Here go the Democrats shooting themselves in the foot again. Does this party have any sense at all? After Obama was elected, Democrats were booming. Since then, they’ve slipped signifantly. They had a nice rebound in 2018, but now they’re slipping again. Woe are we.
3
Matthew Carnicelli,
From reading your comments, you are obviously a contemplative man; I usually agree with you; not this time.
Unless Amy K is the nominee, Trump will be re-elected; she is the only Democrat standing that I would consider; otherwise I will hold my nose and vote for Trump.
Not racist, not xenophobic; just an old black grandmother.
5
I'm shocked you Mr Stephens could actually print "That’s a thought that should have at least delayed Nancy Pelosi from announcing the impeachment inquiry on Tuesday afternoon, a few hours after Trump promised to release the unredacted transcript of a July phone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky", and not see that if Pelosi had NOT announced an inquiry, that release of unredacted transcript would never have happened!
11
Using the Kavanaugh hearing as an example of Democrats' mistakes is foolish. It was a prime example of how Republicans, especially old, white, male Republicans, were prepared to patronize, condescend to and humiliate an intelligent, decent, well-educated woman who had nothing to gain and literally almost everything to lose by coming forward. They ignored other witnesses and thought a cursory FBI investigation would suffice as window dressing. As a result, the Supreme Court's image, like Kavanaugh's reputation, is indelibly stained. Now that this Ukraine phone call debacle is yet again showing up Trump's lack of protocol, ethics and sheer stupidity, those same Republicans are clutching their pearls and shrieking about the injustice of it all. Just how much more nauseating behavior and hypocrisy does Bret Stephens think should be tolerated? For someone who says he dislikes Trump, he seems to be willing to put up with a lot. There's no sign of Republicans growing a spine, so like it or not, Pelosi and the Democrats are the only available means to stop this sick President and his chaos.
11
Adm. Maguire has all the cards. I am going to remind him of the oath he swore back in 1974. Do the right thing Joe. You don't need this embarrassment.
1
I am quite sure that Speaker Pelosi knows exactly what she is doing and you do not have a clue. Letting this criminal president continue to run the country like a mafia boss at the expense of the taxpayers and our Democracy has to stop! Now we have the evidence it is time to stop him. I could care less if it is not politically strategic, it is the right thing to do! Kudos to the Democrats for having the spine to say “Enough”!
14
Trump: “...the United States has been very very good to Ukraine. I wouldn’t say that it’s reciprocal necessarily because things are happening that are not good but the United States has been very very good to Ukraine.”
Trump: “I would like you to do us a favor...”
How is this not quid pro quo?
13
Aside from Trump withholding military aid voted by Congress until the new president of Ukraine called him. Then Trump wanted him to dig up dirt on Biden's son on his role in the Ukraine.
However, he also wanted Ukraine to find the server that was used to hack the Dems in 2016 - hmmm - wonder what info might be on that hard drive??? Maybe the Ukraine government was blackmailing Trump - threatening to release its contents, if he didn't send more aid than what was needed (I mean - a half billion dollars is a pretty good chunk of money for defense of a small country, esp when the leaders are just going to peel off a hefty percentage from the top and send the rest back to us for hardware.)
1
Speaker Pelosi called for Impeachment hearings. Not impeachment...yet. Thanks for the advice to Democrats. A better use of your allotted space would be to scold and advise Republicans. Kavanaugh did lie under oath and had dozens of ethics complaints that were dismissed when he got his Federalist society grooming award.
There is much more to advise Republicans on, and you are surely more familiar with their long held practices. When done there, move on to Bibi. Then, double back for advise to Speaker Pelosi.
6
If it walks like a mob boss and talks like a mob boss, then ...
5
Bret,
Here’s your homework assignment:copy the US constitution twice, single spaced, and then write an essay on the Trump presidency and the separation of powers con-scribed therein.
8
This is rank foolishness - to suggest that calling for impeachment is a bad call or that a "nightmare" would be the result.
These NYT columnists should know better.
It is axiomatic that if you are given power and you don't use it, you lose it.
Another columnist in this paper has made a similar argument, proposing that this will be a nightmare. This too is foolish.
Guess what: too late! This is already a nightmare.
Its been a nightmare ever since 2015, and since then, its just gotten worse, as we have seen the nihilism and anti-nomianism that has obnoxiously reared its head in the guise of various fascist shills who supposedly are our leaders; and in this I include such renegade and treasonous twaddle of Corey Lewandowski and Kelly-Anne Conway - to name but two.
