Washington Post – Page 21

December 6, 2019June 12, 2020

From NATO Antics to a Pelosi Rebuff: Highlights of This Week

As of this post, only 332 days remain until the 2020 Election. Almost certainly, the days and weeks leading up to it will be filled with eyebrow-raisers that far overshadow the fundraisers. Here are just a few of the events that happened this week.

On Monday, in retaliation against France’s new digital services tax, the Trump Administration announced a proposal to levy tariffs on up to $2.4 billion worth of French imports. The French tax is aimed at preventing tech giants from avoiding taxes when they place their headquarters in low-tax countries in Europe. It would impact companies whose yearly global sales exceed 750 million Euros ($830 million) and French earnings over 25 million Euros. Such American companies as Facebook, Google, and Amazon, would be affected, and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative called it “discrimination” against American companies.

Trump also attended the NATO summit this week, and what stands out most, at least for Tuesday, is not the official discussions or negotiations, but an informal chat. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was caught on video mocking Trump in an exchange with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron.

Later, during a press conference, Trudeau didn’t comment directly on whether he had mocked Trump, but tried to explain that he had been making a reference to the fact that “there was an unscheduled press conference (for Trump)” before his meeting with Trump.

Trump responded to Trudeau’s remarks about him with, “Well, he’s two faced.”

Also on Tuesday, Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Kamala Harris announced that she was ending her campaign for the 2020 election.

“I’m not a billionaire,” Harris said, explaining her decision to withdraw. “I can’t fund my own campaign. And as the campaign has gone on, it has become harder and harder to raise the money we need to compete. In good faith, I can’t tell you, my supporters and volunteers, that I have a path forward if I don’t believe I do.”

On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee held an 8 1/2-hour public hearing featuring three legal scholars and one Constitutional expert, each of whom provided testimony as to whether Trump committed bribery and other impeachable offenses by allegedly conditioning military aid to Ukraine, as well as a White House visit, on a public announcement by Ukraine’s new President, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, of investigations into Trump’s political rivals.

The three legal scholars, Stanford University professor Pamela S. Karlan, Harvard Law School professor Noah Feldman, and University of North Carolina law professor Michael Gerhardt, all chosen by Democrats, testified that, yes, Trump had committed impeachable offenses, and that he had obstructed Congress.

Constitutional expert Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University professor called by the GOP (though he noted that he had not voted for Trump), disagreed, saying that if impeachment were to take place in this case, it “would stand out among modern impeachments as the shortest proceeding, with the thinnest evidentiary record, and the narrowest grounds ever used to impeach a president.”

Gerhard, however, testified, “If what we’re talking about is not impeachable, then nothing is impeachable.”

On Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that House committee chairs will begin drafting articles of impeachment against President Trump.

“The president’s actions have seriously violated the Constitution, especially when he says and acts upon the belief, Article II says I can do whatever I want. No, his wrongdoing strikes at the very heart of our Constitution, a separation of powers, three co-equal branches, each a check and balance on the other,” said Pelosi.

Many believe that impeachment is almost certain, though a vote to remove Trump from office is unlikely in the Republican-led Senate.

Republicans hold that Democrats want to impeach Trump simply because they “hate” him. When asked by a journalist if she hated Trump, Nancy Pelosi responded, “As a Catholic I resent your using the word hate in a sentence that addresses me … So don’t mess with me when it comes to words like that.”

Trump calls Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “two-faced” after NATO hot mic gaffe | CBS News [2019-12-04]

Rep. Biggs pushes back on Pelosi’s impeachment announcement |
Fox News [2019-12-05]

November 19, 2019June 12, 2020

Why Trump Supporters Will Never Change on Impeachment

Donald Trump’s supporters will almost certainly not change their stance on impeachment, despite the fact that strong evidence continues to grow in support of the allegation that Trump used the power of his office for personal gain.

The testimony of a number of highly respected witnesses corroborates the the intelligence community whistleblower whose complaint was the catalyst for the Trump impeachment inquiry. A number of the witnesses have served honorably under both political parties, and stress that they are loyal to the country, not to a president or political party. Yet Trump’s supporters will have none of that.

It’s not just because Trump’s supporters are loyal (often irrationally so). It’s not because they see Trump as an honorable, or even innocent, man. It’s in large part because many of Trump’s supporters seem unable to fully connect the dots between Trump’s alleged conditioning of military aid to Ukraine, and the importance to the U.S. of Ukraine’s position in the world (and its relationship with the U.S.).

Many Trump supporters, taking their cue from GOP lawmakers, now acknowledge that Trump may well have required that Ukraine investigate one of Trump’s political rivals (Joe Biden) and Biden’s son, Hunter, in exchange for (already allocated) military aid. (“Do us a favor, though,” said Trump.) And, parroting Trump, they maintain that what Trump did was not wrong.

But the idea that the impeachment inquiry is nothing more than folly goes beyond simply the belief that Trump did nothing wrong.

Many Trump supporters feel we shouldn’t be helping Ukraine, anyway. Other countries, according to Trump and, consequently, his supporters, are far behind the U.S. in their aid to Ukraine, and should step up. Let Ukraine help themselves, they say, or let other countries help them for a change. We should be focusing on America and Americans.

That mindset, however, shows an ignorance of the strategic diplomatic balance required not only to support Ukraine in its fight to remain free from Russia, but also to help maintain the balance of freedom and national security for other countries, including, yes, the United States.

The U.S. cannot afford to be an island. It’s in our best interests, not just those of Ukraine, for the U.S. to continue to offer its support, and to avoid dangling support in front of Ukraine on condition of a “favor” in return.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the U.S. has consistently provided aid to Ukraine, in part because Ukraine is a key Russia-bordering country. Pro-Western political and military links in Ukraine are vital to the U.S, as well as to the well- being of the Western world, in general.

“Our efforts have been designed to promote stability, to protect the integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine, and to help it reform,” said former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine John E. Herbst, now director of the Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council.

And according to Ned Price, a member of the National Security Council during the Obama administration, “(Military aid to Ukraine) is to send a signal that Russia cannot violate one of the key tenets of international affairs, and that is that big countries cannot bully small countries. Our aid has been an integral part of a deterrence against Putin’s worst ambitions.”

The idea put forth by Trump that other countries are not doing their part to provide foreign aid to Ukraine is false. Since 2014, European countries have provided approximately two-thirds of all of the aid given to Ukraine. The E.U. has sent more than $16.5 billion in loans and grants to support Ukraine’s reform process, and Germany and Britain, on their own, have each offered millions of dollars in assistance. Japan, too, gave $3.1 billion to Ukraine in the early 1990s to establish diplomatic relations.

To Donald Trump’s supporters, withholding aid from a foreign country is, in part, what “America First” means. Global security, to them, may mean eliminating our perceived enemies, but it doesn’t consider strategic protection and global relationship-fostering. And, to Donald Trump’s supporters, loyalty to country means loyalty to Trump, who preaches that not only do we not need to nurture relationships with other countries to Make America Great Again, other countries don’t need us, either.

Why U.S. Aid Is So Important To Ukraine | NBC News Now
NBC News [2019-10-14]

Camerota asks voter how she would vote if Trump shot someone. Hear her response | CNN [2019-11-06]