Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead
President Donald J. Trump is joined by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, upon his arrival Monday, Nov. 4, 2019, at the Blue Grass Airport in Lexington, Ky.
Not a single congressional Republican voted to support the impeachment investigation into mounting evidence that President Donald Trump withheld hundreds of millions of dollars in military assistance from Ukraine to force that country to launch criminal investigations to benefit his own reelection. That could be a fatal mistake for Republicans in 2020.
For weeks, Republicans demanded the U.S. House of Representatives vote to officially authorize the impeachment investigation and stop interviewing witnesses in private to gather evidence. Republicans really need to be careful what they wish for. The House happily complied by authorizing the investigation and is now preparing to publicly televise testimony from a growing list of highly credible witnesses.
Up until now, Republicans have been confident they have the last word on impeachment because they hold a majority in the U.S. Senate. It will take an unlikely two-thirds vote in the Senate to remove Trump from office no matter how much evidence the House uncovers to impeach Trump for extorting foreign interference in a U.S. election.
Fear-Based Support
Republicans don’t support Trump out of loyalty; it’s out of fear. That’s irrational, since it was national revulsion against Trump’s presidency that swept Republicans out of power in the House a year ago. But those who remained in corruptly gerrymandered Republican districts now worry their survival may depend upon satisfying Trump’s most hardcore supporters. Trump threatens to sic dangerous mobs on Republicans he calls “human scum”; namely, any Republicans who dare to criticize his most irresponsible actions.
The latest Republican to be made an example was Florida Congressman Francis Rooney, a wealthy party donor and former ambassador to the Vatican. Rooney publicly expressed hope that the House’s investigation would “get all the facts on the table.” Rooney said he respected the professional diplomats who testified against Trump in closed-door hearings “trying to do something they feel is very important for our country.” He was instantly denounced by the vice chair of his county’s Republican executive committee. “I told him: ‘You’ve betrayed your country, your president and your constituents,’” she said. “My exact words to him were: ‘Get out!’” Within hours, Rooney announced he wouldn’t run for reelection. He then obediently fell back in line last week with his fellow Republicans by voting against the impeachment investigation.
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What Republicans keep forgetting is that, in a democracy, elected officials never really have the last word; the voters do. Starting the impeachment investigation is already shifting public opinion toward impeachment and removal of the president. Imagine the impact of highly respected, non-partisan, career diplomats and a decorated military hero working for the National Security Council testifying before the nation about Trump jeopardizing national security and corrupting democracy. Trump has no qualms about viciously smearing such witnesses, but other Republican politicians shouldn’t try it at home.
More Bombshells Ahead
There are very good reasons why most Senate Republicans cautiously avoid taking a clear-cut stand against investigating Trump’s political corruption. They know there could be multiple bombshells and lots of outrageously offensive presidential behavior before they have to make a decision on impeachment. Republicans already know one of their major embarrassments in the impeachment hearings will be exposure of the top priority of Trump’s “shadow foreign policy”: Clearing Vladimir Putin and Russia of all their well-documented U.S. election interference in 2016 to elect Trump.
Trump told Ukraine’s president that U.S. Atty. Gen. William Barr and his own attorney, Rudy Giuliani, would help him investigate a diabolical conspiracy by Ukraine, Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee to frame Russia and send Paul Manafort, Trump’s innocent campaign manager, to prison. Trump’s intelligence source on all this was impeccable, of course: He learned about the conspiracy on the internet. That was the second “favor” Trump wanted from Ukraine before releasing nearly $400 million in U.S. military assistance to the country; the first was Ukraine opening a criminal investigation smearing Trump’s potential 2020 political opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden.
Trump has what poker players call a tell. He always accuses his opponents of crimes he’s committed himself. That’s why Crooked Trump called his last opponent Crooked Hillary. The latest example was House Republican leader Steve Scalise, one of Trump’s closest allies, displaying a large poster of Moscow’s Red Square bearing a hammer and sickle and the slogan: “37 DAYS OF SOVIET-STYLE IMPEACHMENT HEARINGS.” The hammer and sickle, however, is a much more appropriate symbol for today’s Republican Party under Trump.
Trump is by far Russia’s most powerful ally on the world stage. His first act as president was threatening to withdraw from NATO, the military alliance that has deterred Russian aggression for 70 years. He’s now pressuring the G-7, an organization of democracies, to readmit Russia, which it expelled for invading Ukraine. Trump describes Ukraine as a “phony country” that should be part of Russia.
The majority of Republican voters still recognize Russia as democracy’s most dangerous adversary, no matter how many “favors” it’s done for Trump. If the impeachment effectively exposes Trump’s personal alliance with Russia against American interests, Republican enablers in the House and Senate could go down with their president.
