I agree with everything in Mr. Bruni’s op ed except for his spelling of sycophants. In the context of Trump’s defenders’ behavior, the correct spelling is ‘psychophants.’
157
Yes, if Watergate was a third-rate burglary then this scheme was an even more incompetent attempt to cheat on our next election. I can imagine how this particular low-rent extortion of Ukraine came undone.
- Trump and Giuliani instruct Mulvaney to place a hold on military assistance to Ukraine, pending consummation of the Zelensky shakedown in a “public box”;
- Whistle-blower blows whistle, heard loud and clear across the USA;
- Trump is unaware of his political peril until Mulvaney pops his head inside the Oval Office, “Hey Boss, looks like this whistleblower report is going ker-splat all over the media and Zelensky doesn’t want to play dirty pool! What should we do about the hold on Ukraine”?
- Trump (exasperated!), “Oh, ok in that case let’s release the aid. Tell Giuliani to update our list of shakedown prospects. Who’s our next victim?”
58
Bruni for the win!!
50
Devin Nunes is not a "rococo philosopher" but an obnoxious schizophrenic raccoon spreading stink with the hope that it will force everyone to shut their brains, close their eyes and block their ears to what's going on and latch on to incoherent, factless realities manufactured in the Trump factory.
129
So according to the self claimed Law and Order party - Laws are only for the poor and middle class - wealthy republicans and conservatives can be as corrupt and criminal as they want and the rest of us can't complain or acknowledge their corruption.
Nunes, Jordan and Graham are beyond contemptible for the way they treat the American Public like we are all idiots.
147
Make America America Again
112
Republicans are fake Americans. No, actually they are Russian collaborators pretending to be patriots. They should all wear patriotic flag pins on their lapels - Russian flag pins so we know to whom they owe their allegiance.
92
This is rural America defending a jerk who they now believe as their hero.
58
What do you get when you marry a profound lack of integrity to an astonishing absence of intellect?
Hint; He lives in California and is a Commander of the Order of the Star of Romania.
29
Nunes is a joke
41
Yes, you can forget about logic, coherence, legal accuracy or moral integrity when you listen to the verbal contortions of congressional Republicans. They will twist their minds and foaming mouths into the shape of a pretzel attempting to provide defense for the indefensible and throw shade onto their hated colleagues across the ideological divide. Their betrayal of the oath of office, the country and the Constitution no longer registers with them as wrong; party over principle is their maddening mantra now.
This is the state of our crippled, failing democracy with an entire political party turned so corrupt that they are the equivalent of a black hole sucking all the light out of the universe. They couldn't do this, however, if millions of Americans were not so ill-informed, brainwashed or bigoted that they stand with this venal and vile monster in the White House no matter what offenses he might commit.
78
If Mr. Bruni can conjure up this duck and cover strategy today, it's going to be extraordinarily entertaining to see if he can dig out from under the Barr/Durham/Horowitz actual facts steamroller that's about to flatten any so-called "journalist" still standing.
3
Adam Schiff has been lying for three years. First the Russian Hoax, then the Comey charade and now Ukrainian bribes and shakedowns. But you think Devin Nunes is the fantasy author. Get real.
17
Republicans have become Keystone Kops, playing only to the FoxNews crowd, and making sure that they keep Trump from throwing a temper tantrum in their direction. Sadly, it will play well enough in Peoria to accomplish their purpose, namely getting re-elected and continuing to get fat from their corrupt connections and providing access to the Federal teat.
29
“Working Toward the Fuhrer” became the watchword repeatedly invoked by Nazi Party propaganda in the 1930s. These words urged Party and German People alike to surrender individual moral scruples and independent thought in favor of the demands of the one leader. Today’s Republicans have their own chilling watchword: “Let Trump Be Trump.” This invocation requires Republicans to surrender individual moral scruples and independent thought in favor of their one, true leader. Understandable in GOP politicians whose bread is so buttered. Terrifying that tens upon millions of registered Republican voters willingly follow this morally debased, malevolent man.
107
The Republicans are indeed pumping laughing gas into the air we all breathe. They have no shame and apparently no fear. The question is, how much do the American people want to suck up day after day? If the body politic does not rise, shake this toxicity off, and rebel, we will know that what we suspect is true: America's condition is terminal and is already passing gently into that good night.
30
amazing...jim jordan got democratically elected .....who are the people that support such a man ?
where are the scoop jackson's.....abe ribicoff's.....RFK's....real elder wise people who are honest and pragmatic and not afraid to pursue truth with integrity
45
Oh yes the so-called Republicans. The party is now an institutional lie, a giant web of deceit and subversion, based in a lie factory called Fox.
By comparison, consider that Hitler, in order to invade Poland, had to dress up his own troops as Polish guards; stage an actual raid on German border units; and claim "you see! the Poles started this war." Today's Fox Regime is what Hitler could only dream of.
61
Good that Republicans have decided to extinct themselves within a decade. I never expected that they would do it in such a stupid manner, though.
22
Hey folks, this ain't working. Paul Woodard wrote a book titled "Reverence." He spoke of it as a word that had only survived in the shadows of American life. He described it as a sense of awe, something bigger than oneself. We fight like three year old kids fight over a doll and do it in the chambers of congress. Politicians have no Reverence for the office they hold and that cancer flows down to their constituents...or maybe it flows up. Reverence, a lost word among a lost people who have "vomited up a President." America is like the alcoholic who has run out of people to blame for his/her despair. He has to begin to write a new story for himself that will inspire Reverence and Justice. We are like Dante but without a Virgil to take our hand and lead us through this hell.
"As a result they would scatter again and perish..."
Whenever they gathered into groups (early human beings) would do wrong to each other, because they did not yet have the knowledge of how to form society. As a result they would scatter again and perish. And so Zeus, fearing that our whole species would be wiped out, sent Hermes to bring Reverence and Justice to human beings, in order that those two would adorn society and bind people together in friendship Protagoras in Plato's Protagoras 322c
14
When your prime apologists are Nunes and Jordan, for whom the term “moron” isn’t strong enough, you should be removed on that basis alone. What a dumpster fire.
66
Republicans have become nothing more than willful, useful idiots, to use a phrase taken from the GRU. Putin couldn't be happier.
24
When you must bend your moral compass in order to excuse the actions of your leader, you are in a cult.
Trumpism is a cult.
62
The hypocrisy of the Republican Party is so unbound they can't be expected to admit 2+2=4 if admitting the obvious would be deemed detrimental to their brand. Run amok Republicanism can make otherwise intelligent people profoundly stupid. Their thinking isn't managed by their brains, but their hearts. They say and think what they want, not what they know to be fact.
524
Jordan and Nunes—- naked as emperors, slowly they turn, step by step, exposed in the light of truth and patriotism for what they are.
Treacherous losers defending a naked bribery attempt that threatened our national security.
Even Putin might be considering cutting Trump loose, before he gets sucked into the vortex of his demise.
597
“Cultlike, no less! That’s a more fitting description of Republicans’ obeisance.”
In fact, it’s been described exactly that way.
Republicans take every charge leveled at them and accuse Dems, the press, and all critics of the same. It’s Political Distraction 101, and continuously practiced by the charlatans.
20
I walk into a bank and tell the teller 'this is a stick-up; hand over all the money.'
The teller, according to Republicans, can't tell the court what I said to him; that would be hearsay.
They are, of course, wrong. But that's never stopped them before.
18
I can't believe you found room for the word dignity in this article because the republicans have none. It is this must see TV that will win the white house and senate in 2020.
8
I directly place the full responsibility of the election of both Jordan & Nunes as our representatives ,on the voters who chose them, they should be ashamed of themselves.
27
Anyone who is retired or has the ability to work remotely from home should move to Nunes' district in Central California in time to register and vote him out next November!
16
Most Americans believe that they can do whatever they wish because the constitution gives them permission....no matter if what they do is moral or immoral, decent or indecent, or right or wrong. With this kind of total freedom the future will have no need of prisons, law enforcement agencies, nor law books. Why? Because if the law allows you to do what you want, then there is no wrong you can do.
Blessed are those who do not see yet believe. To those who believe in His name: who are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
1
Could not agree more with the under selling in the phone call transcript. After all, it can from the White House. And Mulvaney’s already corroborated it.
5
It's the Democrats who are fantasists, obsessed by their anti-Trump mania. Ditto much of the media.
3
Nothing changes:
VERSION OF TRUTH MADE IN USA 2016 MODEL
The world is confused.
1
Can you imagine the reaction from Trump and his flying monkeys if all the House had was a Linda Tripp character hearing alcohol fueled stories from a young intern and a blue dress with someone's stuff on it? Makes it all so rich. But not in a good way.
3
If anything comes of this it should be that everyone start referring to Nunes as "Not A Farmer"
12
Just read the article by Sheryl Gay Stolberg on the home page and she mentions the testimony about the transcript and Trump's threat. I still think that needs to be front and center in any discussion about intimidation.
6
Isn't putting forth fantasy just a fancy word for lying? These elected Republican officials are lying to their constituents, plain and simple. Who among this tight web of liars will break loose and speak the truth?
10
'BREAKING NEWS', Frank. Since your thoughtful piece first appeared, the leader of the free world has once again flummoxed and sabotaged his followers for the umpteenth time by tweeting his insults to a venerable former ambassador while she was testifying to congress!
Talk about a circular firing squad!
11
Does Trump just have dossiers of dirt on every Republican, are they all just privy to some sort of blackmail if they don’t fiercely fight his detractors? The fervor with which they defend them suggests some sort of deep, self-interested fear, beyond party, beyond gene, beyond logic
21
Every Republican knows that if they don't get on the "Bus of Liars" they will never get re-elected. Every Democrat that isn't fully on the "Impeachment or Death Bus" will not be re-elected.
What will we be left with?
2
Yeah, GOP, right. Soon we'll hear that AG Barr and his minions have investigated the 2016 election better than the FBI, the CIA, and Mueller put together. And of course it will be true because Barr is as determined a liar as Trump is.
14
More like Benedict Arnold, selling the republic to Russia this time.
9
Trump is the Clarence Thomas of presidents, and about 95 percent of Republican lawmakers want to keep him in office no matter what.
7
Don't worry about Lindsey Graham. He already has his script ready for an about-face at the right moment.
"It was all part of my remaining 'relevant.'" he will say and then add, "and it doesn't hurt that it also has to do with my remaining in office in the heart of Trump territory."
Graham will no doubt take a lesson from Herblock, political cartoonist of the McCarthy era. His description of how Republicans walked back from their support of Joseph McCarthy is only one more part of the story of their shame, ignoring the scorn Herblock heaped upon them for failing their duty.
I guess when you come down to it, everyone has to live with themselves.
See, HERBLOCK's "Persona Au Gratin", in Here and Now (1955), offers a preview of what to expect when the end of Trump arrives and Republicans reinterpret the current moment.
What sustained McCarthy "was not so much his gullible followers and fellow-traveling demagogues as the tacit support of 'respectable' people who found it advantageous to go along with him or at least to look the other way."
A copy is available at the Herb Block Foundation, Washington DC 202 223 8801. .
Excerpts: https://cellmate.wordpress.com/
5
So many ammunitions, but lack of message is hurting the democrats! They can learn from con man and his lap dogs. They tell the same lie 100 times and half of the people believe them. On the other hand, truths are on democratic side. But, they have no cohesive media strategy to reach out to people exposing Trump and his cronies hundreds of criminal acts. Of course, many of the leaders are busy with their pipe dreams for ascension to the White House. Get help from Silicon valley and others to counter the lies of Trump’s fake propaganda machine with the truths. Time is running out.
5
I think most voters are completely oblivious as to who their congressperson is, much less what they actually legislate, and how they conduct themselves, but when they turn themselves into inescapable, television buffoons like Meadows, Jordan, and Nunes, then it really is the voters fault. There's been a general decline in the average intelligence of our population, and you blame whoever you like, but if a politician has to be just marginally smarter than their constituents, just so they can keep their lies straight, and cretins like these continue to be elected, then maybe we are deservedly ripe for takeover by Russia, China, or even North Korea.
6
"The Cirque du Soleil of C'est la vie," says Mr. Bruni. I'd put it more simply. "Where do Republicans find clowns like Jim Jordan?"
13
Graham golf's with Trump. Does he pay his green's fees. or does Trump give him a free ride. If the latter, no one so high placed has ever sold out for so little.
5
Ms. Yovanovitch was very persuasive today, but I still need to hear from Stormy Daniels and the 21 women who claim he assaulted them on airplanes.
8
Devin Nunes - embarrassing California since 2003. If Trump shot him in the middle of 5th Avenue, Gavin Newsom would give Trump the keys to Visalia.
8
They are all paddling furiously in a very leaky boat.
10
Mr Bruni, I found myself laughing at your clever writing about a not so humorous subject. Thanks, I needed that.
12
Just because Trump is an inept criminal doesn't make him innocent. He's still a husband and businessman, after all.
2
Notice that Trump's tweet got 90,000 "hearts" as of 7:01 am and that about 85,000 people are "talking about this"...
1
Liberals are not the only intelligent people in this country, and conservatives are not the only ones that indulge themselves in fantasy.
3
Poor Danielle Steel doesn't deserve this comparison.
9
The Republican Party couldn’t come up with a better lawyer than that clown, Castor? He reminds me of that inept Arizona lawyer the Senate Republicans hired to cross examine Chistina Blasey Ford in the Kegstand Kavanaugh hearing last year.
4
It is rare, indeed, that something I read in the New York Times makes me laugh out loud.
Congratulations, Mr. Bruni for artful delivery of this punchline:
"I’m fairly confident that no one is intent on finding nude photographs of the president."
Oh, and the general mockery of the House Republicans' view of the impeachment inquiry - which richly deserves mocking - is more than entertaining.
It's a shame this is commentary on something actually happening on Capitol Hill and not on a spoof penned by a 21st-Century Moliere.
7
I just watched President Trump defend his offensive, destructive Twitter attacks that he unleashed during the Impeachment Proceedings. Simply put... Mr. Trump is unstable and crazy. He is absolutely unfit to be POTUS. He is a bully, a liar and a crook. WHEN are the Republicans going to come to their senses. I don't know why ANY OTHER COUNTRY would trust the USA right now. Trump has to go... the sooner, the better.
16
I want to time travel forward 100 years and see how History treats this clown car party.
16
Have we ever seen as much toadyism this rampant in our political arena? It is mind boggling. These republican agitators are blatantly despicable.
8
Post-truth is Pre-fascism.
- Timothy Snyder ("On Tyranny")
4
We are now in a horrible place where grown up men and women ignore evil and wrongdoings and instead, look for alternative spins to secure their tiny thrones. This is now a criminal party.
9
“They’re the Cirque de Soleil of c’est la vie.” The best.
4
At what point do we start using the T word. Treason. Donald J Trump did not only put his personal business above our national security. He put RUSSIA'S interests OVER our national security. He put Turkey's interests OVER our national security.
I don't know what country Donald J Trump serves but it's not this country and that goes double for the republican party. Time to stop dancing around the word treason.
1218
Well, Trump managed to seize the Friday news cycle as he's wont to do: His real-time Tweet during Ms. Yovanovich's testimony sent a seizure of disbelief through Washington—even reaching the sycophantic hearts of his staunchest protectors…until it came time for them to pontificate, obfuscate and ask what were supposed to be germane questions. They found a new low, with their red-handed “leader” taking them there as only he can.
343
The GOP basic defense is this
Yes! I hired a hit man to kill my wife
Yes! You did hear that on tape
Yes! There are witnesses who over heard me calling the potential hitman
But!!!
The hitman is NOT testifying
More importantly? My wife is still alive!
Therefore I am innocent !
Thats it in a nutshell
7
Lindsay Graham has become the buffoonish character Sergeant Schultz in the 1960s television show, Hogan's Heroes. Set in a WWII POW camp, Schultz's tag line, in German-accented English, was: "I see nussing, I hear nussing, I know nussing."
8
Devin Nunes--to quote the "great" John Kennedy, of Mississippi, "It must suck (for Nancy Pelosi) to be that dumb." Pot, Kettle? I would say that more clearly applies to Nunes. I was sure someone would come up with the famous quote, from Senator Bentson to Dan Quayle, who couldn't spell p o t a t o and thought they spoke Latin in Latin America, and who also actually thought he was the "next Jack Kennedy." Yes, this is what people think of Devin Nunes, and his cow. These are the Republicans of today. Mental giants. Probably best not to listen to them...
13
This latest crime by Trump , added onto all the other malfeasance , many of his henchmen being found guilty of various felonies and his ignorance and vileness and has to make one wonder why anyone would support and agree with Trump . In the aggregate , especially , it’s a total no brainer . Who would even associate with Trump ?
5
Where has Trump served the American people? While Ms Yonanovich was putting her life on the line in Somalia and other out of the way and thankless posts Mr. bone spurrs was bragging about his obscene abuse of women. And now this brave public servant is added to his list of women he has abused.
19
While a conspiracy theory is a form of a story, it is much more insidious and so far, that seems to be the majority of their storytelling.
4
This column, particularly the headline, is extremely unfair to Danielle Steel! Her stories are intelligent, articulate and make sense.
To even begin to compare her with Nunes is a libel to her reputation.
You owe Ms. Steel an apology.
8
Trump reasoning: If I give back the money I used for illegal campaign contributions and toss in another $2 million, it's all OK right?
And those violations of the Emoluments Provision - they all will go away when The Organization sells the Pennsylvania Avenue hotel, right?
If you commit a crime, you do not get away without a finding of guilt just because you cease and desist.
As one House member commented today. Trump seems to believe that if he gets his hand caught in the cookie jar, he'll be OK, if he doesn't take another cookie.
That's not the Rule of Law.
Attempting to commit a crime is almost as bad, sometimes as bad, as committing it.
Likely to be ignored is the continuing criminal attempt to obstruct justice, by keeping the witnesses who were there from testifying to Congress. Let them be held in contempt - Congress can't do a thing, says our would-be king. They can only legislate, not investigate or provide oversight in Trump's World.
And as for the "failed" Mueller report?
In the last few months, Trump attempted to give Ukraine to the Russians.
He gave Syria to the Russians by pulling out a whole 1,000 volunteer troops.
And he told Turkey's Edrogan to go ahead and slaughter the Kurds, who, like the surviving Armenians, have deserved a homeland of their own since the rise of the Ottoman Empire in the 13th-15th Centuries. Why WW I ended without the restoration of the city-name Constantinople, and a multiple homelands, including one for the Turks, is still beyond me.
8
A few republicans agitate conspiracy theories but the vast majority of them is silent and embarrassed, waiting to see what will happen and what, if anything, can be salvaged.
5
Thank God for you Frank Bruni. Once again your article is one I can send to people I fear aren't following along as much as they should (although following along makes us all a bit nauseous). I can't stomach to watch the hearings because Nunes gives me hives so I'm thankful for your eloquent summation.
36
For a long while, Republicans' self-degrading, self-condemning defense of Donald Trump became harder and harder to understand. Then it became easier and easier.
The storyteller who guided the world to an understanding of human minds in the first place captures the moment in hopeless retrospect, when Macbeth says,
"I am in blood stepped in so far that, should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o'er."
11
As long as we're making comparisons to fictional writers of the statements and questions seen on both Wednesday and today as made by the House Intelligence Committee's Republicans, my vote would be for Rod Serling's "The Twilight Zone."
15
Devin Nunes is a man that is trying to purposefully betray the nation. He wilfully obstructs justice and attempts to avoid getting to the truth of the allegations of Trump's misconduct.
Forget the Dems or Republicans for a moment and ask yourself this. If the allegations are possibly true then would they merit full investigation? To determine how serious the allegations are you need look to the Constitution itself. The Constitution explicitly talks about mandatorily removing the President for engaging in bribery. So yes, this impeachment inquiry is a serious matter and merits full investigation. And the facts show that the type of conduct which Trump engaged in as the term was indeed 'bribery' as expressly understood by our Founding Fathers when they wrote our Constitution. Lawfare blogged about this yesterday.
Therefore, the only weapon the Congressional Republicans now have to save Trump and retain power is to delegitimize the impeachment so as to cast suspicions and doubts on its findings instead of immediately joining the investigation to ferret out the truth. It is the latter, and not the former, alternative that serves the purpose of upholding our Constitution and the Rule of Law. Nunes is on the wrong side here.
25
Devin Nunes has been on the wrong side of EVERY issue since he managed to get his cow elected in California.
6
I'm frankly unpersuaded by both the Democratic cries of criminal conduct by POTUS and equally by the Republican insistence of no harm, no foul. Mr. Bruni is a clever columnist but I am afraid both the larger media organizations such as the Times and the House Majority are misreading the mood of the American public on this particular Trump scandal.
3
I live in Texas. People here think Trump made a big mistake in trading military funding for trying to find dirt on Biden’s son. It’s a blatant misuse of presidential power for personal political gain. It’s extortion. Trump has tried to shake down a desperate ally, Ukraine, to hurt Biden’s presidential campaign, May not bother you but it reveals the wanton criminality and incompetence of Trump. That he betrays yet another ally, and cozies up with a Putin, is appalling. My guess is that his scathing criticism of the former Ukraine envoy, Yovanovitch, is a request for Putin to have her killed. Would that be enough to get your attention? Trump is running his presidency like a thug.
17
In addition to real time fact checkers, lie detectors should be used for questioners and witnesses alike.
Rule of law, long standing norms, and violation of perjury laws are insufficient to keep our government functioning well, or to stop the debasement in the name of power and money.
1
Nunes is absolutely correct in only one regard: Congress has no time to pass the legislation the country needs. If Trump had behaved like a President rather than the thug he is, Congress would have had plenty of time to work on and pass important legislation including issues relating to people and the environment. It's Trump who bears responsibility for his own misdeeds.
36
The Democratic House passes all kinds of bills that get dustbinned by McConnell.
11
It appears that the Senate, controlled by Republicans, will find any excuse imaginable to protect Trump. But these hearings might convince enough Independent voters to abandon him and vote for the significantly "less evil" candidate the Democrats nominate, or an Independent candidate who will draw support away from Trump. As seen throughout history, politics is a foul and savage endeavor, but the players who plan for the long haul have an advantage. That's the difference between Trump, who lives only in the moment, and Pelosi, who looks further down the road.
17
I agree with the point that the detailed testimony, while perhaps necessary to provide context, may inadvertently obscure the significance of the July 25 call itself. For example, in all the discussion about witness intimidation, I haven't heard anyone point to the transcript where Trump says about the former Ambassador: "Well, she's going to go through some things." That certainly sounds like a threat and Trump has never provided an innocent explanation for what he meant by that.
19
Trump also says on the call that the U.S. has done so much for Ukraine but it hasn’t been reciprocal.
I am concerned that we keep talking about "the transcript" which is in fact NOT a verbatim account of the phonecall taken from a recording. This, as bad as it is, probably pales to the real phone call that we hoi polloi will never hear. And will someone please tell Jim Jordan that he should dress with some respect for the position he holds.
24
The Republicans (and really the whole country by now) have been hypnotized by groupthink. They have been growing accustomed to moral hazard for many years. It's like when you walk into a room with cigar smoke or decomposing garbage - at first, it's awful. Then your olfactory nerves become accustomed to it and you hardly smell it anymore. In a way, I feel sorry for them - they experience what anyone experiences under a toxic boss with a distorted reward system. It's like they all work at Enron or Boeing.
To expect them to break out of the mass psychology phenomenon we all encounter when we get in a bubble is unrealistic. I do enjoy how they keep trying to discredit 'hearsay' - it sounds great at first. But by that analysis, I guess I was delusional at every dysfunctional job where I worked in a hierarchy and got word of what the boss really wanted and had to adjust my behavior or quit accordingly. Luckily when Gordon Sondland steps up to the stand and discusses his statement, their
'hearsay' defense is going to be a bit more difficult to mount.
10
I think Mr. Bruni is missing the point here. It's the GOP that is saying that the partial call memo isn't enough. And in a small way they are correct.
The Dems are building the more thorough & comprehensive case that this is about far more than one call. It's about a months long intentional, complex effort to bribe (glad they're starting to use that much more appropriate term--though "extort" might be even better--rather than the more obscure "quid" phrase) the Ukrainian government into aiding trump with his reelection campaign and distract form the Russians interference in 2016.
11
thank you! love this analysis. there's a real time quality about it, if you know what I mean
5
"Usually, a process like the one that they’ve been engaged in over the last seven weeks is about finding a smoking gun. This process began with the smoking gun, and the farther the Democrats travel from it — eight witnesses next week? — the more they risk implying that it wasn’t enough."
I think that you're not interpretting Schiff's/Pelosi's strategy correctly. Yes, Trump's call and Mulvaney's admission were smoking guns, but only to people who:
1) are still open to understanding facts; and
2) still care about the health of our country/democracy over the "wins" for their own party.
Unfortunately, about 45% of the people in our country will never get to that place, because they're either Republicans or Trump's base of Deplorables.
These hearings aren't about trying to convince them with evidence/facts and logic; those things don't matter to them, and they never will.
Rather, these hearings are aimed at the few remaining 5-10% of the people in country who are honestly undecided and confused (overwhelmed) by the chaos of Trumpism.
At the start of the hearings, they had not yet engaged enough to be swayed by the evidence that was so obvious to the rest of us. They've been bombarded into confusion by lies and chaos from Trump, Fox, and the Republicans. It's going to take more than a single piece of clear evidence to cut through the noise and convince them.
Schiff's/Pelosi's strategy is to use time to our advatage, to wear down the blinders so that we can win them over.
18
It's not about engaging in fantasy, it's about denial driven by self-interest. That's the ethos of the Republican Party these days. They know Trump is guilty, and if this were HRC, they would be jumping up and down in indignation. But to admit Trump's guilt would be to give up power, something they would never do. It's really a rather remarkable display of shamelessness.
And let's never forget: this is the party of "law and order" and "personal accountability." Whatever claim they may have had to those values is being flushed down the toilet by the whole lot of them.
24
Putting aside Bruni’s substantive comments (all of which are precisely on-target), as a stylist and astonishingly talented writer he has outdone himself in this piece. Rarely does one find so many perfect and exquisitely fashioned turns of phrase in a single article. Bravo!!
28
I am working on the screenplay about the Republican response to the impeachment hearing. It involves a lone sheriff in the old west battling against evil gangs of rational thought and lucid interpretations of law. My working title is HIGH NUNES.
