Tag Archives: Zelensky

Treason in Plain Sight

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“…. and soon the school feels to Werner like a grenade with its pin pulled.”

As I reread this morning Anthony Doerr’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, All the Light We Cannot See (2014), I reached the chapter entitled Everything Poisoned where that partial sentence appears. How astonishing that I would arrive at those remarkable words and the idea they capture as I was struggling to finish the post that follows below. Doerr’s observation about the young German Werner, one of the major characters in the story, captured perfectly how I, and millions of others here and around the world, felt watching the President of the United States, working in synchrony with his Vice President and his Secretary of State, ambush the popular, war-battered President of Ukraine at a press event called for that very purpose.

And make no mistake, while there may be no written script for the event we’ll ever see, I and many others are certain beyond any doubt that the attack was planned. The phony umbrage of JD Vance was calculated to unleash Trump’s angry denunciation of President Zelensky while Marco Rubio sat, hands folded, seemingly hoping no one would notice him. Everyone played their part to perfection at a public event that had no apparent purpose except to sabotage the mineral rights deal that Trump purported to want but only, it turns out, if Ukraine essentially surrendered to Putin’s Russia.

Zelensky wasn’t having it. Trump knew or should have known would be true and thus played out the end-game for the day: kill the deal while acting outraged that a visiting head of state engaged in an existential fight for the very survival of his country would have the temerity to disagree with the great and powerful Donald Trump making multiple demonstrably false claims about the war.

Why do this? Because Trump knew that Putin, the aggressor in the Russia-Ukraine war, did not want the United States to support Ukraine. Putin does not want peace. He wants conquest. Nothing could be clearer.

But, as he did during his first term with the COVID pandemic and the attempt to blackmail Zelensky into undermining Joe Biden’s presidential candidacy, Trump miscalculated both Zelensky’s character and the worldwide support for the survival of Ukraine as an independent democracy. The Republican sycophants who support Trump will proclaim their usual wonderment at how Trump “stood up” for the United States, but the reality is that he stood up for Putin’s Russia and sold out the United States once again.

Professor Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny among others, promptly posted a video on Substack entitled Five Failures in the Oval Office in which he outlines how Trump failed the country at the Zelensky lynching. https://open.substack.com/pub/snyder/p/five-failures-in-the-oval-office?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email The video takes less than six minutes and should be watched.

I am going to go a step beyond Professor Snyder. This post was originally intended to address only Trump’s directive that the United States vote twice with Russia against Ukraine on United Nations resolutions condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. I will return to that but first ….

I make no claim to expertise in the subject of how the Constitution defines “treason.” But I have the Supreme Court to help, along with other credible sources.

Important background:

As the Library of Congress’s Constitution Annotated notes, the Framers were wary of vesting the power to declare and punish treason in Congress. Having just won their independence from Great Britain, the Framers had seen how the English kings and British Parliament had escalated “ordinary partisan disputes into capital charges of treason.” In other words, the ruling class used the crime of treason to eliminate their political dissidents.https://constitution.findlaw.com/article3/annotation24.html

Perhaps because of the limiting history of the constitutional definitions, there is almost no precedent in case law. There is a statute on the books, however:

Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States. [18 US Code § 2381 (1948)]

And there is Haupt v. United States, 330 U.S. 631 (1947) wherein the Supreme Court went to some lengths to spell out what is required to establish “treason” and which remains, as far as I can tell, as the last word on the subject.

The charges against Mr. Haupt related to aid and comfort he provided to his son with knowledge of the son’s mission to aid Germany in its war with the United States. After his arrest, Haupt volunteered information to FBI agents including that he had been present when the son told the complete story of his travel outside the U.S., his return by German submarine with large sums of money and plans to be a saboteur. During his confinement in the Cook County jail, Haupt also talked with two fellow prisoners concerning his case; they testified as to damaging admissions made to them.

Ultimately twelve overt acts in three categories asserted to be treasonous were submitted to the jury: (1) Haupt accompanied his son to assist him in obtaining employment in a plant engaged in manufacturing a bomb sight; (2) he harbored and sheltered his son; and (3) he accompanied his son to an automobile sales agency, arranging, making payment for, and purchasing an automobile for the son. Each of these was alleged to be in aid of the son’s known purpose of sabotage. The Supreme Court was faced with Haupt’s argument that his motives were merely those of a loving father supporting a son.

Key findings:

  • … the minimum function of the overt act in a treason prosecution is that it show action by the accused which really was aid and comfort to the enemy. Cramer v. United States,325 U.S. 1 (1945); This is a separate inquiry from that as to whether the acts were done because of adherence to the enemy, for acts helpful to the enemy may nevertheless be innocent of treasonable character;
  • Cramer’s caseheld that what must be proved by the testimony of two witnesses is a “sufficient” overt act.
  • … there can be no question that sheltering, or helping to buy a car, or helping to get employment is helpful to an enemy agent, that they were of aid and comfort to Herbert Haupt in his mission of sabotage. They have the unmistakable quality which was found lacking in the Cramercase of forwarding the saboteur in his mission.
  • We hold, therefore, that the overt acts laid in the indictment and submitted to the jury do perform the functions assigned to overt acts in treason cases, and are sufficient to support the indictment and to sustain the convictions if they were proved with the exactitude required by the Constitution.
  •  The Constitution requires that “No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act . . . .” Art. III, § 3.
  • And while two witnesses must testify to the same act, it is not required that their testimony be identical. Most overt acts are not single, separable acts, but are combinations of acts or courses of conduct made up of several elements. It is not easy to set by metes and bounds the permissible latitude between the testimony of the two required witnesses. It is perhaps easier to say on which side of the line a given case belongs than to draw a line that will separate all permissible disparities from forbidden ones….and it is not required that testimony be so minute as to exclude every fantastic hypothesis that can be suggested.
  • The law of treason makes, and properly makes, conviction difficult, but not impossible…. [Haupt’s] mission was frustrated, but defendant did his best to make it succeed. His overt acts were proved in compliance with the hard test of the Constitution, are hardly denied, and the proof leaves no reasonable doubt of the guilt.

The judgment is Affirmed.

The Court thus found that, given the incriminating testimony of the required two witnesses, it was for the jury to decide between “treason” and “just a father helping his son get along.”

Mr. Justice Douglas wrote a concurring opinion, noting “…. As the Cramer case makes plain, the overt act and the intent with which it is done are separate and distinct elements of the crime. Intent need not be proved by two witnesses, but may be inferred from all the circumstances surrounding the overt act …. The requirement of an overt act is to make certain a treasonable project has moved from the realm of thought into the realm of action.”

Mr. Justice Murphy dissented in an opinion that suggested it was for the courts rather than the jury to decide whether “reasonable doubt” existed as to the true nature of the acts in dispute. Happily, that was not and is not the law.

The foregoing, I believe, fairly summarizes the law governing sustainable findings of treason.

Before turning to why I believe Donald Trump, among others, is plainly guilty of treason, you should also be aware of some facts set out in Autocracy, Inc., The Dictators Who Want to Run the World (2024) by Anne Applebaum, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Gulag, A History of the Soviet Camps (2004) and author of Twilight of Democracy, among others:

On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a full-scale war against Ukraine, the first full-scale kinetic battle in the struggle between Autocracy, Inc. and what might loosely be described as the democratic world. Russia plays a special role in the autocratic network, both as the inventor of the modern marriage of kleptocracy and dictatorship and as the country now most aggressively seeking to upend the status quo. The invasion was planned in that spirit. Putin hoped not only to acquire territory, but also to show the world that the old rules of international behavior no longer hold.

From the very first days of the war, Putin and the Russian security elite ostentatiously demonstrated their disdain for the language of human rights, their disregard for the laws of war, their scorn for international law and for treaties they themselves had signed. They arrested public officials and civic leaders: mayors, police officers, civil servant, school directors, journalists, artists, museum curators. They built torture chambers for civilians …. They kidnapped thousands of children, ripping some away from their families, removing others from orphanages, gave them new “Russian” identities and prevented them from return home to Ukraine. [Autocracy, Inc. at 13]

And more. And more. Those facts are not disputable by anyone with a functioning mind and the ability to disassociate from the penumbra of subordination cast by Donald Trump on his followers.

The conclusion from that and much other evidence, all well-known, is that Russia under Putin is the enemy of the United States. To anyone observing Putin and his statements and behavior, he has made it clear beyond any doubt that he regards American democracy and our constitutional freedoms as anathema. Multiple investigations here have shown beyond doubt extensive Russian interference in our elections and more.

It is also clear beyond doubt that there are more than two witnesses to Trump’s issuing of instructions to the interim U.S. representative to the U.N to vote with Russia and against Ukraine. There is no possibility she would have just done this on her own without instructions from the highest level. Speaking in Trumpish, “America’s acting envoy to the UN, Dorothy Camille Shea, described the US resolution as a “simple historic statement… that looks forward, not backwards. A resolution focused on one simple idea: ending the war”. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c7435pnle0go

Now add the sickening spectacle of Trump and Vance aligning with Putin’s Russia against Zelensky’s Ukraine and you have the perfect description of multiple acts of giving “aid and comfort” to an avowed enemy of the United States.

Trump has abandoned the western alliance formed after WWII and aligned himself and now the U.S. government with Russian aggression against a free and independent democracy on its border. Given the bizarre collection of appointments Trump has made to positions high in our defense, security and intelligence apparatus, it is not farfetched to believe that he is preparing to gift Ukraine to Russia and likely a lot more.

Recall that Trump is the same person who removed highly confidential documents from the White House when he left in 2021 and that he refused to return them, lied about what he had and engaged in overt acts to hide what he had from authorities seeking their protection and return. The FBI under Trump’s new appointed leadership has just returned those documents to Trump!