Their speech, and others like it, and the numerous instances of non-feasance and malfeasance on the administration of Individual One (staffed as it is like an badly under-strength regiment) are an entirely adequate testament to the nightmarish and ghoulish nature of every single day of the administration of the current resident of the White House.
To not exercise the power granted it by the voters, to argue against it, is to support manifestly unconstitutional practices and blithely countenance the rank dishonor of the office of the presidency and the institutions of this country (and this is saying something, given the general corruption of the business-as-usual mien of Congress, the Executive, and the courts)
4
Predictable column by M. Stephens. Just remember, the president said multiple times that he asked the president of Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden. Why do we have to say anymore?
5
I have to strongly disagree with you. Trump left the Democrats no choice. First, and setting aside Ukraine, Trump broke a basic norm of our constitutional system: The FBI investigates crimes and federal prosecutors decide to prosecute. The President stays out of the Justice Department's day-to-day prosecutorial decisions. Trump's actions undermine the rule of law.
Second, as everyone who is a prosecutor has said, the summarized conversation does involve a quid pro quo, particularly with the aid already cut-off. This is how the mob handles quid pro quo demands. It is obvious what is happening. Like the mob, Trump has used a cut-out--Rudy Guilliani--to do his dirty work.
Third, Trump involved the State Department and Justice Department in his shenanigans. He is infecting the entire government with his corrupt ways.
Fourth, Ukraine poses national security issues for our country given Russian aggression and interference. When you read the summary, you see how Trump conducts our government's business. He freewheels, but has no idea what he is doing. It is embarrassing. He should be removed for this reason alone. This is just one issue that he deals with (or fails to deal with while watching Fox News) each day. Imagine what we don't know. Frightening.
4
A very Macchiavellian argument... ignore the filth that has transpired so that one can 'win' in November 2020. This mirrors the prevailing pattern: the uber-religious have chosen to turn a blind eye to Trump's moral turpitude; fiscal conservatives went silent on ten trillion dollars of indebtedness; lapel flag pin hawks are now Putin's best buddies.
The bully gets his way as the weak children on the playground back down. Cowardice and greed seemingly rule the day. No wonder voter turnout is so pathetically low.
5
Exactly how much abuse should the country tolerate??
Should we wait until we are another North Korea??
8
So now we can't trust our elections and need to find work-arounds? If this is the case, we've got bigger problems than that conversation with Zelensky. Trump is not going to appoint himself dictator or throw the next election. The sky isn't falling.
I would think Republicans would prefer Pence on top of their 2020 ticket over Trump. Let’s all work to kick the clown out.
2
I just want to thank the Whistleblower. Courage, honesty, audacity. Got that, Bret?
5
Rule of law, Stephens. That letter reeks of legal violations that no other president has ever done and let's be honest, claiming Donald has been squeaky clean until now is simply a joke. And now you're wishy-washy? No one is above the law. Surely you get that, no?
3
By not acting, Democrats would have been implicitly approving Trump’s encouraging, for the second time, a foreign powers meddling in our election. Moreover, anyone with a half a brain knows exactly what he was up to when he asked for the Ukrainian President’s help in “investing “ Biden.
4
Haste?
Are you kidding?
It was Trump's own GOP-appointed intelligence officer who deemed this egregious extortion by Trump to get fake dirt on Biden, even pulling in Barr for extra help, with Giuliani hustling on the side (on behalf of whom? The American People? I don't think so) -- Credible and Urgent.
Leveraging $400 million of taxpayer dollars -- for what?
And the DOJ saw now evidence of "campaign finance" violations -- so amazing -- Barr was enlisted in the call!
What about mishandling Ukrainian aid -- that is intended to save Ukrainian lives? This is much bigger that campaign finance.
Over 3000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed since Putin's aggression started.
Blood on Trump's hands.
And if Trump said "maybe Ukraine was the 2016 hacker," well, what's up now with asking the new Ukrainian President "for a favor."
If Trump did not get any push back for this, what would be next?
Selling our nuclear codes to Putin -- for $1 trillion into Trump's private bank account?
"Helping the President?" Help the President do what?
There are plenty of soccer moms in Pittsburg, Cincinnati and Madison who will come out in droves to push Trump out on account of this -- and plenty of lukewarm, nose-holding, lesser-of-two-evil 2016 Trumpies who are going to stay home in 2020, on account of this.
All attempts to spin and repackage this are DOA.