28
No, “it’s not as outlandish as it could be.” Trump could actually shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and then dare the NYPD to arrest him, something for which his lawyers in fact say he is immune from punishment.
11
I wasted several minutes today listening to Representative Jordan. His rambling made no sense and his attempted bullying of Ambassador Yanovitch shameful. There is no depth too low for the Republicans. I live in a state where we have had several Republican governors that are responsible and truthful.
20
@richard bretagne I know! Jim Jordan is so inappropriately mean. Maybe it appeals to some people, but it doesn't to me. And that other fellow who tried to cut her off so that her answer would fit his question! Thank goodness Schiff let her finish.
6
Republicans are not saving Trump, they are trying to save themselves. Some of them might know what happened to Republicans after Nixon found himself guilty and resigned; there was a tidal wave that swallowed Republicans. As long as only half the American public find Trump’s acts reprehensible, Republican office holders will believe whatever the American public will swallow.
9
Free and good Americans don’t deserve this.
12
Transparent in their desperation.
One dimensional.
Amoebae.
8
Trump is THE stress-test for US democracy. The rest of the world is watching, so far in horror. No one is above the law?
19
When Marie Yovanovitch told her story about being intimidated and being told to rush home because her safety was in jeopardy, my heart broke. She also spoke about a woman she awarded an embassy key to who later died from acid being thrown in her face. That woman had the nerve to fight corruption in Ukraine. I guess my question is, if Trump ordered it, would it be Jim Jordan or Devon Nunes that throws the acid? You know, tough guys.
30
By the way, if trump believes Ukraine is so corrupt that aid had to be held up, why is it OK to ask them to investigate US citizens?
30
Had Trump's crime, blackmail for release of the military assistance, not been found out, he would have persisted in his evil scheme. As we read he is now engaged in new crimes.
14
Congressional Republicans and other Republican officials are convinced than their best hope for victories in coming elections is to help Trump survive impeachment and then win next year. Since their political survival is linked to Trump's, they are willing to say and do anything, however bizarre or irrational, to support him, short of provable illegality. We are witnessing not the culmination of unprecedented behavior by Trump and his allies, but the beginning of a new and more desperate phase of Republican chicanery, the likes of which none of us has seen before.
10
Last night I had a dream that California seceded from the Union and accepted the states of the northeast as exclaves of the New Republic of California. The exclaves continued to enjoy all the rights they had under the former system. The New Republic was an economic and cultural powerhouse, retaining the best universities and empowered with a GDP to compel the envy of most developed countries. For their part, the Red states were able to realize their dream of an autocratic regime presided over by Trump and his cult of personality. Of course this would be a disaster in reality, but I haven't woken up so happy in a decade.
14
On Oct. 4, a Ukrainian prosecutor announced that he would be looking into various matters, including Burisima. I expect, if he does so properly, Hunter Biden will not even come up, because the shady dealings that the United States and EU wanted investigated pre-Trump predated Biden's board service. But we know Ukraine is not going to "buck" Trump; they have to hedge their bets. So, why is everyone so sure there is no "quo"?
2
Well, they've been honing their skills for years now defending the NRA. The mental contortions it requires to say that citizens should be able to possess assault weapons comes in very handy in these times of Trump!
8
Your analogy is ridiculous.
1
Oh, Frank--
"semantic spelunking" Thanks so much for that. You show that there can be rays of light coming out of the hellscape created by trump and ignored by the Republicans. Little, or "widdle", Devin Nunes clearly found a thesaurus. I suspect he's had to use it most of his life--not sure he remembers words of more than 2 syllables on his own without prompting.
Republicans may say the hearings are boring--they are the ones, after all, who elected a president accused by many women of assault, who attended a party with Jeffrey Epstein and (how many?) 28 women, who has declared bankruptcy 6 times, who is terrified for us to see his tax returns, who asked his "fans" at rallies to beat up dissenters and offered to pay any resulting lawyers fees (even though he probably doesn't pay his own lawyers' fees), who can't remember which foot or feet had bone spurs to keep him out of Viet Nam, and who has been married 3 times and cheated on all 3 wives. Now THAT'S entertainment!!!
Clearly Republicans prefer the Beverly Hillbillies in the White House to the Crown.
The Republican party is like an episode of Dr. Who. Some bizarre ray has sucked out all their brains and they are trying to survive with the tiny bits of gray matter remaining splattered on the floor.
17
Here in Kyiv this past July we held Parliamentary elections. 70% of those elected this run are first-timers, one of them a former student of mine. 70% turnover in one election. A political enema that has washed away a festering post-soviet blockage.
This is in your hands, America. Show up to vote and give Congress the enema it has long needed. If a bunch of greenhorn Ukrainians can do it, you probably can, too.
58
@Il'ja We'll try. Meanwhile, much respect and best wishes to your country in trying to build the foundations of democracy even while under literal siege from a ferocious neighbor. I'm sorry that you've had to endure overtures of corruption from a country you'd thought to be an ally in your efforts; that's the last thing you've needed.
21
@Il'ja From your lips to the American electorate's ears.
7
No. Republicans are complicit and accessories in Trump’s extortion crime. There are no fantasies involved, they well understand what’s involved. They’re just counting in obfuscating the public enough, as they did with the Mueller Report, to claim victory. The press was complicit in the former; let’s see how they behave in the next few weeks.
9
One thing I must note about our national tribulation is that it has brought our some great writing. This column was one such example.
14
Looking at recent events, and the policy decisions made by the Trump White House, I can't help but notice how every decision made about Europe and the Middle East seems to benefit Russia. Pull out of Syria and abandon the Kurds - advantage Russia. Promote the story that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 Election - advantage Russia. Stall promised aid to Ukraine, undermining European and Middle Eastern confidence in the word of the United States - advantage Russia. Criticize the NATO alliance and threaten to pull US participation - advantage Russia. Ignore the opinion and advice of all of his national security agencies regarding Russian interference in Western Hemisphere politics - advantage Russia. I cannot believe that the citizens of the United States can continue to support this party, or this president - he seems to be carrying out the fondest wishes of Mr. Putin and his coterie of Russian thugs. along with his two neutered lap dogs, Lindsay Graham and Mitch McConnell. Wake up America!
24
RE: 'One moment, Mulvaney publicly acknowledges the shakedown of Ukraine’s president, insists that it’s how foreign policy is done and tells the media to “get over it.” The next, he tells the media that they’re reprehensible fabulists for reporting exactly what he said.'
We can see the origins of this in a press briefing (no so) long ago and (not at all) far away, there was Newt Gingrich:
"Anyone who quotes what I just said will be lying."
10
Innuendo and distraction from the facts in evidence. Does not seem to work well under the gavel of Adam Schiff.
4
I agree that Trump could be impeached solely on the smoking gun transcript.
The transcript and the House inquiry, however, are showing us something more than impeachment. The response of the Republican members of Congress is shocking, cowardly and a corruption of their oath of office. The longer Schiff keeps the inquiry going, giving voice to people like Nunes and Jordan, the more that sinks in.
The 2020 election should not be about wild and unrealistic plans and policies. It should be about who Americans trust more with preserving their democracy.
10
Very strange that the country wans't quite ready for a feminist wave in 2016 but now it could be. Don't count out a Republican feminist wave either.
3
"... one hallmark of Trump and his sycophants is the projection of their own flaws onto their adversaries."
Count me as one who looks askance at whatever Hunter Biden was doing in Ukraine. At the same time, the Trumpists' focus on this alleged corruption (to the exclusion of Giuliani's Ukrainian dealings, with two close Ukrainian business associates having been jailed in the U.S. ) certainly deflects attention from the question of what qualifications Jared Kushner and the Trump sons have, other than presidential relationship proximity, to conduct high value international political and business dealings.
I also would love to know how many senators and congresspersons have close relatives who are on corporate boards of directors, to be followed with the question of exactly what legislation these people appear to have been able to influence. I very seriously doubt Hunter Biden invented the idea of an unqualified, close political relative serving as a well paid member of a corporate board, whether domestic or international.
16
The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, Section X, requires the administration to notify Congress of the reason for any delays in delivering authorized funding. This law was clearly broken by Trump.
19
It really is insidious, I guess it must be very difficult to avoid absorbing Republican propaganda.
I propose two updates to your column Mr. Bruni, to better reflect reality:
1. Democrats and Republicans are not “adversaries”, they are colleagues in the most important branch of government, our House of Representatives, who may disagree during a Congressional process. The U.S. and Russia are adversaries.
2. Trump did succeed in his plot to get an investigation of Biden and the 2016 election. The Ukrainians announced publicly that they would open an audit of previous investigations. This is mob codespeak for opening the selective investigations Trump coerced them into doing.
11
Embrace Fantasy? Isn't that what the Trump colluding with Russia over the election was found to be after the very thorough Mueller investigation.
How can anyone with sense embrace those elements of the Media and government that sold us the Russia / Trump 2016 election collusion fantasy? Perhaps more reliable sources are those parts of the media and goverment that rejected such a fantasy as facts appeared.
The media and the never Trumpers are like the Charlie Brown and the football cartoon. Each time Charkie Brown (the never Trump crowd) trusts that the football is solidly presented. Each time he ends up on the ground after kicking air and gets up eager to be fooled another day. Perhaps he is not comfortable with the reality that he can't trust Lucy to present the football.
8
@John Did you actually read the Mueller report? Or just Barr's lying summary?
Mueller found that:
1. There were HUNDREDS of highly suspicious contacts between the Trump campaign and agents of the Russian state
2. The Trump people were aware that the Russians wanted Trump to win and were helping his campaign; and they welcomed this help.
3. There was not sufficient evidence to hold that there was actual *conspiracy* ("collusion" is not a legal term and Mueller was not investigating it; and therefore had nothing to say about it.) HOWEVER, Mueller also noted that the Trump campaign had knowingly and intentionally destroyed a great deal of evidence that might bear on this question; so it's hard to really know.
4. Mueller found no less than TEN instances of clear-cut obstruction of justice, including evidencec that the President pressured the White House counsel to fabricate exculpatory evidence. Mueller declined to charge ONLY because the DoJ has a policy (it's not a law) that a sitting president can't be indicted. More than 800 former federal prosecutors, Democrats and Republicans, who served Democratic and Republican presidents, said that the evidence of obstruction that Mueller presented would absolutely be enough to charge any ordinary citizen who came before their courts.
And you conclude that the "Russia hoax" is a fantasy? Really? It's amazing that Barr has managed, in the face of all the evidence, to get people to believe this nonsense. Please read the actual report.
33
@John from NYS read? Good one. I do like his grasp on the Russia/Trump collusion fantasy tho. My quesion is, since when do people go to jail due to fantasy? Poor John is stuck is his own Celebrity Apprentice fantasyland.
6
Perhaps the President doesn't see corruption within himself and actions because it's himself - there's a tendency of people high on the psychopathy spectrum to define themselves as in the right always, and project error and blame on others through force of will. The President is adopting the position of trying to convince others of his perspective, irrespective of correctness (truth/law etc), and some of the weak-minded/lied-to/ those who only have access to certain strands of information (e.g. FoxNews) are accepting it at the face value he presents (It is a Nietzscheian imposition of values on others). The doublespeak sounds like Orwell's dystopia, but we don't live in that society. Luckily we have a freer press than that, and we have laws and processes.
Meanwhile, after this morning, let's add witness intimidation to the list of impeachment articles (U.S. Code § 1512).
11
To claim that Jim Jordan is some kind of talented, ingenious Sophist is a bit of stretch. Anyone who has sat through a High School seminar is familiar with his win at all cost, bad faith, ground shifting argumentative tactics.
14
The nuttiest thing about Trump’s belief that the Ukrainians hacked the DNC and the Clinton campaign is that they apparently did so to *aid the Clinton campaign*!
Sure, Trump’s argument (if you want to call it that) is that the Ukrainians set out to frame the Russians for the hacks. But that conveniently ignores the net result of the hacking, which was to damage the Clinton campaign and elect Trump.
I guess the Trump administration isn’t the only one that’s too incompetent to pull off a crime. According to Trump we’ve got to add the Ukrainian government’s bungled effort to help Hillary Clinton get elected by publishing thousands of embarrassing Democratic emails.
12
We all know what Trump is and how he operates.
The media doesn't want to admit that Forever Trumpers don't care what he does and Never Trumpers want to dump him because you all have a column to write or a TV show to air.
Mueller's report, the impeachment hearings and the rest of it don't resonate on either side.
Everybody is siloed and won't budge.
2
I don't think corruption that is blatant and ongoing is about "not budging." It has nothing to do with pro or anti anything, other that the desire to actually live in a democracy where lying, persistent nepotism, and attacking anyone with facts is no longer tolerated.
12
Because they were caught during the commission of the crime and they didn't get the goal of the extortion/bribery, this is a witch hunt, fake news and a total political hoax.
They really do believe voters will believe anything.
8
"the hallmark of Trump and his sycophants is the projection of their own flaws onto their adversaries."
Perfect! Also, think of "opposite George" on Seinfeld; whatever comes out of Trump, believe the opposite.
10
will it work ?? ...The Donny's actual impeachment-driven removal from office will never happen, as all Worldwide realize, as the GOP of 2019 are an organized crime family ....when I say "will it work?" I mean will this entire impeachment process, and the trial by the Senate that will almost certainly come of it, be enough to turn the very narrow tides of the key electoral states to vote against The Donny in 1 year from now ....??? there is zero way to determine that, to include polls, until the election happens ...to all of us who want this despicable sorry excuse for a POTUS gone, we can only hope the electoral college does not hand us another horrifying 4 years of this sheer & utter disaster ....
7
Mental limberness…Ethical elasticity... These are interesting euphemisms for a complete lack of moral fiber, total disregard for wrongdoing, obfuscation, distortion, and appalling lack of conscience as well as a willful indifference for the rule of law and the tenets of our U.S. Constitution.
Having abandoned their oath office to protect the U.S. Constitution, the majority of congressional Republicans have turned a blind eye to the offenses to which Trump has already admitted. Few are willing to confront the blatant, shameless corruption of Donald Trump.
Mick Mulvaney has boasted of Mr. Trump’s heavy-handed, brazen attempt at bribery of the leader of Ukraine, saying “we do it all the time”.
Just when I think Trump’s Republican allies have sunk to their lowest, they find a new “low”. Devoid of decency and ethical values, they lie for Trump and make excuses for him. They live in a fantasy world where wrong is right and right is wrong. Republicans in the days of Watergate were better people.
14
Prosecutorial wonderland .. the feckless, the log bumps, the stale faithful played as pawns by puppeteers who care not one
whit for them -- their families .. their future ..
5
The Impeachment Process has mutated into a Constitutionally acceptable way to perform a Palace Coup.
In retrospect, it was probably unneccessary to remove Andrew Johnson from office...as he was probably well within his authority to fire the Secretary of War...but Congress did not want this....politics of the day called for Vengeance....not Reconciliation.
Likewise, Nixon, who had just ENDED the Vietnam War, most likely offended the Political Order who prefered the dilly-dallying and extended war effort(much like today). Nixon was accused of "cover Up"(?) of a crime that had already been tried and judged......Everything that followed was political intrigue...not a "high crime and misdemeanor".....both sides making a mockery of the Constitution....it was a Palace Coup with GHW Bush delivery the final head chop.
....
Bill Clinton gets the award for being the victim of the most ridiculous attempted Palace Coup. We almost removed a president, no matter how unpopular.....for having consentual sex and lying about it??? Probably the worst punishment was for Bill to go home and explain it to Hillary.
...
And now this. A more objective viewpoint....Trump is the ONLY one following the law!! Everyone in the Press is using loaded terminology, unfounded conclusions, pretzel logic that condones one side for doing exactly the same things as the other "guilty" side.
...
Most Americans are Ignoring this Palace Coup.....and the perpetrators have their Day of Judgement coming. Nov 2020.
1
@Wherever Hugo
You reveal yourself in referring to a "Palace." Last I heard, the US is not a monarchy...
5
Well said. If a terrorist was going to blow up time square but got catch first before the Bombs went off— no crime no foul. The lawless the guy free so he plan another way to murder millions.
Jim Jordan is the same guy that looked other way while a Ohio Stare team doctor abused 45 kids under his care while he was a coach there.
Mueller left congress to ‘do their constitutional duty and gave them 11 counts. They did nothing.
Trump and family had been involved in 4,500 law suit, ran a scam charity, scam university, paid off hookers and took campaign money from the Russian mob. The GOP could care less about laws. Bribery and corruptions are their main sustenance. Been like for a long time. Bush and Chaney got paid by defense contractors and oil companies to invade Iraq and let them make not billions but trillions.
Vote them all out
13
It’s a shameless defense and nowhere does it begin to address the factual evidence. Lindsey Graham is a piece of work, how this man looks himself in the mirror each day? The defense is being mounted by some of the most loathsome, unscrupulous, treasonous individuals in service of the most reprehensible man to serve high office. What can you expect from a party that does not deal in truth or fact?
8
There is an aspect of Nunes and other Trump toadies defense of Trump that reminds me very much of the Failed Would be Art Student railing how Germans were running out of patience with the continually assaults of World Jewry on the German people and if they didn't stop this assault on everything German there would be consequences.
5
Republicans have a new morality:
1. I am the President thy Don
2. Thou shall not have any other Dons before thee
3. Thou shall hold loyalty over truth
4. Thou shall not betray the tribe
5. Thou shall not read the holy book of revelation
6. Thou shall turn down thine eyes in the face of adultery of thy Don
7. Thou shall steal from the poor and the workers of thee world
8. Thou shall kill and cage people of color who covet thee way of life
9. Thou shall lie in service of the Don
10. Thou shall know the wrath of the Don on the failure of your soul
Amen.
10
Astounding. Bruni has almost got the point.
It is neat that the republican defense is boiling it’s way down to Trump cannot commit an impeachable act because Trump is a swamp beast incapable of a mens rea. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea
The Trump Is A Beast And So Are We Republicans defense.
Republicans baby. “That is quite a constitution you got there democrats. Shame if anything happened to it.”
3
The GOP is no longer a political party, playing by the rules; it is a criminal syndicate, working openly for the Plantation Masters and the Russians.
9
Please, please don't release pictures of Trump without his diaper on.
The Baby Trump image is so utterly perfect, it shouldn't be altered. Well ok, the hands are showing quite a lot larger than in reality so it's not like a Perfect Call perfect.
3
Spin it Frank. Talk about flipping reality ion it's head.
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/11/12/patrick-lawrence-the-impeachment-pantomime/
Twelve stories today (including editorials) on the front page of the NY Times on the impeachment inquiry? Might be a bit overkill, or it just a slow news day?
3
But, Glenn Greenwald, Aaron Mate', Noam Chomsky, Matt Taibbi, Michael Tracey, Ben Norton, Max Blumenthal, and Chris Hedges are journalists of the highest individual integrity, and each of them understand and presents the EVIDENCE that the Russia campaign interference is a hoax, and that this impeachment attempt is a reaction to the failure of that hoax. They are also Liberals not Republicans.
How is it that hard working justice warriors with nothing to gain take up to defend what is naturally their opposition? It's called letting your conscience be your guide.
How is it that all the employees of the NYT are lockstep? It's called protecting your career. I have read (and once revered) this paper carefully for 44 years. No more do I look here for the truth, this journalistic institution is shattered. And as I am a liberal all that time and will vote Progressive (not Neoliberal) I am utterly crestfallen at where this paper has gone, into the gutter of of innuendo and lies. And like the named journalists I have to tell the truth.
7
Our direct experience of our surroundings can be either reality, or, inflated fantasy. I agree with Mr Bruni that the Republicans embrace fantasy over reality. It appears to me, though, that the impeachment hearing is a showcase of Republican mental rigidity in which ethical elasticity cannot exist.
Republican actions will be judged and remembered thanks to our increasing technology options which makes most everything public on the Web.
The Democrats should not focus on Trump’s intimidation or any other trivial nonsense. Instead, they need to focus only on bribery which – according to the Constitution – is an the impeachable offense.
1
Listening to the fantastical ravings of some of Trump’s supporters, I can’t help but remember that there are voters out there who actually elected these people to represent them. I don’t know if I’m more amazed or appalled.
13
So when are we going to take the threat of Fox News propaganda serious and actually start finding solutions to stop institutions that are seeking to undermine and destroy our lives and our country?
12
Great article Frank. I must ask, however, when is someone going to illustrate to the public the obvious thread linking all of Trumps machinations? Putin benefits from everything Trump does or attempts to do. Whatever his motive is for helping Russia isn't even important, but the GOP's blind eye to the effects of his international shenanigans is maddening.
12
Nunes is a fleeting seeker of fame who will not even warrant a footnote in history. Much the same for the rest of the republicans.
6
Republicans need to feed their propaganda engines, Fox "News" et al., with fantasy sound bites.
Call this Fox's "Fair and Balanced" strategy: report the truth occasionally, but drown it in varied and outrageous lies, random car accidents, celebrity affairs and misdeeds.
I think it's clear that the Republicans know they can't win with just one lie, e.g., "It was just an innocent phone call." That would be too easy to debunk. They have to keep on creating new distortions, distractions, lies, and smears.
5
When decisions are made about ousting Trump from power, we must trust commonsense to help defend us. As the GOP is now completely irresponsible with their inane, ridiculous defenses about Trump’s actions, some Republicans will have to recognize and identify the falsehoods being thrown about in the president’s defense and ignore them for the facts presented.
3
Why are Democrats (and Frank Bruni, for whom I have immense respect) settling for just “attempted” murder/bribery/extortion/burglary? Yes, those are crimes too, but in this analogy Trump actually DID commit actual murder/bribery/burglary! The military funding WAS withheld, and President Zelensky WAS going to submit to a CNN interview announcing investigations! It wasn’t until the crime was exposed by the whistleblower that the military funding was ultimately released! (Never mind that people later figured out that he couldn’t and shouldn’t have had the power to withhold the funding anyway; he still managed to withhold it for months.)
If you later return items that you shoplifted after you were caught, it’s still shoplifting, not *attempted* shoplifting. If you later return items that you stole from someone’s house after getting caught, it’s still burglary, not *attempted* burglary. If you extort a foreign government to dig up dirt on your political opponent by withholding aid, get caught doing that, and only then release the aid, it’s still extortion, not *attempted* extortion. Don’t settle for the *attempted* red herring!
10
"There is no typhus in the city, Comrade"
from the film Dr. Zhivago
2
@eheck
2+2=5
--George Orwell, 1984
5
We all knew someone like Jim in high school. He tries to look and act cool, but fails miserably. They are a joke. How this person got elected.... So he tries to dress like a certain mayor selects his shirts and ties carefully, perhaps with taste or help from someone with taste. White shirt, blue tie. Well cut shirt, tie not too big or too small. Classy. Poor Jim with his off colors and baggy shirt....
5
@Susan Kuhlman
Sick of the K-Mart shirts myself.
Get a jacket Jim.
3
Ben Wiseman’s romance novel graphic is deliciously appropriate. Can’t wait to see Devin Nunes’ “Hoax” in the grocery store aisle next to the old Halloween candy specials. Because these fantasies are pure empty carbs.
There is a real story to pursue, though: who is in charge of giving the GOP its daily talking points? Is it someone at Fox? Grover Norquist? Someone is keeping these scatterbrains quite organized, and we need that traitor outed.
5
Republicans don't embrace fantasy, they embrace deception.
6
"To excuse Trump, Republicans embrace..." the delusions of Our Mad King Donald and his mindless sycophants. Go Bernie and Elizabeth.
2
Hey Frank.....
I heard it from a friend, who's friends cousins brother-in-law heard it at the counter in starbucks that the phone call by Trump had demanded that not only the Ukraine,but Russia and China stop with the election meddling or else.
Does that about cover the truth for you and you readers?
Ohm one more thing, Adam Shift has had , in his back pocket, for several years absolute proof that Trump colluded with the russians.
3
What a total mischaracterization. I can tell you are getting your information from sound bites and haven’t actually been paying attention to what has been coming out.
7
The entire Republican Party is little more than the Worldwide Wrestling Federation Goes To Washington to conduct political performance art and flush the country down a toilet of white spite.
Look at what Republican gaslighter Kevin McCarthy said about Trump's 'perfect' phone call to Ukraine:
“The (phone) call summary is still the most important piece of evidence we have, and it shows no pressure or even mention of conditionality between the two leaders.”
In actual reality, the phone "call summary" was immediately hidden away from public view on a highly classified secret server.
Exhibit A evidence of total guilt.
Then the White House released a reconstructed, sanitized version of the call that edited out the smoking guns of Trump's bribery and extortion of Ukraine for dirt on Joe Biden.
Nixon also released edited half-baked transcripts of his tapes during Watergate until a judge ordered Nixon to release the actual tapes that contained the smoking gun and evidence of its erasure.
And besides Trump's criminal phone call cover-up, an endless parade of patriotic witnesses has corroborated the intent of the phone call with evidence of Trump's Rudy Giuliani deep state shadow Ukrainian foreign policy, which John Bolton called Donald and Rudy's Ukranian 'drug deal'.
But leave it up to the Party Of No - the party that denies science, contraception, economics and democracy - to enthusiastically deny the comprehensive crooked criminality of America's #1 Deplorable.
Impeach.
14
Don't say fantasy. Say corruption, say sexual abuse of women, say tax evasion. The Republican Party is rightly on trial in the court of public opinion. Don't euphemize.
5
Where is the concern about the rampant corruption in Israel? We give them billions of dollars a year and I've not heard anything but support for the crooked Netanyahu.
Get your stories straight, Trump.
6
"Maybe Graham will storm the hearing room yet, an effigy of Hunter Biden in tow." Maybe but ] really I expect Graham and the GOP Senate to start investigations of the Bidens, the Clintons, and the Obamas. Can the GOP sink lower? You betcha! Trump is their shining savior for money. They will grovel for him no matter how low they go.
4
Given such adroit writing like this, Mr. Bruni, I think you're a cinch to write the introduction for Mr. Nunes' forthcoming book, Hoax. Congratulations, or something.
2
Nunes seems to be aiming his screed at people who are as clueless as he is.
4
Frank, a better analogy is, I walk into a bank stick up a teller and he hands me a bag of money. I turn around and see two uniformed police officers enter the bank. I throw the bag of money back at the teller and walk out. When others scream and the police grab me I say, “I have no money I’ve committed no crime.” Six bank witnesses testify to what they saw but my defense is they heard nothing and are second hand witnesses. I argue the teller misunderstood me and it was his mistake. He refuses to testify, the police suspect it is because my”friends” have threatened and even bribed him.
