Republicans and Low Information Voters: Trump, COVID-19 and Hydroxychloroquine

Let me start off by saying, I'm not a doctor.  I'm a lawyer.  I don't have an expertise in medicine.  Please don't take medical advice from me.

I also want to say that I sincerely hope and pray that we find a treatment that is effective against COVID-19.  If that turns out to be chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, well that would be just great.  But Republicans, and Donald Trump in particular, are pushing this drug as a miracle panacea for COVID-19.  They're doing this based on very little scientific evidence.  That is, Republicans are trying to convince low information voters that it is ok to end state-imposed restrictions on the economy because we now have a miracle of modern medicine that will protect us all.

Why?  Well, they really need a miracle cure, or the thought of a miracle cure, to support their policy choices.  Specifically, they don't like the fact that we have had to shut down the economy to fight the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19.  Trump believes that his re-election prospects are tied to the economy.  History tells us that Presidents who face re-election in the midst of a recession generally lose.  In addition, the Republican's strongest supporters, big business, can't stand the idea that their quarterly reports are being spoiled by slowed sales.  Trump needs to convince you that re-opening the economy in the face of a new contagious virus taking its toll on the public is a good idea.  So, he has to convince you that something, anything, is a miracle cure that makes re-opening the economy less risky.

The logical policy right now would be to discourage unnecessary contact to slow the spread of the virus so as to alleviate the pressure on our healthcare resources, at least until we can find an effective treatment or vaccine.  Because this involve encouraging large portions of the economy to close down, it may also involve the Government assisting those hurt financially from enforced isolation through direct payments to allow people who can't work to pay their rent, pay for their health insurance, and feed their family.

Yet, some Republicans conveniently become deficit hawks when it means criticism of policies championed by Democrats.  Funny, Mitch McConnell wasn't that concerned with the federal budget deficit when it came to tax reform, and providing big corporations with nice tax breaks.  But when you have the need for social distancing and stay-at-home orders, coupled with an attempt to try to alleviate the economic impact on regular people with the so-called "stimulus checks," McConnell suddenly becomes a deficit hawk again.

This is why Trump and his supporters are so desperate to have the states lift their stay-at-home orders.  He and his supporters need to have the economy restarted before November.  They honestly don't care about the potential death toll that could result from re-opening the economy too early.  If Trump can convince his followers that there is a miracle cure, then he can manipulate low information voters to act against their own interests.

It's funny.  I actually believed that we had put the chloroquine debate to rest.  We had that study from National Institutes of Health that followed patients in the Veterans Administration hospitals.  The study indicated a correlation between the use of chloroquine in COVID-19 patients, and a higher mortality rate.  Keep in mind, correlation does not necessarily mean causation.  Plus, we must consider that the use of chloroquine as a COVID-19 treatment has only bee approved as a palliative measure.  That means it has only been approved to be used when other treatments have failed, and the patient is close to death.  So, you need to consider that when evaluating this study.

In fact, the Food and Drug Administration currently cautions against the use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 treatment outside of a clinical trial, due to the potentially dangerous side effects, such as how it could affect the heart.

Nonetheless, the NIH study is still a more comprehensive study than the French one that the chloroquine peddlers have been pointing to.  That study involved less than forty patients, and was not a randomized clinical trial.  To be blunt, the French study didn't use currently accepted scientific methodology.

And that is key.  Real science takes time.  You have studies that document experiments.  Experiments need control groups for a valid comparison.  You need the right number of participants so you can show that your results aren't random, and that they are statistically significant.  And then, you need the studies to be reproducible.  They need to be peer-reviewed, which means other doctors and medical researchers need to examine the methodology and the results to make sure no mistakes were made and that the results are accurate.  Why?  Because there is a lot at stake.  The Hippocratic Oath that doctors take says, first, do no harm.  And when you are putting chemicals in your body, there is a potential that these chemicals can affect your health in a bad way.

