In a way, it’s fitting that only hours after Chief Justice John Roberts https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/chief-justice-roberts-admonishes-impeachment-lawyers-telling-them-to-remember-where-they-are/2020/01/22/4e5758c0-3cdc-11ea-b90d-5652806c3b3a_story.html?tid=lk_inline_manual_2 (sternly instructed) the Senate to conduct itself as “the world’s greatest deliberative body,” President Trump went before the world in Davos and openly flaunted his demand that Senate Republicans turn the entire process into a sham devoted wholly to covering up his bottomless corruption.
Senate Republicans spent much of Tuesday evening aggressively advancing the coverup that Trump is demanding, and at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, Trump went out of his way to cheer what they’ve already done to protect him.
The jarring contrast between Roberts’ admonishment and Trump’s cheerleading for the actual conduct of the Senate GOP captures a truth about our current moment. Neutral calls for both sides to adhere to a mutual set of reasonable standards seem hopelessly out of sync with the wildly lopsided imbalance we’re now seeing between the two parties’ approach to a lawless, out of control president -- one who just happens to head one of those two parties.
In Davos, Trump spewed endless lies and distortions about the misconduct for which he’s been impeached, while in effect reiterating his demand that his trial be rigged to keep that misconduct buried:
- Trump claimed the impeachment was a “total hoax” and that Democrats “had no case.” But Trump blocked the testimony to the House of the witnesses with the most direct knowledge of his conduct -- including acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and former national security adviser John Bolton, both of whom discussed Trump’s freezing of military aid to Ukraine with him. That’s laughable in the face of a supposedly weak case.
- Trump claimed his conversation with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky was “totally appropriate” and that his release of the https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Unclassified09.2019.pdf of it blew up the Democratic case against him. That’s a comical lie: The summary captures Trump making his corrupt extortion demand, and as such, it’s central to the case against him: The summary itself, and the panicked reaction of many of Trump’s own officials to that very call, is discussed at great length in https://intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/the_trump-ukraine_impeachment_inquiry_report.pdf.
- Trump said Ukraine ultimately “got their money,” as if that’s exonerating. But Trump only released the aid after the whistleblower had come forward. The corrupt scheme was aborted because they got caught.
- Trump laughably claimed he pressed Zelensky on his “perfect call” out of concerns over “corruption.” But Trump nowhere mentions “corruption” on https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Unclassified09.2019.pdf; the only investigations he’s demanded would help him politically, such as one into Joe Biden; and the narrative of Biden corruption undergirding that demand is https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/09/27/quick-guide-trumps-false-claims-about-ukraine-bidens/ (fabricated).
- Trump claimed he’d like to hear Bolton testify to the Senate, but in the very next breath he said doing this would compromise national security. That’s funny, given that this whole scandal is about Trump’s subversion of our national security and foreign policy to his corrupt political ends. And again, Bolton didn’t testify to the House precisely because of Trump’s blockade against witnesses and evidence. Trump’s quote will unquestionably be read by Senate Republicans as a demand to keep Bolton from testifying and as a vow to exercise executive privilege to block it himself.