Maybe in today’s America I could get away with that?
7
Recall, as well, Jordan’s perennial Halloween costume: when you’re allergic to evidence, take off your suit jacket and at least style yourself as…work-ish? Serious-ish? Ohio-ish? Congressional-esque? A man who has taken the salt-of-the-earth ethos and elevated it to spectacle.
Pathetic and disgraceful, but of course utterly reliant on Americans’ illiteracy when distinguishing substance from theatricality.
Working class, wake up – he’s not “one of you.”
6
Spot on, Mr. Bruni. But I want to see the utter and ignominious wing-nuttery of the Republicans in headlines on the other side of the front page. Biden "dirt" the DNC server secreted in Ukraine, Ukraine "out to get" the President. THESE THINGS DO NOT EXIST. These are malicious lies. And it's as if the further out in space the Republicans go, the more punctilious our requirements of the Democrats become--is having too many truth tellers really a problem? Seriously?
5
I heard Jim Jordan on NPR yesterday, and in his blind defense of Trump, he asks us all to be willfully delusional. What does Donald Trump have on this guy and others of his ilk? He is an
embarrassment.
They are focusing on, and will no doubt continue to put great JATO levels of thrust behind, two things that are both blatantly bad faith dissembling:
1) The witnesses are all 'hearsay' - Ok fine, Jim. Let's bring on some non-hearsay witnesses then. Oh wait, Donald Trump is obstructing justice, preventing many witnesses from testifying.
Well, Jim?
2) The aid was given to Ukraine, so what's the problem? - Ok, Jim. Was the aid actually denied until reports of this story came out, and the whistleblower complaint occurred? The pivotal detail -> was the aid released to Ukraine before, or after this story was going public?
Well, Jim?
Well?
Stop pretending to us that you believe the lies you tell, Jim.
7
"To Excuse Trump, Republicans Embrace Fantasy"
Bruni in his first paragraph describes a home invasion, an unlawful restraint, and attempted murder with a firearm.
He is comparing the above scenario to the alleged Trump wrongdoing with regards to Ukraine.
The plane! The plane!
Evidently, it is Bruni who is living on Fantasy Island practicing his mental limberness and ethical elasticity.
What artistry of phrase!
' . . . the Cirque du Soleil of c'est la vie.'
Mayor Shinn of River City might grow faint at your phraseology.
4
Do they fantasize Putin giving them a curtain to hide behind?
I have given up on my GOP Senator, a woman who once flew the A-10 and crowed about blowing up Islamic terrorists. Now she sounds just like one of Putin's drones going on about Kurds and the Ukrainians being terrorists. No, she's the terrorist...
11
Republican defense point remind me one another countries political turmoil point.
in 2017 Turkish Strongman Erdogan accused of graft allegations. He was about to loose his power ( Cleric Gulen people in government brought the charges)
In long story short, Gulen lost Erdogan won.
But
There is an excuse to show to public.
Erdogan people coined this scenario. (There are hundred millions of dollars were taken as bribes etc.)
They said to public we cannot be thief , we are stupid , gulen people laid a trap for us and they conned us.
Their defense was they are stupid.
Now strikingly this defense Used by Lindsay Graham, he stated Trump administration is so inept so incompetent in short stupid , they cannot successfully set up quid pro quo or extortion.
A defense is We are STUPID.
4
Frank Bruni has a lot to learn from Donald Trump how to make his case. For starters, Donald Trump keeps his Lies short, straight & without any ifs & buts. The problem for American Democracy is not just President Trump is a serial Liar & compulsive Cheat & criminal Assaulter of vulnerable women & an obnoxious Racist. The problem for American Democracy is also not that hundreds of Republican Congressmen disgracefully support President Trump’s Lies & Corruption & Criminal Actions to use $400millions of US Govt Funds to recruit Ukraine Govt to illegally work for his Re-election campaign. The problem for American Democracy IS the 40% of American voters - over 120 million Americans - who support the criminal Actions of President Trump as Publicly exposed again & again since 20th Jan 2017 & most recently in the open Impeachment Hearings.
Over 120 million Americans is the size of the problem for American Democracy.
2
These Republicans count on the fact that millions of Americans are stupid enough and gullible enough to believe this nonsense, and they do. In fact, not only do they believe it, they love it! Meanwhile, the hapless Democrats are seemingly powerless to do anything about it except hold hearings. No documents produced, even under subpoena? Call the cops. Have these people arrested and jailed! That’s what would be done to most people. But the Dems won’t do it. So they’re complicit. They want to take Michelle Obama’s high road. Well, look what that’s done for the country. Know what? They all make me sick!
3
To excuse Dump is to be traitor to the U.S., to serve Putin and the Kremlin, and to pledge allegiance to a different flag. I no longer call the political entity and its so-called repugnantkin members the US Senate - it's the Soviet Supreme and nothing short of it. When do we start our mandatory Russian lessons, goose-step exercises, and when does Faux News finally put its true name out there - Pravda? Disgusting, the whole lot.
4
Who will rid me of this troublesome priest?
3
My father had a saying from way back in the day when he sensed a sleaze bag. "He's enough to gag a maggot." That's exactly how I feel when I see Jordan. uggh.
5
Gym Jordan and Devin "Moooo" Nunes will go down in history as Trump lackey's and sycophants, and enablers of this freak show presidency.
Fitting enough
6
Frank, "mental limberness and ethical elasticity"?? As entertaining as your skills as a wordsmith are, please use plain english. "Shameless lying" more accurately depicts their behavior.
2
"... Cirque du Soleil of c’est la vie...frontiers of creativity...explores the outer limits of audacity...mutates like the monsters in the “Alien” movies." - brilliant, but you couldn't find room to include "Night of the Living Dead"?
1
“I’m fairly confident that no one is intent on finding nude photographs of the president.”
Unless, of course, the photo was taken in a Moscow hotel room while cavorting with Russian prostitutes.
3
Obfuscation (using all 7 deadly sins), lying, bribery, extortion, stealing, fraud. Republicans haven't faked that for the past 11 years, they have relied heavily and deployed it en-mass with the aid of Russian for sure. Christians have lead the way, fearful of their place in the world. Gee. if you weren't living under outdated bronze age beliefs, then i can see why you reject science but embrace Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, and Pride. Republicans are doomed. They just haven't figured out they have sold out their country for the 7 deadly sins. Trump is their God.
3
Frank, For this audience of recalcitrant morons you need to be sledgehammer blunt.
Somewhere in your first four paragraphs you needed to say bluntly, "attempted murder is a prosecutable crime, and so is conspiracy to commit murder and so is conspiracy to commit any number of other crimes all along with severe penalties approaching those for the crimes themselves. The fact that Trump tried to commit a crime, is a crime in itself with, for the President, impeachment as a deserving sentence."
If there is a hoax in this process, it is that the people who perpetrate such absurdities, Nunes, Jordan, and others, know full well what is described above and effectively are lying and misleading the American people into believing something else.
5
The exact year that the GOP became about fantasy was 1980. Reagan in cowboy hat. In 84 "Morning in America."
I am quite serious. The GOP has been working media fantasy as a way to con the public for about four decades.
The Movie Star/Mission Accomplished/Reality Television (grifter) can stop at any time people are willing to turn of the set.
7
Well said. Anyone who has a conscience and sense of decency is appalled at the behavior of the man in the WH. Hopefully enough citizens can still distinguish fact from fiction and support justice and the rule of law by signalling "enough".
6
One of the most brilliant Bruni articles ever. One quibble, however. That is his statement that "I’m fairly confident that no one is intent on finding nude photographs of the president."
What about the golden showers tapes?
4
Bruni certainly has it pegged — the republicans (little R) are without scruples or substantive rebuttal. They are however doing a bang up job of muddying the waters.
No mention in this piece of the Democratic lack of dogged commitment to ferreting out the whole truth so disappointedly exhibited by the grievous failure to force the issue of Mulvaney, Bolton and Giuliani appearing to testify under oath.
Seems Trump[ has dogged another large caliber bullet.
The next Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card will come with the Senate trail and at most a slap on the wrist.
2
Are there degrees of outlandishness ? Perhaps only at Trump U.
3
Republicans dish up fantasies and crazy conspiracies and other third-rate scenarios to their base, because, apparently, that's what the base likes or wants.
The base must be so gullible and utterly ravenous for cheap thrills and dodo entertainment to take this stuff seriously--the lies and verbal manifestations of trump's rotting brain, and the comic book clown posturing, chest thumping of the rest of the GOP glued-together gang. How could anybody take the ever-jacketless Jordan and the brainless Nunes seriously and vote for them?
Blame it on the base. Republican politicians are incapable of shouldering blame or responsibility. They are too busy acting like pretzels.
4
How can we be shocked that Jim Jordon pretends Trump has done nothing wrong - this is the same guy - a coach! - who looked the other way when young students were being sexually abused in college. Remember Maya Angelou: When someone shows you who they are believe them the first time”.
6
“Republicans” in Congress are RINO’s: Republicans In Name Only.
1
Do we really want to elect representatives like Jordan and Nunes? They’re shamelessly immoral. And lackeys for one of the greatest criminals in history.
5
Democrats wasted two years of Americans' time on Russian collusion. Now this.
2
Sad...Frank has deteriorated further and is now a name caller.
Please...raise the journalistic integrity and show some partisanship. Where is the discourse?
1
Trump just tried to intimidate Yovanovich by tweet, even as she was testifying. It is unbelievable appalling that the President of the US would stoop to this kind of mob-like behavior.
Can you imagine if real harm comes to any of the witnesses that he tries to intimidate? And in any case, his policies and his behavior are doing real harm, in terms of heightened racial tensions, unabated gun violence (Barr is starting a new strategy - oh, please... Barr!) killing 100/day, environmental deregulation leading to increasing pollution, slowly killing Obamacare that millions depend on, unabated climate change by walking away from the Paris Agreement, tearing asunder the fabric of our democracy... the list is almost endless. It is almost unfathomable how unending support remains for this man.
He even threatened his political opponent Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign (..."maybe the 2nd Amendment people can do something about it, I don't know..."). And he still got elected -- by the outdated Electoral College system, which distorts our democracy to just a few swing states.
Even if a Democrat is elected in 2020, I believe it will decades if ever before America recovers from this. And he is reelected... all bets are off.
6
Welcome to your party, Frank. Ready to leave now?
Sadly, after watching Nikki Haley’s interview with Wolf Blitzer yesterday, I have to add her name to the Nunez and Jordan list of pathetic and dishonest Trump sycophants. I stared with incredulity as she said with a straight face that, no, she was not aware of any lies from President Trump.
9
I have just texted and emailed this line, crediting Mr. Bruni and the NYT, to many people with the note: This is the best description of Rs in the Trump Era I have seen. Pass it on and let's buy billboards everywhere to make it a standard...
"....an utter sellout of principle and a pure embrace of fiction to pacify an emotional infant and keep him from spitting up on them."
4
If I were a Republican politician -- John Cornyn, say -- I'd be mad as heck about the Always Trumpers in the party forcing me to twist myself into knots to lie for the president. What a pain in the neck, having to constantly defend the indefensible. Not to mention a huge source of stress, worrying about what stupid thing I'd have to lie about next.
5
As a wrestling coach, Gym Jordan ignored repeated alerts that the team doctor was a rapist. I guess we can add that to the Republicans' playbook. If they don't actually see a crime taking place, that crime could not possibly take place. Evidence? Pfft! Meaningless. Other eyewitnesses? Pfft! Pfft! I guess Trump could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and get away with it. After all, Gym Jordan and Devin Nunes didn't see it, so it didn't happen.
4
If the Democrats can't get this done I say get rid of them. They gave us Trump to begin with. Its time to put up or shut up. If they just let it pass like they did with the wall street bankers or the Iraq war crimes or rigging the primaries for Hillary only to lose to this subhuman clown then let the party break up into progressive and Corporate Dems.
2
Absurdity is a key element of comedy.
I think the Democrats are missing an opportunity. When a fool like Nunes or a nasty little bully like Jordan goes on a confabulatory rant, the only useful response is to laugh out loud.
Or, if belly-laughing is deemed undignified, just a downward, smiling head shake and chuckle.
The more passive Democratic responses inadvertently lend an air of credibility to what is absolute nonsense.
Let's all laugh these fools off the stage.
4
Nunes is acting like a Russian operative.
5
It is despicable and transcends reality. The extorsion of Zelensky over the phone is not a matter of semantics. This GOP thing of "everything goes if Trump wants it" is the most toxic political move and most demoralizing to common decent people.
It is also telling all Americans: "You are too dumb. We can make up any story and you will believe it. No matter how irrational or how obvious the truth is". The WH did clarify their addiction to "alternative facts". What seems ages ago.
The GOP should not talk about the swamp. The Everglades are beautiful. What they have in DC is pure filth.
4
Nunes is a colassol embarrassment to himself and the country.
5
Bruni I loved your columns when you were a food critic and your reviews were easy to digest.
Your OCs are a completely different. They show your bias to such a degree that they're not readable at all.
You are a good writer and this is not your cup of tea. Move on to something that uses your considerable" wordsmithiness " to a more useful objective.
.... I just wish they (Nunnes) would stop mentioning nude photos of Trump.....the mental image is not attractive or useful to anyone....
3
Evidently, Mr Nunes's dust jacket was designed by Mr. Trump. I assume that Mr. Nunes appears in a white cable-knit tennis sweater in the author's photo.
Republicans in Congress could save a lot of time and effort by just saying "Trump is God. His Will be Done." It would be more honest and it's not like Trump voters will disagree.
4
Remember volume two of the Mueller report? Remember how any reasonable person would see clearly how Trump obstructed justice? Somehow that has faded from sight. The same thing is going to happen here, barring some major new revelation. Yes, Trump acted badly. But not every bad act justifies impeachment.
BTW, I voted for Clinton, both of them, and Kerry also. If the Democrats can’t convince someone like me, their cause is hopeless.
2
So, as a US taxpayer, you’re okay with the president using your tax dollars to bribe a foreign leader extorting an investigation into his political rival as leverage to negate your vote in an election? If reaching into your pocket for your tax dollars for his re-election doesn’t move you, then check your pulse. Trump’s next bankruptcy will be you, the US taxpayer.
4
The longest years of my life have been the Trump years. Exhausted by the chaos and ethical challenges, the lying and divisive behaviors....I will be so incredibly grateful when the circus is finally over.
10
The GW Bush years were long and painful, too. Can't believe we as a nation have to suffer even WORSE than those years were.
5
Great article! Goes along with another commentary about getting used to Trump. I love the phrase "ethical elasticity." I'm going to use that one!
4
Committee Republicans are incompetent. Committee Democrats are unfit. The impeachment case is the sort that requires a senior career prosecutor—the best of the best. With all due respect to Schiff, 6 years in a US Atty’s Office 30 years ago is not enough.
For several years, cases like this went to Patrick Fitzgerald, a master of the craft. His conviction of Scooter Libby was textbook material. The Committee has not been handed a case. They are trying to make it from scratch. To date, they have relied mostly upon witnesses who want to talk. They haven’t ventured into the hard part. I would urge them to give Fitzgerald a call.
3
@michjas -
Clearly, they should have hired you to conduct the hearing.
1
@michjas
It's highly unlikely that they DIDN'T call Fitzgerald.
Being a smart man, and already financially secure, I doubt Fitzgerald would agree to partake in this circus.
He's not as old or feeble minded as Mueller, and knows a losing gamble when he sees it.
Its simple... i think the roy cohn strategy to win at all costs involves: Never concede any point. Act as a victim. Blame the opposition for stuff you do. Do not negotiate in good faith. Destroy everything that the opposition built even if it benefits you. Take the money as long as its not obvious.
Crony capitalists...
If you assume that the opposition is the enemy - these are the way to win. Thanks Frank for pointing out the evil in their position.
6
Frank, sadly in another column in today's NYT, a person who listened to the hearings stated that Jim Jordan was "shredding the Democrats and making them look foolish." Jim Jordan, a man whose oratory claim to fame is the ability to keep talking over people at high speed (reminds of the old FEDEX commercial), would be a mediocre carnival barker.
As to the attempt to exonerate Trump, C. Boyden Gray was on PBS Wednesday night and stated "the aid flowed and there were no investigations, so nothing happened. Move along." He made my jaw drop. Here's an attorney and former US diplomat with impeccable credentials mouthing nonsense. The rot in the GOP is thorough.
10
@Quinn
Did it make your jaw drop when Hillary Clinton used the same excuse about violating her ethics agreement with the Obama administration.
You didn't need to donate to my foundation to get a meeting, so what's the problem if people who did donate got more time with me and more help from State? And what if I forgot to declare $20 million in donations from foreign governments? They're disclosed now, so everything's cool.
1
Last night I watched Chris Hayes grill a Republican Congressman, and seriously I've had first grade students give a better defense of their actions. First he tried the old "You can only impeach a President for treason" line (not sure Clinton and Nixon would agree) followed by "Treason is a death penalty offense, do we want to execute the President?" When that didn't work he went down the "Hunter Biden is the real criminal here, and the President was right to have him investigated" road. Again, when pressed to answer the question of whether the Biden family's "corruption" would have even been on the President's radar had Joe Biden not been running for President, he couldn't give a straight answer, but pivoted to "Bribery and obstruction aren't impeachable offenses."
As I said, six year old students make more sense that adult Republicans.
8
I just finished reading this paper's story of ambassador Yavoviche's testimony and the republican's reactions. What wonderful people we have representing us throughout the world. They are truly the very embodiment of American exceptionalism. Those republican's questioning her are not worthy of the trust and the summons to dignity contained in the Constitution or oath they swear to. They shame the memory of the thousands of soldiers and diplomats that died on foreign battlefields. And Trump? No negative word or metaphor can find the depths of his debased soul.
6
There are no lies that appear to be as credible as the ones people tell themselves about themselves to rationalize their own compromised behavior. This seems to be where the Republicans are stuck. The worse the "Trump Show" gets, the more they stretch credulity to serve their own self image--they can't really see it, but to the rest of us, they simply look increasingly and obviously insane. So,fantasy? Yes--perhaps its more like some kind of mass hallucination though. They remind me of nothing quite so much as the rise of fascism prior to World War II. Look where that went in the end...
10
The Democrats get called out for not being more forceful about blasting Trump and company while simultaneously getting criticized for the impeachment hearings. At some point, it becomes the job of the American people to figure out that the're being duped by fantastical storytelling. Perhaps in the era of internet "facts" and reality TV it's harder for many to separate truth from fiction. And it's unfortunate that the majority of Americans have to suffer as a result of those that do buy into the fantasies and mythologies of the right.
3
Every new session should start with the same word "bribery" and with the same quote: "We would like you to do us a favor, though."
5
In surveying the extent of corruption in Ukraine-- and the actions of our president, his henchmen, and congressional toadies -- we reveal that the more corrupt government is that if the United States of America. I despair.
3
So exhausting. So baffling. So incomprehensible this behavior by the GOP and the people who cling to trump as some kind of savior. Their refusal to drop the trumpian blinders, open their eyes and see the danger he poses to the nation. His bald violation of the constitution he swore to uphold. It feels like we have stumbled into an alternate universe by mistake, only it didn't happen in 2016 it happened in 1963.
4
The Democrats have a magic mirror.
Whenever they look into it, they see what they want.
To the American people watching this obviously partisan and corrupt process, we see Democrats as they are - vengeful, spiteful, nasty, corrupt, sore losers.
The fevered Democrats seem to not notice the fake charges that they have tried to cook up collapsing around them.
They plod on as if people are impressed.
At this point it is doubtful they will even manage to impress themselves.
@Ken Pure projection at it's purest. BTW, Roger Stone guilty on all counts....magic mirror much?
3
@Ken
If you believe that, you are living in a fantasy. The evidence against Trump and his minions is damning, yet you choose to look away.
Sad. You've been duped by a con man. Sad.
4
Low life Donald Trump just smeared Ambassador Y while she was testifying before Congress!
Witness intimidation!
Trump is a clear and present danger to the entire world.
7
@JM
How can she be intimidated by statements she can't read because she's busy testifying?
The only time Trump is concerned about corruption is when he isn’t getting his taste.
3
The Congressional Republicans' behavior is an embarrassment to any intelligent person. Simply disgraceful, dishonest and down in the gutter.
Republicans don't care about right and wrong...they only care about stealing power and keeping it.
It's critical that people make their voices heard that Trump must be impeached and removed from office for these offenses. Call your Senators.
Polls and the threat of losing their own elections is the only thing that can move the Republicans.
5
The Republicans' various defenses of Trump's shakedown of Zelensky are as flimsy as Trump's own senseless denial of having raped E. Jean Carroll by claiming, "She's not my type." That only begs the question (which, alas, no one ever asked him) "What IS your type?"
Trump is a serial criminal, the common thread of his crimes (whether running a fraudulent university, operating a scam charity, paying off porn stars with ill-gotten cash, assaulting women, fudging sales stats on his condos) -- being the violation of normal boundaries. I guess they're a hopeless bunch, but Congressional Republicans have to wake up to the fact that in supporting the unethical Donald Trump, they're enabling his violation of what should be THEIR boundaries.
Jeff Flake may be correct that if an impeachment vote were by secret ballot 35 Republicans would vote to impeach, but right now, the vote will be public -- so may every Republican invertebrate who contorts himself/herself into a human pretzel to justify an unjustifiable support of Trump find out in his/her next election that their tolerance exceeds that of the public's.
8
Bruni, like most NYT writers, just can't go there. He cannot admit that Trump is a scheming criminal con-man and his henchmen are more a lawless gang than an administration or a political party.
Honestly, the extortion scheme almost worked with Zelensky scheduled for a TV interview to do his "quo" in order to get his money. This would have happened save for Congress hearing about hold-up and the whistle blower, Bolton apparently pushing back, and the White House being forced to release the funds.
Let's focus on using "crime" (as in "high crimes") words that apply like bribery, extortion, conspiracy, cover-up, and so on. Most of the rest is just weasel words that are only slightly more on point than the Republican diversions.
3
“The dignity of Republicans”?
3
To be ethically elastic, you have to have some ethics to start with. Clearly this GOP doesn't. For Devon Nunes to say yesterday that it was the Democrats who colluded with the Russians in the 2016 elections is perjury.
4
I can remember Watergate and how the Republicans acted back then. They were just as defiant, just as incoherent and clung to Nixon until they couldn't. The same will happen here, we have an election coming up. It is long past time we rid our democracy of these scabs.
5
One thing missing in your otherwise fine analogy:" I came to your house.....tied you to a chair----my arm twitched; every bullet missed.....I fled", therefore I did nothing wrong." I would add: "Someone saw what was happening and blew a whistle; The cops were coming!" I had to flee." The republicans conveniently omit the whistleblower component of the story in their no harm no foul theory.
5
Republicans should send this guy Donald Trump to Kallstadt to Germany, from where his Freddy the granddaddy, the German barber crossed Atlantic in 1885. It is laughable when he says that he has a better gene because of his German gene, later it was revealed that his grandfather was a barber, not a German noble man. Nobody cares whether Freddy the granddaddy was a German barber or German janitor, until 45th opened his big mouth.
1
We know Trump is in the pocket of Russia, but I wonder how much money Nunes owes them?
5
The July 25 phone call transcript shows Trump asked President Zelensky, as a favor, to “look into” allegations made by Ukrainian. This was a polite way of asking Ukraine to comply with the Treaty With Ukrainian on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters, which requires the United States and Ukraine to assist each other in the conduct of criminal investigations.
The allegations, one of which implicates Hunter Biden, are listed on page five of the whistleblower’s complaint. They are pertinent to the U.S. Justice Department’s investigation of alleged misconduct b y officials of federal agencies during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Although Zelensky readily agreed to Trump’s request, he discovered that under Ukrainian laws, presidents cannot initiate criminal investigations. The Ukraine prosecutor general’s office has sent the U.S. attorney general an invitation to submit a formal request.
President Zelensky and his staff are adamant that they never perceived a connection between Trump's request and military aid,
@William Case
Just because a mark doesn't realized that he narrowly escaped a con, doesn't mean a crime didn't happen.
6
@William Case Yeah, that's what happened....Even trump vanity pick for Ambassador to the EU said trump was more interested in dirt on Biden than any corruption in Ukraine. Do you really think the most corrupt President ever really gives a hoot about corruption in Ukraine. It's always interesting watching you tie yourself into knots trying to explain away the obvious.....
6
Frank, I remember the Clinton hearings and the Dems were...and still are...in LaLa Land. So this is nothing new. Same song...different lyrics!
1
Idiocy in the form of Republican Congressman.
Which perhaps explains why @DevinCow still exist.
And why devin's weak attempt to sue someone into silence will fail. The case is unlikely to succeed, notably in light of long standing free-speech protections for parody (something devin can't seem to grasp).
devin is a joke of a congressman; he is little more than a bootlick to trump and his adoring right wing fantasy crowd.
6
Trump is a master manipulator, a charlatan. You can watch the effect on the Trump supporters when they simply repeat his catch phrases: "witch hunt" and "hoax". Do they truly understand the facts of what he did and why he did it? It wasn't to help anyone but himself!
Meanwhile the White House administrators are defying the rule of law because they know Trump was wrong and got caught. They too are behaving this way only to keep their job, just like their boss. What we have now: the true patriots who at last speak the truth! Luckily this country is not a dictatorship (yet).
2
Many honorable people believe our “Mafia-Don" or "Con-Man-in-Chief” is “bad news.”
Shortly, he’s gonna “go through some things.”
And so, our civil discourse continues.
No one is above the law. No one.
Not even the president of the United States.
We will be assured of that, can’t we?
5
Just as with the Democratic impeachment zealots running these hearings, your seething, unrelenting outrage over President Trump's Ukraine behavior seems a tad one-sided. Where is your outrage over Joe Biden arranging actual, real-world, requested-and-delivered bribes by securing millions of dollars in sweetheart compensation for son Hunter Biden from Ukraine and China?
Tell me honestly, in your heart of hearts, do you really believe that Joe Biden's goofball, drug-using son Hunter is such a genius in international energy operations that Ukraine's energy company just couldn't survive without his expertise? Pulease!!!! The Dems' insistence that the original corruption by the Bidens that triggered Trumps' actions cannot even be looked at as part of this investigation wreaks of highly selective outrage, and so does your column.