That's why studies take time. That's why it normally takes years for vaccines to be developed for newly discovered viruses.  Sometimes, vaccines aren't developed for a particular virus.  Think about HIV.  We have nown about this virus and how it causes AIDS for about forty years now.  We still don't have an AIDS vaccine.  Why?  In part, because once we eventually took notice of the suffering that AIDS caused, we discovered some effective treatments.  Also, with appropriate safeguards, the transmission of HIV can be prevented.  But, the point remains, we don't have an HIV vaccine.  It is possible that we may never develop a vaccine to counter the novel coronavirus.

And rushing a vaccine can prove ineffective.  During the 1918 influenza pandemic, for example, the first attempts to rush a flu vaccine into production failed miserably.  We don't want that to happen here.  That's why valid scientific methodology is so important.

But many Americans don't understand science, and this is where Republicans and their allies in the media try to manipulate low information voters.  They were promoting stories of individuals who said that they took chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine and got better.  This is called anecdotal evidence.  It is the weakest evidence a scientist can rely on.  Remember how Rush Limbaugh addressed it?  "Anecdotally, it worked," is what Rush proclaimed.  To the uneducated, you hear these stories, and you might conclude, hey this seems like a good idea.  But, anecdotal evidence presents several problems.

First, you need to verify the anecdotes.  Did it really happen?  Then you need to know all of the facts and circumstances of the particular anecdote.  Was there something about that particular case that made it special, or calls into question the conclusion?  You need to remember, correlation does not necessarily mean causation.  The result could be coincidental.  Maybe the body's own defenses finally kicked in just as the patient began taking chloroquine.  To reach the right conclusion, we need to know all of the factors involved.  It's complicated and the process takes time.

But right now, time isn't on Trump's side.  He needs to restart the economy now.  He needs the states to re-open so we aren't in a recession come November, science be damned.

So, on Monday, May 18th, he revealed a very astonishing fact.  He revealed that he had been taking hydroxychloroquine as a prophylactic measure.  He's testing negative for COVID-19.  He has no symptoms.  He claims that he has been taking the drug anyway.

Now, we need to take this news with  grain of salt.  Trump's penchant for lying is documented and notorious.  Nonetheless, his assertion still raises a number of questions.

Why now?  We haven't heard him peddle chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine for weeks.  Well, intellectual giant, Laura Ingraham, has been pushing a study.  It's a study that say chloroquine can inhibit the infection and spread of the SARS coronavirus.  She's pushing this study, and retweeting it, claiming "the left" has not been doing its research.

There are just a few problems.  First, the study was published in 2005.  We're facing a pandemic caused by a novel coronavirus.  The word "novel" meaning that the virus is new.  The current virus didn't exist until 2019.  A study from 2005, then, is not directly relevant because it could not have involved the same virus that is currently causing the pandemic.

But, she's counting on the ignorant and uneducated getting confused by the terminology.  The term "coronavirus" refers to a family of viruses.  It is a generic term, that refers to the shape of the virus.  Coronaviruses generally look like crowns.  Because something is a coronavirus doesn't mean that they all have the same DNA or RNA make-up.  They just look alike.

We've known about coronaviruses for years.  You may see people who don't know any better pointing to disinfectant labels, and claiming this virus isn't new because the label says that the disinfectant is effective against coronaviruses.  Yes, but there are different types of coronaviruses, and they all act differently.

SARS, severe acute respiratory syndrome, was a coronavirus that first appeared in 2002.  It was contained, and no known transmissions have occurred since 2004.  The official name of that virus is SARS-CoV1, for SARS, coronavirus one, the first of that kind that we discovered.

The official name of this new virus is SARS-CoV2, or SARS, coronavirus two.  Why?  It causes similar symptoms to SARS.  It's genetically related to SARS.  Much like humans are genetically related to chimpanzees.  But they are different viruses.  They act differently.  They have similar symptoms, but they also have different symptoms.  Just because chloroquine may have been effective inhibiting SARS does not mean it will have the effect on COVID-19.  It may.  It is worth investigating.  But it's no guarantee.