So now, etched in our memories forever, is the pathetic spectacle of Trump and his henchman JD Vance, with the silent acquiescence of Marco Rubio, attacking and berating Volodymyr Zelensky in an almost certainly staged event for that very purpose. Trump, self-satisfied that he had accomplished his mission, freely noted at the end that it would “make great television.” In this pathetic demonstration of anti-American animus, Trump gave further aid and comfort to a declared enemy of the United States he took an oath to defend. You can read a reasonably accurate account of the episode here: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/28/us/politics/trump-zelensky-us-ukraine-russia.html

This was a first in American diplomatic history and, I believe, an obvious effort to sabotage Zelensky and Ukraine in front of the American people. Trump set up the press event and, with VP Vance chiming in with a personal attack near the end, erupted when Zelensky tried to explain the true situation Ukraine faces with Russian aggression. Vance and Trump acted like Zelensky had forced his way into the White House, called the press event himself and then outrageously used it to stand up for the freedom of his country that is under existential attack designed to eliminate the very existence of the country.

Trump, as usual had spent the first two-thirds of the press event talking about himself, what a great negotiator he is, how he only wants the best for the United States, how he was persecuted, how terrible Presidents Obama and Biden were, on and on and on, the same old mindless lies and blather.

In my opinion, the entire nightmarish scene was planned to undermine Ukraine and Zelensky. Trump knows Putin does not want peace; he wants conquest. And it won’t stop with Ukraine if he’s successful. Trump had no intention of making a deal with Zelensky unless it involved the total surrender of Ukraine to Russia.

I have no idea what leverage Putin has on Trump – you have no doubt read many of the same stories and speculations as I have – but whatever it is, it must be very strong to produce such overt appeasement that rivals or exceeds anything ever seen in world relations. Russian media ate it up, of course, just as one would expect. Peter Baker, White House reporter, wrote that

Never has an American president lectured the leader of an ally in public like this, much less the leader of a country that is fighting off invaders.

I have covered the White House since 1996. There has never been an Oval Office meeting in front of cameras like this in all that time.

The damage Trump/Vance did to United States standing in the world is immeasurable and unforgivable. It was, I believe, pure and simple treason.

Donald Trump — A Gangster in the White House

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I write to give you the gist of Jeffrey Toobin’s excellent True Crimes and Misdemeanors.

If there is anything to be disappointed about, it is that the book was published in early August of 2020 and thus does not address Trump’s (and other Republicans’) incitement of the January 6 attack and his second impeachment. But there is likely little that Toobin could add at this stage to what is known about that, given the stonewalling by most of Trump’s enablers and the apparent indifference of the Department of Justice to the entire matter.

That limitation aside, this book, like the exceptional Where Law Ends by Andrew Weissman, displays throughout the gift of clear exposition. A complex tale told well. And, like Weissman, Toobin pulls none of his punches in judging the behavior of most of the participants in the criminal enterprise that defined the Trump presidency. If there is anything to complain about in that regard, it’s Toobin’s obvious fascination with and adoration of the role, style, and grit of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, perhaps the only major player to come out of the Trump crime spree as a genuine hero in Toobin’s eyes.

The book reads like a true crime novel, and it is all about crimes. Sad to say, it’s also not a novel. It’s true. All of it.

So, where to begin? The book opens with a summary analysis of Trump’s survival despite the findings of the Mueller Report. There is plenty of blame to go around but much of it rests at the feet of Mueller himself:

Mueller’s caution and reticence led him to fail at his two most important tasks.  Thanks to the clever actions (and strategic inaction) of Trump’s legal team, Mueller failed to obtain a meaningful interview with Trump himself. Even worse, Mueller convinced himself – wrongly – that he had to write a final report that was nearly incomprehensible to ordinary citizens in its legal conclusions. [True Crimes at 8]

Toobin ends the opening with the observation that,

everyone – friends as well as enemies – knew what [Trump] had done. It was obvious to any sentient observer that he did what he was accused of in the Mueller Report and in the articles of impeachment. [[True Crimes at 11]

The book then narrates the story of how that happened, beginning with James Comey’s betrayal of the country by his decision to ignore FBI policy about disclosing details of investigations at all, let alone on the literal eve of an election, with the result that Hillary Clinton’s candidacy was undermined at the last minute. The subsequent narrative will be familiar to everyone who was paying attention but the details, including many not previously revealed (to my knowledge) propel the story forward. Toobin concludes, “it appears likely, if not certain, that Comey cost Clinton the presidency.” [[True Crimes at 28] Indeed.

Toobin makes a compelling case that Robert Mueller was hyper-focused on bringing his investigation to a rapid close and thus failed to pursue “the single most important piece of evidence,” namely, the testimony of Donald Trump himself. But,

Mueller didn’t. He backed down. He couldn’t bring himself to launch a direct legal attack against the president of the United States. [True Crimes at 197]

Of all the mistakes made, and in truth every serious investigation of complex events will have some, the failure to force Trump’s testimonial hand stands out as the largest and the least understandable in light of Mueller’s assignment. Everyone – Mueller’s team, Trump’s lawyers – knew Trump would perjure himself if questioned under oath. He would have had extreme difficulty responding to skilled cross-examination of his conduct and motives. This is particularly important because Mueller believed that Trump’s “state of mind” was critical to bringing charges against him. For me, that will always remain a mystery. State of mind is simply never directly knowable, despite what we’ve seen in some phantasmagorical science fiction movies. It is inferable from conduct in context and circumstances, always.