I am not a big Trump fan, just a hard-working citizen totally fed up with ALL the corruption in Washington, not just one party's latest example. The Dem's insistence that the Bidens' corruption is absolutely out of bounds in this investigation is sickening. President Trump is not above the law, but neither are the Bidens.
And how I loved the Bidens' reaction when pressed about their behavior. Their statements essentially said, We did nothing wrong. And in a future Biden presidency, we'll never do it again.
Take off your partisan blinders and let's get to the bottom of this slimy mess--on both sides of the aisle!
1
"You don't get a Nobel Price for attempted chemistry."
Sideshow Bob
2
@Edward Allen These days everyone gets a prize. Trophies for all, yippee!!!
1
Fantasy, sure, but why dance around the truth:
They've embraced Trump's American neo-fascism.
2
The dirtiest man man of all operates by finding dirt on his opponents and allies. It’s a brilliant yet corrupt strategy. He has mountains of dirt on his biggest allies, which is what turns them into his lapdogs and sycophants. He’s always shopping for more dirt and cares nothing about where it comes from or what he has to do to get it. “Russia, if your listening....”
This house of cards was built with the help of Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, South Korea, and many other purveyors of dirt, each with their own mission and set of demands. Our stable genius president is the puppet of every corrupt nation and the United States has fully joined this unholy alliance. Did anyone expect anything less when they voted for the biggest con artist on earth? It’s really that simple, but horribly terrifying.
4
It's past time to drop "quid pro quo." The whole point of "quid pro quo" is that an illicit exchange took place. So call the illicit exchange "bribery" because 1) that's what it was; and 2) the word "bribery" is smack dab in the middle of the Constitution's impeachment clause (Article II, section 4: “The President … shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”).
The bribery consists of (a) Trump offering to do an official act (release the congressionally appropriated military aid) if (b) Zelensky agrees to give him something of value (start a criminal investigation of Biden so that, throughout the 2020 campaign, Trump can repeat ad nauseum that "Joe Biden is under criminal investigation"). In sum, Trump is offering to sell his office for personal gain. Textbook bribery.
Like all criminals, Trump has a modus operandi – and this is it. Solicit a foreign power to give him “kompromat” (the Russian word) which enables him to call his political rival a "criminal". It's exactly what he did in 2016 with Russia and Hillary. Now it's Ukraine and Biden.
In addition to violating the EXPRESS language of the Constitution's impeachment clause, this conduct violates two provisions of the federal criminal code: the campaign finance law which prohibits soliciting a foreign power for help in a U.S. election, and the Hobbs Act which prohibits bribery.
Lock him up.
3
What part of "serve at the pleasure of the President" is not understood? Apparently Donald was not pleasured with Yovanovitch. Donald has the right to appoint "any person" even if its a Playboy model or aging porn star.
1) The previous impeachment inquiry hearing yielded nothing and neither will this.
2) The whistleblower if a figment of Schiff's imagination.
3) Biden is corrupt and the media is helping hide this fact.
4) This is yet another Russia collusion witch hunt 2.0
5) Because of this show Trump will be re-elected in 2020
These are the true realities!
1
@RS
Oh dear. You believe that whistle blower is a "figment?" Then why have so many witnesses come forward to corroborate this figment's story?
5
The title on Devin Nunes is correct, the Republican Party has created the biggest HOAX ever foisted on the American public!
4
I can see some cartoonist envisioning WH staff (KAC?), looking askance at a sheaf of Kremlin kompromat w DJT nudies, and saying, "Yeah - let's bury these on that last server, no one deserves this pain."
2
Will the GOP be utterly destroyed for the next two elections because of this boot-licking toadying? If there is a God, you bet.
4
Ethical elasticity or total lack of ethics? To support a criminal, self admitted woman molester, tax cheat, bankruptcy king, Russian lackey is beyond all reason and cultural norms this United States of America, of a supposedly developed country.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. These trumpublicans in government are allowing monster trump to destroy this country, to keep their power. Sickening and criminal. Machiavellian. There is ample evidence although anecdotal, of the monsters' trangressions to law, decency, fairness and most importantly the Constitution. The so called party of principles have none left, other than the brown in their noses.
4
"A monster left unchecked creates an even bigger monster."
2
I support the President.
1
@Southern Boy
No matter what he does?
3
@Southern Boy
Why?
1
@Southern Boy: Sounds like you've thought this through.
1
It's absolutely amazing the depths of depraved indifference the Republicans will go to to protect their "Lord and Master". They absolutely KNOW that their GOP standard bearer is the absolute epitome of everything the Founding Fathers DID NOT WANT to be in the position of President. Yet, they have the ability to ignore their Constitutional oath, and any moral compass they may have one time had. They defend him with can be best described as "Bonzi Kamikaze" attacks against the impeachment proceedings.
I currently have faith that truth, justice and rule of law will prevail. I am following closely, although not with the high detail journalists and Frank here is doing. But that's their job, mine is to read accurate reporting so I can make my own conclusion.
That conclusion so far is not a good one regarding the President and his minions. I cannot understand the audacity of those saying 'he did nothing wrong', when the proof is getting so obvious. Many years back, such actions as this one by a leader would likely have resulted is 'tar and feathering and running out of town on a rail'.
However, that is not our times, there are so many that are easily gullible, easily dazzled, easily defrauded. We use to be a Nation ruled by common sense, human decency, pragmatism, truth and rule of law. I am hoping that those values are still at our core of of our society, and we will restore our Government to what is should be. I thank Frank for his excellent work.
2
In fairness, John Grisham's and Danielle Steele's fiction-writing is vastly superior to Jim Jordan's and Devin Nunes'.
8
@E
The cover design of Nunes' new book actually looks like a Danielle Steele novel!
1
Let's give credit where it's probably due. The creativity probably rests with the representatives' staffs.
2
Would somebody in the hearings and reporters interviewing republicans please remind them that their entire Ukrainian theory of hacking is not only hearsay, it's bunk. Our own intelligence services have stated that as a matter of record that Russia was responsible. Demanding that all witnesses give only first hand accounts of the president's actions is hypocritical if their defense is based on a wild conspiracy theory. Ask them to produce some evidence of their own if they are going to continue to trot this out as a red herring. I'm tired of no one standing up and challenging them when they start spouting nonsense.
8
Spot on. With no morals, no ethics, no concern for The Constitution, with no concern for law, justice and truth, the GOP uses only power. Members of the GOP are kept in line through the power of extortion; the same power Trump tried to use on the Ukraine. The GOP is about to leave their land of reality TV political drama and cross into Shakespeare - the King is naked!
4
A good summary of the GOP's shenanigans yesterday. But the
problem we have, that is both dangerous to the republic and deeply saddening, is that 4 out of 10 of our fellow Americans will believe each and every word spouted by Nunes, Jordan and Trump et al. It is this unswerving belief that gives these men power.
How did this happen? Why do so many accept the, frankly ridiculous, attacks on the witnesses?
5
@Jerseytime " Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." Alice in Wonderland.
2
Re Trump's concern about corruption: he just got levied a $2M penalty for his fraudulent charity, so obviously his concern is genuine. About getting caught at it, at least.
6
Re. the nude pictures of the President. I suggest you contact either the SVR, the FSB or the GU (formerly GRU). They're all listed in the Moscow telephone directory.
2
Someone should take out a lot of ad space to remind the country that trump is more than capable of dirty dealing and corruption, and that the courts have recently taken him to task (though gently) for trump u and his “charitable foundation”.
The republicans can cover their ears and yell about how innocent he is, but it’s clearly not true. People who know the truth need to yell louder.
4
How bad is bad Trump on the spectrum of US presidents?
Did he institutionalize mass surveillance? Did he institutionalize the assassination of US citizens using robots? Did he compel participation in price fixed healthcare markets? Did he design mass incarceration or the system of policing that treats low income communities as a piggy-bank? Did he facilitate transfer payments to the fraudsters who crashed the world economy?
The US state of affairs was an unethical fantasy-land of self-delusion long before Trump ever became president.
I, for one, applaud Trump's incompetence.
3
Speaking of self-delusion, thanks for the blast from the CPUSA’s dippy past. Honestly, it’s like you people never read Marx OR “Discipline and Punish.”
2
@Robert Well said!
1
Another example: You're stopped for speeding. You offer the cop a bribe. You're arrested. Your defense: nothing happened, the cop didn't take the bribe and you were ticketed. Implied: there's nothing significant about offering a bribe; better luck next time.
6
The cover of the Nunez book says it all. What was the publisher thinking?
Tony Soprano had more principles than the Republicans I watched on Wednesday.
3
The One Party Party lies, cheats and steals, elections among other things, to keep the One Party Party in Power.
Lying to keep their enabler in chief in office is a small price to pay.
As you say, as fabulists they have a long way to go. But as long as they are supported by the propaganda machine, they don't care.
3
"Nunes’s best bit by far was his portrayal of Trump’s Democratic detractors as amateur pornographers intent on finding nude pictures of the president."
That image ruined by morning coffee.
5
Impeachment is the defense against Empires and Emperors, like Emperor Trump.
1
I believe the 'colloquialism' Mr Bruni is stretching for here, is 'they are otl- OUT TO LUNCH'. But why not? The do nothings have the 'congressional dining room' which IS (to them!) a free 4 star restaraunt that we, who can maybe afford MacDonalds (!) PAY FOR!
1
You're a terrific wordsmith, Frank, but with "Cirque du Soleil of c'est la vie" you have outdone yourself. Tip o' the cap!
Promoting Paul Manafort to lead the Republican campaign was a wonderful way to combat Ukrainian corruption.
7
Just Another Reason:
Vote Blue.
No Matter Who.
2020
5
I coulda swore Republicans called Rod Blagojevich not only corrupt be iconic of all Democrats for his attempted, but failed, attempt at bribery. Another flip-flop from Republicans. "Well, we've changed our minds now!"
2
It's quite a testament to the genius of Bill Watterson (creator of the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes) how often a particular strip so perfectly illustrates an episode in the horror movie, "President #45."
The creative maneuvers of the Republicans, twisting themselves into stunningly flexible positions to "explain" Trump's crimes remind me in particular of the one where Calvin is pounding nails into a coffee table, his mother comes screaming, "Calvin, WHAT ARE YOU DOING???!!??"
There's a long pause....
and Calvin responds...."umm, is that a trick question?"
https://www.reddit.com/r/calvinandhobbes/comments/8kd3y8/the_strip_that_got_me_hooked_never_looked_back/
2
I love the unwitting book cover design - yes, Devin Nunes is a Hoax! A fine example of Trumpesque superseding Kafkaesque.
1
they dont deserve to breathe the same air as these brave committed state department professionals
4
Jamelle,
When #45 was running for President he said he would hire only the best people. What we didn’t realize was he meant the best “white nationalists.”
2
“And all of us should have the mental limberness and ethical elasticity that Jordan and his troupe possess. They’re the Cirque du Soleil of c’est la vie. I’ve never seen anything like the Republican effort to defend Trump...”
While I appreciate the humor and generally enjoy your column, I must say that I *have* seen this type of gymnastics before. In fact, I’ve seen it all my life. This is what you learn to do when you grow up in a church that interprets the Bible literally. When you’re five years old and you learn a song about Noah’s Ark — “The animals they came in, they came in by twosies twosies. Elephants and kangaroosies” — and when you basically live in the library and you’re a gifted kid like I was (yeah I know, cue the jokes about what gifted actually means in Alabama, right?) you have lots of questions about Noah’s Ark. Lots. But what are you told to do? To believe it because it’s in the Bible. Essentially, to stop having rational thoughts.
You convince yourself that Science is not important. You may enjoy Science, but you feel an immense pressure to keep from disproving what has never made sense to you but what you’ve been told you must believe. How did a kangaroo end up on an ark in the Middle East? Simply don’t ask. Why was the Science portion of my ACT 12 whopping points lower than my English and Reading score? Because of Gymnastics.
Evangelicals will never stop twisting themselves into pretzels to defend the indefensible—it’s what they do.
4
“The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.” —Washington’s Farewell Address
2
Why doesn't the honest as the day is long, AG Bill Barr start an investigation right here into the Biden's wrong doing?
@Scott Kurant
Because this has already been done, ad nauseum, and no wrongdoing was found. Even the Republicans aren't stupid as to expose themselves this way.
3
These people shall forever tarnish their family’s names.
1
Mr. Bruni;
I have to tell you that from a personal point of view, there is a silver lining to all of this.
Before Trump became president, I couldn't spell racist, misogynist, or cronyism.
2
In watching Ambassador Yovanovitch’s testimony this morning, I am half nauseated and half outright angry. It is a tragic train wreck we’re witnessing that is aided and abetted by the GOP— a serious challenge to our ideals and the transformation of a once great nation into a corrupt and lawless Trumpocracy.
6
The GOP, once considered the party of "morality", have literally sold their soles to the devil incarnate. Their spines have been removed and replaced with a yellow streak. The GOP Congress no longer represents the people, but bow to the will of their king.
4
I would have thought the crime of attempted bribery *was* consummated.
2
The 'drugs' baked into this Ukrainian 'deal' are amazingly powerful to the point of making its defenders of its completely wildly publicly delusional - and just about glow in the dark with guilt and shame.
Perfect.
3
Fox news is the problem. If you watch Fox news Nunez makes sense. Russian hoax, really I thought the only thing we could all agree on is Russians trying to influence the election. Plus Nunez obvious hatred for any democratic citizen of the Untied States. Fox normallizes this whole presidency.
4
Looking away, is what Jim Jordan does best.
2
I've noticed that Jim Jordan is not aging well. He's only 55, but he's turning into a shriveled old crank.
1
Anyone else catch Jim Jordan talking at Audie Cornish on NPR yesterday? Surreal.
1
The crazy talk of GOP is really rich on double standards. A fact based contextualisation becomes a mere hearsay.They seem to have completely forgotten 3rd level and 4th level hearsay from outlandish sources was enough evidence for the president to parrot them on the July 25th call and sack the ambassador to Ukraine.
4
Try offering a cop a bribe to get out of a ticket.
He busts you and hauls you in.
Try claiming he didn’t take the bribe, therefore— no bribery occurred
4
That pretty much sums it up, yeah.
1
The only fanatsy I see is the one where the radical progressive left Trump haters, and their lapdogs in the media, think that this impeachment is going somewhere.
It isn't.
@Objectivist
You're not really very objective, are you, if you can say this in light of all the evidence against Trump.
4
“mental limberness”? I’d say the problem is the opposite, they are mentally stuck on the belief that Democrats are bad, and badly motivated. Everything the Republicans do follows from that conviction.
Every word Mr. Bruni. Every word.
3
This same crew was determined to spin Hillary Clinton’s defunct email server as a national security crisis, despite the lack of consequences.
2
" one hallmark of Trump and his sycophants is the projection of their own flaws onto their adversaries."
I think this should get more attention. Trump is constantly insulting people, but the bizarre thing is how self-referential is insults are. Words like "stupid", "sick", "worst president" are all descriptions of Trump. A vulgar term he used to describe third-world countries will probably be used by future historians to describe his term in office. When he impugns the motives of immigrants, keep in mind that the Trumps are an immigrant family themselves.
3
Ethical elasticity? Dishonesty, hypocrisy and seditious, corrupt partisanship is more like it.
The rest of the country isn't going to grasp the dangers posed to our republic by todays immoral and ethically debased Republicans and conservatives if even the liberals and Democrats won't.
1
I guess it comes down to my point of view. The lame street press, of which you are a charter member, has railed against this President literally before he took office. At first I had absolutely no understanding of this. I thought everyone ascending to this office would be given time to layout his agenda and try and move it forward. No, not this time. In slightly over three years you, the rest of the yellow press, and the old hands in WDC have tried everything under the sun to ruin this Presidency. Trying lies, innuendo, and rank partisanship on and on and on. Well thank you very much. Your efforts have created hatred between people of this country. My prediction is that nothing will come of this latest CF. I think you should buckle your seat belt, or in your case, sharpen your poison pen, because the Democratic Party will be rebuked by citizens of this country in the coming election.
1
What is 'attempted murder' anyways? According to the GOP there are tens of thousands of people unfairly jailed.
519
@Eric
"They don't give Nobel's for attempted chemistry"
48
In 1799 when Catherine "the Great?" created the Pale of Settlement to accommodate the lies with which Russia's aristocracy could blame the other for the misery of its citizens. Today Catherine's identical twin sister by another mother sits in America's oval office.
That is all that need be said by those who have heard all the stories of Catherine and her "greatness" whether the stories are truthful or allegorical. I first read of Trump in Toby Young's 2000 story of his introduction to NYC and its elite culture in How to Lose Friends and Alienate People.
Trump is but one of Young's most minor characters but everything about Trump and his madness is laid bare in a few disturbing paragraphs of a man who didn't belong in polite company and even less in a power position in what was once a country that strove to create a better world.
5
Mr. Bruni is completely correct and manages to find humor and satire in the continuing freak show that is the president and his minions. I used to bemoan the fact that trump's greatest weakness , setting aside for the moment his obviously questionable mental state, was his "tremendous" incompetence, but have since come to the conclusion that this is our greatest blessing in disguise. Given his world view and proclivities, imagine the havoc he would wreak upon the world if he was anywhere near as clever as his idol, Putin. We should be grateful for small mercies. However, all of that is just so much comment section bloviating in the face of the very real fact that almost half of the American electorate think he's great, doing a great job, improving their lives, has made America great again, and the victim in all of this. That's the real problem and it's scary and does not bode well for the future.
5
@Peter
I think the Republican attack on government that began with Reagan--notwithstanding the irony of a political party attacking the idea of government--is fully bearing fruit here in the sense that Trump's supporters have no respect whatsoever for the State Department and foreign service. To them, Marie Yovanovich and her colleagues work for an institution that they want to go away, that they see as the "deep state" rather than the foundation of our democracy. It's a deep mental illness. And a real threat.
5
@Clarice Absolutely agree. That still begs the question of how does one go about convincing half the electorate that their deep state paranoia isn't real with a sophisticated propaganda machine in Fox News that has made an art of keeping those fires stoked regarded as "Real News" and media such as NYT seen as "Fake News"?
2
I like Ambassadors Yovanovitch and Taylor and Mr. Kent.
I hope they will seriously consider running for office sometime soon.
4
@A. Stanton unfortunately I think they are way too smart too ever get involved in politics
2
Lovely thought.
1
During the Cold War, the witnesses would have been heralded as true warriors on the front line. More recently, flash back to the trumped up Bengazi hearings. Foreign Service members were praised -- by Republicans -- as brave people serving in dangerous trouble zones.
Now these same public servants are excoriated by the same Republican members. We are drowning in hypocracy and pretzel logic.
17
The GOP is onto something. We can solve the prison overcrowding problem simply by retroactively removing "attempted" from the criminal codes of states and the federal law books. Think of all the nice people who would be set free.
13
There is no question that the desperate deeds of desperate people in defense of the indefensible are transparent as such to anyone with eyes to see.
To me, the worrying question is “Will those with eyes to see be enough?”
I fool myself that I have stopped hoping for decency and a common reality from these folks, but I keep finding myself disappointed that there aren’t more Republicans willing to follow Sen Romney’s lead - or Rep Rooney’s, or Rep Amash’s.
Where, at long last, is their sense of decency?
11
Does anyone else marvel at the level of competency that Nixon's and his co-conspirators had compared to the current inhabitant of the White House and his defenders. Particularly when I hear Jim Jordan try to explain just about anything I think of the often classic definition of chutzpah, which is : Someone who kills his parents, then asks the court for mercy because he is an orphan. No one seems to be buying his point of view. Graham tries a different tactic and alluded that the administration is too incompetent to hatch anything requiring a good deal of coordination. I don't care for his bending the truth into a pretzel, but as incompetent on multiple levels as this administration has been, that argument may actually sway part of the public.
7
The world has just watched Trump engage in witness intimidation which Schiff immediately recognized. Astounding.
16
I should disclose that I have not read the article, but I have the need to comment on something, after just listening on the radio to the impeachment inquires.
Besides the obvious wrong doing of Mr. Trump, there is one fact that is accepted as normal : US embassy in Ukraine was trying to oust the corrupt ukrainian prosecutor, so...if let's say the French embassy tries to oust a corrupt member of the US justice system, would that be acceptable?
1
@Betty - The "sauce for the goose" argument would work except there is a large degree of difference between a corrupt prosecutor and an uncorrupt prosecutor.
The norms of sovereignty would agree that one country should not interfere with the appointment of prosecutors in a different country.
But context is subtle. What effect does can $391 million in military assistance have in protecting a country on the edge of the east/west axis if the country's system of justice is rotting from within? In some games, those who play by the rules are certain to lose.
The counter argument is that people disagree on what constitutes "corruption". The best argument here is that there is a recognized link between right doing and the body of law and that some laws are deemed more democratic than others.
So ultimately, this is a discussion of what constitutes democracy. Originally democracy in the United States didn't include slaves, women. So how democratic was that? The answer is - it was more democratic (at the time) than monarchy across the sea. Thus one can argue that democracies under some administrations are more democratic than under others.
This is what is so troubling about today's Republican voters. They think life under Trump is perfectly democratic. The slippery-tongued defence of Trump's foreign policy as regards Ukraine in 2019 is perfect if you agree that Trump is the embodiment of democracy.
I fear that the United States of America is in big trouble.
3
Mr Bruni, you nailed it. I would add one last contortion to your list, the worst one of all. The Republicans see their fantasy based torture of truth as somehow consistent with their oath of office. Somehow they look in the mirror and believe themselves to be defenders off the Constitution. This while they slam the very process the Constitution tasks them with performing, and enable the rise of an American tyrant.
The cults we've seen before grew in the shadows with small numbers of adherents. This Trumpist cult has dragged over a third of the country and all of the Republican leadership into its snare. Where is the tipping point when their fantasy becomes the dominant world view. 1984 seems very close.
8
The Republicans are so immersed in their Trump fantasy that they are willing to sacrifice the country. Very dangerous and reminds me of moments in history when followers become so identified with their leader that they are willing to do evil things. Listening to Trump followers on CSPAN, it's frightening how easily people are manipulated and unable to see what is front of their own eyes.
7
What is happening right now in our own government is so reminiscent - if you look at the history books - of how a certain person in Germany manipulated not only the people in his OWN country, but those in surrounding nations. Those “Never Trumpers” better learn the salute otherwise they’re bound to be put in the “camps” of the DISLOYAL. Just like those who carried out H’s orders, they too will have their day in court.
4
@LBW
Yes, this whole thing is making me think of a certain someone who had a certain number of deluded followers who committed certain crimes that led to our modern notion of crimes against humanity. It's all rather banal as certain female philosophers might have said.
1
Once again, democracy dies when the handlers of a self-declared dictator transparently refuse to push back and decide to just roll with the tsunami of destructive utterances. God help us, because the handlers will, it seems, never take a moral stance.
8
Bruni is overthinking this, a common error in intelligent, decent people who just can’t believe that what they see Republicans doing isn’t exactly what it looks like. There is no mental limberness on display, only the rank dishonesty that has come to define Republicanism. There can be no ethical elasticity where there are no ethics. Republicans appear to have no morals, no shame, no respect for the truth, no patriotism or concern for their fellow man prcisely because they have none of them.
8
How can Republicans possibly spin real-time witness intimidation tweets by Trump? This is so incredibly appalling - just beyond any possible reasoning by decent people.
9
I am confident that any decent, experienced mental health clinician or researcher, if he or she were to encounter any of these Republicans in private or on the street, and engage in an investigative conversation, would know with great certainty that he or she was speaking to a dangerously delusional person.
5
I am in shock at how many Americans think his behavior is okay. The people that are supporting him are so brainwashed by Fox News and their desire that he is the man they want him to be. Nothing like false hope. People believe in Trump more than the constitution. This switch to a cult like figure running the country, with blind support, terrifies me for the future.
10
"To a normal person, that’s proof of incompetence..."
To a normal person that's getting caught in the act.
6
When you pull back from the details, the Republicans' alternate conspiracy theory, in outline, is this: The DNC colluded with Ukraine to hack the DNC's own emails, which could then be used to torpedo their own presidential campaign in order to make Russia look bad and have a reason to impeach Trump after he won.
These are the same people, it should be noted, who brought us the Jade Helm and Pizzagate conspiracy theories, a large number of whom are evangelicals who think an openly sybaritic, massively untruthful multiple adulterer is God's representative on earth, and by the way dinosaurs and people lived at the same time. By those standards the alt-Ukraine theory makes perfect sense.
11
Did I hear-them-say, they couldn't accept testimonies unless they heard the whistle-blower say what he heard?
2
I think we are all very much fed up with the leader clown and his posse of weak-willed sycophants. We are saturated with the "news" which has turned into a mix-mash of informed opinion, grand speculation, and dissemination of unimaginative half-truths and lies.
I think we can all agree that this great experiment with having a reality show president with no government experience and decades of documented lying, unethical business dealings, and physical (the grabber) and mental abuse (rants on twitter) is not going well at all.
6
Great! This will be a slam dunk then. Surely the Senate will vote to impeach.
Right?
4
I have said since Trump was elected that this was a world where up is down: truth is fake news and lies are alternate facts. The GOP has become a cult of personality, their dear leader rivaling Stalin in revisionist history and lies. There is constant diversion and distraction of disinformation to divert attention from what is really happening. This administration is corrupt and concerned only with maintaining power. Trump is ignorant and incompetent, but a master of lying, repeating his lies so often that for some they are believable. There are not enough negative adjectives in the thesaurus to describe the malevolence of this man and his impact on the US. Your country holds itself out to be a shining example for the world, but this is no longer the case. RIght now he is tweeting against the Ambassador as she testifies to intimidate her and other witnesses. Franklin said you had a democracy if you can keep it. If this despicable man is not removed from office, the possibility of keeping it lessens. The curtain has opened and exposed Trump, Guliani, Pompeo and others' malfeasance. Every American should insist that Trump be removed or they will not vote for any GOP candidate. They disregard every tenet of democracy in their self-interest. It borders on evil.
7
Dfeferman
just now
Edit
The Republican members of Congress have yet to realize that removing Trump from office will set them free to actually do what they were elected to do instead of following Bone Spur around like a lap dog.
