We dare not contemplate what the Washington Republicans would say if Donald Trump were to actually shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue. Most likely, they’d insist on waiting for the ballistics test, and if it confirmed that Trump was the shooter, they’d probably praise him for defending the Second Amendment.
But seriously. What would it take for them to put country over party, to comport themselves as the patriots they claim to be?
In the wake of the impeachment inquiry, formally announced yesterday by Nancy Pelosi, they still don’t think their leader has done anything wrong. Yet here’s the gist of what we already know: Trump, in the span of one July phone call to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, asked eight times for (fake) dirt on domestic opposition candidate Joe Biden – and Trump himself confirmed it to reporters this past Sunday, albeit with blather: “The conversation I had was largely congratulatory, with largely corruption, all of the corruption taking place and largely the fact that we don’t want our people like Vice President Biden and his son creating to the corruption already in the Ukraine.” (His insinuation about the Bidens was fake. In truth, there’s no evidence that either Biden was “creating to the corruption in the Ukraine.”)
And today, with the release of a phone call summary, we have further confirmation. He sought a Ukrainian probe of the Bidens, and he wanted Zelensky to collude with his chief law enforcement apparatchik, Bill Barr. A key quote from the summary: “There is a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution (of a company where his son was on the board – a fake charge), and a lot of people want to find out about that. So whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great.”
So Trump has essentially admitted that he solicited foreign collusion. Aside from the obvious fact that he has already copped to an impeachable offense – under federal law, no one can “solicit, accept, or receive” foreign campaign donations “or other things of value…in connection with a federal, state, or local election” – his betrayal of the oath of office has potentially far broader ramifications. Robert Kagan, a foreign affairs specialist and State Department official during the Reagan administration, explains:
“Consider what it will mean if we decide that what Trump and Giuliani have already acknowledged doing in Ukraine becomes an acceptable practice for all future presidents. Sending the signal that other governments can curry favor with a U.S. president by helping to dig up dirt on his or her political opponents would open our political system and foreign policy to intervention and manipulation on a global scale. Every government in the world wishing to influence U.S. foreign policy will have an incentive to come to a sitting president with information on his or her potential political opponents.”
Nevertheless, the party loyalists who hug the flag and tout traditional American values are so in thrall to Trump (or simply intimidated) that, even now, they claim to see and hear no evil. Some GOP-friendly commentators are totally disgusted – Mona Charen, a senior fellow at the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center, warned yesterday that “Republicans who continue to cover for Trump…have abetted the delegitimization of the entire American system” – but most of them are still swilling the Kool-Aid:
Senator John Kennedy, on MSNBC yesterday, opining on Trump’s solicitation of foreign dirt on Biden: “I don’t think it’s as newsworthy as some have argued.”
Senator Lindsey Graham, on a conservative radio show: “I think (Trump) did nothing wrong.”
Senator Marco Rubio told The Washington Post: “He simply raised the issue of Biden, and I don’t believe he should have done it. But that in and of itself is not an impeachable offense.”
Congressman Lee Zeldin of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, when asked yesterday on CNN whether he was “OK” with Trump soliciting help from a foreign nation to investigate a domestic opponent: “I won’t engage in hypotheticals.”
Congressman Mark Meadows tweeted yesterday that the House Democrats are basing their impeachment inquiry “on an anonymous secondhand complaint they haven’t seen.” (The reason they haven’t seen the whistleblower’s complaint is because the Trump regime has illegally withheld it from congressional scrutiny.)
Senator John Cornyn told a reporter that Democrats asking questions about the Ukraine-Biden incident “have done a disservice to everybody involved.”
Senator Ben Sasse, former Trump critic who has bowed to Trump’s will, speaking yesterday to reporters: “I’m not doing any interviews right now.”
Silence indeed. That’s the preferred Republican reaction – to dig the bunker deeper and cover one’s ears. Since the whistleblower story broke one week ago, it’s particularly noteworthy that we’ve heard virtually nothing from three key Republican senators: Cory Gardner, Martha McSally, and Susan Collins. That trio is on the ballot in 2020, running for re-election in Colorado, Arizona, and Maine respectively. Colorado and Maine vote blue in presidential elections, and Arizona is trending that way. Their discomfort is understandable, because they, and many of their colleagues, may soon arrive at the moment of reckoning – an identity crisis forced upon them by the lawless president they have tragically indulged.
Republican strategist Mike Murphy, who believes, based on what we already know, that Trump has likely “committed a vividly impeachable offense,” frames the stakes for his brethren:
“The easy-to-dodge days are coming to an end…Our entire national political debate is now centered squarely upon Trump and his fitness for office. It is a time for clarity…an existential question for every Republican senator and representative: Why am I here? To serve my future or my country?”
Perhaps they should choose the latter. Perhaps they should heed the advice of the Republican senator who declared, back in December 2015, “You know how you make America great again? Tell Donald Trump to go to hell.” So said Lindsey Graham. But alas, it may be too late for Trump’s captive minions to redeem themselves.
What’s more important, party or country?