Now, Mr. Stephens, you can go back to watching Fox News.
3
In 2018, Mr. Stephens, you described the president as “bottomlessly dishonorable.” What changed your mind? Or, is a “bottomlessly dishonorable” scoundrel not worthy of impeachment, in spite of irrefutable proof?
If you fear that Nancy Pelosi has irreparably harmed America with her Tuesday declaration and that she’s unleashed the storm of Donald Trump’s MAGA nation which will, of course, see this (impeachment) as a summons to arms, then we were never a nation worth saving or worth the name.
You’re faint of heart, sir.
5
America. Make it great again by impeaching Trump.
1
No quid pro quo? Yes Trump didn't actually say no Biden investigation , no money. Seriously, does anyone coerce others by being that explicit? C'mon Brett we're talking professional crooks here.
2
Glad to know that abusing the office of president to bring down political opponents doesn't warrant impeachment. Thanks.
I'm amazed at the number of opinion pieces the Times has published in the last couple of days (this one, Frank Bruni's latest, yesterday's by John Yoo) in which the basic message is: We mustn't do what's right for the country because something bad might come of it.
2
One wonders if Trump baited the Democrats onto the impeachment path, while getting the necessary exposure and attention to Biden's prior actions. As Trump himself said, "how could I be so dumb?!" Would Trump risk getting impeached - knowing full well the Senate would never vote for his removal from office - to win the sympathy of swing voters and to bury Biden? It's plausible and if I believe Mr. Stephens, that's exactly what will happen.
1
Bret, you are holding out for evidence that you know isn’t there...in words. Yet in the criminal circles in which DJT operates, the evidence is *everywhere*.
People like DJT don’t say “I’m holding your money up until you do what I ask”—that’s what a screenwriter might put in a B-movie script. No: they operate on what’s called an “understanding.” It’s what enabled DJT to say things to Michael Cohen without *saying* them. So the proximity of the phone call to the withholding of military aid was “understood,” and Zelensky complied.
You can take the boy out of Queens but you can’t take Queens out of the boy.
1
Oh, please! Maybe you should have waited to weigh in until after you had read the complaint itself.
The Ukrainian phone call is the last fetid waste that tipped the scales in favor of impeachment. The vulgarity, meanness, incompetence, lying and dishonesty of POTUS is conduct that would have gotten him fired from just about any private sector company, under provisions of federal statutes. That we have tolerated his misbehavior for so long is what troubles me. It is a given that the Senate will not convict POTUS, but the Constitution requires that the House initiates the impeachment process.
I suspect I like Bret’s columns more than most NYT readers, but he whiffed here.
When it comes down to it, he is a Republican more than he is a conservative. He hates Trump, but not enough to do something genuinely painful, like, say, voting for a Democrat.
When Clinton was impeached, it hurt Gore in his election vs Bush. IT HELPED THE REPUBLICANS!!!!!!!!!!!!
So I don't think the pundits are correct that the impeachment process will backfire on the Democrats.
HE WILL GAIN ZERO NEW VOTES FROM THIS> 0000000000000000000000000000000 new votes.
Yeah, sure, an election where Trump launders Barr & Giuliani claims about Biden&son through Ukraine to help Trump beat Biden is the solution - to Trump's election problems.
Clinton got reelected because lying about sex wasn't a threat to America so the GOP looked bad. If trashing the Constitution doesn't seem threatening we're done for.
And just how much would the Republicans have let Obama get away with? He would have been impeached before he stepped off that escalator.
So much for the rule of law. Nixon must be rolling over in his grave.
So we take a poll and then decide what is right or wrong? Brett? That's it? I guess the lemmings have won yet again. Enjoy the ride to the bottom of the cliff...
"A stronger argument is that no president should use the power of his office to try to dig up dirt on a political opponent — as, for instance, Lyndon Johnson did, abusively and persistently, to Barry Goldwater in 1964."
But Johnson didn't conspire with a foreign government to dig up the dirt.
1
Please go watch the Godfather Part 2 scenes between Don Vito Corleone and the mortician - they please reread the non-transcript transcript (ellipses and all) -- and maybe rethink your conclusions a legal nothing burger. Also recheck your knowledge of the law that says it is illegal to seek or receive "a thing of value" from a foreign source to aid a federal political campaign. (Lest we forget, Barr's Justice Department concluded apparently that any dirt on the Biden's would not be a thing of value to the President's re-election campaign. --- but then again, Barr was implicated in Trump's telemarketing request for dirt -- Barr has quickly thrown Trump's version under the bus, but nevertheless had no business prod riding over the "nothing to see here" memo issued by his Department. And finally, why so silent on Giuliani's role as a one man State and Justice Department -- Trump has found his Roy Cohn, it seems.
