Impeachment (Phase One)

...And it begins. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced last week the intention to form an inquiry into the impeachment of President Trump. This is just a trial balloon but a notable one because, to mix a metaphor, the balloon is out of the barn and now it will become the bedrock of general conversation for the next 12 months or so, taking us right up to the edge of the next presidential election. Funny: this is supposed to be a reaction to entities trying to influence the next election but I can't think of a bigger influence on the next election than this inquiry.

This all kicked off when a whistleblower (anonymous) report suggested that in July Trump had had a phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the transcript of which had been put into a secret file rather than the regular public file, which in and of itself may be indicative of some criminality in the conversation itself.

I assume there will be a lot more coming over the next 12 months or so and bombshells and Trump gaffes are certainly possible. But upon first look: this doesn't look like much to me and I feel like going for impeachment is a bit of an overreach.

Under pressure, the White House released the "transcript" (*) of a July phone call between Trump and Zelensky. Trump opponents suggest that Trump's request for an investigation into Hunter Biden, the son of the presumptive (for now) Democratic nominee for the 2020 election, represents pressuring a foreign leader into interfering with a presidential election. To me the language looks pretty colloquial: Trump doesn't say he will hold up the approved aid to Ukraine, he simply moves the conversation to another topic. I would suggest that mentioning two different things in the same conversation does not equal a quid pro quo. Furthermore, the investigation of Biden was already under way, so where is the pressure? And if the Ukrainian investigation yields unpleasant info about Biden or his son, then why is that a bad thing? Is the implication that because Joe Biden is running for president that he is above investigation and that his family can no longer be suspected of a crime? And how would a foreign investigation be unconstitutional or a violation of Biden's rights as an American citizen? As for the aid itself, it was approved in June and delivered in September, which in federal gov't terms is not long at all, so what was the threat?

To me the awkward part of the conversation for Trump is he seems to be equating his personal lawyer (Giuliani) with the attorney general of the United States (Bill Barr) and that's weird to say the least and indicates that this is purely a private matter and not a criminal investigation. And I'm eager to hear the details of the holdup on Ukrainian aid: when did Trump stop the aid? What was his reasoning and language for doing so? How does a president stop aid that has been pledged by Congress, the State Department and the Pentagon? And when/how was the block on aid lifted?

According to the whistleblower memo, Trump's conversation with Zelensky was at first treated like all such conversations: it was transcribed by listeners and then passed on to certain other agencies (I know the memo mentions the State Department, I'm pretty sure it mentions or at least suggests others as well) and then logged as normal in a public file. It was after this period of normality that certain White House figures decided to re-route the transcript from the normal file to the special secret file. But, according to the memo, the original transcript was sent out to other agencies before it got re-classified. I presume this is the reason for the subpoena to SecState Pompeo, who theoretically should have the pre-classified transcript (and is otherwise just a big ol' target for Trump-haters in the House). I presume we'll see a few more of those subpoenas because there should be other pre-classified transcripts floating around out there. Is this out of the ordinary? (I have no idea) Are there other such re-routed transcriptions? (I dunno, will we even find out?) Will this yield impeachment-worthy stuff? (Ehh, I kinda doubt it but that's no reason not to look)

The key (at first) will be the records that the White House keeps secret (or secret-ish) and what oversight Congress actually has over those records. Can Congress demand the logs or even the contents of these files? I dunno, but I'm guessing an exhaustive history of every time Congress has asked for stuff and the White House's response will be forthcoming, whether in defense or prosecution. So will this lead to a deeper look into the secret file? Maybe, I wouldn't say 'definitely', because determining what is actually in that file is entirely up to the White House and what they choose is (I would suggest) an in-born parameter of Executive Privilege: the Prez doesn't really have the ability to share everything and, while some purely political nonsense will be shielded in this manner, it simply is not possible for Congress to receive all that it wants.  And how could anyone actually verify that anything released from those files was complete or thorough? (Trick question: no one can)

It is worth noting that this is not a criminal trial, this is not a matter for the courts. This is a Congressional action that requires only a (party line) vote and needn't concern itself with evidence or witnesses (the whistleblower acknowledges that "he" was not a witness to any of his various accusations) and doesn't really do any of that beyond a shadow of doubt stuff that an ordinary citizen would receive. Hey, man, that's just how this works and the POTUS is not an ordinary citizen.

Pelosi was reticent to go forward with the impeachment and I'd say it's because she's in a World Cup conundrum: when a coach does poorly in a World Cup, he gets fired; when he does well in a World Cup, he goes off to a better job. Either way, he's not coaching the team in the next Cup. Likewise, with Pelosi: if this effort fails, she will be cannibalized by the Dems and drummed out of office; if she's successful, she'll be a folk hero, an important talking head for life and a worthy party fundraiser, but being Speaker will probably become more trouble than it's worth. So no matter what ends up happening with Trump, I think this is Pelosi's swan song. Her mission is to take one for the team with the hope of driving public opinion away from Trump heading into the 2020 election.

So where does this all go? Well, I'd say getting Trump out of office is not likely. Perhaps several months of constant Congressional attack will push the Senate Republicans to topple, but I doubt it. It's not impossible: Trump has no shortage of powerful enemies that would love to put the shiv in him, so if his support in the Senate begins to wobble, it could go downhill very quickly. If the public opinion becomes too much to bear, then the Senate will have to follow suit and run him out. (Trump has already begun throwing shade at Vice President Pence just in case Pence develops support as a potential white knight; also, don't be surprised if the ghost of John Bolton ends up taking a lot of blame) Trump's greatest liability is himself: he clearly has no grasp of how Washington works, he keeps trying to run the White House like he ran his company but the two entities are not the same. I think House Dems are employing a 'give-him-enough-rope' strategy and Trump is the kind of idiot braggart that could well hang himself. We'll see if death by tweet is listed on his death certificate.

