (although the conduct of campaign officials did not rise to the level of conspiracy), and of numerous instances that could support a conclusion that Trump engaged in obstruction of justice by frustrating the investigation into Russia's interference.

Mueller crafted his report on the investigation with the understanding that a sitting president could not be indicted during his term in office.  Thus, Mueller was careful not to make a conclusion that Trump had committed criminal acts.  Nonetheless, through his report, Mueller made it clear that his investigated did not exonerate Trump.  Rather, he preserved the evidence so that it could be used presumably either by Congress through impeachment or through a criminal prosecution once Trump left office.  Trump and his Administration publicly characterized the investigation as finding that there was "no collusion" and "no obstruction," despite the fact that Mueller made neither of those findings.

Trump, of course, repeatedly referred to the Mueller investigation as a "which hunt," confessing his belief that he, his campaign and his administration did nothing wrong.  Thus, in an interview aired in June of 2019, Trump answered a question from George Stephanopoulos by stating that he did not think it would not be wrong to accept information about a political opponent in an election from a foreign national.  Trump even indicated that if a foreign national provided such information, that he did not believe it was necessary to inform the FBI.  This brazen flaunting of the law raised such an uproar, that the Chairwoman of the Federal Elections Commission was prompted to tweet that "it is illegal to solicit, accept, or receive anything of value from a foreign national in connection with a U.S. election."  A thing of value incudes information that can be used against an opponent.

Trump, of course, never accepted that he did anything wrong.  Thus, in the shadow of Mueller's testimony before Congress, Trump went one step further than merely welcoming foreign interference in a U.S. election; he outright solicited such interference from a foreign leader.

The conclusion here is inescapable.  The memorandum of the telephone call to Zelensky shows that Trump has violated the public trust.  He has violated his oath to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.  In fact, Trump himself has violated the Constitution as well as criminal law by soliciting foreign interference in connection with a federal election.  In order to protect the constitutional balance, governmental ethics and our treasured democracy, the House of Representatives has no choice now, but to proceed with the impeachment inquiry.

By:  Willliam J. Kovatch, Jr.

Mid-Term House Results Highlight Decline in Republican Voter Base

Desiring to place a positive spin on the outcome of the 2018 mid-term elections, President Trump will most assuredly emphasize Republican gains in the Senate. Despite a pick-up of five seats (as projected at the time I write this) for a 56 seat majority, however, the results of the Senate races do not diminish the fact that the Republican Party is dying. 

The trend in the American electorate is more accurately demonstrated by the results of the elections for the House of Representatives. There, the Democrats, needing to pick up 23 seats to be the majority party, are projected as of the time of the writing of this to win as many as 35 seats. 

The Founding Fathers, fearing mob rule, built safe-guards into the Constitution, insulating the Government from the popular vote. Thus, the President is not directly elected by the people. Instead, the people vote for Electors, who make up the Electoral College and who in turn choose the next President. The number of Electors each state has is the sum of the number of the state’s representatives in the House and the number of the State’s senators. This results in disproportionate power being given to the voters in states with smaller populations, such as Montana and Utah, than to those in states with large populations, such as California and New York. 

Likewise, each state has two senators, regardless of whether the state has a population of 700,000 or 7 million. 

Even if a policy or presidential candidate lacks the support of the most voters nationwide, the structure of the US Constitution means that that policy or candidate can still win the day. 

Indeed, in the history of the United States, there have been five times when the candidate winning the popular vote nonetheless lost the presidency. The two most recent times occurred in 2000 and 2016 when the Republican candidate lost the popular vote but won a majority in the Electoral College. 

It should come as no coincidence that these two most recent examples involve Republican presidents. The fact is that the Republicans have seen their core supporters diminish for quite some time now. In fact, Republican Donald Trump lost the popular vote in 2016 by almost 3 million. The reason Democrat Hillary Clinton lost the Electoral College vote was due to the fact that her voters were concentrated in highly populated states where the individual vote has less power. 

Take the 2012 federal elections as an example. That year, the only group that gave Republican Mitt Romney a majority was white males. This caused a lot of soul-searching within the Republican Party, with many Republican leaders seeing a dire need to expand the appeal of the party to other demographic groups. As one effort to attract new voters, Republicans even initially supported a liberal version of immigration reform, which passed the Senate but died when Tea Party members in the House branded the bill as amnesty.  Fearful of the new-found power of the Tea Party, House Republican leaders backed away their support of immigration reform. 

The rise of the Tea Party itself serves as an example of how a group took advantage of political structures meant to counter the popular vote to gain power. When Republicans won control of the House of Representatives in 1994, after over forty years of Democratic majorities in that body, the party concentrated on protecting its power.  Republicans, led by Tom DeLay, focused on state legislature races, the state legislatures being the bodies that created congressional district maps. In a process known as gerrymandering, state legislatures controlled by Republicans drew maps that purposefully created a large number of districts where the population favored the Republicans. That is, the legislatures created safe Republican districts. While gerrymandering has been a part of American politics since the republic was formed, it had never been accomplished on so grand a scale before. The unintended consequences of this round of gerrymandering was that Republican House members now found stronger competition from more conservative candidates in the primaries than from challengers in the general election. Thus, the conservative Tea Party found themselves with power disproportionate to their actual size in the general population. Tea Party members strongly influenced the direction of the Republican Party.