5
I am dumbfounded again and again by these Republicans who astoundingly refuse to admit reality. These elected officials like Nunes, Jordan, Graham, McConnell, ETC.....as well the MAGAs, seem to have a mentality similar to those in a cult. They seem to be under the influence of a form in a form of mass hysteria if not in some kind of figurative sense, mass suicide. Is this the hold Trump has in these people? Moreover, what hold does Putin have on Trump and therefore on these lemmings?
9
Since the House went Democrat, the political logjam has blocked all efforts at passing needed legislation. It is just like what happened under Obama. Boehner and Ryan hoped for better. Instead they got multiple Benghazi investigations. Pelosi, too, resisted partisan excess. But we’ve got about ten committee investigations of Trump.
The system calls for legislators to make laws. Instead, they are pretend prosecutors bumbling their way through criminal cases. If you had professionals prosecuting, there would have been indictments, cooperation agreements and witnesses granted immunity. Instead, we get stabs in the dark, bad theater, and no discernible strategy. The witnesses might as well testify in alphabetical order.
If Trump is not impeached, Committee incompetence will be a major reason. Delegating the impeachment investigation to politicians is simply ridiculous. And it’s great news for the Republicans. How stupid can we get?
2
@michjas
That is simply not true. Lord McConnell, or better known as Moscow Mitch, has decided to sit on the legislation passed by the House and sent to the Senate.
A power not granted him in the Constitution. In fact his job isn't in the Constitute either.
6
@michjas: The Democratic House majority has passed 100s of bills, only to have them die in the Republican Senate.
3
My favorite exchange that I heard via you tube coverage [that I will have to paraphrase as I didn't write it down] was when one of the Republican's "choir boys" demanded the Whistle Blower be identified and come in for questioning as we should have the right to confront 'who started all this'...the response from a Democrat Senator was...indeed they'd be happy to give President Trump a chair at the hearing...apparently a great silence followed...
6
I don't get Republicans. How can you trust a guy who, after 3 years of doing nothing, suddenly became interested in investigating Biden in mid 2019 (conveniently as polls showed Biden trouncing Trump)....never mentioned it to anyone...and sent his personal lawyer in a back-channel to do so, his personal lawyer who did so with two guys who were just indicted for fraud after trying to flee the country....and from a guy who lately started claiming that since he didn't pull off the attempted extortion and quid pro quo, it's no big deal.
And he forces out this distinguished diplomat for no reason other than she wasn't in on the Rudy/Igor/Lev back channel.
Yeah, nothing to see here.
Are Republicans capable of feeling shame anymore?
4
seniorcitizen3
Watching the 2nd days hearings right now. Lets see if I have this right:
In 2016 - 2016!- Trump & Co were already - repeat, already in 2016! - pushing a (Putin) Disinformation/conspiracy campaign that rolled out the Bribe machine. 1) that put Rudy on the payroll as an unregistered foreign agent at $500k 2) use military aid and weapons sales for Bribery. 3)To promote Disinformation/conspiracy theory No Matter who won the Ukraine election.
Folks, Bribery is the least of this. Rudy traveled around to other countries like crazy. We don't yet know how many other countries were Bribed. Its More like treason.
5
It's Fox news, Breitbart and a swarm of internet and radio personalities who are tearing down the fabric of truth and integrity. The Republicans are backing all of these efforts, it seems, in toto. Their greed has consumed them. Excessive tax breaks, the extraction companies who are lusting after our public lands for their enrichment, the destruction of clean air and water regulations for corporations to continue to pollute to reap more money . . . .
It all points to their moral and ethical turpitude.
9
Every summer a carnival would come to our small farm town out on the prairie. As kids we couldn't wait to get on the rides and run through the livestock barns but the big draw was the sideshow. The barker would tell us of the wondrous mistakes of nature which lie just on the other side of that canvas flap. The abdominal snowman, Bigfoot, a two headed baby and unicorn girl were all promised, not only to educate, but to amuse. We knew before we filed into the dark tent and stood on the sawdust strewn floor that what we were about to see was all fake but it was fun and gave us something to talk about with our family and friends.
So it goes with Adam Schiff and his inquiry. He promised that he had direct knowledge that Robert Mueller had indisputable, incriminating facts regarding Donald Trump that would end his Presidency. We waited in line two years, paid millions upon millions of dollars and got nothing. But don't look over there, look over here; we've got a gaggle of deep state operatives, some nameless and faceless, some who heard things second and even third hand, some who had memory issues but are now refreshed and ready to go and new charges are bubbling up every day. Come on in, to the place where the party never ends!
What the Democrats fail to realize is that they're show's about to run out of mystery and wonder and there's no third act to their play.
2
republican's fantasies include: President has the hiring and firing power of federal employees. how about intimidation power via tweet. what is the norm of hiring and firing in the industry: no discrimination and also no illegal firing. proper documentation of the firing process. yes, political appointees may be fired at the president's discretion but not the career employees who served the government with exemplary records.
5
I am shocked that Trump gets on to Twitter to intimidate a witness as she is testifying. It is bullying in plain sight. It is bullying of a woman by a powerful man. In addition it shows that Trump is not doing his job but has his eyed glued to the TV as usual - maybe Devin Nunes should have a word with him instead of grandstanding about the hearing impeding other business. Makes the US look like a 3rd rate country.
8
@Garry Taylor
Shocking moment. Nunes, the lawyer, and the other Republicans in view clearly looked rattled when that happened. Maybe they'll realize they are sacrificing their careers to defend a president who is law-less and not too smart.
5
@Garry Taylor "3rd rate country"? We are in danger of becoming a Mafia territory.
4
Re the "No harm no foul" defense of the extortion effort: many have noted that the timeline shows the plot was ongoing right up to the point where the whistleblower spoke up, the same event that caused Zelensky to abort the announcement that was the deliverable Trump was demanding only hours from making the speech. The extortion didn't fail because of "incompetence," it failed because it was exposed just in the nick of time. No harm no foul? Only if henceforth all bank robbers caught in the act before getting their hands on the cash get to walk free.
13
@WilliamB
What factual indication was there that Ukraine was going to do anything to appease Trump, after months of not doing anything?
You have nothing but a specious CNN claim that Zelensky cancelled an interview with one of their hosts.
Given how other Ukranian officials have been treated in the American media if they say the wrong thing, what makes you think he didn't withdraw because he realized how counterproductive that would be?
The fact is that nobody wants to talk to any Ukranian official involved in this.
The lead prosecutor Lutsenko has already been trashed by this newspaper as an unreliable source, despite heaping praises on him when Biden thought him a good replacement for Shonkin.
I dare the Republicans to try to indict Ambassador Yovanovitch's integrity when the hearing reconvenes. I don't see how they do it without looking even worse than the President, who live tweeted intimidation throughout the morning. We know who Trump is. Is there a Republican in the room that will do the right thing?
13
Can someone please say openly what has become painfully obvious, which is that the Republican members of Congress are glad that Russia interfered in the 2016 elections and that they hope Russia will do so again in 2020? They do not care that Trump regards Putin more highly than any of our allies. They do not care that he is carrying out Putin’s wishes regarding US foreign policy, throwing US foreign relations into chaos. They do not care about any of the issues or instances of behavior being raised in the impeachment hearings. The Republicans know that, at the national level, they are numerically a minority party; the only way they see that they can dominate US politics is to resort to undemocratic procedures such as gerrymandering, voter suppression, and ballot stuffing. Consorting with the Russian government and its operatives is an extension of that mentality, and they will say whatever they need to to allow such behavior to continue. Since 2016 the Republican leadership has done virtually nothing to assure the legitimacy of the 2020 elections, and their response to an inquiry into Russian interference has been to investigate the intelligence agencies who carried it out. Democrats respond by labelling Mitch McConnell “Moscow Mitch” and hoping that he will allow some bills safeguarding the elections to come to vote. This just isn’t a sufficient strategy! They all need to be removed from office.
15
@JS44
Your supposition would have far more credibility if the Hillary campaign gambit with the Steele dossier would have succeeded and she won the Electoral College vote instead.
Of course if she had won none of that would be a problem, right? Who cares if you enlist foreign officials to slander your opponent, so long as you win?
1
To Americans who understand that Donald Trump has endangered our national security for his own personal gain this is not a partisan political act , rather this is an act of patriotism to remove a tyrant from office. Being an obnoxious and odious person is hardly grounds for removing someone from office but breaking the law is.
I’m not sure how many of these Republicans have been brainwashed into believing this garbage but if it’s a lack of intelligence it’s alarming, and if it’s about brainwashing desperate individuals it’s even more frightening.
3
Despite Bruni's rant, the fact remains is that the impeachment is a wholly partisan effort and will not result in Trump being removed from office. It is more likely to result in his reelection.
4
@Robert The proceedings are partisan because the Republicans are prosecuting an agenda-based delusional system. That's why it's partisan.
9
@Robert It is only "wholly partisan" because the other party has buried its sense of integrity and justice--not to mention intellectual honesty--in an attempt to minimize what they must know to be damning evidence (evidence that would surely make them apoplectic if a Democrat were in the White House). Pointing out the one-sided nature of the endeavor does not tar the Democrats; it exposes the moral bankruptcy of GOP House members desperate to stay out of Trump's Twitter feed.
10
@Robert
You obviously think it's okay for a US president to coerce and bribe a foreign power to interfere in US elections and further the interests of Russia. You should be ashamed sir.
5
So Democrats now have someone testifying who lost the job she loved. Of course it was inconvenient for her but certainly within the right of a President to choose the persons he wants to work for him. However, I now know that if you are fired from a job that you believe you are doing well, you should look for something or some way to get back at the person who fired you. I expect that when a Democrat President is elected in 2020 and hundreds of Republicans are fired like Bill Clinton did when he took office, there will be many lawsuits and complaints by those who lost their jobs.
1
@John Bowman
She was a dedicated US public servant who was the subject of a smear campaign by Trump's lawyer and corrupt Ukrainians whose goal was to further Trump's personal interests at the expense of US security. You and your fellow Republican "patriots" need to move into the real world chum.
9
@John Bowman You don't see a problem with firing someone for the reason that she was refusing to participate in a corrupt scheme?
10
@John Bowman
Wow. That lame argument will not even play in Peoria. The ambassador acknowledged that she served, "at the pleasure of the president." She did not seek out avenues of "revenge;" rather she was subpoenaed to testify before Congress!
However, when an ambassador is suddenly dismissed, it is usually done for cause - such as in the case of an official freelancing against the stated policies of the president and/or state department. Interestingly, though Trump claimed he was holding up the aid to Ukraine (which congress had already approved and authorized to be distributed), because he insisted on a more vigorous commitment to fight against "corruption," within the Ukraine government.
Hmmmm. If so why fire the ambassador who is well-known for being the anti-corruption crusader? The one person who was pushing for the ouster of the previous government prosecutor on the take? Why did Trump call her "a bad character," and insist bad things were going to happen to her? Even Pompeo said she had done nothing wrong.
Could it possibly be that what he really wanted was a public announcement that Hunter Biden was corrupt and under investigation to help his reelection chances in 2020? That Trump wanted the same kind of political leverage that Comey gave him with the last minute announcement about Hillary's email? That only with that statement would Ukraine get their badly needed military aid?
Don't worry. Republicans NEVER let facts stand in the way of their "truth."
8
You're right, of course, to point out the absurdity of Republican posturing regarding... Well, just about anything, really.
But again, it's preaching to the choir. Anybody who cares to acknowledge absurdity did so a long time ago. Those who are blind or immune to it - apparently there are many, many people who for this bill - are reacting to their gut.
It doesn't matter that the Republican excuse changes with the wind, as long as it stokes a sense of outrage and grievance.
Emotionality is addictive. They're just feeding the beast.
11
The Republicans have been aiding and abetting criminal obstruction and they should all be charged with covering up crimes. All the congressman who speak at the hearings, like their witnesses should be sworn in to tell the truth....
8
Whether or not Hunter Biden was inappropriately employed by Burisma is now almost besides the point. The rumor and innuendo mill has already implanted doubts about the honesty of the Bidens in the public mind.
That was always the real goal of Trump and the GOP. And it has succeeded, as evidenced by Joe Biden's large drop in the polls.
Lies do not have to be true. They just have to be shouted.
11
Indeed, all those Benghazi investigations, the “but her emails” investigations, served that same purpose. They plant in the public’s mind a non-specific perception of untrustworthiness. Why Trump is immune to the same, despite the many investigations he’s been under, speaks volumes to the failure of the Democrats messaging.
5
Doubt existed about Joe Biden long before anyone ever heard the word "Burisma."
I wonder if the Republican's "defense" that Trump is too incompetent to do what he's accused of doing is their passive-aggressive way of opening the door to invoking the 25th Amendment?
3
And let's not forget sage Haley and her announcement that impeachment = death. It's just losing a job for high crimes and misdemeanors.
In this country, going to school can be the death penalty, again thanks to so-called Republicans.
8
Incredible writing, once again, by Mr. Bruni, in both style and content. Thank you!
7
The Republicans sold their soul to Trump. Or maybe not....... When was the last time they really -had- a soul? What DO they stand for anyway? Please inform.
12
Hear no evil. See no evil. Speak no evil. And, if that doesn't work, lie like a rug! And if that still doesn't work, because there are facts and truth, after all, take it to the Supreme Court and let Beerman decide the fate of the world. Being wrong is so easy.
5
Trump and his bungling cast of characters has demonstrated to America how 'inept' and 'incompetence' is practiced. Good grief, these guys make the Keystone Cops look like James Bond. If it wasn't so serious, what a comedy it would be. Though Trump and his agents are being totally exposed, the Republican Senate, being the cowards that they are, will run and hide leaving it to the electorate to finish the job. I have never organized voters for a national election, but for some reason I am not having much difficulty. Bribery and extortion by the 'Don' are clearly an asset in my efforts.
8
In addition to your efforts regarding the presidential race, if you were also successful in ousting a certain senator you would earn the eternal gratitude of millions across the country.
2
Laugh all you want, but I would offer that Jordan's and Nunes' outlandish rethoric probably convinces a lot of people.
2
@Y.
Unfortunately, there are people who are stupid enough to think their behavior and obfuscation is valiant or heroic. A lot of them.
1
If Trump is so concerned with corruption why would he make a deal with a Putin-friendly oligarch to build a property in Georgia (google Trump Tower Batumi)? Or is this (sudden) concern about corruption only for Ukraine? Hmmm, one can only wonder.
7
Article 2 Section 4 of the Constitution
The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, BRIBERY, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.
Trump had two things Ukraine needed
1. A White House visit
2. Aid money, already approved by congress
Bribe: I will give you a nice White House
visit if you go on CNN and announce Joe Biden is being investigated for corruption.
Extortion: Aid money will be delayed until you do an investigation on Biden.
Fact: Giuliani admitted he was working with top Ukraine officials to find dirt on Biden. He admitted he did it personally to benefit Trump not for America.
The case is clear and Trump’s guilt cannot be denied.
11
Get over it. The whole farce is a political wash and the inquiry will be buried under Black Friday and the general holiday rush. See you mid-February, when the Dems will have found something else to finally and forever get this guy gone, until he's reelected in the fall and the clown car starts its sputtering inquisitional congressional engine all over again. Yawn.
3
@Ken You just reminded me of my best friend's little girl. When she was five or six, and upset about something (like her parent's divorce), she would refuse to discuss it, offering as her reason, "That's boring!"
Poor you.
5
Where is Stormy Daniels when we really need her?
3
When I was a little lad and read the Readers' Digest, there was always an article called "Laughter is the Best Medicine." When I heard Nunes accuse the Democrats of looking for nude pictures of Trump, I laughed out loud.
The Democrats in Congress were silent, no doubt inhibited by the decorum of the time and place. This is a mistake. When the Republicans make a particularly stupid remark, the Democrats should give it the respect it deserves, laughter. Nothing is more corrosive and laughter.
14
"The impeachment hearings showcase their mental limberness and ethical elasticity."
Remember the Republican's "moral clarity" back during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq?
Perhaps the prescription for Moral Clariton(tm) needs refilling.
At least this time the press seems less inclined to take deceivers' word at face value in the name of "balance."
5
Shame on those American people who continually give their votes to these obvious fraudsters. Modern Republicans have allowed unhinged conspiracy theorists who would be comfortable in the John Birch Society to take over their party.
Hopefully, Democrats, independents, and those Americans who are still reading, analyzing and critically thinking will surge to the polls in November, 2020 and wash away this sad chapter in U.S. history.
8
No one has been more pleased by the July 26 phone call between Sondland and Trump from a Kyiv restaurant than Putin. Now the Russian thug no longer has to pay Trump to do his bidding. The threat to release a recording of the call is all Putin needs to keep Trump in line.
That recording is already paying huge dividends on both the western and eastern Russian fronts. Trump has been persuaded to betray the Kurds in northern Syria, allowing Russia to make incursions in that part of the world. And Putin is proceeding to secure his eastern front with the news that Trump is demanding a 500% increase in payments from South Korea in order to keep American forces stationed there. Japan must be trembling. Putin long ago identified Trump as a chump and a dupe, and the Russian strongman has been diabolically clever in his exploitation of Trump's pathetic weakness.
9
Almost everything the Republicans say about this impeachment inquiry was true about the inquiry they perpetrated against Bill Clinton for a purely personal matter, which was a genuine "witch hunt" that caused the public to lose confidence in the impeachment process. Now, they're taking advantage of that loss of confidence to try to throw a smoke screen over real crimes by a mafia boss president. Their diabolical ingenuity never ceases to amaze me!
7
" in a cultlike atmosphere in the basement of the Capitol."
If you really want to see something coltlike, Google "Trump Cyrus". This is a cult, invented by religious right, that preaches that Trump is a reincarnation of a Biblical king named Cyrus of Persia, and thus ruler of the US by divine right. It also makes Messianic claims about Trump, hoping that he will replace Jesus in the evangelicals' belief system.
3
Will someone please ask Jim Jordan this question: "If Trump shot AT someone on 5th Ave. and missed, would it still be a crime?"
14
@Patrick Flynn At this point, most Republicans would say it wouldn't be a crime if he actually shot the person. (I saw an interview of one "trumpie" who said whether she thought him shooting someone on Fifth Ave. would be a crime: "That would depend on why he did it.")
4
Hoax.....It sounds like Nunes' title has captured the essence of his own book.
1
Fantasy?Come on, NYT; stop using euphemisms! They LIE.
This crisis is inextricably wed to the media's early failure to see how dangerous DJT was despite the many markers indicating this and the habitual, now entrenched, habit of using euphemisms which conceal the full magnitude of the wrongdoing and, worse, normalize it.
The *choice* to cover Clinton's email "scandal" (how quaint) in literally hundreds of thousands of articles over the year leading up to the election came at the cost of doing basic research about DJT's criminal record.
It took me five minutes on Google the day he entered the race to learn that DJT had already committed, been found guilty of, and been charged with five crimes. I waited day after day to see that egregious wrongdoing prominently displayed and covered in depth on the front pages of journals like this. Had it been covered in greater depth this crisis wouldn't exist.
We're in the stranglehold of the two Es ...the Emoluments Clause and euphemisms. From the onset, those of us set on impeachment were because we knew the Constitution declares breaking the EC an impeachable offense for a reason. Our founders took the care to safeguard us against a president willing to sell access to our government because it knew almost nothing else, save a war of aggression, could do more lasting harm. Russia, Ukraine,Turkey...all are facets of breaking the Emoluments Clause.
This GOP has colluded with and excused this criminal wrong.
Call it like it is.
9
“...mental limberness and ethical elasticity.” = “lunacy and licentious.”
Trumps phone call was quid pro quo, but that alone is not what makes it grievous. It’s the ‘personal benefit’ that crosses the line.
If Trump had said ‘withholding payment until you... invade Russia, or devalue your currency, or dispose of your Parliament, or any action related to government’, ...an excuse can be made that this is the normal functioning between leaders. Quid pro quo between leaders. Job-related agreements.
But to involve his political rival, and to use non-governmental actors, like his personal attorney, well, that crosses the line. To make it personal is wrong.
Republicans know this. But they don’t care.
The ‘immoral Party’ will do whatever it takes to gain and hold onto power. Republicans _choose_ to not understand the phrase: ethics in government.
10
Have you noticed the Kushners, stars of "Toddlers & Diplomacy", always avoid situations where anyone can put a microphone in front of them, during these times.
2
There are so many countries in the world besides Russia, Ukraine, and the United States. If the conclusion that it was the Russians (who had the capability, the opportunity, and the motive) who interfered in the 16 election is a massive left wing hoax, why would the GOP focus on Ukraine as an alternate reality suspect? Why not name some other country with means and motive, for example North Korea, Iran, or even good old Israel? All the king’s horses and all the king’s men, for once, agree it was Russia, so why drag in Ukraine at this late date? The world is your oyster, Devin Nunez - just pick a country from the list of usual suspects. Any country but Russia will do, but especially one that doesn’t have a Trump branded property. (Note to Nunez: the dog-ate-my-homework excuse doesn’t work any more, either, but you could blame it on the cows you don’t have.)
2
Just when I thought the Republican Party couldn't go lower, couldn't show less backbone, less principle, less connection to reality or facts...
Well...Devin and Jim.
'nuf said.
4
Mr. Bruni's opinion piece today, should be required reading ( and debate ) in every poli-sci class in all levels of education from elementary to post grad.
5
Rod Blagojevich must be wondering where the Republicans are, who should be outraged and fighting for his freedom, that he is in prison for a failed bribery attempt...among others.
7
Just waiting for Trump to tweet,
"I am not a crook"
4
The GOP word salads and pretzel logic are aimed squarely at Trump's base, but how can they continue to support this President?
Self-preservation in the age of The Trump Party, but more importantly he endorses their right-wing agenda. The 2-ton elephant in the room is the future of not only the Supreme Court, but the lower federal courts.
If Trump is re-elected and continues to pack the courts with conservative, many unqualified, judges, it will take generations to undue the damage.
5
I think the Republicans have lived in a fantasy world for so long, they honestly feel they are correct and justified with their bogus point of view on this situation. Indeed, on any situation when it comes to criticism of Trump. Living in a world where only FOX News, Rush, and the rightwing conspiracy media personalities yammer on and on with lies and cherrypicked truths, they have lost their way. Their mirror is so cracked, they can't see the very thing they think they are representing. They have no idea of what America is or their role as legislators. Their goals are their justifications for an any-means-necessary logic and strategy when dealing with success or failure. This is indeed a time of reckoning. Donald Trump is little more than the Frankenstein monster they've created over the years, and they are protecting their very damaged creation. What is truly sad, is the probability that this kind of warped logic will continue long after Trump and his minions have faded from the lights.
7
Mr. Bruni, you characterize the Republicans' conduct accurately enough, but you leave out any reference to the the many millions of unwavering activists who defend, support, encourage and enable the GOP's deepening pathology. Those lawmakers wouldn't dream of behaving this way without that support. To continue to attack congressional Republicans without citing and reckoning squarely with their supporters is an increasingly myopic and unhelpful view of our reality, perhaps even a dishonest one.
3
The opening paragraph is funny, but it’s not true there was no harm from Trump’s attempts; harm to US interests as determined by Congress and Trump himself in the holdup of aid and the offered bribe for sure, and possibly some dead Ukrainians.
5
Thank you , sir, for putting so well into words the account of the circus performance by the Republicans at the Wednesday hearing. Shoddy preparation, reliance upon conspiracy theory and debunked information, bolstered by bullying have come to be the standard of this administration and the Republican party.
3
Republicans support Trump and their big donors. There is no line they will not cross to attempt to defend them. They are now attacking patriots who have given their lives to work in the interests of the United States. Many of them live in undesirable countries and do not make much money. If you are still supporting this GOP, you are anti-American and against the interests of America. Furthermore, you are condoning attacks on the national security of the United States. This is gravely serious and not the fantastical narrative of "no big deal" the GOP is trying, but failing to paint.
4
Why is it that the Democrats won’t use their power to jail individuals for not cooperating with the impeachment inquiry?
Imagine if Trump had that power? He would have so many jailed, he would leave the hotel business and start constructing Gulags. Maybe in Ukraine with guidance from Putin.
3
All Trump needed was to have Zelensky do the press announcement of his “investigation” to smear Biden. An actual investigation was unnecessary.
He knows that like the birther conspiracy theory it would be enough to do damage. The intent and desire is all there in the call transcript. And the timing of withholding and then releasing the money supports it. The Republicans are behaving like deplorable.
5
@SP
Because democrats don't have a real impeachment case. If they did do you think they would be relying on third-hand accounts and trying to turn the Ukrainian ambassador into some kind of little saint?
"How did that make you feel?" Seriously?
1
"They’re shrugging off the accounts of William Taylor, George Kent and others as hearsay"
I think you are misinterpreting what Republicans mean by "hearsay". No elitist dictionary definitions for them when it comes to "hearsay":
"We HEAR what you are SAYing - Trump is with a doubt an authoritarian crook who is trying to illegally fix an American election -- we just don't care."
Republicans don't care that Trump is trying to fix elections. They been trying to do the same thing with voter suppression for decades. Trump's innovation is that he is not waiting until there are enough conservative partisan hack judges in place to allow Republicans to "legally" kill off fair elections for good. Crude, but who are Republicans to stop him if it is working?
6
This is very simple. Most of the Republican politicians do not believe their own defense of Trump. They even know that he is guilty of an impeachable offense. Well maybe a few of them actually believe what they are saying. What they are doing is playing to Trump's supporters who will believe any lie the Republicans tell them. All the Republicans have to do is give the Trump supporters short phrases, such as "witch hunt" that helps them to ignore all of the real evidence. I just hope that there are enough people who see through all of these lies and who will vote to remove many Republicans from office including Trump. I wish that I could be more optimistic about the outcome.
8
Yes, Frank, the display of "ethical elasticity" is pretty incredible. But here's the problem -- we've seen it from the Democrats over and over, so Republicans giving it back to them is now just part of the political game. We saw if from the Democrats with Bill Clinton's impeachment, and with all the other slimy stuff from the Bill and Hill show. We see Dems not the least bit concerned about Hillary "colluding with Russians" to get dirt on Trump with the Steele dossier. We saw Hillary's email destruction ignored. We see Dems saying "so what" when the VP's son gets hired, apparently for no valid reason other than influence buying, by a corrupt energy company in Ukraine. So, now that the standard has been set by Democrats, once principal minded Republicans like me see what's happening with the defense of Trump as simply fighting fire with fire. We know that the real goal of all this is to get a Democrat into the White House, not to uphold the integrity of the office. And, based on what we are seeing in your primary, even Trump, with his many faults, is better than the alternative.