So the DOJ headed by Barr, who was implicated in the call, have determined that there is no reason for Congress to have the whistleblower complaint. Sounds familiar. Impeach Barr as well!
Bret, I'm sorry that you and other Republicans might lose a president who both enacts an agenda you love and whose detestability gives you cover for the brutality of that agenda.
The real problem with the impeachment inquiry is that it is based on the same, failed "but-her-emails" logic that lost Hillary Clinton the election. Similar to the Trump's behavior towards to the Clinton Foundation, Trump's actions here are potentially illegal and despicable, but he is pointing out real corruption. Hunter Biden is a troubled man who was paid 50k a month (the yearly income of an average household) to "consult" a Urkainian energy company trying to start fracking in Ukraine. Is this the sympathetic foil for Trump? Is this the kind of person the Democratic Party exists to defend?
It disgusts and disappoints me that it was Joe Biden's rich failson, not poor Salvadoran children growing in the Rio Grande, that is forced Democrats to realize perhaps Republicans should not be in power any longer. Bret Stephens obviously thinks attacks on both children, integral parts of the Republican agenda, are acceptable.
So you say, Bret. Let me get this straight, you express false concern that Trump could be 'helped' by impeachment and so advocate that we wait to hear of even MORE criminality and dereliction than we've seen so far because.... what? Maybe your tag line here is right, maybe the impeachment hearings help Trump make it into a second term. Doing so would expose the sickening fact that American voters are ignorant and blind to the point of stupidity and that are ultimately incapable of "keeping" our republic, to reference Franklin. At least then we'll know.
Maneuvering to just another White House win for Democrats would not be enough, given what we're facing. The only way that America is going to recover from this nightmare is if this "Trumpism" madness is thoroughly and utterly destroyed. Impeachment of the president, with all of the fact-finding and disinfecting sunshine, and regardless of whether conviction and removal is possible, followed by a scorched-earth landslide repudiation in 2020 would do the job. Anything less simply abandons the Constitution to unworthy thugs.
1
Nancy Pelosi's Intelligence Committee experience gave her the certainty she needed to call for impeachment. She knew that a credible whistleblower complaint being sidelined by the White House had to be a serious breach of ethics. Daylight has shown her to be correct. Time to eat a little crow, Bret.
1
Despite Mr. Stephens's proclaimed disdain for this president, I'm not buying any of it. Mr. Stephens, for some time now, has been on his soap box saying, basically, "it's the corruption, stupid." Yet when push comes to shove, Stephens, like every republican—every one of them so far—allows political calculation to trump principle, apologizing for it in this case with, basically, "everyone does it." Surely, if President Obama had done it—any of it—republicans (and never Trumpers like Stephens included) would be shouting—Shouting!—for his impeachment. It does no good to call attention to someone's double-standards. Maybe I'm wrong and Mr. Stephens, lecturer on the effects of dehumanizing language (for example, say of Mosquitoes), does not hold a double standard here.
1
Disgraceful behavior is not the same as criminal behavior?
The transcript doesn't show Trump tying his "request" to military aid?
Really?
You wrote this article with a straight face?
If you don't already work on the Trump PR team, you should.
So, you write a column based on the speculative belief that the evidence is not there, when the Speaker of the House, with access to all kinds of information you could get only in your dreams, commits to a risky political course based on the opposite belief. Guess whose knowledge of the facts I'm going with at this point.
2
At this point, Trump is just going to continue breaking the law, carrying on with his and his administration's corruption, tearing down his potential opponents with help from foreign entities, and much more. His presidency will cost Americans their healthcare, wages, and their environment. Trump will have robbed the military even more. So, impeach away!, I say. If we don't enforce our laws and hold our institutions to high standards and integrity now we will lose it all. We all know what is right and what is wrong. Were the situation reversed and there was a Democrat president doing all that Trump is doing, the Repuglicans would be full steam ahead and it wouldn't have taken nearly three years to do it.
1
Mr. Stephens, you are purposely ignoring the blatant unfitness of this man, Trump, to be anywhere near the office of the president. You know that he has done nothing but soil the position since 2017. There are years worth of lies, mean-spirited attacks, impulsive and incoherent statements and actions, denigration of our institutions and flouting of our laws. If these facts do not make Trump worthy of impeachment is your eyes, you are willingly blind.