Trump's crime here is being a neophyte politician--which is precisely what won him the election to begin with. But what was attractive to voters is deadly to the actual candidate who doesn't know what he's doing. Trump was under investigation prior to being inaugurated and he fought it with stonewalling, prevarication and outright lies, all of which work just fine in open court, but not so well when dealing with federal prosecutors. Trump has played lawyers against each other numerous times in his life but the White House is not a courtroom and in the court of public opinion double jeopardy just keeps going and going. Trump tried to connive personal support out of James Comey and it backfired badly; the way you cajole loyalty from a junior VP doesn't work as well on the head of the FBI. Trump thought firing Gen. Flynn would end the investigation; it did not. He thought Mueller's inability to hang anything notable on him (or Russia, for that matter) would be the end of it; it was not. In the game of politics the players are active 24 hours a day whether they've won or lost, simply surviving is nice but not enough. And remember: the House Democrats don't need 'evidence', they just need to call a vote.

Trump's supporters love his ability to enter the realm of the liberal media and stick fingers in the eyes of the culture warriors. But I'm not at all convinced they love anything else about him. Trump thinks they love him but if his ability to credibly inflict pain on the social media elite dissipates, then Trump's support will be gone in a flash. And once he's out of office, the politics won't stop, he's a lifelong prisoner to it now. (Ever heard of Wang Mang? Or Oliver_Cromwell? Study up on them, because I suspect Trump's future looks a lot like what happened to them)

Trump's detractors already hate everything about the man and won't need anything more than what they've seen to vote him out. But do we want an American power structure where a sitting president can be removed for any conversation that looks goofy on paper? If this was the impetus to ridding ourselves of all corruption once and for all, that'd be great! If we just needed a sacrificial lamb to slaughter to redeem all our sins and finally become the nation we were supposed to be, then I'd be all for letting Donald J. Trump be that lamb and let him carry the sins of America to his grave. But I don't think it works that way. Indeed, I think an impeachment here would be giving in to the inchoate mob that only wants to hang their unceasing frustration on someone else. If we give them Trump, they'll want more--and the next time it'll be the other side feeling like they've earned some bloodletting, too. Do you really think President Warren walks comfortably into the post-impeachment White House? Do you really think President Pence will be the savior we need to restore order?

Doomsayers love to compare contemporary USA to the Roman Empire. Rome fell and one day so will we (I'm not actually convinced that's true, the world is an entirely different place today, but it seems reasonable to most, I guess). They point to the imbalances in the economy, the militarism, the dishonorable treatment of foreigners. I've been reading lately on Rome and I don't think any of those comparisons last beyond the average mediocre cable news 'debate'. I think the real downfall of Rome was the perversion of their political processes, the way senators began tabling measures rather than voting on them, skewing the system rather than making their cases and playing it out, and the endless and fruitless argument over the concept of citizenship. The doomsayers haven't reached for this conclusion--which is precisely why I'm starting to fear they may be right! They don't see themselves as the bringers of the doom but they could be.

To me the danger of Trump isn't Trump himself but what comes after. I'm convinced the Republican Party is completely broken now and the Democratic Party is wobbling further out of control. And the message of Trump is non-politicians cannot be allowed to survive or can only survive by further perverting the system. What comes next is going to be worse and impeachment could be the worse. Flinging out a duly elected president because you didn't bother to win the election is not a good way to go (that's how California got Governor Schwarzenegger, you may recall). 

So who benefits from this? Well, the bizarre possible answer is Trump. If he survives, he'll be stronger than ever, virtually impervious to attack of any kind--indeed, I'd say he needs this, he needs to overcome impeachment to really cement his standing as one of the great partisan hacks of all time because if he doesn't...bad things, man. But until we know the outcome I'd say the winner is Elizabeth Warren, who gets to distance herself from Trump and Biden simultaneously now. Or perhaps the collective prosecutorial spirit will revive the chances of Kamala Harris. And certainly a new bright shining star could emerge from the Democrats in the House or the Republicans in the Senate. And, of course, Mike Pence could go from nobody to Prez before all this is done. But I don't think this raises the hopes of the pseudo-challengers on the Republican side, nor does much for the other Democratic candidates (Buttigieg, Beto, Klobuchar get pushed even further from recognition, although this could give Cory Booker a chance to re-boot, to bring a new perspective on the whole situation). Sure Bernie gets to be even more Bernie, he gets to be louder and Bernier, but I think his time as a serious candidate has passed and I don't see this as an opportunity for him to win back lost voters.

Okay, you ready for the conspiracy theory? This isn't about getting rid of Trump (of which I'd say there's roughly a 1-in-5 chance), I think it's about getting rid of Joe Biden. If we're gonna spend the next several months digging into Trump's dealings in Ukraine we're going find out a lot about Biden's dealings in Ukraine, which won't seem any better and will only get him married with Trump in public opinion, which does not bode well for him. For the Warren wing of the Democratic Party this is two birds with one stone. Seems weird but I think Biden may take the brunt of this.

Still a long way to go, new files and transcripts to dig into, more accusations and shouting to come. Politically speaking this will suck the oxygen out of every room for the next 10-12 months, this will be everyone's main talking point, not much else will seem important (no matter how hard Iran tries). And when it is all said and done, we may have a new president, a new secretary of state, a new speaker of the House, and possibly even brand new Republican and Democrat nominees for the 2020 election. Vladimir Putin has never effected an election the way Nancy Pelosi is about to.


(*) Transcript-ish. Thorough but no reason to think this is complete. Was the call recorded? The White House tends to tape everything but taping a phone call with another foreign leader is pretty hacky, so even odds if there is audio of this conversation.