Mueller made other mistakes. He should have squeezed Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal lawyer whom they had dead to rights on campaign finance violations and lying to Congress. Without ever asking whether his jurisdiction might include the Cohen issues, Mueller turned the case over to the Southern District of New York. Because those prosecutors, accomplished though they were, saw their role narrowly – Cohen was the target, not Trump – they never sought Trump’s tax returns or his financial records.

In a precursor to what was to come, William Barr, who had once been Mueller’s boss at DOJ, volunteered in June 2018 a 19-page memo to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who had appointed Mueller as Special Counsel, attacking the legitimacy of the Mueller investigation. Barr argued that the president could, for any reason or no reason (the legal standard for “at will” employment firing), fire the head of the FBI (Comey) and such action could not be attacked as obstruction of justice. Barr also objected on constitutional grounds to any attempt to force Trump to testify. [True Crimes at 234-235]

Thereafter, negotiations over Trump’s possible testimony were postponed while Rudy Giuliani was brought in to lead Trump’s legal defense team. At a “get-acquainted” meeting with Mueller’s team,

Giuliani wanted to nail down Mueller’s commitment that he would follow the [DOJ Office of Legal Counsel] policy barring indictments of sitting presidents. Aaron Zebley volunteered that Mueller would. [True Crimes at 236, italics mine]

When I read that, I almost gagged. Zebley was Mueller’s former Chief of Staff at the FBI and his top aide in the Trump investigation. Zebley was the subject of much critical assessment in Andrew Weissmann’s Where Law Ends, discussed in detail here: https://bit.ly/3Jn8ye3

I can think of no plausible reason for Mueller or his team to offer such a concession at that point, or likely at any point, in the investigation without getting something of extraordinary importance in return. But, no, the point was “volunteered” away. Astonishing and inexplicable in my opinion.

Many key players in the prolonged saga of Trump’s presidency come in for harsh criticism in Toobin’s accounting, including Judge T.S. Ellis, the judge in the first trial of Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chair. Toobin notes the judge’s “partisanship and incompetence.” [True Crimes at 238] Strong words, indeed, but justified by the shocking events he narrates.

One beef I have with Toobin relates to the central issue in the Mueller investigation. Mueller concluded that there was no evidence proving that Trump or his campaign “colluded” with Russia. Toobin accepts this finding, with the qualification that Trump and his inner circle certainly wanted to collude. [True Crimes at 269] Given the failure to examine Trump personally under oath or to subpoena his taxes and financial records, Toobin’s total acceptance of Trump’s innocence on the collusion issue is, I think, unjustified. Even more so because Trump’s answers to the written questions ultimately submitted to him by Mueller included 36 instances of “don’t remember” by the man who repeatedly claimed to have a genius level mind and memory. [True Crimes at 273]

Toobin holds nothing back in stating that Rudy Giuliani’s involvement in the Ukraine extortion episode “must rank among the most disastrous pieces of advocacy in the history American lawyering.” [True Crimes at 292] No doubt, but Toobin also holds nothing back regarding the Mueller Report itself. He correctly concludes that the Report established that “Trump committed several acts of criminal obstruction of justice.” [True Crimes at 300] Using his gift of snark to full advantage, Toobin paraphrases the Mueller conclusions on obstruction:

We can investigate the President, but we can’t prosecute the President. If our investigation determined that he was in the clear, we’d say that – but we’re not saying that. Nor are we saying that he’s guilty of anything. So we’re not saying he’s guilty – but we’re not saying he’s innocent either. Basically. [True Crimes at 302]

Toobin characterizes the decision to avoid saying whether prosecution was warranted as a “gift to Trump.” [True Crimes at 302] Right again.

For several reasons, a special mention must be made of then- Attorney General William Barr’s issuance of a second letter, two days after he received the 448-page Mueller Report, interpreting the Report to say things it did not say and drawing conclusions the Report did not draw. Or, as Toobin put it, Barr put “a stake in Mueller.” [True Crimes at 307] And then, one of the highlights of the entire book for me,

Many on Mueller’s team, especially at the lower levels, were incandescent with fury at Barr.” [True Crimes at 308]

I don’t think will ever forget that phrase, “incandescent with fury” that so graphically describes how I and many others felt when Barr’s treachery sank in.

The book goes on to cover Trump’s Ukraine extortion scheme, the outrageous efforts of the White House and outside counsel to defend the indefensible, the refusal of Republican senators to hear the evidence through witnesses and their determination to protect Trump at any and all costs. Toobin is unsparing in his condemnation of these efforts, and all are worth reading.

The main thing that really surprised me in the book was an omission. I may have missed it, though I doubt it. There was no discussion of the fate of the full written report (I will not dignify it with the term “transcript,” since it was in no sense an actual transcript) on the Trump-Zelensky call that was widely reported to have been sequestered in a White House server to which access was extremely limited. I have seen no reports about whether the Biden administration has opened the server to discover its contents or whether the server was removed with by the outgoing administration to, again, protect Trump from further exposure of his crimes.

I also strongly disagree, as I have previously written, with the decision of the House managers (mainly the Speaker) to limit the impeachments to narrowly drawn issues, given the breadth and depth of Trump’s crimes in office. The House was not bound by the self-imposed limitations of the Mueller Report and, knowing, as the House did, that conviction of Trump was completely unlikely, they should have thrown the book at him, exposing for the watching world the range and importance of his crimes in office.

