Trump clearly committed serious crimes — IMPEACHABLE OFFENSES — related to bullying Ukraine into helping his 2020 political campaign.
Despite the seeming complexities, the basic plot is very simple:
The U.S. Constitution specifies that Congress decides how to spend our tax dollars. Several times Trump has hijacked federal funds that Congress had appropriated for various purposes and diverted the money to pay for his stupid, racist border wall. (No, Mexico is not paying for the wall, despite his many, many promises during the campaign.)
In July 2019 Trump hijacked about $400 million in military aid that the U.S. Congress had appropriated to help the nation of Ukraine defend itself against Russia (the nation headed by Trump’s pal Putin), which has been militarily threatening Ukraine. Ukraine’s national security was in serious danger, so Trump made that crisis even worse.
Trump refused to let Ukraine have the Congressionally appropriated money unless Ukraine’s president were to sneakily help Trump’s 2020 election campaign by claiming their government was investigating the son of Trump’s political rival Joe Biden for alleged corruption. This is extortion or bribery – both federal crimes. This also violates federal law by urging a foreign government to interfere in a U.S. election.
Trump also urged one or several additional nations’ governments to investigate Joe Biden.
ALL OF THESE ARE IMPEACHABLE OFFENSES.
TRUMP CONTINUED WITH ADDITIONAL CRIMES THAT ALSO ARE IMPEACHABLE OFFENSES.
In contrast to Trump’s frequent accusations that when news media report truth about his corruption and wrong-doing, that’s “fake news,” Trump himself was actually, deliberately creating “fake news” by bullying Ukraine’s president to go onto a specific respected CNN news program and publicly state that Ukraine’s government was investigating Joe Biden and his son for corruption. Trump had bullied Ukraine’s president to such an extent that his victim caved in and agreed to do that.
Trump bullied the U.S. State Department – the federal agency responsible for interaction with other nations – into going along with this, even though several career diplomats said this scheme was wrong and illegal.
Trump also bypassed the State Department and brought his own personal attorney Rudy Giuliani into this scheme. There is no reason to displace career diplomats and substitute a president’s personal attorney unless this scheme was indeed actually for Trump’s personal advantage rather than a matter of international diplomacy. This really exposes Trump’s crime beyond what he had already done.
In mid-November when a career diplomat was testifying under oath to the U.S. House about Trump’s impeachable offenses related to Ukraine, Trump tweeted to her some accusations and threats while she was actually testifying. This is a very blatant crime of trying to intimidate a witness and obstruct justice. Trump’s behavior was widely recognized – across the political spectrum – as yet one more impeachable offense.
Trump keeps saying that he did nothing wrong in the Ukraine scandal or in other crimes that Congress has been investigating. But Trump has kept prohibiting his appointees from testifying. These are many more counts of obstructions of justice – impeachable offenses. If Trump has done nothing wrong, why won’t he let his appointees testify?
Several governmental officials testified under oath that Trump was directing this scheme.