2
"I came to your house with a gun. At least imagine I did. I tied you to a chair, took a step back and repeatedly fired. But my arm twitched; every bullet missed. Meanwhile, you slipped your knots and fled."
Let's extend the scenario a bit.
After the alleged event, you walk out of the house and showed me what appears to be a smoking gun. Then a neighbor runs up and blurts out to me that he heard shots from inside of the house.I call the police but when they arrive, I'm alone and tell them the story. They want to see the gun and interview both you and the neighbor, but the police commissioner says they can't. The "victim" then appears at the scene, obviously unharmed and states cryptically that he doesn't think anything untoward happened.
The reporters who show up at the scene are met by representatives from the police commissioner's office who point to unhurt victim. They also point out that everything they've heard is secondhand and so not to be believed. They argue that since there's no direct evidence of any wrongdoing, you are free to go about your business.
Any resemblance of the above to GOP Congressperson reasoning regarding the Ukraine incident is purely coincidental.
Excellent article that summarizes Republican dishonestly quite succinctly. What has become obvious to me is that the Republican party is corrupt to the core. Some are straight up traitors, some are unprincipled opportunists and the rest are cowards. The rot runs deep.
We will see over the next month or so whether any Republican is redeemable. Jordan, Nunes, McConnell and Graham will not be on the list. Perhaps Collins won't disappoint again, and maybe Romney will back up his words with a vote. I am not getting my hopes up. In fact, I expect the worst because that is all I have seen from Republicans over the last two decades.
6
I'll wait for the end of the hearings to judge impeachment or not. As an independent I've spent many years amazed and amused at the hypocrisy of both Democrats and Republicans. The description, "The impeachment hearings showcase their mental limberness and ethical elasticity" remind me of the Clinton hearings when the shoe was on the other foot. Why are we even having hearings? Anybody think there won't be a vote to impeach? Here is an alternative for Congress, tackle stuff that would help us all, Immigration, Health Care, the Budget, etc.. He will be voted out next year anyway. Why give a game plan to the Republicans on how to deal with the next Democrat president. I heard from someone that they heard from someone that heard it from someone, etc. There are enough nuts out there without stoking a fire.
4
More like Democrats are living on the old TV show Fantasy Island. They arrive and are greeted with: 1) the President of Ukraine has repeatedly stated that there was no pressure applied to him from Trump 2) the actual transcript of the phone call confirms that the topic of Ukraine's investigations into anti-corruption efforts around Burisma is brought up but no quid pro quo is discussed 3) the so-called whistle blower does not show up to the impeachment hearings 4) the leading Democratic presidential candidate brags about having the Ukranian prosecutor fired while he was VP otherwise US foreign aid would have been withheld 5) the hearings are conducted in the most partisan manner imaginable with Republicans not being able to call their own witnesses or discuss matters tangential but relevant to Ukraine such as whether or not the country was part of the 2016 anti-Trump efforts undertaken by the same folks who started Russia-gate.
Is it any wonder that most people have turned off the impeachment show?
4
Not a transcript and you know it. Try again. Or better yet release the unedited audio. But they won’t and you know why: guilty, and caught red handed. A hard rain’s a gonna fall on that rotten orange bouffant; maybe we will finally get to see what it’s really made of.
1
@EE
You really should get out more. You’re regurgitating Faux News. Not facts.
1. No, he hasn’t.
2. It was a summary, not a transcript. Everyone admits it is not complete.
3. The Whistleblower is anonymous & hasn’t been called for that reason.
4. Biden was acting on behalf of the US & the EU & the IMF, not own his behalf. Do you not understand the difference?? This is the crux of the issue with this administration. Everything done is for the president’s behalf, not the American public.
5. Oh good gravy..... arguing process and conspiracies started by the Right to muddy the waters and bring everyone down into the mud is a waste of time.
The problem is with you and anyone else who expects a “show”. This is not entertainment, though I would hope adults would have greater than a 5 minute attention span. Apparently not.
This is about a grifter and his sycophants controlling our country for their benefit, not ours, without regard for the future.
3
@EE Thanks for the Fox news talking points. Flash: Rules were made by REPUBLICANS in I believe 2014-2016. 47 Republicans in the closed-door depositions made it REALLY, REALLY SECRET.
3
First, the Democrats need to subpoena the principles in this case, and hold them in contempt if they do not show and levy strict penalties if necessary. Secondly, the Democrats need to openly investigate the Trump administration’s dealings with Russia. All documents and meeting minutes need to be exposed. Trump’s dealings with V. Putin are most egregious. Russia not only offers instances of bribery, but possibly actions bordering if not actually treasonous.
7
All the president needs to do is release the actual transcript of the telephone call.
Democrats could stipulate in advance that if he did so, they would terminate the public hearings and let the chips fall where they may.
He of course will never do that.
The details of his transgressions and lies can be found in all the things he's paying attorneys to hide, from his tax returns, to his school transcripts, to his unrecorded meetings with dictators the world over.
The Supreme Court is our last firewall.
What will the Justices do?
4
The GOP's (mis)behavior to date is easily summarized as follows: ANYTHING a Republican does is okay with the GOP, regardless of what the Republican actually does.
Moreover, NOTHING a Democrat does is okay with the GOP, regardless of what the Democrat actually does.
Ergo, if Democrats are busy trying to hold a rogue and runaway Republican accountable to the law, they are (to the GOP), traitors and scoundrels who must be stopped at every turn.
Further, if that same rogue and runaway Republican is riding roughshod over law and order and democracy, to the GOP, that Republican is a patriot and hero who must be protected and supported, no matter what.
Should our form of government survive the Trump Regime and a Democrat take power again, look for the GOP to pivot immediately to a posture of pretending about things like law and order, accountability, deficits, fairness, etc. But it remains only a posture, because, to the GOP, within their ideological confines, only what they do is good; all others are evil incarnate -- and if any non-Republican tries to hold them accountable to things like law, then those folks are even worse than evil. This is exactly how the GOP reacts to this stuff.
6
However, sadly readers of the NY Times Opinion section are not the target audience of such verbal gymnastics. Here in my little Red State corner of blue Connecticut I listen to plenty of my neighbors who have completely bought into the idea that Donald Trump was legitimately and heroically attempting to investigate the Corrupt Bidens against the machinations of the Deep State, and that nothing that happened in relation to Ukraine policy was in the least bit problematic.
4
@sd
In this little corner of your world, there is plenty of denial as well. For example, how many NYT readers believe there is nothing to the allegations that Ukraine was involved in our 2016 election?
Groupthink is alive and well.
2
A simple message to the Republicans in Congress, to the Fox News op ed talking heads, “YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH”!
The same Republicans who decry the concept of safe spaces on campuses huddle protectively in their safe space kissing the ring of a despot.
It should be inconceivable to have a major news network ( Fox) in Orwellian style, predigesting news and present only distorted but supportive of Trump, or derogatory to his foes.
This will end badly.
5
when you hate Trump enough it's easy to interpret what he says and does is illegal. And when an election is coming and the Democrats have nobody that is electable running it intensifies the effort to find Trump guilty of something.
Interesting how the leftist New York Times find nothing interesting about the fisa warrants or the Steele dossier or spying on a political campaign based on false pretenses.
major media behaves exactly as a paid employee of the Democratic Party and has no resemblance to journalists at work. Republicans are always defending themselves from the media and the Democrats are always assisted.
2
I agree that the Democrats might be going into overkill on this one. They have plenty of evidence to Impeach the President not only on abuse of power but also Bribery and obstruction of Justice. In fact one could argue that there is more evidence to Impeach Trump already out in the open than there was to Impeach Andrew Johnson, Nixon and Clinton combined. The Obstruction of Justice is the most obvious to me. If I just ignored subpoenas and refused to turn over documents requested by subpoenas I would probably be held in contempt of court and sit in jail until I did comply. If we truly live under the Rule of Law why should the President not face the same type of consequences? Throw in witness intimidation done openly over Twitter, at Rally's, in front of news crews. Trying to out a Whistle Blower. Witness tampering by threatening their jobs if they do comply and you have an open and shut Obstruction case without even bringing a witness up. The attempted bribery is also very easy to recognize based on the testimony already given by the first two witnesses. This President is dirty and he was dirty before he was even elected. Note to Republicans. If you hire an inept mob boss to become the President you should expect what comes out of that. That is blatant corruption, criminal activity and a large number of Americans who want him removed from office after he does what inept mob bosses do. Get caught up in a web of their own misdeeds.
2
Corrupt people are furious that anyone dare get in their way.
Trump and his allies and foreign BFFs are as corrupt as it is possible to be in their various contexts. Also, Trump seems to benefit Putin at every turn.
Please read chapter 19 of Maddow's Blowout for a brief and powerful summary of why Trump Inc. is on the side of tyranny and corruption, not of democracy and freedom.
5
In public psyche , regardless of the issues some people just become villain character.
David Nunez is the textbook example of that persona.
Mr. Nunez no body likes you, No body feels any empathy for your work.
Even Rudy Giuliani has more likes than you.
I do not know your tenure and carrier in Congress will be remembered.
a useful stool for Trump.
1
The Republican base is conservative, evangelical christian, and puts belief ahead of things like facts and science. Those who truly believe that the world was created in 6 days (with rest of the 7th), that virgins can give birth, and that dead people can come back to life before miraculously ascending into heaven you long ago made a decision to prioritize belief over facts. "Believe me." It is a two-word phrase repeatedly used by trump. The base - and thus the Republican Party - is convinced that if they believe something strongly enough that it will become true. None of the testimony in the Impeachment process means anything to them. None of it. They believe that there was no crime committed. They believe Trump did nothing wrong. All they have to do to make is so is stick solidly with their beliefs and it's the rest of us who are wrong.
5
Nailed it to the cross, Vanessa! Trump voters take it on FAITH that Trump is their personal representative and savior. No facts or arguments will persuade them otherwise. In fact, just advancing the idea that Trump is not in their corner and right all the time is a SIN. And, hallelujah, don’t you see that confirming crown of glory on his head!
Where do Trump voters come from? There’s one born every minute.
1
There is a cycle of extortion. Putin has Trump right where he wants him. Trump laundered Russian money via DeutscheBank. What else does Putin know? Putin will reveal all the dirt he has on Trump if he does not do his bidding. Pulling troops from Syria. Withholding funds from Ukraine. What is next on Putin's punch list?
6
Ethics, to Republicans, is just an afterthought, a pesky reminder that allegiance to a master demagogue in-chief takes precedence...for self-preservation. All around, a royal disgrace for this democracy.
1
Sadly, the Republicans leading the "defense" of the indefensible remind me of the pack of the mean, wild eyed pack of animals that are always the most scary element in Disney movies. Watching them "perform" in the hearings, maligning dedicated, patriotic and non-partisan diplomats and intelligence personnel is shameful.
Everyone in the hearings and watching them, should step back from what they think they believe and listen to the evidence. Serious evaluation of the facts should be the criteria for making decisions, not deluded loyalty to the president. I was going to say con artist in the White House or other derogatory term, but decided to abide by my own advice to not 'pre judge' by my own biases!
However, watching the crazy antics of those pushing back from the facts makes it hard to observe in a calm fashion and be objective about any possible outcome.
5
Nunes and Jordan revealed themselves as the epitome of DEPLORABLE. Their defense that there are not direct witnesses, because they suppressed them all and intimidated them to not give testimony, is in of itself treasonous and jail worthy.
4
Frank, I share your incredulity and I think the pertinent point you made is that "We have the smoking gun!!" And we heard it with our own ears. But if anyone can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, it's the Democrats. The Republicans, however, are truly shameful. It's both frustrating and sad to watch them in action.
3
Nunes and Jordan have surrendered the privilege of calling themselves Americans.
5
Taking all this into consideration, I do believe that so much more criminal activity by this president and his minions is still forthcoming. Our debt is the worst ever when it should be better. Their spending knows no bounds. I'm positive bribery and backroom deals must of taken place. That's how Trump rolls. For the first time ever, my country feels "dirty." Not good.
4
During my teenage years, “ Harlequin Romance “ was a brand of pulp novels for semi-literate girls and older, slightly daring Ladies, taking a break from the usual drudgery. Invariably, a young woman was placed in danger and after a hundred pages or so, a strong Man would rescue Her and make her life better. This is all a variation on that theme “ Harlequin Bromance “, where a strong, Rich, famous, daring Superman rescues the poor Republicans from their own misdeeds and fight the Evil. The Evil being Democrats, The Press, Science and Reason. Yes, it’s all a Fantasy, and it’s ALL they’ve GOT. As usual.
5
Strong words but strong enough? Will the folks in red MAGA hats read it? Please continue to be forceful, even more forceful, maybe, just maybe the Republican cabal will start to remember their oath to the American people and who they started out to be.
2
What confounds me so much is why they are so scared of a such a weak man. As we have seen in some recent state elections, the president's endorsement is hardly a kingmaker. So, why do they publicly flog themselves in the service of the Orange Emperor? It is not the man himself they fear, but all the hands pulling on his strings. There are powerful, rich men who like the way things have been going under Trump's reign. They would very much like it to continue. Anything but absolute obedience to the Dear Leader is viewed as a threat to this status quo. Always keep that in mind when you see these supposedly well educated Republican legislators perform their logical contortions.
4
Given the nature of media these days, it's hard for the televised impeachment process not to be 'TV theater.' And the Republicans are struggling to get their time on stage by once again, today, starting with interruption, disruption, and eruption. It was a wonderful reenactment of Trump's tendency to ignore the rules, blurt out, bluster, and whine his way out of a mess he finds himself in.
An interesting question is the degree to which the believing Republicans tuning in (via Fox) will find the antics heroic and compelling, along with the House Republicans' 'cross-examining' at this point. As the drama unfolds, it may be less a matter of reason and argument, but which actors win the heart -- and votes -- of viewers still tuned in at the end.
4
Throughout the hearings and Senate indictment it is really really important for us to remember, and remind Republicans of who is a key beneficiary of all Trump's actions. Russia.
Last night Rachael Maddow on MSNBC did a good job of listing all the benefits Russia has accrued from Trump. They are now in control in Syria. They are unchallenged in Ukraine. NATO has been weakened. The list goes on and on. Who has done this for Russia? Trump, and by enabling him, so has the rest of the Republican Party.
If it hasn't done so already, I think the New York Times would do us a great service by compiling a complete list of all the actions Trump has taken that benefit Russia. Then keep it front and center through the entire impeachment process.
Then when a Congressperson pulls out a "nothing-burger" or "its just incompetence" everyone can rightly ask, whose side are YOU on?
I believe I know the answer. And it ain't the United States of America.
11
@CA John I agree with you 100%. Certainly it will benefit the Trumps after his presidency ends their hotel businesses in Russia, Turkey, and other non-NATO countries. All that trump wanted was the Ukrainian President to say something on TV so that he could then twitter it and lie, see, Bidens's are Corrupt! What group of smuchs the Republican party are.
1
This is the consequence of Republicans selling out, for several democrats now, any belief in truth to defend an indefensible man. Their laughable defense of Trump didn’t happen spontaneously.
4
If this isn't obstruction, what is?
4
This is the quid pro quo/ bribery we’ve heard about. This is the one with a whistleblower. Are there others?
5
@Lola
Quid pro quo is no longer even mentioned. The whistleblower and quid pro quo -- two of the democrats' primary reasons for impeachment -- have now totally disappeared.
Today it's bribery. Next week who knows?
1
The foundations that make up Trump's vision of reality are crumbling and when it all comes tumbling down it is going to make a horrific crash as it destroys all those continuing to try and hold it up.
4
Even though Trump voters are incapable of parsing the truth from the wreckage of this president and the republicans that inhabit the House and Senate, it will be instructive to see if they figure it out before the election in 2020. If Jim Jordan were to have the same offences committed against him that he is attempting to commit against democracy, he would quickly call the police and report a crime.
The Republicans are acting in a very cowardly manner in hiding behind the fiction they are attempting to sell to America. The part that mystifies me every day that I watch this train wreck evolve, and the question that I have is: Are Trump supporters wiling to surrender democracy? This is important because those same Trump supporters who voted for him, are the most likely to suffer at their hands with less health care and greater give-always to their buddy corporate billionaires. Are Trump voters so afraid of immigrants? Are they fearful of being murdered in their homes by illegal immigrants? Trump would have you believe that you will be murdered by illegals. He stokes those fears and the fearful eat it up. They believe that having a high wall on the border with Mexico will solve their problems and that they need lots of guns ready to return fire at a seconds notice. How do they sleep at night?
As a Canadian I am having a hard time figuring out the mindset of republicans. Walls, guns, fear, corruption. What happened to the America that we all used to know and love?
6
If the Jordan-Nunes approach is the Republican standard for investigating wrongdoing, then we may as well get rid of the criminal justice system and use a roulette wheel instead.
3
Fiction is the strategy far more generally than just Trump’s behavior. Voter suppression is depicted as elimination of imaginary fraud, tax cuts for the rich are a benefit to the middle class, Mexicans are gang members and rapists or will be when they grow up. The fundamental concern is that Democracy assumes a rational electorate, but this is broken when one of the parties derides facts. Fiction is the yoke of the gullible by which Republicans steer the country.
2
It's all about grabbing power and doing anything to keep it. Ride the morals horse while it suits and ignore when not
Ride the fiscal horse when it suits and ignore when not
Redraw voting districts to maintain power
The important thing is to gain power and hold on to it
5
If Democrats did actually want to serve up a conviction in the senate, it would be by altering public opinion, forcing the hand of senators. The sad truth today is that people don’t read anything beyond what they are conditioned to believe by select media outlets that maintain an inflexible political bent. It’s lazy and elitist to suggest that conservatives who support trump regardless of the revelations coming through house impeachment proceedings are illiterate or dumb. Those people read just as much as your lay lefty. To render this episode of impeachment as anything other than a partisan rallying-cry, you need targeted advertisements - on television, radio, online and in print. These advertisements need clearheaded language and value based appeals on why the president’s conducts merits impeachment and removal from office.
But my suspicion this is no more than a partisan call to arms, to spike partisan voter turnout - partisanship of which I believe is anathema to our recovery from this highly divisive administration and overall media environment.
3
@Sean What? The guy was caught red handed, we have witness hiding behind executive privilege, including giuliani, You catch a thief, he goes before a court of law. When you catch a political thief, he goes before a political court. This is what impeachment proceedings are for. High Crimes and Misdemeanors for sure. Sean. Bribery, Extortion, and colluding and fraternizing with non-democratic countries to undermine the west. Are you looking for pure white bread? Its not healthy for you. Eat whole grain. You will live a lot longer.
2
It would seem, from Lindsey Graham's comment, that he considers Trump to be "so incoherent that he is incapable of acting as the president" (of the US). In that case why does senator Graham support Trump? Do the Russians have pictures of senator Graham 'in flagrante'?
2
Over the past 30 years, the republican party has tried to convince americans that they despised abortion every 4 years, just so they could wring their hands while actually doing nothing to prevent abortions, while enacting Tax cuts. They talked about welfare queens even as the greatest welfare queen , the arms industry , became more and more entrenched in our corridors of power and our budget. They impeached a president for lying about a sexual encounter even as they encouraged another president to go to war while lying about weapons of mass destruction. They have denied climate change even as the world around us is collapsing due to this scientifically predicted problem. they withheld a vote on a Supreme court justice, because the american people ( who had already spoken in electing the president) needed to speak about who they wanted to pick the next judge.
These are not wild gyrations of fancy and magical thinking, this is well practiced behavior reaching (i hope) its pinnacle!
Our message to the rest of america must be, that the emperor has no clothes!
3
I heard a politician say this on one of the news shows and it stuck with me: In order to believe Trump, you have to believe that every other person is lying. I don't (believe Trump or believe that every other person is lying).
3
"To Excuse Trump, Republicans Embrace Fantasy"
The problem, Mr. Bruni, is not that Republicans embrace fantasy. It's that many of us do not trust the (largely liberal) media who report the news of the world. It's the downside of the extraordinary, and deserved, loss of credibility of platforms such as the New York Times.
Reading political news in the Times, many of us are of the impression that most of the reporters and editors at the Times select the facts to report based on their personal political persuasions, and ignore facts that don't fit.
Thus, I find Mr. Trump's phone call to have been very much inappropriate. But whether or not it's an impeachable offense depends on whether such behavior is unique to Trump, or standard operating procedure for the folks that reside in the Beltway. The Times does not provide this context, at least not in a manner I trust.
Do you remember Chinagate - the Democratic and Clintonian scandal from the mid 1990's? The Chinese were alleged to have made donations to the DNC and Clintons to influence American policy. Was that very different from today's Ukranian affair? Recall that the President in 1996, Bill Clinton, is the spouse of the 2016 Democratic nominee, and that Ms. Clinton explicitly promised that if elected she would make Bill part of her administration.
And so, to paraphrase the Moody Blues, we are left to decide which is right and which is an illusion.
3
@Alex What is it about the truth that scares you? Is their large comfort in the Republican blanket of re-written rules such that even when being lied to our faces, our friends and neighbors saw and heard the lies, and have experienced this person lies previously, to their face, its ignored? Its totally baffling to blame it on the Media? Didn't everyone go to high school where they taught skills in observation, reasoning, and fact finding as well as rationalizing on ones own the difference between right and wrong. Trump just got a bunch of our allies killed in Sryia? Do you think his hotels in Istanbul weren't on his mind? That the Russian and Turkey benefited? Iran is benefiting? What has the Media's reporting of facts impart a lack of credibility? Is it because they are not the facts you want to hear? Pretty much a shame. That is the new America. Come thee all. Embrace the 7 deadly sins.
1
@Thaddman
Truth is nothing without a complete set of facts and context.
Truth is nothing without a clear demarcation between fact and opinion.
No reasonable person can say that this paper's reporting fits those requirements.
1
Sadly, 40% of the electorate saw the hearings and thought the Republicans absolutely nailed the Democrats to the wall for what they consider a “phony witch hunt.” Trump could take the constitution out of the National Archives, fly to Russia, and sit in the Kremlin doing a live tv performance of him and Putin literally shredding the document and 40% of the electorate would not care. This has nothing to do with facts or truth or evidence. This has to do with Republicans getting sound bites of them “owning the libs” so clips can be made for Facebook and Fox News to reinforce views trumps base already holds. To that end, the Republicans succeeding brilliantly.
3
The GOP has evolved into the Keystone Kops of Congress. Their frenzied and reckless rhetoric would be comedic-- if it weren't so dangerous.
4
In order to attack Mr. Melania Knavs Trump you seem to embrace the fantasy that since Mrs. William Jefferson Clinton won 3 million more national ' popular votes' than Trump in 2016 that the meaningful Electoral College Constitutional republic majority vote that he won doesn't matfer.
In our republic votes cast in one state don't count nor matfer in allocating Electoral College votes.
America is not and never was meant to be ' our democracy'.
America is a very peculiar kind of republic. A divided limited different power constitutional republic of united states.
Where the Senate, Electoral College, the Cabinet and federal courts stand as bulwarks against democracy. And the size of the House of Representatives and Electoral College are capped to the disadvantage of more populous states.
1
Here we find ourselves again where bold faced lies, clear as day, seem to slide right past as fact to so many.
The disorienting distortions are way too familiar to the justifications for invading Iraq. Same party, same unhappy outcome.
2
Curiously, it is the Republicans that are providing the Kabuki theater, not the Democrats. As the saying goes, "When the law doesn't support you, you argue the facts. When the facts do not support you, you argue the law. When neither the law nor the facts support you, you bang your shoe on the table and argue the process". It seems the Republicans have attempted all three strategies with no discernible success.
3
Whenever Jim Jordan speaks dogs begin to howl! When I heard Republicans added him to the committee hearings at the last minute, I knew that THEY knew Trump was guilty. Jordan’s rapid fire, machine gun mouth may cause everyone to pause and roll their eyes until he takes a breath, but it will not alter the fact that Trump is guilty of unpresidential behavior worthy of impeachment.
4
The unwillingness of ALL Congressional Republicans to honor their oaths to uphold the Constitution – and thus, to remove a person who clearly has committed attempted bribery and other high crimes – and indeed claim that nothing wrong was done leaves the American public with only one option to preserve our form of government:
VOTE THEM OUT. VOTE THEM ALL OUT.
4
To put a slightly finer point on it, let's ask the question as to whether we would accuse and convict those scam artists that keep calling so many with the false information that they have a warrant for an arrest unless money is turned over because of some fraud committed against Social Security or the IRS. Even the robocall is in broken English. If no one takes that bait, should they get off because they didn't succeed? Attempted fraud is still a crime, right? Attempted bribery by the current administration by withholding desperately needed, legally appropriated military aid, is perpetrating a fraud against the taxpayers and is illegal. It's very simple.
2
Dear Frank,
To describe the Republicans as suffering from"ethical elasticity" is neither fair nor accurate.
They a are bald faced liars just like the president. But since we are describing the behavior of a particular unique class of persons, otherwise known as members of Congress, we have to be fair. The Democrats are no better.
And any sentence uttered in Washington that contains the words "national security" or "our national interests" is bound to be somewhere between shading the truth and an outright lie.
Clinton survived impeachment not because he wasn't guilty of perjury, but because in the minds of the public, that particular lie had been told by countless men and had little to do with his duties as president.
Years later the super self righteous Ken Starr who led the Clinton investigation was found guilty of covering up the rape of several young women on his campus. The football coach was more important than they were.
And remember James Clapper, former NSA chief testifying before congress about how the agency followed the law to a tee?
The the Snowden papers were released and showed that he blatantly committed perjury, a federal crime. But instead of going to jail he got to go to CNN.
Bottom line, power corrupts and the Republicans and Democrats have usurped the power of representative government from the American people and they are both incurably corrupt.
For the current GOP crop, it's all about the money, and all about the power.
1
@Drspock
My memory of the Clinton impeachment, and specifically the "perjury" charge, is somewhat different than what you presented...
In every single jurisdiction in this country in order to charge someone with Perjury, it is legally REQUIRED to include the statement(s) believed to constitute perjury as part of the charging document.
Nowhere in the article of impeachment charging Bill Clinton with perjury is it ever listed what exactly he said that should be considered Perjury. When confronted about this by Clinton's lawyers the GOP impeachment team said that these statements would be presented as part of the Senate trial... but never were.
Basically the GOP impeached Clinton for "perjury" without ever presenting ANY evidence at all that perjury even occurred, much less that Clinton committed it.
