TRUMP’S LISTENING TOUR
Trump’s Listening Tour
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump asked Russia to help his election by requesting they hack and release Hillary Clinton’s missing emails. He began his request, publicly on a microphone, with, “Russia, if you’re listening…” Later that same day, Russia started hacking the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign. Trump would later wave around copies of emails from those hacks while proclaiming, “I love Wikileaks.” While Robert Mueller said he couldn’t find any direct evidence the campaign worked with Russia on their meddling, they did invite it, accepted it, and used it. Paul Manafort also shared polling data with Russians, and that nation also tried to install a spy into the Trump campaign (and Trump never mentions that while lying that the FBI spied on his campaign and Obama wiretapped Trump Tower).
Now as president (sic), Donald Trump is telling Ukraine to listen.
Reported last night, Donald Trump told his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to hold back nearly $400 million in military aid for Ukraine at least a week before he called that nation’s president to pressure him to investigate Joe Biden’s son’s business dealings in that nation. What a coinkydink, right? The president of the United States used taxpayer money and the power of his office to extort a foreign nation to assist his presidential campaign. This is a bigger deal than Watergate.
Donald Trump admits he brought up Biden to Ukraine’s president and that it’s not a big deal. He denies he held back the military aid in exchange for this help, but soon enough, he’ll admit to that too.
Trump eventually released the funds to Ukraine after Democratic Senator Richard Durbin threatened to freeze $5 bill in Pentagon funding unless the money was distributed. After all, it had already been approved by Congress. Trump claims he was holding it out of concern there was too much corruption in Ukraine. In reality, he was holding it to see if there was enough corruption in Ukraine to help him.
Since Donald Trump says he didn’t do anything wrong and the phone call was mostly congratulatory for Ukraine’s president winning his election (though it’s reported he brought up Biden eight times), he’s being called on to release the transcript of that call.
Yesterday at the United Nations, Trump had nothing but praise for Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky. This is because Zelensky probably has transcripts of those calls too. At some point, political pressure, international and domestic, will make him release those.
Analysts say impeaching Trump, and even investigating this matter, will galvanize his base. Isn’t that something? Anger over holding Trump accountable for extortion will anger the “law and order” party.
Last night, more moderate freshman Democrats from districts Trump won in 2016 came out in favor of impeachment proceedings. Even Nancy Pelosi is said to be exploring whether it’s time.
We don’t just need to know if Trump attempted to extort Ukraine’s president. If the White House and Justice Department continue to unlawfully withhold the whistleblower complaint from Congress, he should be impeached. If he refuses to release the transcripts, he needs to be impeached. It wasn’t the breakin at Watergate that brought down Nixon. It was the obstruction. Trump is obstructing justice as we speak plus, he probably withheld foreign aid in exchange for helping his political campaign. The question isn’t if Trump broke the law or not. It’s, how many laws did he break?
Sure, the Senate won’t convict the guy and it may hurt Democrats in 2020, but we shouldn’t let partisan politics be a factor in this. Just as a president shouldn’t be impeached over partisanship, like Republicans did to President Bill Clinton, partisan politics shouldn’t prevent impeaching a president who truly deserves to be impeached.
History doesn’t look kindly on Republicans for impeaching Bill Clinton. After all, that was for lying about receiving oral sex from an intern. That was not a national security situation. Being a national security risk is much more serious than an Oval Office tryst. Just as history looks down on the GOP for impeaching Clinton, history will also treat Democrats unkindly if they don’t impeach a racist, stupid, narcissistic president who used taxpayer money and the power of his office to blackmail another nation’s president. The House needs to impeach Donald Trump and let history fall on the Senate.
Donald Trump is corrupt. He attempted to bribe Putin in order to secure a Trump Tower in Moscow while he was running for president. He’s a racist, sexist, xenophobic, lying, white nationalist with authoritarian tendencies. He’s also a petty, narcissistic idiotic baby. He’s a poodle for Vladimir Putin and has put more trust in him than in our national intelligence. He’s lied about everything from playing golf to the weather. He only wants to be president for the worst among us (Nazis, Klansmen, pussy grabbers, etc). He’s a bully and even went after a child yesterday. He’s been using the presidency to enrich himself. Now, he’s using the presidency to blackmail.
Donald Trump is a traitor and he’s betrayed the oath he took to serve as president. Donald Trump needs to be impeached and eventually tossed in prison.
Donald Trump is breaking the law and destroying trust in the presidency.
America, I hope you’re listening.