1
"...any competent federal prosecutor would charge this as a quid pro quo."
-Mimi Rocah
If everyone and their provost didn’t already know how seriously Brett Stephens takes himself, I would never know whether or not these articles are written by someone that believes the things they’re claiming.
Reminds me of the nihilists from ‘The Big Lebowski’.
I will do what I did in the Watergate years, namely go on living without news papers, oh except the sports page until it's over.
Anyone in his/her/their right mind couldn't help but find, after watching Trump's rambling, incoherent, narcissistic, paranoid ramblings at the UN today, that the time to invoke the 25th Amendment is long past due.
1
I am finally convinced.
Mr. Trump could indeed shoot a man in the middle of Fifth Avenue in New York and the modern Republican party would immediately blame the dead individual for getting in the way of Mr. Trump's gunshot as part of a Democratic plot to discredit Mr. Trump.
After several hours of careful consideration, the Republican party would then alter the story to point out that the man was jaywalking and deserved to be shot as part of Mr. Trump's "law and order" campaign.
Two days later, to drown out the noise of this shooting, Mr. Trump goes out and shoots another person, this time on Santa Monica Boulevard. It's excused by the Republican party as dealing with the rampant homelessness found in Los Angeles and the environmental problems homelessness causes.
And so on.
So the question arises. How many people will Mr. Trump have to shoot before the Republican party recognizes he's a criminal?
1
With all due respect, I disagree with your column from top to bottom, Mr. Stephens.
DJT has abused his power long enough, each step bringing this country closer to a dictatorship. The Democrats have no choice but to impeach, or go down in history as being as complicit as the GOP. No thanks. The fight matters.
1
Mr. Stephens,
It’s not Ms. Pelosi’s call for an impeachment inquiry that was premature, it’s your column. You may want to re-write it now that the whistle blower’s complaint has been released. Once again, it appears that it may not be the crime itself that may be ground for impeachment (although Nixon had at least the decency to use American citizens to dish dirt on Democrats), it’s the cover up by the White House.
1
The better measure of an impeachment's impact on the election next year is whether enough voters who stayed home in 2016 will be motivated by the Senate's craven acquittal to vote Democratic in 2020.
1
"The best way to end this administration — and the only realistic way — is for him to be convincingly turned out by a vote of the American people next year. Impeachment risks putting that goal much further out of reach."
This may prove to be a false statement. Even if the Democrats fail to impeach Trump, the process itself will keep Trumps offences in the public eye. At worst, he will come off as even more repugnant than he already has. And no doubt this "fight" will underscore his worst impulses.
I get the risks in pursuing impeachment and think it is not needed, it is hard to predict the outcome from this moment in time.
Stephens is missing an important point here. This isn’t just about impeaching Trump it’s about checking the recruitment of foreign influence to sway our elections. Left to his own devices Trump will happily make himself a despot and the more he’s left to his own devices, the bolder he’ll grow.
37
I find it fascinating that the Times columnists on the right often scold us on the left for a putative lack of firm principles, yet, when, as here, Congress is confronted with the most blatant violation of the public trust since Nixon--soliciting (to use a polite word) assistance from a foreign government to undermine a political opponent and, it appears, the federal prosecutions of Manafort and Roger Stone--Stephens chides the Democrats for not suborning principle to a cold political calculus.
1
For so long Speaker Pelosi kept her head straight on knowing full well the grave liabilities of a full out Trump Impeachment proceeding.
Was it really the Trump Ukraine exchange seeking dirt on Biden that was the proverbial straw?
Something more had to be the prompt for her to pull the pin and the Impeachment grenade.
Trump will relish mud and blood in the trenches — it is his delight and forte.
Time to dust off the Muller Report and take a hard run at Trump’s full blown flaunting of the emoluments clause. Then too there is the fundamental issue of the oath of office that has been so routinely and flagrantly trashed by DJT.
If initiating this impeachment process helps Trump get re-elected, then America will get even more of exactly what it deserves - more lies, more corruption, more hatred, more pollution; and you can also throw in even bigger annual deficits...