To be clear, the idea is that cholorquine  may affect the pH of the recipient's blood to such as degree that it inhibits the virus from reproducing.  There is some information from India that may support this hypothesis. But, again, these are not clinical studies being conducted using modern scientific methodology.  It would be foolhardy to press for the widespread use of the drug as a prophylactic measure based on such information, without confirming the hypothesis with a study using accepted scientific principles. 

Nonetheless, Ingraham is counting on the uneducated seeing the similarity in names, SARS-CoV1 and SARS-CoV2, and therefore concluding that this must mean chloroquine is an effective treatment for COVID-19.  Unfortunately, once again, it's just not that simple.

Plus, the President likes to downplay the potential side effects of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine.  We have been using chloroquine as a treatment for malaria and lupus for decades.  We know these drugs have the potential to affect the heart.  So, doctors need to careful when prescribing it and in monitoring the patients taking it.  When Trump says, "What do you have to lose," potentially an awful lot.  Like, your life.  Especially, if you take the medication as a prophylactic measure, when you've tested negative and show no symptoms.

Still, Trump has been pushing this as a potential miracle cure for some time now.  And he doesn't tolerate dissent, even if that dissent is based on science.  Rick Bright, for example, is a scientist who was in charge of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Agency (BARDA).  He refused to tow the party line, and push chloroquine consistent with the President's wishes.  Bright tried to get his political bosses to pay attention to the risks.  He was ignored.  So, he helped corroborate information on the risks of the drug to a reporter writing about the subject.  When the article was published, even though Bright was an unnamed source, he says that he was demoted.  Bright has filed a whistleblower complaint over his demotion.

So science that goes against the President's chosen course of policy is under attack.  Which is typical of the Trump Administration.

Now, I have to wonder about the ethics of a doctor who may have prescribed Trump hydroxychloroquine as a prophylactic measure, when the President has tested negative for COVID-19 and has no symptoms, keeping in mind the potential side effects.  Remember, first, do no harm.  By prescribing hydroxychloroquine in this situation, the doctor may have violated his ethical rules.  If Trump is telling the truth, then the alternative explanation to the doctor violating the Hippocratic Oath is equally troubling.  That would mean that the doctor is giving Trump a placebo marked as hydroxychloroquine, just to placate him.  That possibility also raises ethical concerns for me.

When it comes down to it, I honestly don't care if Trump wants to risk his own life by taking hydroxychloroquine.  His body, his choice.  And if his core followers want to take that risk, and wind up harming themselves, well that's their own fault.  But, I do worry about the low information voters who are scared, who follow the President's lead, not truly understanding the risks, or that the evidence supporting its possible benefits is sketchy at best.  This is where Trump really has a responsibility to be careful in what he says.  The voters he targets are vulnerable.  By manipulating these voters and valuing his re-election strategy over the health of the American people, he shows his moral failing.

By:  William J. Kovatch, Jr.

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How Safe are Mail-in Ballots

We're in the middle of a pandemic.  COVID-19 cases and death are still on the rise.  And some experts expect us to have a more powerful second wave in the fall.  The fall just so happens to be when the United States will be holding its federal elections, including the presidential election.  How can we have an election when we may need to limit personal contact to avoid spreading the coronavirus known as SRS-CoV2.  The answer appears to be expanding the use of mail-in ballots.

Wisconsin showed us all what the problems could be if we try to hold an election in the period of widespread isolation.  The Democratic governor pleaded with the Republican-led legislature to postpone the election.  They refused.  He tried to expand voting by mail.  The Republicans resisted.  The legislature didn't provide the additional resources necessary to process the explosion of requests for mail-in ballots.