(The "suborning perjury" charge likewise was insanely thin, as it involved a single conversation that Clinton had with his secretary about gifts he had given to Ms. Lewinski... a woman who had been ruled as non-material to the Jones case by the presiding judge. So in GOP world, talking about someone who has no legal bearing on ANY legal case is "suborning perjury")
Clinton "survived" impeachment because it was literally a sham.
1
Nothing Trump enablers try to do can ever undo Trump's actions and words and that of the testimony of our courageous long term government officials. Any actors pried loose from trump's coat tails would only confirm all that is being presented in these hearings. why else will they not testify and clear Trump's guilty image? Well there is the proposition that they are trying to keep themselves out of jail.
1
Actually, republicans embrace authoritarian oligarchy.
2
Ah, Senior Devin. The last great hope for the Republican House. Looking at his frightened expression after the hearings it would seem he has much to loose if or when Trump is impeached. But what could Trump be possibly holding over him and the rest of the Republican cabal? I am not sure, but I do know that Trump promises people the world in exchange for things. Yup, more and more quid pro quo. That is the way he operates. He is a shake-down artist and flimflam man. And Senior Devin must be beholden to him in some way. Perhaps Senior Devin received campaign cash from the ill-gotten gains of the Trump charity that was ruled to be a total scam and cheated U.S. military veterans out of more than $2 million that Trump promised those charities. Trump the loser is enabled by Senior Devin the liar, who is in turn elected by the party of illiterates.
Republicans, especially those in this so called intelligence committee continue to erode our Democracy, constitution and rules of law. Instead of concentrating on the impeachment and fact finding process, they focus on sordid and bizarre explanations in defense of Trump. There is enough in the July 25th transcript in plain English suggesting Trump was up to something. Allow the impeachment process to continue and the facts to present themselves instead of obstructing the process; allow time for witnesses to answer questions without cutting them off.
As far as Nunes is concerned…………..his opening statement/comments on the 1st day of impeachment hearings were reckless, despicable, divisive and dangerous to our Democracy and Nation. How does this man look himself in the mirror?
1
Years ago here in Kentucky the Speaker of the House was caught red-handed selling his votes for cash. Got it on tape and everything.
His defense at the trial was that he wasn't guilty of bribery because, though he took the money, he double-crossed the party of the second part and voted the other way.
Jury was out about 20 minutes. I believe he died in prison.
3
Frank,
Good point on the smoking gun. Perhaps like the committee Democrats, I'm always (to a fault) inclined to expose all the evidence that's available. (Although it's surely the case that they're doing some serious winnowing.)
Heck, we could open this way up. Trump has piled up mountains of fodder for endless articles of impeachment these past few years. It's all valid, even compelling. But there's something to be said for simplicity, both in the current matter and the larger picture.
So many lessons here. About implications for governing institutions and the future of the Constitution. About implications for sanity.
As you suggest, it's almost more interesting to wonder what's wrong with the Republicans. Always reality-challenged, their brains have gone bonkers on this one. Jordan at least tries to make a case. But most of them are in la-la land.
On that point, I like this: https://tinyurl.com/vj2woll
If I do say so myself ...
1
Why do we accept that Republicans not only embrace fantasy to try to achieve their goal, but also that their goal has zero to do with the welfare of our country? The fact is that what Trump is doing is all, every bit of it, serving to benefit Putin, certainly the US's greatest global adversary, thus every single person supporting this thing in the White House is, knowingly or not, a traitor.
2
GOP leadership and many of their voters are so much in hatred; that their elasticity is broken to a point - and they can't come back unless they go through full circle.
Rest of us need to figure out - how to give them a path back to real world before the current situation brings all of us down and American democracy forever.
1
As long as Fox News and their 'info-tainers' continue to support and echo the ridiculous Republican talking points, there will be no change in public opinion. The cult of Trump will sadly remain strong. The mainstream media should be highlighting this more as this is where the problem originates.
2
In the car yesterday, I heard Jordan interviewed on NPR. It was so grossly ridiculous, I just turned it off. One of the great benefits of a car radio sometimes is the "off" button.
3
C'mon Frank, channel your inner Nancy Pelosi and boil this down to something simple. For example, Nancy turned quid pro quo into bribery.
I'm not a food critic, but the cowardly, unpatriotic Republicans are feeding us delusional lies and stale conspiracy theories.
Trump's sycophants aren't going to change their tune. But we can try to state things a bit differently. Why use big words like exculpatory?
Unfortunately, much of life is counterintuitive. Many of us are frustrated by the antics of the Republicans. Let's keep it real simple. The fact of the matter is that there's nothing to indicate that Trump is innocent. If there were, we'd be hearing from Mulvaney, Bolton, and Giuliani. Let's start hearing that hearing that mantra from Democrats and the mainstream media
Case closed.
1
More evidence that the Dems and Reps in the US are playing by fundamentally different rules. Facts vs fiction. There is a complete 180 by the GOP on any number of policies (deficits, trade wars, dictator flirtation) and behaviorism traits (adultery, lying, bullying) that have caused collective outrage when committed by a dem In the past. These are now completely acceptable. The intellectual contortions necessary to justify these positions, as evidenced in the imprachment hearings, are only palatable because of the backing of Fox News and other far right blowhards. These propaganda outlets allow for the different rules and without them we wound never see Trump and frauds like Nunes and Jim Jordan would never be in Congress.
3
If the Trump supporters weren't even more convinced of his guilt they wouldn't be so overly zealous in defending their disbelief. They are more convinced than Schiff's and Pelosy's supporters for they are depending on investigations and due process while the Trump supporters are too ready to suspend investigations, defend an anti-cooperative stance toward them, and make a summary judgment about Trump based solely on the conviction that Donald J. Trump could not possibly be the kind of person who would do something wrong and further, to suggest he is that kind of a person is slanderous, libelous, and treasonous. That kind of zeal adds up to one thing: they know he's guilty and it's driving them crazy.
2
To conservatives' mind, anything not proven wrong is right.
I was at one point willing to give Jim Jordan the benefit of the doubt on the OH wrestling scandal, thinking that as a junior staffer he was showing a deference to a more senior coach that didn't allow him to fully appreciate that person's abuse. In Trump he's found another abuser to endorse 20 years later. It's clear he hasn't learned anything.
On another note, while I'm not a doctor, his sallow complection, hyper-ventilating, nervousness and flightiness make him look unwell.
2
I always suspected you had a delicious sense of humor hidden away someplace. I hope you use it more often. When it comes to non-entities like Nunes and Jordan a hardy laugh is the best remedy to off-set their absurdities and meaningless prattle. I think Jordan is especially obnoxious but I feel a tinge of sympathy for Nunes. He is so obviously pathetic in so many ways. One wants to pat him on the head and say, "there, there, don't cry. Things will get better by and by." (Things will get better, of course, when he is no longer in Congress.)
3
The worst part of this is that Trump attempted to bribe the Ukrainians with (are you ready?) PUBLIC MONEY. It would be bad enough if he'd offered them a few of his many millions, but to misuse PUBLIC MONEY to get them to do what can only be characterized as a personal, political favor makes this malfeasance all the worse.
And it must be noted that, while illegally manipulating congressionally appropriated resources for his own personal benefit, Trump exposed Ukrainian fighters to the onslaught of Russian forces without the means to legitimately defend themselves. And some of those Ukrainian fighters died while Trump bribed.
2
I try to be an informed citizen. I try to watch the hearings. But I simply cannot stand watching Nunes and Jordan insult us with their sophistry and nakedly dishonest arguments. Who do they think they're convincing? Can it be that their only intended audience is the fool in the White House?
4
Journalists and everyone: Use the real and correct and descriptive words for what Russia (and Trump) does: Lie. Propagandize. Suppress facts. It's important to not hide what they do behind euphemisms or doublespeak, which is its own euphemism. Yes, I believe Orwellian times are upon us, and we must be clear and plainspoken when we report and bear witness to what is happening in our world! Ethical elasticity and mental limberness make what Russia/Trump do sound like a business strategy session or a philosophy class or what we all do most everyday. Let's use real, powerful words!
1
Trump and the GOP's real target is the 2016 election and the false story of Ukraine involvement, not Russia, painting all democrats as corrupt in their attempts to interfere. It's his typical approach, paint others with the crime and corruption that you embrace and practice. The Biden's are a side show, he's still out to legitimize his election, nothing else matters to him. The GOP defense to these hearings is to manipulate the findings of Barr's investigation and an upcoming IG report they getting ready to release (redacted of course). I'm worried, this is the only thing they're good at, unmatched in their execution to drown out their crimes and corruption by dumping mass falsehoods into the discussion. The "corrupt democrats" will be theme of the 2020 election and they've got the money to spread the lies. "Lock him/her up" will be the motto, it worked in 2016.
1
"Republicans have them easily beat, and their conduct during the impeachment inquiry is the culmination and apotheosis of their conduct since Trump wrapped up the Republican presidential nomination: an utter sellout of principle and a pure embrace of fiction to pacify an emotional infant and keep him from spitting up on them."
The Republicans have not sold out. Donald Trump is the most orthodox Republican to ascend to the White House since WWII. The Republicans see Trump for what he is and willingly form ranks to protect The Republican President. He's their man.
They know that Trump has no heir apparent and they simply cannot afford to lose Republican courage, leadership and wisdom in the White House.
1
There is a pattern to all of the pathetic excuses for all of Trump's transgressions, grifting, racial attacks, conspiracy theories, and outright crimes. When caught out in public, when proven with evidence that Trump did something, the Trumpers just change the ethics and the law. 'Trump's corruption is not corrupt. Trump's racism is not racist, Trump's abuse of power is not abuse when he, the president, does it.' Everything can be flipped to keep the Trump supporters deluded and behind him. Always, 'but Obama did it, Hillary did it.' Never hold Trump accountable for anything, including publicly showing allegiance to Putin and saying that he believes what Putin tells him even if it contradicts U.S. intelligence! Now Trump hosts Erdogan and lauds him as "a great leader". Who is this man that he can get the Republicans/conservatives to reverse everything they ever believed in and now support the opposite?
1
Reading Bruni’s column makes me sad, because I realize there is no way that either side in this national debate over the president is going to reach any common ground. Like so many others on either side, he has sunken to the slanderous and hateful speech that makes any kind of accord impossible. Sad.
1
The Aliens in the Alien franchise don't mutate. The Xenomorphs simply mature at rapid rates through the depositing of embryos in a host.
Mr. Nunez is maniacally obsessed with “nude pictures” of Donald Trump. Because his verbal narrative of the GOP impeachment cause is so excessively a cover for Trump, Giuliani, Barr corruption, his statements are emphasizing a false visual fantasy.
If one listens carefully to Nunez’s verbal tone there is a significant amount of ideological fantasy.
1
What requires mental limberness is convincing yourself that tying someone to a chair and shooting at them is analogous to Trump asking the president of Ukraine to look into Hunter Biden. The New York Times ran article on the front page (May 2, 2019 "For Biden, a Ukraine Matter That Won’t Go Away: New Spotlight Falls on Son’s Employer in a Revived Inquiry") that cast suspicion of corruption on the Bidens. The United States government has a compelling interest in knowing if its private citizens are involved in corruption abroad. For Trump to say "so if you can look into it... It sounds horrible to me," is not anywhere near a crime. The fact that Trump might benefit from the “looking into” does not suddenly make it a crime.
Your opening paragraph should be the Democrat's closing statement. It is simple plain English that should resonate clearly with anyone who still has open mind about these proceedings.
Thanks.
1
My gut feeling is that the Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee don't actually believe any of the silly defenses they are raising to the charges against Trump. What they are doing is cynically saying anything and everything they think is necessary in order to dupe enough voters so that Trump is re-elected in 2020. The Republicans, like Trump, are morally and ethically bankrupt. Democrats just need to present the evidence without exaggeration or spin.
2
To quote a famous Rolling Stones song, "confusing you is the nature of my game." That is exactly the nature of the Soviet-style disinformation campaign currently being waged by the Russian Republicans, who are currently Putin their best foot forward.
1
Mental limberness and ethical elasticity is putting it kindly. It's more like intellectual dishonesty and willful ignorance. But I guess those terms have been used so often since Trump assumed office, it's time to come up with some new ones to describe how Republicans are willing to sell out the U.S. Constitution just to prop up their King Donald.
1
Mr. Bruni, ethical elasticity? Please, let's call it what it is. A complete lack of any moral or ethical standards.
1
"Bribery" is Hunter Biden being appointed to the Burismo board and receiving a payoff of $50,000 PER MONTH for political influence while Joe Biden is Vice-President of the United States and in charge of Ukrainian-American affairs.
2
I want to know why we hear from ONE senator every day.
Why. Every day. Do we hear from Lindsey Graham.
He's always loved TV stardom. I remember in the 90s when he'd stand on news shows with John McCain, in their high-end top coats, one black, one camel. And scarves. Scarves too.
Media—there are 49 other senators. At least that is what I am led to believe. I have little evidence of it.
"Nothing happened." Reminds me of Watergate. In the aftermath of the break-in, Nixon still won by a landslide (a real landslide as opposed to a Trumpian one); McGovern didn't even carry his home state. Nothing happened. If the facts support impeachment, I would think that Graham and his ilk will pay a heavy price politically. If they don't, perhaps they are reflective of the sad state of the electorate. The mere fact that Trump is president supports that possibility.
2
The liberal-conservative political divide no longer exists between the two parties. The common thread that now unites the Democrats and Republicans is acceptance of reality and denial of reality, respectively. For a demonstration of this look to the two parties' most recent primaries.
Donald Trump defeated more than a dozen Republican challengers on a platform of universal healthcare and a strengthened social safety net. The supposedly conservative Republican base flocked to his banner despite this stark conflict with conservative orthodoxy. Since then he has greatly expanded the deficit and no one in his party has bat an eyelash.
The current Democratic primary has candidates expressing almost the full gamut of ideologies you would expect to see in a functioning democracy. You have a liberal end of the spectrum embodied by Bernie Sanders, and a conservative end capped by Joe Biden and now Michael Bloomberg. Traditionally "liberal" issues like climate change and access to healthcare are understood by the full spectrum of candidates to be major issues and they disagree only in their preferred methods to deal with them.
The common thread that runs through the Democratic party is a belief facts and objective reality. The Republican party conversely is the party of climate denial, religious fundamentalism, and irrational xenophobia. They propose only solutions that would exacerbate the problems they're trying to address, and rebuff efforts to educate them as fake news.
3
If I were a columnist writing about impeachment, the Republican sideshow would not be a big concern. It is obvious nonsense, but the Democrats control. And what matters is whether they make the case. And the essence of the case has been widely misreported.
Over and over, we have been told that the case is about quid pro quo. Prove that Trump cut funding in exchange for a Biden investigation, we are told, and case closed. Wrong.
To pressure a foreign government by putting the heat on in exchange for legal assistance is not uncommon. Snowden. Assange. The pressure is not the offense. The case turns on proving that a Biden investigation was inherently improper and equally important, that Trump knew it.
In this connection, keep in mind that Trump asked for an investigation, not a conviction. He asked Zelensky to look into it. And he will be able to argue that he would have restored funding if Zelensky got back and said there is nothing there.
With Snowden and Assange, the demand was that Russia and Ecuador give them up. With Ukraine, it was look into it. A huge difference.
And if you don’t understand that — which is not being reported — you don’t understand why the Committee hasn’t set a date for the vote.
1
@michjas, please get the facts right. Trump asked for an announcement of an investigation into the Bidens, because an announcement was all he needed to hamper Biden's candidacy. Your insistence on the possibility that Zelensky could somehow have announced the investigation, carried it out, exonerated Biden, and had that result accepted by Trump before the campaigning for the 2020 race began is willful blindness.
(Never mind the effects of the delay on Ukraine's eastern defense against Russia caused by Trump's improper withholding of a Congressional authorization. Or, at the very beginning, the gross impropriety of a president asking anyone for an investigation of an individual American citizen. There's a reason it's not done: it's an abuse of power.)
And you're completely overlooking (1) the promise of a White House meeting and (2) the literally crazy Crowdstrike/2016 Ukraine interference conspiracy theory.
1
@Dubious “whatever your Attorney General can do about it would be great”
1
The record of the phone call is NOT a smoking gun. It still allows for the remote possibility that there were two separated streams of actions by Trump. The legitimate foreign aid negotiations, and the legitimate campaign opposition research.
Removing the President requires that the democrats prove linkage between the two, and establish that the actions were important enough for the House to pass Articles of Impeachment, and the Senate to vote affirmatively with a two-thirds majority.
Personally, I favor dropping the matter after a House investigation. Simply say that the mater appears significant, but that the Senate result is a foregone conclusion, so the matter will be left for the election to resolve.
Sending it to the Senate and seeing the President "acquitted" lets Trump 100% claim innocence during his campaign. It lets him claim it was a partisan witch hunt.
That option is closed if the only action democrats took was to investigate and report, rather than attempt to impeach.
1
Jim Jordan and I have one thing in common. We are graduates of Ohio State. He became a wrestling coach at Ohio State for a program that is under criminal investigation for sexual mistreatment of its student athletes. I went on to obtain a JD at Harvard and study constitutional law under Professor Tribe.
He became a congressman who now spins science fiction for Trump. I went on to a distinguished career as a corporate bankruptcy lawyer in NYC culminating as a member of the legal team representing the creditors' committee in a small case called Enron. Not all Buckeyes are alike.
21
You did well. Jordan could do it too but he belongs to a new variant of Republicans who sold their soul before Trump turned up. They're seriously in service of inept and certified liar Tony Soprano wouldn't hire.
1
Excellent and clear opinion. Thank you for such clarity. Like a great wind blowing away a smoke screen.
7
It really isn't necessary to understand the Republican's logic.
We know they don't mean any of it.
They are trying to win the PR game.
So it is just what details are they trying to get away with today.
12
Why is all this taking place in the Ukraine, as it did in the beginning of the infamous Trump presidency? Is it the natural gas at the bottom of this, from Hunter Biden on the board of Burisma to Putin's push through the Ukraine, which would require aid as Taylor and Kent spoke to, and was Trump's call then to hold the aid part of that hidden agenda? Is it that easy to run to the pantry where all the war materiel is held to move some to Ukraine? Zelensky ran on anti-corruption. Kent spoke to the centrality of that in matters Ukraine. Russia too and Hungary are the authoritarians with their pal in this country, Trump. Add Erdogan to the list. He and Trump chatted it up in the White House during the hearings Chairman Schiff was leading. Trump moves the country from attempt we've made in the past to try and promote democracy abroad. He's failing on that, certainly, but can he continue to be as corrupt as he proves, time and time again?
3
I do not here excuse Trump. Indeed, I hope he is impeached because of his corrupt profiteering for himself and his immediate family (like his hotel down the street from the White House).
However, there is no serious question that similar corrupt activity was afoot regarding Biden and his son. His son was being very highly paid for doing no legitimate work. It is obvious that he was being paid off because of his connection to and influence upon his father, the Vice President.
We will never know whether Joe Biden actually did anything differently as a result of his son being so substantially paid off. But the VP should have strongly discouraged his son from taking the payoffs. And, if his son persisted, then the VP should have publicly announced that the payoffs were being made to his son....that would undoubtedly have caused the payoffs to stop being paid.
Corruption like Trump's and Biden's is common behavior by politicians and their family members. It should end, not be defended or excused as partisans of both parties are now doing when one of their politicians is involved.
1
And you do understand that Hunter Biden was involved with the company not for any expertise in natural gas but for his expertise in corporate compliance? I agree that he got the job because of his family connection -- there are other corporate compliance attorneys out there.
7
@E Unfortunately, a number of our citizens do not know he was hired for corporate compliance.
1
@E
Do you realize the irony of an expert in "corporate compliance" being hired only because he is a son of a sitting Vice President?
I contend that Hunter proved his incompetence at "corporate compliance" by accepting the position.
1
We just had a national holiday celebrating the veterans who protect our Constitution and now we are insulted by the Republicans defending the abuse of power that Mr. Trump has used. Mr. Trump has no regard for law, the Constitution or our country.
11
Trump says he wanted an investigation of wrongdoing by Ukraine during the 2016 election. That seems to go hand in hand with the investigation of Russian meddling and collusion with Trump. But Democrats seem unconcerned that Ukraine may have been doing something wrong. I guess that everyone knows that both Ukraine and Hunter Biden were not involved in any activities that were illegal or improper and that there was no attempt by Ukraine to influence the 2016 election. Hunter actually got his million dollar job because of his education and experience in the energy field. Democrats need to bring out their witnesses to provide that testimony so that the case against Trump is a slam dunk. Surely Democrats will do that, won’t they?
4
As regards the “incompetence” of persons with criminal intent who themselves don’t actually do the crime but, through understood “hint,” set it up for others to do, isn’t that the way crime bosses basically operate? And according to testimony of very morally different individuals such as Michael Cohen and James Comey, Trump’s expert at this? “Incompetence” of this kind appears not to be against the law in the technical sense that factualizes morality for the sake objectivity. Of course, however and thankfully, impeachment is a political process not a legal one in the sense strict jurisprudence. The Republicans approach to defending Trump seems to appreciate this to a degree that is astonishing, especially considering their historic claim to high moral principle.
6
Devin Nunes’ statement is riddled with lies, it’s unfortunate that the chairman Schiff can’t offer a rebuttal! Sure, Nunes reads the parts of the transcript that are pleasant conversation between a Trump and Zelensky. Curious that the whole conversation is not read out loud.
There’s a very poignant quote from former attorney, Joyce Vance which is ideal in regards to Donald J Trump:
“No one prevents a witness from testifying who can exonerate them.” Trump has ordered all of his staff p, cabinet members and inner circle from testifying. Why? IF he is innocent why not allow those who can give evidence to his innocence a chance to testify? He is guilty. The Republicans are his defenders. The defense of a criminal president will cost the Grand Old Party, dearly.
16
Excellent summation Frank. I would only add that Rep. Gym Jordan is going to need his apparent abilities to distort and pummel truth when he is indicted in Ohio soon for criminally neglecting his responsibilities to students he was coaching. He is not the kind of guy who will fare well in the “general population.”
11
I think the Democrats should make note of this as often as possible. You think Jordan would be silent if the shoe were on the other foot?
3
The heart of William Taylor's testimony on Wednesday was that the delay in military aid emboldened Russia and weakened Ukraine in its battle to stay independent and free of Russian influence. And by weakening Ukraine it weakens the United States.
The heart of George Kent's testimony was that there was no impropriety in Joe Biden's request for a prosecutor not in the grip of Vladimir Putin. And Hunter Biden's job had the appearance of impropriety but there was no evidence it changed anything.
5
An amazing attempt to put the completely outrageous behavior of the Republicans into some understandable form. The only criticism I have is that you totally ignore the reality that this has been their game book for years, beginning in the Reagan years, continuing into George W. Bush. Its just that as their power block has cemented its control on the nation's politics, local all the way up the line to the Federal Government, they are less and less interested in presenting the truth of their actions to the world. None of this is anything new, just intensified.
8
I have a feeling (a lovely, warm, fuzzy feeling) that Mulvaney's "get over it" is going to come back to haunt the Republicans, bigly:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: The House has voted to impeach the President. Get over it.
Chief Justice John Roberts: We allow the decision of the lower courts to stand. President Donald J. Trump must turn over his tax returns. Get over it.
Anderson Cooper: Tonight, history in the making. After being confronted with evidence of Presidential wrongdoing so incontrovertible that many in the President's own party ultimately came to believe they had no choice, 3/4 of the Senate just hours ago voted to convict the President of the United States and thus remove him from office. Mr. President, your services are no longer required. Get over it.
13
Agreed! I particularly like the throwing up baby image. The Republicans defending the president in the impeachment inquiry have found their perfect leader. Their minds and Donald Trump's mind have merged. They occupy offices in Washington with access to the most highly skilled, experienced, and informed statespeople such as Ambassador Taylor and Secretary Kent. And what are they talking about? Conspiracy theories targeting the unsophisticated and uniformed. It is a remarkable contrast.
They claim that the president's concern is corruption in Ukraine. Yes, indeed. He wants to get in on the action.
16
The defense of Trump has lots of holes in it, but what stands out for me is the timing. Hunter Biden had been on the board of Burisma in Ukraine since 2014, but it wasn't until 2019 that Trump decided he could make something out of that to use that against Joe Biden. And, that's because he believed that Biden would be his opponent in the general election, and that created the need to find "dirt" on him. Trump cooked up the idea, or someone on his team did, and they all had the idea that if they were going to be facing Biden they needed to act quickly to start spreading rumors and innuendo and accusations to tear him down. They know Trump can't win on policy. He can only win by spreading disinformation about opponents. And, for that he needs help from Russia, or Ukraine, or whomever he can get.
If Trump was concerned about the "corruption" of Hunter Biden and his father, why wasn't it an issue in the 2016 election? Because Biden wasn't a candidate. Trump never brought it up in any of the ensuing years, until 2019, when Biden is a candidate. It's pretty clear that Trump's main concern is not alleged "corruption" in Ukraine (when has corruption bothered Trump?), but instead he was very concerned about Joe Biden running against him in 2020.
33
@Ms. Pea Before you know it Trump will begin trying to dig up bogus dirt on anyone who becomes the front runner from anyone he can bribe or pay to provide it. As has been said it is the only way he can keep his base stirred up and steal another election. But the trait of ignoring policy for false dirt has been around in the GOP for a long time. Witness the campaign against the patriot, John Kerry in 2004 for one.
6
@Ms. Pea It has become a Republican trait to complain about blemished or bad apples on the Democratic Party Tree while ignoring that their own tree is covered in apples rotten to the core. Rather than removing their rotting apples, they choose them to make a pie for all of us to consume and then whine about having a tremendous stomach ache. Later they blame the soil under the Democratic tree although it is the same soil and nutrients as there own. The Bible mentions this hypocrisy of judgment as a warning. Both parties should be mindful.
2
I think our biggest problems are yet to come. Climate change, a young and underpaid population trying to support a numerically large aging population who lack sufficient retirement savings, a health care system on the verge of collapse, widening health inequality, the complete degradation of US soft power across the would which has left the country incredibly vulnerable to external influence through digital influence campaigns, and a public healthcare system in complete disarray.
