It is also entertaining to hear how many things the President is alleged to have done to warrant said impeachment. None of them illegal, of course, but just because actual crimes were committed which led to the impeachments of President Nixon and President Clinton, doesn’t mean there has to be a crime to impeach a President. At least that is what we hear, sometimes, from those leading proponents of impeachments; though just as often they assert that their Constitutional duty DEMANDS that they carry through with this impeachment.
We actually have lost count about how many times the Democrats have wanted to impeach President Trump – years before the Ukrainian phone call – and also lost track of how many reasons they gave. We think the walls first closed in on the President when the Russian collusion case was brought forth, but that journey to justice ended when Robert Mueller failed to discover whatever it was that Cong. Adam Schiff discovered to prove the President’s crimes. We think they were going to impeach President Trump along with Justice Kavanaugh – of course, no reason was needed, but we think it was because Kavanaugh did something that nobody saw or could remember when he was in high school, and Trump because he nominated Kavanaugh. Rep. Maxine Walters has often talked of impeaching the President, and she has the goods on Vice-President Pence too, she says. Well, at least she wants to impeach him, too.
Yep, the Democrats have fired the impeachment cannon several times since January 2019, but they think that this time, with the President’s phone call to the Ukrainian President, they have him in a box he can’t escape. Well, maybe they would have, if we had been allowed to rely on only Cong. Schiff’s account of that infamous phone call, for that revealed a truly explicit and blatant criminal act – on the part of Cong. Schiff, not the President. Of course, when the President released the actual transcript of the phone call, and it said nothing like Cong. Schiff’s account, and the Ukrainian President denied any pressure, that charge was on shaky ground. And, just as Christine Blasey Ford’s witnesses against Brett Kavanaugh, each and every one of them, failed to back up her account, Cong. Schiff’s witnesses against President Trump also undercut the case for impeachment.
Especially his latest “star witness,” Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who claimed that he was upset by the phone call because the President was the “superior,” so “the whole thing was a demand asking for a favor.” Whatever that means, it isn’t a crime. And Col. Vindman does not allege that the transcript is inaccurate. From his opening statement: “As the transcript is in the public record, we are all aware of what was said.” Although he does “remember” things remembered by no one else who heard it, he was outvoted when the final transcript was approved.
Col. Vindman was also concerned about, according to the Washington Post – and pay close attention to this – “[Vindman] was deeply troubled by what he interpreted as an attempt by the President to subvert US foreign policy.” This leads us to ask how a US President can “subvert” foreign policy, because it is the President who makes our foreign policy. “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” – US Constitution, Article II, Section 1.
The power to set foreign policy is now and always has been the prerogative of the US President, from the days of Washington’s warnings about entangling alliances to today. It has never been “left to the bureaucracy” and the actions of a President in the foreign policy field, good or bad, by definition, cannot “subvert” foreign policy. Not infrequently are the actions of one President that take US policy in a different direction reversed by a subsequent President. “Reversed” or “changed” is not the same thing as “subverted.”
Let’s also note that the Obama administration did not extend lethal aid, even defensive aid, to Ukraine. The Trump administration did, and we suppose thus “subverted” the previous administration’s foreign policy. Let’s also note that several Democrat Senators either wrote a letter or made a statement threatening to withhold support for Ukraine if they did not dig up dirt on President Trump. And while reasonable people can disagree, it seems to us that if one administration can use pressure to shut down an investigation that might prove embarrassing to the Vice-President’s family, another administration, interested in rooting out corruption, is within its rights to seek to reopen that investigation. We guess that the former is “foreign policy” and the latter is “subverting foreign policy.”
So far the opposition to President Trump has gone from, “how dare you accuse of us of wiretapping him” to “Of course we did – and we had good reason to.” And from, “It is laughable to assert that there is a ‘deep state’ adverse to President Trump” to “Of course there is a deep state, and thank God there is.” And they have gone from “It is essential that the whistleblower testify” to “There is no reason that the whistleblower should testify.” We suppose the critical value of various testimony before the Schiff committee also will move 180 degrees as circumstances change.