Meanwhile, most of the poll workers were senior citizens, a high risk group for catching COVID-19 and experiencing the worst of the symptoms.  They warned election officials that they weren't going to show up to run the polling places.  There were no where near enough poll workers to open all of the polling locations.  This was a huge problem in big cities, such as Milwaukee.  Wisconsin saw huge lines, with waiting times in excess of three hours to vote, when people really needed to stay home.

If Wisconsin had been prepared, and ready to process the higher demand for mail-in ballots, it could have avoided its election disaster.

But the Republican Party, led by President Donald Trump, oppose mil-in ballots.  Well, except for themselves.  We all are very familiar now with the press conference where Trump was confronted with the fact that he voted as an absentee by a mail-in ballot in the latest Florida election.  When asked why that was ok, his response was simply, "Because I'm allowed to."  Meanwhile, Republicans don't want the choice to vote by mail to be available for more of the general public.

Five states have switched to elections run entirely through mail-in ballots.  In fact, the expected battle ground states for the 2020 presidential election all permit voting by mail, without requiring an excuse for why the voter cannot physically make it to the polls on Election Day.  They are Arizona, North Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.  In some ways, the availability of voting by mail is a moot issue.  So why do Republicans oppose mail-in ballots?

The proffered reason is fraud.  According to Republicans, mail-in ballots are fraught with the potential for fraud.  We need to require identification to fight against fraud at the polls.  How can we be sure that the actual voter is the one who submits the mail-in ballot?

Keep in mind, the President has voted by mail in Florida.

Trump has said something at a press conference, albeit incoherent, when asked about his voting in Florida by mail about the required certifications.  Whether he was saying the certification requirements were too onerous, or that they were to easy to fake, I just couldn't tell.

But, let's talk about these certification safe-guards.  First, mail-in ballots are bar-coded and tracked.  Election officials can tell if someone has tried to submit a mail-in ballot and vote in person in the same election. They can tell if someone has chosen not to submit the mail-in ballot.  They can tell the voter if their mail-in ballot was accepted or rejected, and if rejected, why.

Ballots have signature, notary and witness requirements to protect against fraudulent voting.

Now, there is a case in California challenging the rejection of about 4,500 mail-in ballots because election officials found the signature on the ballot did not match the signature for the voter on file.

It's hard to understand why Republicans cite this lawsuit in support of their argument against mail-in ballots.  It's not proof of fraud.  It's proof of the system flagging potential fraud.  You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Of course, Trump did made a vague allegation of thousands of mail-in ballots being collected, and dumped.  Perhaps this is what he was referring to.  But what happened in California was no where near as nefarious as he would like you to believe.  The actions of the elections officials was all done out in the open, and subject to legal challenge, which is exactly what is happening right now.

Among the arguments in this case, which is being pursued by the ACLU, is that the ballots were wrongly rejected because the election officials weren't handwriting experts.  Keep in mind, some states require three election officials to examine the signature on the ballots.  At any rate, the California case shows the need to provide more funding to hone and strengthen security measures.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats in the House tried to provide that funding.  Republicans complained that it was through an emergency bill to address issues raise by the COVID-19 pandemic, such as the shortage of surgical masks and other personal protective equipment.  They cried that it had no business being there.  But the whole purpose of this bill was to address the issues raised by the pandemic.  How we will vote, and keeping the process safe for voters, has become a vital issue because of how contagious SARS-CoV2 is.  Republicans didn't seem to mind when Mitch McConnel put some extra protection in the bill for the sunscreen industry, which just so happens to be located in his state.  Arguments concerning unnecessary pork are just hypocritical.

Republicans, and the White House in particular, like to point to a database allegedly showing cases of election fraud collated by the Heritge Foundation in support of their arguments against mail-in ballots.

The Heritage Foundation.  This is a conservative think tank.  It exists solely for the purpose of promoting and supporting Republican policies.  This is not an unbiased, disinterested source.

When you look at the cases cited in its database, this becomes clear.  There's no methodology behind the cases they've collected.  When there are convictions, there is no attempt to put those cases in context to determine if there was really voter fraud.  Plus, the database addresses alleged fraud in general, not solely voting by mail fraud.