I also must record my fundamental disagreement with Toobin’s judgment about the proper role of the Senate in the impeachments. He says,

The senators were nothing more, and nothing less, than politicians were supposed to decide the president’s fate based just in part on the evidence at trial but also on their overall sense of what was best for the country.

That view is far too narrow and validates the refusal of the Republican Party to come to grips with the realities of Trump’s presidency. There remains, and history will confirm, no doubt that Donald Trump committed multiple crimes in office and that he committed crimes in attempting to stop the peaceful transfer of power to the Biden administration. To say that the Senate’s judgment was rightly based on a self-interested determination of “what was best for the country” makes a sham of the entire constitutional process. I do not believe the Founding Fathers, if they had been able to imagine a president like Trump, would have intended that the Senate could just say “it’s in our best interest to keep the leader of our party in power, so he’s ‘not guilty’ regardless of what he did.” I believe the Founding Fathers, whatever their other flaws, wanted and expected more when the extraordinary remedy of impeachment was brought against a president.

Toobin does not spend much time on Trump’s handling of the pandemic because that was not the primary topic of the book. But, as some of the Republican senators observed, the people would eventually render their judgment of Trump on election day in 2020. And they did. For reasons I still cannot grasp, Trump received more than 74 million votes, despite everything. But, fortunately for the republic and the world, Joe Biden won more than 81 million votes and a sufficient margin in the Electoral College to take the presidency. Then, Trump incited a coup to try to stop the transfer of power to the new president.

This was what Trump cared about the most. Toobin presciently notes,

Trump had no great passions on the issues, no policy agenda that he was determined to enact. For Trump, his presidency was more about him than what he could accomplish. For this reason, the only verdict that has ever mattered to Trump is the one rendered on Election Day.

Thus it was written and thus it was done.

You may recall Michael Cohen’s testimony before Congress in which he likened Trump to a mafia boss. While Cohen’s handling of Trump and his legal affairs was problematic, to say the least, it appears that he correctly identified the central idea of Trump’s personal code of conduct.

The central question facing us now is, I think, whether the current Attorney General, Merrick Garland, is just another Robert Mueller. As an earlier post has discussed, the statute of limitations has already run on one of Trump’s obstruction crimes. Garland has publicly stated he will follow the evidence and the law even if it leads to Trump. More lawyers have apparently been hired to work on Trump matters.

Meanwhile, time marches only in one direction. The country waits for action. Trump’s crimes, and those of his enablers in the White House and Congress, stretch well back into his presidency, with the capstone being his incitement of the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, more than 15 months ago. The nation waits ….

Impeachment – Why and What?

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I recently heard that a friend of mine was confused about the impeachment process now underway in the House of Representatives. I will try here to clarify, in simple English and without legalisms, what is going on and why.

The president is currently subject to an “impeachment inquiry” started by a resolution of the House of Representatives. The “inquiry” is a fancy term for an investigation. That investigation is about the question whether the president in his dealings with Ukraine committed “treason, bribery or other high crimes or misdemeanors,” that are the criteria for impeachment in the U.S. Constitution. If impeached (by the House adopting articles of impeachment) and convicted (by the Senate finding that the asserted crimes in the articles are true), he may be removed from office. Since he is still president during this process, he cannot be indicted (according to the Department of Justice). Once removed, however, he can be indicted, tried, convicted and sent to prison for crimes committed while in office.

The investigation is being conducted through two main processes.

The first process is the gathering of evidence through testimony-under-oath by various witnesses who have been subpoenaed (ordered to appear) or have volunteered to testify. Initially, those depositions (taking testimony under oath recorded verbatim) were conducted in private sessions open to members of the three investigating committees from both parties. Despite the opportunity to be present and ask questions, Republicans have complained bitterly about what they hysterically and falsely called “secret” sessions, even to the point of storming into one of the sessions in a group, violating the security requirements that apply to the site of the depositions.

The second process is the public hearing phase, now being broadcast on many TV stations, in which the same witnesses are called to be examined in public, again by both Democrats and Republicans. Now the Republicans, including the president himself, are bitterly claiming that the hearings should not be public. In the end of their rhetoric, what the Republicans want is to shut down the impeachment process entirely. That is not going to happen.

Why, then, is this impeachment inquiry happening? The essence of it is that Donald Trump tried to use Congressionally approved funding to help Ukraine defend  against further military incursions by Russia and also the prospect of a meeting with Trump for the newly elected Ukraine president (Zelensky) to leverage Ukraine’s new leadership to announce investigations into the then-leading challenger to Trump’s re-election, Joe Biden. The immediate target of the investigation would be Biden’s son, Hunter, who was, for a period, being paid $50,000 a month to sit on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company. Republicans claim that this arrangement was part of the historic and endemic corruption that has afflicted Ukrainian political leadership for a very long time, but thus far no evidence has turned up to indicate that either Joe or Hunter Biden broke any laws.