Trump is going to be impeached in the House, not convicted in the Senate, and the 2020 election will probably be one of the most galvanizing political events since the 1960’s. I hope Trump loses. But even if he does lose, just look at the people who attend his rallies, and read conservative forums online, stream conservative videos on YouTube, and watch Fox News. Those people are not going to all of a sudden stop in their tracks. The ideology that launched Trump to power is not going to leave with him. We need a national plan to deal with this. Something like Germany’s de-nazification following WWII is a good road map.
But that goes back to history and the lack of history knowledge in the US. Most people probably don’t even know what de-nazification was. Without a plan to deal with the severe issues that enabled Trump’s rise, this cycle of self destruction is going to keep happening.
21
Brilliant moment, thank you.
2
We’re in big trouble all right. A big chunk of Americans can’t name the three branches of government. Still more believe angels walk among us. Faith in things like astrology and magic crystals is on the rise, and in proven things like vaccines is in the wane. Sit down before you find out how many Americans cannot locate Canada on a map nor name the country just south of us. Other than those seething hordes pouring across our border to steal your job and rape your women, while bringing drugs and murder, very few in America can speak more than one language - and some not even that. One way or the other, Trump will not last forever and the path will be cleared for a new leader to appeal to voters in the electorally privileged rural states. Perhaps this time it will be a magician, a mentalist, or a former rock star or television wrestler, fresh out of rehab (look for a candidate from the fringes of Vegas). There are two good options that will go over like a lead balloon in Congress: get rid of the obsolete Electoral College, or the compromise position: bring back the Founders’ 3/5 rule when chalking up the population in those states that get unfair over representation. Disclosure: I live in elitist California, I favor reality, and my vote doesn’t count.
4
Your analogy of the House Republicans' conduct in the televised hearings as "the Cirque de Soliel of c’est La Vie" is quite apt. With the collapse of TV soap operas, I think there should be a new Daytime Emmy category to fill in the void, that being Best Performance in a Congressional Hearing. As it is also evident that several of the GOP reps in this week's hearings have given their own scripted performances instead of asking questions, perhaps a "Best Screenplay by as Congressional Rep" category could be created.
When Ambassador Taylor attempted to dignify Jim Jordon's stellar outburst of emotion in an attempt to derail the "star witness", he clarified that he was there to provide testimony, and not to take one side or the other. I half-expected a "Furthermore, Mr. Jordan, your drama is wasted on me; just save it for auditions at your community little theater." The temptation to do so might have been there, but Mr. Taylor always responds in a dignified fashion. And that's what we should expect from our career officials in the Department of State, as they represent our country's interests around the world.
Dignity among GOP congressional representatives is notably absent, as you alluded to in your column, Frank. Would that it could be restored, I'd possess greater faith that we have, at least, a halfway representative Congress.
7
Imagine the honorable Congresspeople conducting the hearings in song! Jordan’s aria is like something out of the Magic Flute. Rep. Schiff is scored by Phillip Glass.
1
Bruni write : "I came to your house with a gun. At least imagine I did. I tied you to a chair, took a step back and repeatedly fired. But my arm twitched; every bullet missed. Meanwhile, you slipped your knots and fled". If this is what happened, most of the Republicans would vote not only to impeach, but also to remove Trump as in the case of Nixon. But that is not what happened. Let me paraphrase the example of Bruni to illustrate what we think has happened. I came to your house at your invitation. I had a gun with me to give to you for your protection, but you didn't know about it. During the conversation I asked a favor as a friend and said - you know I and my family went through so much trouble last year as a result of activities of somebody connected to you and also I hear my opponent is involved in some fishy deals here. I would like you to tell my friend the details or to tell the police in my area who is investigating the matter. I know you are not comfortable to do it. After that conversation, I left the house without giving the gun. After that I might have asked a few of my friends to enquire about the matter and they might have called you. But you didn't do anything for two months and I had to give the gun to you. Under my scenario, there is not even an impolite act, forget about extortion and bribery.
4
But you forget, the gun did not belong to you. It belonged to an important benefactor. And the benefactor had promised your friend the gun. And he was desperately waiting for it as his family was in danger. And you showed up with the gun, never telling him you had the gun, and asked for unsavory favors. And while your friend debated whether he could comply with your request as he waited for that gun that the benefactor had promised, members of his family were killed. Then the benefactor found out you had never delivered the gun. So you decided you'd better deliver that gun. And your friend never had to do the nasty favor your requested. That is where we are at. Any defense of Trump requires omitting facts.
2
Alex, the British have a phrase for your “interpretation” of Trump's attempted bribery: “nonsense on stilts.”
2
@Alex E
Well, a boy can dream.
2
Conservative talk radio, certain conservative commentators on TV are like a big propaganda machine for the Republican part that started during the Clinton Administration.
Some of have listened to the distortions and lies for 30 years or more and are so programmed they will not believe anything else.
Now we have Representatives and Senators many of whom started out as lawyers, some prosecutors, who have prosecuted people on less evidence than what has been presented so far in the impeachment hearings selling out.
When being part of a political party is more important than being honest with yourself and youf constituents then we are in serious trouble.
14
What is on display is what Republicans have been doing for decades. They have crafted an alternate reality where only they have legitimacy, government is always the problem, and everything is the fault of liberals. This is the business model of Fox News and talk radio.
If they are engaging in over the top theatrics, it is because the gap between them and reality has become too big to ignore. They have nothing left except distraction and spreading confusion.
The Republican Party is morally and intellectually bankrupt. They are all willingly complicit in Trump’s crimes.
34
I don’t know Frank. You use a completely different set of circumstances to make a point about something that doesn’t equate at all to the facts in the other. Said another way you are making a false equivalency to make your analysis work. It doesn’t.
2
is it possible that Justice Kavanaugh should recuse himself for from any and all cases involving the President and Congress because of statements he angrily made in public against everyone who was not supporting his nomination to the Supreme Court ...
28
@Steve of Albany
He should indeed recuse himself. Let's recall what Kavanaugh said during his confirmation process:
“This whole two-week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit,” Kavanaugh said, “fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election, fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial record, revenge on behalf of the Clintons and millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups”.
32
@Somi
I'm sure they can sleepy joe their way into defending him in his impeachment also. Still mad at Joe Biden for making Thomas good enough to pass for just.
@Steve of Albany
He did express the biased POV that the Dems were out to get him and the President. Paranoia is not attractive in a judge.
I have lately come to understand that asphyxiating rape victims is relatively common when the drugs you tried to give them don't work fast enough. A kid has got to get home before darkness falls or all trips to the beach are OFF. Blasey Ford owes Brett no apology for even hinting her tried to choke her out since she was resisting. He knew what he was doing. Most rapists do.
I recently learned that when I was abducted and molested in 1969 I had no idea the rags that he gagged me with had enough solvent left in them to incapacitate me for 45 minutes to an hour.
I had no idea I had been raped or object raped, but I just saw the MRI that informs me I was right in the 1990s. That was my ovary in the toilet. The doc is still trying to figure out why I didn't drop from an aortic bleed out. Because I was meant to tell this story, sillies.
1
On the campaign trail in 2016, as a surrogate, Newt Gingrich was informed in an interview that Trump's speech at the RNC about a crime wave in America was not true. It was pointed out that crime, in fact, had declined throughout the Obama years. I'll never forget Gingrich's response because I thought it cut to the heart of the Republican's worldview and marketing language. To paraphrase, Gingrich explained that Trump wasn't responding to data or facts but on how potential Republican voters feel. Gingrich explained that he would take how the voters feel any day over the facts that might be told.
I remember at the time thinking, well there it is. The Republicans market a fictional narrative about the world-- a story about heroes and villains and cabals-- and then sell political ideas and candidates to voters on the narrative, not reality. If one counters with facts and reality, Republicans will try to convince their audience that truth and facts are simply another narrative and therefore open to debate.I don't mean to suggest that the Democrats won't-- to paraphrase Obama-- "put a shine" on a point of view. But the Republicans sell the notion that everything is subjective, so therefore reality isn't really necessary.
82
@Red Tree Hill
Excellent comment. I've been saying for a long time that Republicans don't respond to reality they respond to how they feel about things. I have a few relatives that think exactly like this. They call it thinking with their gut. You just explained it far bettor than I could.
24
Gingrich’s statement reminds me of the Marx brothers line “ Who you gonna believe? Me or your lying eyes.”
3
One could say Republican voters are primed for this Party presentation of the world by lifelong inculcation in religious superstitions. How much of a stretch is it from Santa sliding down the chimney with a bag of gifts and the Easter Bunny hopping down the trail and the promise of life everlasting and forgiveness for the terrible sin of just being born... to Newt and Kelleyann? Let us pray -
3
Dem leaders are driving this impeachment bus with great care. They are not speeding. They have their seat belts on. And they have a roadmap in the testimony of many patriots, with more coming forward as the journey progresses.
Meanwhile the GOP is driving all over the road, erratically, failing to heed the rules of the road, all while shouting loudly how poorly the Dems are driving and how loyal they are to alternative rules based on conspiracy theories and crackpot assumptions.
Trump has tied himself to the roof of this GOP complicity. It will end badly. But sadly, we are all stuck in this nightmare.
I have faith in the Dem strategy, in its careful driving, its roadmap, and the patriotic Americans stepping forward. We’ve got the wind at our back, even if the journey ahead is fraught with many potholes.
But I do believe we will prevail in the end. Like the race of the tortoise and the hare, we will get there in one piece, while the GOP is is on a crash coarse with history.
26
The Republicans claim of "no harm no foul" simply because the aid was delivered before Zelensky made the required announcement of the fake investigations is incorrect. Ukrainians on the front lines died while the aid was delayed. And the public implication of looking for corrupt dirt on Joe Biden, though false, has done damage to his campaign. The right wing noise machine is busy as bees ginning up the conspiratorial story mashing slim facts with pure fiction to spin the nonsense that when Joe Biden held up aid to Ukraine it was to somehow shield the company his son worked for...when the opposite is true. And this blather about Hunter being "not qualified" for this board position is tiresome, many people that sit on the board of corporations have a variety of qualifications that perhaps have little to do with the company they serve. And if you want to talk about people unqualified for the job they hold, look no further than the many Trump appointees, as well as his family advisors who have no business in the position they hold. The second part of the investigation Trump wanted was to spin the fairy tale that Ukraine interfered in 2016 to help Clinton. Laughable at best, yet again the right wing media is pounding this narrative to serve Trump's desire to deny that Russia may have helped him win an election that he never should have won. Had he not been so obsessed with this denial, the Mueller investigation and even this impeachment proceeding may have never happened.
14
Frank, a good article, but i disagree with your assessment of the Democrat's approach to the hearings. In reality, most Americans did not pay attention to the information that surfaced in bits and pieces from the closed-door information gathering stage. What the public did have was a great deal of effort by the Republicans in the House and Senate and WH to create doubt about the fairness of the impeachment efforts. I believe the goal now is to bring this information more fully and completely into the light of day in the hope that a larger percentage of Americans will understand the need to impeach and to also do the impossible by rallying some Republicans that still have a conscious to do their duty to the country versus just to their party.
874
@DJK. I agree with you and thought the same, except for the fact that Trump’s simple, “Lock her up!” seems to be more effective than complicated facts for most Americans. Democrats have forever used statistics and logic to steer public policy. Sadly, today’s impeachment hearings are putting people to sleep and we still have next week.
22
@DJK. Thank goodness I voted for Gary Johnson and William Weld, 2016.
The rest of you voted out of FEAR of the other side.
Johnson and Weld were the only two proven leaders capable of forming a concensus and accomplishing positive results.
But of course, the propaganda told most of you "they were crackpots"!!
Joke's on you.
4
@DJK.,
But Fox News (State TV) isn't covering the hearings. So, that 25% of core true believers, i.e., Trumpsters, won't even know what's going on.
59
What about the fantasy of the left that the Biden’s did nothing wrong in the Ukraine? The deep state has fashioned a system where the relatives of politicians can do what Hunter has been doing and say it is okay. I have a hard time being outraged by Trump looking into something I am outraged about..
Another fantasy is the idea of taking down Trump with attempted bribery. Not bribery but attempted. This is like the Mueller investigation where after collusion wasn’t found they went for obstruction. Obstruction of a crime that didn’t occur. Now we have regressed from quid pro quo to bribery to attempted bribery. Both presidents say there was no attempt. And the democrats are going to prove them wrong with hearsay. Who has the fantasy?
3
@Jim
I am sickened by this "what about" the Bidens, and the Obamas, and the Clintons, and Al Capone---and whatever was done in the past. And where do you dig up this "deep state", that started in the depths of sick minds and is an illusion? And why didn't you actually read the Mueller Report and not repeat Republican nonsense? Do you think Barr gave an accurate description of this report, which presents much evidence that many obstructive acts took place? Focus on what is happening now under Trump , who has been empowered to nuke the world, and how destructive to democracy and our traditions the present administration is.
3
@Jim
I partly agree with you, Hunter Biden did do something wrong Joe, well, let the voters decide. And if you say no bribery, only attempted bribery took place, then was it only attempted extortion? Rico Laws should be considered. Face it, Trump should be impeached, whether he is removed from office only the Republican Senate can determine.
You may know that Trump is famous for tarring individuals by calling them "never trumpers". How about "trump's my daddy" for those who can't find any fault in our inept, corrupt President?
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@Jim
Another fantasy is that the charge that Ukraine conspired with Americans during our 2016 presidential campaign has been somehow "debunked." By pundits perhaps. Not with any facts.
And, yes, what happened to "quid pro quo"? Same thing that happened to that whistleblower, no doubt.
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Just because no Ukrainian investigation (faux or otherwise) has happened doesn't mean it can't still happen. Mr. Trump is still President Trump, and Mr. Zelensky still needs U.S. support and may still want that meeting with Mr. Trump. The show could still go on.
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Jack Schafer, writing in Politico, criticizes the Times for only "partially" Revealing the identity of the initial whistleblower and states there is a "journalistic responsibility" to do so. In my view any reporter or editorial writer who does so should face charges under the federal act and the maximum possible penalty under the law. Thank you, Mr. Bruni, for keeping the focus where it belongs -- on Trump and his coterie of fabulists.
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On the contrary, I think Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, and the Democratic-led Impeachment Inquiry is proceeding very well. I fully agree that the original transcript of the July 25 phone call was fully sufficient -- it is not forgotten. They are looking for as much corroborating evidence, to lay before the public. Now, can the Democrats improve on their public outreach? Probably. But the public is so polarized, that a large fraction (you guessed it, the Republican voters) seem to be so entrenched in their trust and belief in Trump that they may be impossible to reach - they are impervious to facts and reason. But fortunately, they are not the majority.
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@PT
". . . the original transcript of the July 25 phone call was fully sufficient . . . "
I don't believe we have seen an original transcript of that call -- only the WH' summary interpretation of that call.
Just like Trump's private discussions with Putin et al., we do not know what was actually said.
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@PT Let's not forget that this is not just about Trump. Pence, Barr, Pompeo, and Perry are a part of this as well, and tying them into the criminal scheme should be part of this investigation as well.
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@PT Except in the Senate, of course, which is all that matters. No matter how much dirt the Dems unearth in their hearings, Republicans in the Senate will not impeach him.
The fundamental flaw in this process was any belief that GOP Senators would side with Democrats. President Trump will not be impeached.
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I'm an Independent voter and I have read about and watched the antics of politicians for many decades. It's not an exaggeration to write that many of them are shameless and their followers are willing to turn a blind eye to their transgressions because "it's hard to get a man to change his opinion if his income depends upon him not changing his opinion." Trump is an open book. He doesn't know anything and doesn't care. He was raised to be arrogant, uncompromising, spoiled and reckless. He does try to have plausible deniability of his fecklessness by delegating his hare brained schemes to subordinates and then throwing them under the bus if he gets caught. Of all the actors other than the star of this shoddy reality show, the villains in my mind are people like Lindsey Graham, Stephen Miller, Wilbur Ross, Rudy Giuliani and all the industry lobbyists Trump has put in charge of our air, water and parks. Astounding also was Nikki Haley's poker-faced statement yesterday that Trump tells the truth. How low can you go?
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@R. Anderson
Nikki Haley, in spite of her reputation, is one of them.
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Lower, much much lower.
We ain't seen nothing yet.
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@Somewhere In Texas You're not kidding! As someone who obviously does not know fact from fiction, my opinion of Nikki Haley just went down to zero.
Obviously another one from the swamp whose political ambitions take precedence over integrity.
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The Republican argument for Trump's innocence amounts to: "I did not take any cookies out of the cookie jar because I could not find the cookie jar. Ans even if I did take cookies, they were oatmeal cookies and I only like chocolate cookies. And they weren't even any good, and they were so small."
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@Joe From Boston That's on the right track, but I sense the logic is even more tortured, and I won't even try to capture that.
But I think their argument amounts to: "I did not take cookies out of the cookie jar because one of my enemies did."
Of course, someone else may have taken cookies out of the jar, but that doesn't say anything about whether Trump did or did not take any of the cookies.
You're very right to try to present the Republican argument as an analogy, since their statements are contradictory, implausible and based in rhetoric at the expense or denial of logic.
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@Joe From Boston , Here's the logic in my opinion:
"I tried to get all the cookies. I had both hands in the jar, and had my fingers around six or seven cookies and was leaving the room with them, but someone walked in so I had to drop the cookies, lie, and then run. So, I'm not guilty because I didn't get any cookies. There was no theft."
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@Joe From Boston - And history should duly note that the ranking GOP'er (Nunes) is in the midst of suing a fake Twitter cow account for $250 million; the Mad Hatter's tea party had nothing on this GOPers' farce for an audience of one.
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Trump threw the Kurds under the bus and gave Northern Syria to Turkey and Russia. I believe he would give Ukraine to Russia.
He's never been to any of these places, and probably can't find them on a map.
But Trump does want to impress Putin. If I lived in Ukraine, I'd be pretty freaked out by these events.
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@Pat Except Pat that he has boosted the aid and provided more lethal weapons to Ukraine that were denied under the previous administration. How does that square?
@pat
“in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort”
President Trump's attempt to pressure Ukraine did not succeed, in the end, because Congress objected strongly to withholding the aid they had authorized, and because the whistleblower came forward with other grave concerns. But even if the attempt did not succeed, it showed that the President is eager to use his power as Commander in Chief to pressure vulnerable countries for his own personal ends, and to weaponize American foreign policy for personal gain. These provide templates for other countries who want something improper from the US.
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@Carroll Guen Hart Yes, it is not that the gun misfired, but that the police showed up at the last minute to stop a long premeditated criminal act--this even though half of the police are clearly in the pay of the villain.
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@Carroll Guen Hart
Thank you for rewriting history for us; perhaps a job as Adam Schiff's assistant would be in order.
The fact is, that it was the Trump administration that requested the aid to begin with, with DOD and DOS involved in the planning and package design.
Then, Congress approved it.
Trumps inquiries regarding interference in the 2016 election and the obvious influence peddling by the Bidens are both clearly in the national interest and fall under the purview of the Executive Branch.
The smoke screen created by Pelosi and Schiff isn't going to work and Durham is going to start indicting people.
And Biden's problems are just starting, because sooner or later the left leaning media outlets will turn on him and expose the family dealings with a more objective eye - and that spells trouble for him.
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@Carroll Guen Hart Sadly, his attempt has succeeded in some respects, even if not in having the spectacle of a public announcement on CNN of an investigation into Biden and the 2016 election. He has weakened Biden's standing in the polls, and he has also weakened the President of Ukraine and greatly diminished his standing in the peace negotiations with Russia. Again, Trump serves one of his most important constituents, Russia.
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What is democracy? How is democracy constructed? What is justice? What holds it together? How can it be lost?
The answers to all of those questions revolve around what we call the rule of law. OK. So what are laws? Laws are just words. OK. So what is justice? Justice is the application of those words we call laws.
The Republicans in their absolute support for Trump, no matter what he has done, are actually engaging in a full on assault on the rule of law, justice and even democracy itself. They all swore an oath to uphold the rule of law in order to preserve justice and democracy. But yet they violate that oath.
Actually, they do more than violate it. They oppose it to the point of destroying it. In doing so, they are in the process of destroying America.
Oh, but it's worse than that. They do not want Trump to be just the president. They want him to have the powers of a monarch, a dictator, and do everything they can to give him more power. They do this by trying to crush the House's equal power as set forth in the Constitution. They do this by appointing judges and other officials who are in league with their goals of dictatorial power.
And it all boils down to words. Just words. The sanctity of our nation going forward rests upon those words. Now what was that oath about?
And then the last leg of their scheme is to create a state media that brainwashes the public to believe all of their lies.
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Brilliantly stated. I was about to compliment Bruni on his article, but you one upped him. You got the real heart of this issue, our very democracy is at stake. And I am very concerned the majority of Americans won't wake up until it is too late.
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@Bruce Rozenblit Sadly the very cads working to tear down our democracy have spent the past several decades claiming that Democrats have been trying to destroy the country, to the point the phrase seems robbed of power.
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Here, here! Beautifully said.
Patriotism and loyalty to the U.S.of A has always been a calling card of the Republican Party, but I assert that Republicans should be called out everywhere as unpatriotic treacherous rebels who are bent on destroying this nation.
It isn’t spin or exaggeration, but exactly what’s happening right now.
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The author portrayed the failure of Trump's efforts as incompetent. The facts prove otherwise. The deal had been struck. The Ukrainian President had agreed to make the public announcement and had even scheduled the interview on CNN. The only reason it never happened was the scheme was publicly uncovering just prior to the scheduled CNN interview. Likewise, the release of the military aid happened only after the whistleblower controversy became front page news. The whistleblower complaint and its public exposure, not incompetence, foiled the scheme.
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@wm2u Exactly right. The only incompetence here was in not foreseeing the whistle blower. And, was the scheme foiled? To a good extent, the administration got what they wanted: Ukraine might not have announced an investigation of Biden, but the issue has certainly been brought to the public's attention, and we are in the middle of the kind of chaotic mess that Trump thinks he thrives in.
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@wm2u
I concur with your timeline but the scheme itself was an exercise in virtuoso incompetence. With irony-dipped pride the schemers referred to themselves as the Three Amigos, a reference to a film that was basically about the Three Stooges in sombreros.
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I worked in the NY/NJ marketplace for most of my career and kind of suspected the Trump presidency would not age well based on his well documented tabloid exploits over the decades. But in my wildest dreams I would never have predicted his Pied Piper influence on 65 or so million fellow citizens, or on elected officials countrywide, all of which seem to have an R after their name. The man in the blue suit and brightly colored red tie has co-opted this entire segment of America, walking lock-step to his magical, manaical tune.
I am up there in years, and an independent, or better stated I guess I was one. For the life of me, I just cannot understand his lure. While I recently cast a very eclectic ballot across the political spectrum (almost entirely local level pols), 2020 brings a different and daunting challenge. This country cannot withstand much more of the current rancor and partisanship.
I do not know if I will live long enough to see a resolution, peaceful or otherwise. However, my grand kids likely will, and I fear for the world the boomer generation has bequeathed to them.
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@Retired Gardener -- why would you blame the boomer generation? I am 67, working and still paying a huge amount of taxes including a 35% tax on the social security distributions I now receive after paying into that system over 50 years. In fact, I contribute the maximum social security tax each year. I have voted favorably for schools and infrastructure. I paid for my kid's educations and raised them to be responsible people. I am helping with the cost of higher education for my grandchildren. Talk about rancor -- you sure dish it out. I did not leave my kids Trump nor did I bankrupt this country. I cannot help that some so-called charismatic lying con man won an election -- I certainly did not vote for him.
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It's not mental limberness or ethical elasticity; it's not the outer limits of audacity - it's the outer limits of mendacity. Nunes and his gang are our elected reps, the core of our democracy and they are engaged in lying and misrepresentation to a degree we have never before witnessed. Certainly not in my lifetime and I'm no youngster.
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@Cornflower Rhys
Listening to Nunes's opening statement on Wednesday I'm pretty sure I heard the Twilight Zone theme playing in the background.
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Well, one observes mendacity on a daily basis in our courtrooms. That’s why due process is necessarily adversarial - somebody typically is lying, and the point is to get to the truth, by assessing evidence including the perceived credibility of witnesses. Now we have an entire political party deeply engaged in mendacity, challenging the Democrats to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt. Let’s hope the jury of public opinion can see through the GOP smokescreen.
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It’s nice to know that, outside of Congress or The White House, there exist deeply concerned State Dept. officials that won’t allow Putin to win Ukraine via our White House. That zero number of patriots have stood up at the White House is tragic.
That our former Presidents remain likewise silent is more than disappointing.
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@RjW: It is protocol that former presidents will not comment on the current president.
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Frank, have you considered the possibility that a lot of the fantasy is on the Democratic side?
First of all, Biden is NOT the nominee of the Democrats for 2020 and it is not likely that he will be. So to pretend that he is THE political opponent of Trump is a stretch. Secondly, Ukraine is not crucial to America's security. They are not our neighbor.
So the story, "Trump undermined our security in order to harm his political opponent" is a stretch which you are not able to see but the rest of us can.
Do look at the article on swing state voters in today's NYT. You will see plenty of opinions which do NOT come from "crazy Republicans" but from thoughtful citizens who seem to be more sober than the Democrats.
What I fear is that by acting like an irrational and angry bunch of people, the Democrats may well reelect Trump. That would NOT be good for the country, for he is not smart enough for the present complicated world. We need action on global warming and a single payer health care system and these will not come from Trump. They COULD come from a Democratic president if only you guys were not so crazy.
So please, watch what you are doing.
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@Ludwig The president has acted as if Biden were going to be his opponent, hence his desire to have an investigation into Biden and his son. That's why we're here. It is not an endorsement of anyone.
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@Ludwig
You have forgotten that at the time all this was taking place, Biden was the strong frontrunner among the Democratic candidates. The thing that Trump fears most is losing, and Biden was well ahead of him in every poll.
The GOP are the angry ones, as seen in their pit bull attacks in the hearing. The Dems are merely working to illuminate and help eliminate Trump's ability to gain foreign assistance in winning the election.
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Although slightly more clever than typical Republican defenses of this most dangerous president, this comment is sleight of hand in which the present day political scenario has replaced trumps mindset at the moment that he tried to initiate these investigations. What matters is trump’s intent, as opposed to your current analysis of the political landscape.
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People think well of sarcasm these days, not that we hear anything else, and in that vein this is heartening stuff. I don't fear its inadequacy so much as its exhaustion. What comes next?
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