This database was clearly made to give low-information voters something to point to, without the need to engage in critical thinking.

Even then,its so-called evidence dates back to the 1940s.  With respect to the billions of votes case since the 1940s, the Heritage Foundation has found evidence of fraud in a fraction or a fraction of a percent.

Keep in mind, the Heritage Foundation created this database in response to President Trump's claim that three million fraudulent votes were cast in 2016, which is the only reason he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton.  Remember, he put a Commission together to try to prove rampant fraud, even though, by virtue of the electoral college, he won the presidency.  That Commission found nothing and was quietly disbanded.  Likewise, even by stretching the definition of fraud, the Heritage Foundation found no where near the level of fraud that President Trump alleged.

A closer look of the Heritage Foundation's database is illuminating.  The cases listed include cases from the 1980s and 1990s.  So, its proof of supposed rampant fraud needs to reach back thirty, forty years for evidence.  In fact the database includes cases from 1972 (Nixon-McGovern) and 1948 (Truman-Dewey).

The headline of the Heritage Foundation's database is that they found a little over 1,100 convictions for voter fraud.  That's it.  In over seventy years of elections, they could only find 1,100 convictions for voter fraud.  And of that number, less than eighty -- 80 -- involve mail-in ballot fraud.

But this point needs to be emphasized.  These cases represent people who were caught.  The laws worked.  People who tried to vote for others, who intimidated voters, who tried to vote for a dead relative, were convicted and either served time in jail, paid a fine, or lost their job.

But more importantly, these were cases that could have been prevented with the types of security measures discussed above.  Bar-coding could help make sure a person isn't out there collecting a dozen ballots and turning them in all at once.  Notary publics are required to ensure that the person signing a document is the person they say they are.  Notaries are required to keep logs, note the date, note what kind of document it is, and note what kind of identification was used.  Notaries' ethical rules require them to refuse to notarize a document if there are signs of duress, coercion, or incapacity.  It's really hard for a dead person to sign a document in front of a notary public.

Can a notary be part of a scheme to commit fraud?  Well, of course.  But so can an election official who is present at the polls.  Any notary or election official who does take part in such a scheme risks losing their job, and being convicted of a crime.  In a few cases cited by the Heritage Foundation, that is exactly what happened.  Election officials were caught, lost their jobs and were convicted.

Most of the opportunity to engage in such schemes, however, is reduced with redundancy.  It's hard for an election official to engage in a fraudulent scheme when there are others looking over his or her shoulder.  It's hard for a notary to approve of a fraudulent signature when state law requires a notary public and a witness or two to verify the signature.

This emphasizes the point that it is vital to ensure that states put these types of procedures in place, and that they have the money to invest in the people needed to do the security checks and the technology that makes the security checks possible.

Most disturbingly, however, is this President's penchant for exaggeration.  He wants us to believe that fraud is going on with respect to thousands and thousands, if not millions, of votes.  Yet even an organization friendly to his cause could find no such evidence of numbers that large.

Some cases of voter fraud exist.  But of the billions of votes cast since 1948, the Heritage Foundation could only find conviction of about 1,100, a tiny fraction of a fraction of a percent.  And of that number, less then eighty involved mail-in ballot fraud.  And even those cases were easily caught with proper security measures.  Voting by mail is not the pyrrhia that Republicans and President Trump would like you to believe.

By:  William J. Kovatch, Jr.

You can find a video of this essay on YouTube:  https://youtu.be/tLqeal6xvkA

References

The Heritage Foundation’s database of supposed voting fraud cases.


A response to the Heritage Foundation’s database compiled by the Brennen Center.

Further criticism of the so-called proof of voter fraud, and Trump’s commission organized to find fraud in the 2016 election.

Be Careful, Dr. Fauci. You Might Be the Next Trump Advisor to Be Fired.