All this is complicated by a number of details that are not central to the issue of what the president did, but they certainly illuminate his motives and explain his conduct. For one, Trump used his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani to engage with the Ukrainians and to promote false conspiracy theories about the Biden’s and to lead a smear campaign against the sitting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch. Trump eventually fired her without notice or explanation.

There are many other characters in this drama, some with long titles and long histories as diplomats in the U.S.-Ukraine relationship. Republicans have attacked many of these people because they obtained some or all of their information about Trump’s campaign against Biden through other sources. Indeed, the initial report that started all of this came from an anonymous whistleblower. The Inspector General of the Intelligence Community within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence reviewed the whistleblower’s report and found it credible and disturbing. The impeachment inquiry followed.

It is important not to be distracted by the efforts of Republicans to focus the fight on side issues, such as the identity of the whistleblower or the “hearsay” nature of some of the evidence against Trump. The most damaging evidence was direct and produced by Trump himself, in the form of a memo (not a transcript) of his call with Ukraine President Zelensky in which Trump called on Zelensky to start the investigation. There is much additional testimony from Trump appointees, like Gordon Sondland, U.S. Ambassador to the European Union, who personally participated in the leveraging of Ukraine.

The impeachment may be broadened before it’s over. One example comes from the Mueller investigation. Mueller’s final report found 10 instances of obstruction of justice by Trump and/or members of his staff and administration. These may, and in my opinion definitely should, be included in the forthcoming articles of impeachment. A second major example is playing out in the courts now – Democrats in the House are seeking  access to many of the redacted materials in the Mueller Report that may show that Trump lied to Mueller and is thus guilty of the high crime of perjury.

So, the impeachment is pretty straightforward when the Republican smoke is cleared away. Trump tried to induce Zelensky to publicly announce a Ukrainian investigation of the Biden’s to damage Joe Biden’s challenge to Trump’s re-election. The evidence on this is clear. He did it. The evidence of obstruction of justice in the Mueller Report is also clear. The House of Representatives is collecting the evidence and presenting it through public hearings. Eventually, when the hearings are completed, the House will have the opportunity to vote on “articles of impeachment.” These are like a criminal indictment. They will state the specific charges of “treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors” that the House leadership believes are the basis for impeaching the president.

If the articles are approved by a majority vote in the House prior to the 2020 election, the impeachment moves to the Republican-controlled Senate for “trial” to determine if the president is guilty of the charged offenses and, if so, what the penalty should be. This process will be controlled entirely by Republicans and, absent a massive change in positioning, Republicans will refuse to convict the president regardless of the charges and regardless of the evidence.

The question of judging Trump’s conduct in office will then move to final determination in the election of 2020.

Transcripts, Quids & Quos and Evasions

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I continue to see media stories describing the document released by the White House that purported to be a “transcript” of the conversation in which the president of the United States tried to pressure a foreign leader into investigating a domestic political rival (Joe Biden). The same stories often use the term “quid pro quo” which translates roughly to “something for something” or “this for that.” I remain mystified and angry that experienced people whose job it is to communicate continue to misuse terms that are essential to understanding the stories they are reporting.

While I doubt any media people will read this blog post or care much what I have to say, but that has not stopped me before and it will not do so now. You might say I am writing this without the expectation of a quid pro quo. But it would be far better not to say that. Here’s why.

First, what is a “transcript?” This is not particularly mysterious, though there are different meanings for different situations. For example, in education, a transcript is “an inventory of the courses taken and grades earned of a student throughout a course of study.” https://bit.ly/2O04dD4 Anyone who has an education will likely recognize this one.

In the world of law, however, “transcript” refers to something quite specific. In fact, the proper relevant term is “transcript of record” which is a “typed or written copy of the court reporter’s notes that have been taken down during a trial.” Black’s Law Dictionary at https://bit.ly/2CrYqR7

This is a precise record of what is actually said, word for word, during the proceeding for which a transcript is being made. It is typically recorded as the events occur by a trained “court reporter” who either types into a special machine that produces tapes from which the “transcript” is printed or in more modern environments the reporter speaks into a device that records the reporter’s words. To assure precision and accuracy, the parties to the proceeding may review and propose corrections to the “transcript” before it is considered “final” and no longer subject to dispute.

Transcripts in the above sense are routinely created in “courts of record” and in depositions and formal arbitrations. A “court of record” is usually a trial court or higher but does not typically include small claims court and traffic courts where no verbatim record is created.

Note that I referred to “parties” in the plural in referring to the review/correction process. Regardless of the positions of the parties or who asked that the deposition be taken, both sides get to review the record and disputes are settled by the court. The result is that a “transcript of record” is as accurate as humans can make it: taken down and produced by disinterested professionals, evaluated by partisans and ultimately determined by a neutral authority.

You get the idea, I’m sure. A “transcript” as regards an event is a precise, accurate record of exactly what was said by the participants. Anything less formal is not actually a “transcript” and lacks the credibility of an official transcript.

For example, if I sit in on a telephone call and make personal notes of what I heard, then have someone type up my notes, no “transcript” results. Instead, there is just a typed version of my notes and there is no process by which the accuracy and precision of my note-taking is assessed and corrections made by independent parties with an interest in accuracy and precision. In this situation there is no “transcript” of the call. Even if a disinterested professional is involved in taking notes, the absence of independent review of the resulting document deprives the document of the credibility to be given to a “transcript.” In the case of Trump’s call with the president of Ukraine, there is an additional problem that a “translation” was required, adding an additional layer of uncertainty to the end product.