While Republicans count on white makes for their support, the trend in the United States has been for white males to make up less and less of the general population. In order for Republicans to maintain popular support, Republicans needed to appeal to other demographic groups. 

However, Republicans have chosen not to broaden its appeal, but instead to attempt to counter the trend of the growing number of non-white voters. This can most easily be seen in the party’s immigration policy. While Republicans have opposed the ability of undocumented aliens to enter the country, they have also pursued policies to stem legal immigration. The Trump Administration, for example, has imposed harsher requirements on immigrants with at least a college education to qualify for a visa through the H-1B program. The Administration also seeks to impose restrictions on asylum-seekers, and wants to change the law to limit family-based immigration. If successful, the result of such policy positions will be to reduce the growth in non-whites within the US population. 

Applying these trends to the 2018 elections, Republicans picked up Senate seats in states such as North Dakota, Missouri, Florida and Indiana. These were all states that voted for Trump in 2016. Republican wins should therefore not be surprising. Indeed, of the 35 seats up for election in 2018, 26 were Democratically held. That meant going into the election, the Democrats not only had to defend all of their seats, but also pick up three of the remaining nine seats. The task of making gains in the Senate was much more difficult for Democrats. 

Gains in the House, however, are much more reflective of trends in the US population. Despite Trump’s claim to economic success, issues such as health care, the protection of women from sexual assault, harsh immigration enforcement, Russian interference in the 2016 election and the rise of racial bigotry all played a role in the Democratic victories. Indeed, the Democrats made these gains despite the aforementioned disadvantage of Republican gerrymandering. Clinging to gains in the Senate, which themselves will have no effect of the balance of power in Congress due to the fact that the Republicans already had a majority in the Senate, will do little, if anything, to enhance the long-term prospects of the Republicans. 

By contrast, a Democratically controlled House will not only thwart Trump’s agenda, but will give support to the continued investigation into Russian electoral interference headed by Robert Mueller. In sum, the results of the 2017 mid-term elections were a clear disaster for Trump and the Republican Party, and far more reflective of the hurdles Republicans face in future elections. 

By: William J. Kovatch, Jr.

The Left Has No One to Blame But Themselves

Here we are just over a week after the U.S. presidential elections, and the meltdown among the political left, who are in full denial and finger-pointing mode, continues.  Instead of a truly needed introspection on this loss, the vocal on the left need to weed out which groups are responsible for this by failing to adhere strictly to the monolithic view of how they should have voted. I find it amazing that the most insightful analysis and criticism has come not from Democratic party leaders who need to learn how to adjust to this defeat, but from a fictional character created by a British comedian.

Jonathan Pie is a fictional reporter created by British comedian Tom Walker.  He has apparently been making these videos where the reporter supposedly flies off the cuff and goes into a explicative-laden tirade over the day's news.  Over the weekend, links to a video which supposedly catches Pie preparing for a day's broadcast, angrily laying it out to the left the reasons why they have lost a string of elections internationally, found their way into the newsfeed of many Facebook users.  The thing is, through the guise of a fictional character, Walker's criticism hits the mark.

Pie exclaims, "Our argument isn't won by hurling labels and insults."  On this, he is exactly right.  What has crept into leftist thinking is this smug arrogance that if you don't think like they do, you must not be intelligent enough to talk politics, let alone have a say in policy-making.

The hallmark of this arrogance can be seen all the way back in the 2000 presidential election when, during one of the debates, Al Gore got into George Bush's face to ask his about the Dingle-Norwood bill.  This arrogance was repeated in the 2016 election as the left had a collective fit when third party candidate Gary Johnson candidly admitted that he did not know what Aleppo was.  The idea being that we, the liberals of this country, spend countless hours pouring over our newspapers, periodicals, and Congressional Records to become much more informed than you.  How dare you think that you and your inability to recognize policy minutia have any business even being in the discussion.

And so, instead of educating, liberals assume that those who don't agree with them are less intelligent, and as such are only deserving of ridicule and insults.  Not satisfied with resorting to base insults, such as racist, bigot or sexist, the left engage in the mental masturbation of devising new ways of hurling insults by creating obscure terms or equating otherwise innocuous policy positions with ignorance.  Thus with arrogant smirks indicating knowledge of some inside joke, the left throw terms out like "alt-right," which are meaningless to the majority of Americans, but have derisive connotations within elitist liberal circles.

Having been accused of being "alt-right" for daring to openly criticize Hillary Clinton, I did research on the term.  I found that there is no clear definition of it, or where its boundaries lie.  It is merely the latest of epithets liberals have created to look down on dissention.