At a time when the United States needs to rely on its medical experts more than ever, President Donald Trump may be on the verge of firing Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.  Dr. Fauci has essentially become the nation's resource for accurate information on the coronavirus, and efforts needed to combat its spread.  He has been prominently displayed at White House press conferences updating the country on the Government's response to the pandemic.  He has appeared on news shows to be interviewed about the virus and how best to stop its spread.  Many in the United States, desperate for leadership and information has come to rely on Dr. Fauci's updates and commentary.

But that is exactly why he may in danger of losing his position.

There are two things Donald Trump craves over everything else.  Trump needs to be in the limelight, and he needs to feel as though he is the expert on whatever topic he addresses.  Advisors whom Trump perceives as stealing the spotlight from him quickly find that this is a ticket first to isolation within the White House, and then removal.  Just ask the likes of Steve Bannon, Rex Tillerson, Jeff Sessions, John Kelly . . . .  Indeed, it has been postulated that the reason Stephen Miller has survived as long as he has because he is adept at working in the shadows, and ensuring that Trump gets the credit for all of the Administration's immigration initiatives.

Concerning Trump's need to be the smartest person in the room, he has ignored advice of career civil servants, made bold statements on issues, particular scientific issues, of which he obviously knows very little, and fired, or threatened to fire, aides who publicly contradict him.  During his presidency, we have seen Trump dismiss advice from the national intelligence community, claiming that nobody knows more about the terrorist state, ISIS, than he does.  We have seen him boldly profess that California would have less wild fires if only they raked the forests more often.  We have seen Trump's Commerce Secretary threaten to fire officials from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who dared contradict the President when he erroneously warned Alabamans that they were in Hurricane Dorian's path.

Now we come to the world's coronavirus crisis.  This is a virus that has shown to be highly contagious.  On its own, the virus would cause new cases of COVID-19 at an exponential rate.  An infected person is contagious for days before even showing symptoms.  The disease has been proven to kill patients at a far greater rate than the flu.  Thus, the CDC has recommended that the U.S. population continue to practice social distancing not just for weeks, but for a few months.  Otherwise, the rate of new infections will outpace the availability of medical resources to treat the serious cases.  Even those with mild symptoms can spread the disease to vulnerable members of the community.

Meanwhile, Trump, who resisted taking action beyond flight restrictions early in the crisis, finally relented to declaring a national emergency and recommending that people avoid widespread contact with each other just two weeks ago.  But, the fact that widespread social distancing will cause an economic slowdown has become increasingly harder for Trump to ignore.  The stock market, which Trump often uses to taut what he believes to be the success of his presidency, has tanked so badly that whatever gains made during Trump's Administration have been erased.  His favorite television network, Fox News, has opined that the cure should not be worse than the disease.  Trump slavishly agreed, repeating the thought in an all-caps tweet.  He has publicly proclaimed that he wants to pack the pews in churches across the nation on Easter Sunday.  He has repeatedly told reporters that he hopes to restart the nation's economy by Easter.

Dr. Fauci, however, has not been shy in correcting the numerous misstatements Trump has made concerning the coronavirus.  He noted that the drug Trump touted had not been proven scientifically to be effective against COIVD-19.  When Trump infamously claimed that cases in the United States were going down, not up, Dr. Fauci has corrected him saying the he expects things to get worse before they get better.  Dr. Fauci has even appeared on television saying that he can't just jump in front of Trump's microphone to correct the President in the middle of press conference.

As Trump  publicly states his desire to ease restrictions on large gatherings and business closures, advisors leaked to the press that he is losing patience with the very expert whom Americans have come to rely upon to calm their fears.  If Trump remains true to his pattern, that could very well mean that Dr. Fauci's position is on jeopardy.  Just when the nation craves clear leadership and a unified strategy to combat a public health crisis, the lack of leadership within the White House has never been more apparent.

By:  William J. Kovatch, Jr.

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.