This we know for sure:
A president of the United States should never strong-arm a foreign government into digging up dirt on a political opponent.
That’s putting raw self-interest above what’s best for the country. That’s an impeachable offense.
Yet we have every reason to believe President Donald Trump has done just that.
In the coming days, Trump’s defenders, in their desperate denial, will attempt to spin this otherwise. Don’t be taken in.
There is much we have yet to learn about a complaint filed in August by an anonymous whistleblower. But the gist of the allegation, submitted to the intelligence community’s inspector general, appears to go like this:
The Trump administration, including the president himself, put the squeeze on the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, to investigate the business dealings of a son of former Vice President Joe Biden, who is a Democratic candidate for president. If Ukraine did not go after the Bidens, Zelensky had ever reason to fear, the White House would block $250 million in military assistance that Congress had already approved.
And, in fact, the White House did slow-walk the military assistance package for weeks, releasing the funds only on Sept. 12 — the day after a House committee asked for information about the whistleblower complaint.
The president’s defense, put forth on Friday, is this: It “doesn’t matter” what he said to anybody in Ukraine and, gee, “someone ought to look into Joe Biden.”
To which all American patriots should reply: Yes, Mr. President, it does matter. You took an oath to do what’s best for your country, not for your reelection.
If there is legitimate dirt to be found on the Bidens, Mr. President, go for it, even if the current accusations involving Hunter Biden’s work for a Ukrainian gas company appear to be another case of Fox News hocus pocus.
But American foreign policy can never be an arm of a president’s reelection campaign.
Three House committees now are demanding to see the details of the whistleblower’s complaint, which they contend is their right under the law. The White House is blocking this effort, claiming that the president’s communications, which apparently lie at the heart of the whistle-blower’s complaint, are subject to executive privilege.
We don’t know who’s right on the law on this one, though we’d like to see the release of the whistleblower’s full complaint.
We just know that a miserably unethical presidency grows worse by the day.
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