It follows, therefore, that the document released by the White House of Trump’s “perfect call” with Ukraine President Zelensky is not a “transcript” and should not be referred to as one by the media or anyone else. There is no basis for the conclusion that the document has the precision and accuracy of an authentic “transcript.”

At the same time, since the White House obviously believed the president’s claim of perfection for the call, the document that was released may reasonably be presumed to be the best version, from Trump’s point of view, of what occurred. As has been reported everywhere but Fox News and Breitbart, the document is clearly damning and proves that Trump is once again lying about what transpired. Numerous parties who listened in on the call have testified under oath that Trump unquestionably demanded an investigation, and public disclosure thereof, of a domestic political rival.

This brings us to the question of “quid pro quo.” The media and Republican defenders of Trump have obsessed over whether the call involved a “quid pro quo.” Here, again, we must refer to the environment of law, where this term is often used and has a well-understood meaning. As stated in Black’s Law Dictionary (https://bit.ly/36LZOMu),

What for what; something for something. Used in law for the giving one valuable thing for another. It is nothing more than the mutual consideration which passes between the parties to a contract, and which renders it valid and binding. [emphasis added]

In simple English, as applied to the Trump-Zelensky call, Trump was demanding a public declaration of an investigation of his chief political rival in exchange for the release of aid funds that Congress had previously appropriated. Still in simple English, Trump said, “if you want the money released, you must announce the investigation I want.” What for what; something for something. You do this for me and I’ll do that for you. Clear as a bright sunny day.

Reading the document released by the White House, the “best version of the call per Trump himself,” it is plain that Trump demanded something in exchange for something else. A “favor,” his word, for a favor.

The media would do well to stop calling the White House document a transcript. It is not a transcript. At best it is a summary of notes about the call. It has not been vetted by independent authorities or any outside party with an interest separate or independent from Trump.

As for the quid pro quo, why use a Latin term when simple English will do? While quid pro quo is easy to understand, the use of Latin here will only obscure the issue for many readers. Some short-hands are useful but this one, in this setting at least, is not. It is helping the Trump administration muddy the public understanding of the illicit bargain Trump sought to achieve.

Finally, there is this question, as yet unanswered by the White House: why were the records of the Trump-Zelensky call secreted in a top secret computer? If they are exculpatory, why haven’t they been released? The answer, I suggest, is that the original records would be even worse for Trump than the doctored notes falsely presented as “transcript” to the world.

Whistling by the Graveyard

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On August 25, 2018, the New York Times published a “News Analysis” of Donald Trump’s treatment of the American legal system:  Trump’s War on the Justice System Threatens to Erode Trust in the Law, by Michael D. Shear and Katie Benner. https://nyti.ms/2oINv1V

The piece opens with this:

In his attempt at self-defense amid the swirl of legal cases and investigations involving himself, his aides and his associates, Mr. Trump is directly undermining the people and processes that are the foundation of the nation’s administration of justice.

The result is a president at war with the law.

Further, and presciently,

The president’s public judgments about the country’s top law enforcement agencies revolve largely around how their actions affect him personally – a vision that would recast the traditionally independent justice system as a guardian of the president and an attack dog against his adversaries.

The comment ends with this:

“No matter when this all ends, Trump will have caused long-lasting damage to the ability of the Justice Department and the F.B.I. to execute on its mission…. He is sacrificing our public safety and national security on the altar of his own ego.” [quoting Christopher Hunter, a former FBI agent and prosecutor]

Certainly, the authors could not have precisely foreseen how Trump’s approach to governance would lead to the present circumstances, but their overall impression of the direction of Trump’s presidency was stunningly accurate.

Now, perhaps emboldened by what he convinced himself was “exoneration” by Mueller and thus a free hand going forward, Trump has been caught out trying to use a foreign power to influence the 2020 election. And, the evidence is clear, Trump and his loyal team of lawyers, who were also allowed to skate by Mueller, have clumsily tried to cover up the president’s crimes by secreting the records in a computer system designed to contain only coded high-security information. Indications are that this is not the first time they have done this. As we have come to expect, Trump responded to all this by threatening his “enemies,” attacking the press and deflecting by inventing others’ offenses that he purports to expose.

All of that was simply too much for the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, who called for an impeachment inquiry and had the votes to do it. Trump responded by declaring that Pelosi was no longer the Speaker of the House. This from a man who publicly swore a solemn oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Also, as we have come to expect, Republican enablers in and outside the White House rushed to Trump’s defense with all manner of false and hysterical claims. While the wagons were being circled, more news emerged, including that Secretary of State Pompeo was listening on the Trump-Zelensky call even though he indicated otherwise in television interviews. Trump is demanding to “face my accuser” and has said that the White House is trying to determine the whistleblower’s identity even though the governing law provides for protection of that individual’s identity. Trump supporters have offered a large cash award for anyone who will conclusively identify the whistleblower. Trump has not repudiated them for this action, arguably putting the whistleblower’s life in danger.