Of course, the derision doesn't stop with mere insults.  Stances on fiscal policy define whether or not a person is truly bigoted.  Thus, Democratic Representative Charles Rangel boldly proclaimed when the Republicans first broke the Democratic strangle-hold on Congress in 1994 that the new racists wear suits and call for tax cuts.

Going back to the video, after laying into the reasons why Clinton and the left lost, Pie confides that he dare not say these things to his leftist friends because he would get "f-ing lynched if he said this."  Pie laments that the left doesn't debate anymore because the left has decided that any other way of thinking is just unacceptable.  "So, if you're on the right, you're a freak, you're evil, you're racist, you're stupid.  You are a basket of deplorables." Exasperated, Pie exclaims, "How do you think people are going to vote if you talk to them like that?"

And surely, there were people who took pride in being the target of such criticism.  I had white female cousins proudly proclaiming themselves to be one of the "deplorables."  Back when Hillary participated in the character assassination of Monica Lewinsky to cover up her husband's disgusting behavior, she labeled his enemies as a "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy."  Back then, I had business cards printed up proudly proclaiming myself to be part of that "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy."

"When has anyone ever been persuaded by being insulted or labeled?"  Pie continues.  Afraid of being attacked for raising their opinion, Pie postulates, people wait until they are in the privacy of the voting to express themselves honestly.

And there is truth to this as well.  While the left may dominate public discourse with their control of most major media outlets, that discourse is not a true representation of how Americans believe.  As an example, when I first came to Washington, I was one of few in my Government office who had fiscally conservative views. And yet, I had to endure office-wide emails deriding the conservative agenda.  I could, and did, respond at first.  But finding myself shouted down and only contributing to the discomfort others felt in having an unwanted political argument in their virtual in-boxes, I decided that it was better to ignore the office-wide email chains and avoid political discussions with my friends and co-workers.  Sure, conservatives found each other.  But it was usually through whispers and innuendo until in a surreptitious meeting we would confide our beliefs to each other as if we were the French underground during the Nazi occupation.

The left love to extol the virtue of diversity for its own sake, unless of course that diversity includes a tolerance of a difference of opinions.  And thus charges of narrow-mindedness, ignorance and bigotry are emerging from this defeat.  If you are a white woman, who dare you vote against your gender.  If you dared to vote third party, well you may claim not to be a racist, but you showed your tolerance for racism by not voting for our champion, Hillary.

And it is this monolithic intolerance of different view points that had blinded the left from recognizing the serious flaws in their own candidate.  It is as if the liberals in this country were so motivated to elect the first woman president that they forgot to consider whether this particular woman really deserved their support.

She's a woman who cares about all the people!  Really?  Because a look into her private conversations among her campaign staff showed her aloofness and tendency to look down upon those groups in society that don't offer unflinching support.

She has the right temperament!  Really?  Because we have all seen her break down into angry fits when challenged on her responsibilities and choices.

America is just too willing to reject an experienced and qualified woman in favor of an inexperienced and unqualified white man!  Really?  Because let's take a look at her so-called experience.  During her husband's administration she tried to forge a role for the unelected first lady in policy decisions, heading a secretive body to formulate a health care proposal.  It was a body kept secret specifically to avoid dissent and diversity of opinions.  And for that reason Hillary Care failed miserably.

After her husband's administration, she hand-picked an open Senate seat in a state where she had no connections, and which showed in the past to be friendly to carpet-baggers with popular political relatives who had presidential ambitions.  Her years in the Senate were meant to begin the creation of the myth of her experience by projecting a certain image.  To her surprise, this image was not enough as she found herself out-maneuvered by yet another inexperienced but charismatic Senator from her own party when she first sought the nomination.  Then, in a back room compromise, she was promised the all important Secretary of State position for her support of Barrack Obama in the general election.

And how was her tenure as Secretary of State?  Lost in this post-election shuffle is the sad fact that President Obama's foreign policy has been disastrous.  The key example of this was the naïve manner in which the Administration, which included Secretary of State Clinton, handled the so-called "Arab Spring."  Assuming that young people who rise up against a dictator must be fighting for greater democracy, the Administration ignored the power of fundamentalist Islam.  Indeed, our Ambassador and Embassy staff were not brutally murdered because of any security issues or any amateurish YouTube video.  They were murdered because the naivety of the Administration ignored the history of the spread of fundamentalist Islam and the power it holds over its followers.  (Indeed, to underline the point I made earlier on the hurling of insults, if any liberal Democrats were brave enough to reach this point in this essay, I fully expect that instead of resorting to history to refute me, at this point I risk being labeled an Islamophobe in making this argument.)

This election was not the triumph of hatred, ignorance and bigotry, as the left would have you believe.  As I mentioned in an earlier essay, it cannot even be seen as an ideological triumph for the Republican party.  But it was the result of a very negative campaign with two very flawed candidates.  The shame of it was that one of them had to win.  At any rate, at this point, instead of resorting to name-calling, and finger pointing, the left does need to engage in real self-examination.  And that self-examination should result in a realization that insults and derision are not the ways to win the hearts and souls of the electorate.

By:  William J. Kovatch, Jr.