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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsLaurence Tribe: Donald Trump's call with Ukrainian president drips with impeachable crimes
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/09/25/donald-trump-ukraine-phone-call-impeachment-transcript-column/2442422001/Let us count the ways. The White House readout of President Donald Trumps phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky shows that the American president has committed a multitude of high crimes and misdemeanors, all of them impeachable. Even without considering the many prior offenses that were surfaced in the Mueller report and in the special counsels prosecutions of numerous Trump allies and associates, including in the Southern District of New York, this readout which must be the least incriminating version the White House could compose despite its remarkable skills at shading the truth or falsifying it altogether is utterly devastating.
The high crimes and misdemeanors that the readout reveals to use the Constitutions term for impeachable offenses beyond treason and bribery (both of which the readout comes close to establishing) begin with Trump abusing the foreign policy powers entrusted to the president by Article II in order to serve his own political interests rather than the interests of the American people.
-snip-
In addition, despite the Department of Justice's conclusion to the contrary, the campaign assistance that Trump sought in implicit exchange for his releasing the funds Congress had appropriated and Ukraine desperately needed clearly violates the same federal laws governing our elections that the president arguably violated to get himself elected in the first place namely, the statutes making it illegal for a candidate in an American election to solicit or accept anything of value from a foreign source.
Making Trumps lawlessness all the more egregious was his enlisting William Barr, the nations attorney general, to work with Trumps own consigliere, Rudy Giuliani, in digging up dirt in Ukraine on former Vice President Joe Biden, a leading candidate for the opposing partys presidential nomination, and Bidens surviving son, Hunter.
Never mind the cruelty and vindictiveness of selecting this particular target for his rage. Sadism is not an impeachable offense. Never mind the odds that the presidents hatred for his predecessor, President Barack Obama, probably drove his obsession with hurting Obamas handpicked vice president. Envy isnt impeachable either. And never mind that there is no credible evidence that Biden or his son violated any law. Even if they had, for a president to conscript the highest law enforcement official in the land, one paid by and legally bound to serve the American people, to do his personal and political bidding in an effort not only to smear but to also criminally prosecute a political foe is the stuff of novels about banana republics, not of the America I know and whose Constitution and laws I have spent a lifetime defending.
-snip-
The high crimes and misdemeanors that the readout reveals to use the Constitutions term for impeachable offenses beyond treason and bribery (both of which the readout comes close to establishing) begin with Trump abusing the foreign policy powers entrusted to the president by Article II in order to serve his own political interests rather than the interests of the American people.
-snip-
In addition, despite the Department of Justice's conclusion to the contrary, the campaign assistance that Trump sought in implicit exchange for his releasing the funds Congress had appropriated and Ukraine desperately needed clearly violates the same federal laws governing our elections that the president arguably violated to get himself elected in the first place namely, the statutes making it illegal for a candidate in an American election to solicit or accept anything of value from a foreign source.
Making Trumps lawlessness all the more egregious was his enlisting William Barr, the nations attorney general, to work with Trumps own consigliere, Rudy Giuliani, in digging up dirt in Ukraine on former Vice President Joe Biden, a leading candidate for the opposing partys presidential nomination, and Bidens surviving son, Hunter.
Never mind the cruelty and vindictiveness of selecting this particular target for his rage. Sadism is not an impeachable offense. Never mind the odds that the presidents hatred for his predecessor, President Barack Obama, probably drove his obsession with hurting Obamas handpicked vice president. Envy isnt impeachable either. And never mind that there is no credible evidence that Biden or his son violated any law. Even if they had, for a president to conscript the highest law enforcement official in the land, one paid by and legally bound to serve the American people, to do his personal and political bidding in an effort not only to smear but to also criminally prosecute a political foe is the stuff of novels about banana republics, not of the America I know and whose Constitution and laws I have spent a lifetime defending.
-snip-
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Laurence Tribe: Donald Trump's call with Ukrainian president drips with impeachable crimes (Original Post)
highplainsdem
Sep 2019
OP
Cha
(297,221 posts)1. Brilliant from Tribe.. Thank You!
Never mind the cruelty and vindictiveness of selecting this particular target for his rage. Sadism is not an impeachable offense. Never mind the odds that the presidents hatred for his predecessor, President Barack Obama, probably drove his obsession with hurting Obamas handpicked vice president. Envy isnt impeachable either. And never mind that there is no credible evidence that Biden or his son violated any law. Even if they had, for a president to conscript the highest law enforcement official in the land, one paid by and legally bound to serve the American people, to do his personal and political bidding in an effort not only to smear but to also criminally prosecute a political foe is the stuff of novels about banana republics, not of the America I know and whose Constitution and laws I have spent a lifetime defending.
spanone
(135,832 posts)2. K&R...
BlueWI
(1,736 posts)3. Thanks for the post!
Clarifying description of the high crimes. And it's published in a prominent source.