And so it goes. Meanwhile, the Editorial Board of the New York Times and the editors of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch have both called for Trump to resign. Likely, other major newspapers will join the list. What goes around ….

The Times if, of course, still trying for “journalistic balance,” by giving print space to defenders of Trump to make their case. The same Sunday that the Times printed “The Allegations Are Grave. An Election Is at Risk. The Founders Were Clear,” a half-page op-ed appeared, entitled “Impeachment Is an Act of Desperation,” by Christopher Buskirk, publisher and editor of the very conservative website American Greatness. Buskirk’s argument is the reason for the title of this post.

Buskirk posits that by proceeding with an impeachment inquiry into Trump’s conduct, the Democrats are playing into the Republicans’ hands and assuring Trump of victory in 2020. Why? Because (1) “we’ve all been down this road before” and nothing Trump has done or said so far has affected his support that “has bounced around in more or less the same range since he took office,” (2) what about Hunter Biden in Ukraine? (3) impeachment “success requires broad public support,” and (4) Democrats can only beat Trump by focusing on the issues.

The corollary to the first point is that “there will be no resignation, there will be no conviction in the Senate.” That is probably true, but it misses the point that Trump’s conduct is so egregious across a broad range of areas and issues that a well-presented impeachment case in the House will serve the Democratic agenda in 2020 as well or better than any candidate on her/his own. It also ignores the Democratic sweep of House seats, and return to a majority there, in 2018. Finally, to claim that Trump’s popularity has not been affected by his prior egregious acts in office ignores the reality that his “popularity” is very low. These are not the likely elements of a winning position.

Buskirk’s second point is the classic Republican trope transplanted from Barack Obama (the usual target of Trump ego-angst) to Joe and Hunter Biden. But, no matter what the Bidens may have done in Ukraine, and so far there is no evidence of wrongdoing, a point made repeatedly by past and present Ukrainian officials with reason to know, it would not justify Trump’s attempt to arm-twist a foreign government into investigating a domestic political opponent. Except for self-defense against physical threats, American law does not support a defense that “someone else broke the law so I can too.” This is essentially the “Hillary’s emails” defense and it’s worthless. As Yogi Berra famously said, it’s déjà vu all over again.

Buskirk’s third point – impeachment success requires broad public support – is, I believe, simply wrong. Impeachment requires only a smartly executed process of compiling and presenting for public viewing the evidence of corruption in the multiple scenarios in which Trump has acted as if he were above the law. But even if Buskirk’s claim is right, we are in early days and it’s premature to conclude that the public won’t get on board as the evidence of Trump’s venality and illegality is presented. Again, this assumes the presentation is properly done. I have argued repeatedly that this must not turn into another political show with politicians sitting on the House committees trying to act like practicing prosecutors. Develop a list of “points to be proved” and leave the questioning to experts that know how to do it.

Finally, the fourth point that defeating Trump requires beating him on the “issues,” is an attempt to divert attention from what is at the root of the current mess. Trump has willfully violated a serious federal law designed to protect American elections from foreign interference and then tried to cover it up. Moving the records to a secret computer for coded security information is functionally equivalent to Richard Nixon’s deletion of 18.5 minutes of tapes involving a crucial meeting between the President and his Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman, the revelation of which ultimately destroyed Nixon’s support in the Senate and forced his resignation prior to being impeached and removed. Trump’s crimes are extremely serious and they follow a thoroughly documented showing of at least 10 prior instances of criminal obstruction of justice in the Mueller Report. He was only saved from indictment by Mueller because the Department of Justice, dubiously, has opined that a sitting president may not be indicted.

Buskirk argues that impeachment of Trump now is just “political theater” and “more Washington psychodrama.” He claims the voters are simply uninterested in the crimes Trump may have committed and that they “just want to know what Washington is going to do for them.”

Methinks Buskirk has it backwards. Trump’s most ardent supporters seem only interested in political theater. The proof is evident in the endless tapes of Trump’s rallies that have little or nothing to do with “issues” and everything to do with performance. Trump is a star in that crowd because … he’s a star. He gives voice to their anger and fear and they see no irony in the fact that he is rich and unlike them in almost every way. He does not really share their fear and anger; he puts on the show they came to see and they love him for it even though the hard evidence is that he has done virtually nothing to make their lives better.

And that is the ultimate point. Even if Buskirk’s assessment regarding the “issues” is correct, it fails to reckon with Trump’s massive and ongoing failure to deliver on most of his electoral promises. If indeed it is only “issues” that will motivate the voters, and Trump’s illegal and immoral conduct of the Office of President and multiple violations of his oath of office are not “issues” of interest or force in the election, Trump’s performance still fails. Most of his governance actions are for “show” to impress his political base but it is not a stretch to show how he has failed to deliver.

So, is impeachment a mistake? I don’t think so. Democrats have been handed a weapon by Trump that needs to be used with surgical precision. We have a criminal in the White House, a person who does not respect the office he holds or guiding principles of the government he swore to serve. It should not be hard for the Democrats to show this to the electorate in a compelling way, to motivate their own base to go the polls in 2020 and, if Donald Trump still sits in the White House, to send him packing.