Once again, much of this centers on "quid pro quo" and that is not necessary to impeach this president. He made requests of a foreign government to investigate a political rival for his own potential personal, political gain. That is shameful for any president to be doing. It is not appropriate for Trump, Giuliani, and Barr to be playing spy and "investigating" directly with Ukraine officials to see what Biden did. We have entire government agencies properly suited for such work. This is a shameful abuse of power by a president who thinks he's the mafia capo, and it's beyond time he understand he can't run our country like it's the mafia. What Trump did is inexcusable, and the whistleblower rightfully reported what they encountered and were massively concerned about. So enough with the "quid pro quo" as it just demonstrates how ignorant of an argument it is, and that you're following some talking points issued by The Don and his mafia and media cohorts.
1
Bret, she has opened an inquiry to get the facts. If the house was voting on impeachment, that would be jumping the gun. This is actually long overdue. Are you in possession of facts that show there is nothing to this? If not it is you that is jumping the gun, not her.
47
Haste? You are completely put of touch, sir. This happened at the right time; indeed, it should have started somewhat earlier.
The Ukraine call is not the only grounds for impeachment, by far.
To do nothing at all would be to condone the evisceration of the presidency. The Democrats have to stand for something.
1
Unfortunately, it looks as if the next five years will be worse than the last three. That's the reality check Democrats cannot accept, even though they're absolutely right. Quite sadly and simply they've been outsmarted by the corrupt, greedy and hypocritical
opposition who will have totally destroyed this democracy by 2024.
Vote.
So much for pundits like Bret. We have a full scale scandal on our hands, a la Watergate. Pelosi waited and waited, and turns out she was right on that and right when she decided to seize the moment. That's why she is there making hard and real decision, and the Brets of the world only offering up opinions that mean nothing. I hope he comes out and says she was right and he was wrong.
2
While it's arguable about whether or not it's arguable, it is far past time for a full formal impeachment inquiry with all the power that has on so many issues. If your only argument is a poor analogy to Kavanaugh then Pelosi is long overdue in calling for formal impeachment inquiry which should have happened as soon as Barr redacted the report to Congress.
These are Trump appointed officials in the whistleblower's IG report and acting DNI. This is not partisan except for politicians that want a share of Trump's spoils.
"What it does not show, however, is Trump tying his request to the release of U.S. military aid in the manner of a quid pro quo. Adam Schiff in the hearing today disagrees with you.
"Come again? That’s what presidents do all the time, only Trump does it more flagrantly." You conveniently equivocated by leaving out the part that htis inparticular was Trump asking a foreign country to interefere in U.S. elections.
"whatever else might be said about it, was not unlawful" You are wrong and are ignoring:
52 U.S. Code §?30121. "It shall be unlawful for—
(1) a foreign national, directly or indirectly, to make—
(A) a contribution or donation of money or other thing of value, or to make an express or implied promise to make a contribution or donation, in connection with a Federal, State, or local election;
It is illegal to receive and so is illegal in more ways to blackmail the Ukrainian President for it [Biden smearing oppo intel} too.
Start the impeachment proceedings. If for one good reason:
At least I can say to my grandkid we gave it a shot.
32
Brett, you have no way of evaluating how strongly certain voters "oppose impeachment." A voter could be uncomfortable with impeachment right now but not oppose it so strongly that they'd vote against Democrats who support it.
And anyway, public opinion on impeachment can change pretty quickly as new information comes to light. That's what happened in Watergate.
I wouldn't put too much faith in public polls about impeachment. Voters want Congress to lead on this issue. I'm glad it's finally doing so.
4
This is so childish, Stevens. The quid pro quo is never going to be explicit in a situation like this—we don't actually live in a cartoon show. This is becoming a cliché but go watch the Godfather or an episode of the Sopranos ("That other one? I dunno" —Livia Soprano actually said "Kill Him, He's Useless" here since you need things spelled out). Conversations like this one seen all over the word by literate beings are full of subtext. Timing and timelines mean something, and you follow the money. You're supposed to be a journalist, connect the dots. Here is your quid pro quo:
If the money was frozen at the time of the call and he says words like "We do a lot for Ukraine," "We spend a lot of effort and time." You don't spend effort. The only things you can spend are money or time—this is the most basic reference to money that a Don has ever made, so I will refrain from any further translation.
"I wouldn't say that it's reciprocal" this is just "remind me again why we're paying you? Oh right, because it's your job to show us loyalty."
It's really very simple and the timing of the money freeze and this conversation are NOT a coincidence. Bret, you're so disappointing.
How do you get on the subway every day with your hands over your eyes and the headphones are turn all the way up? All the other people are still there even if you can't see them or hear them.
3
Please read Neal Katyal's OpEd. It is in the New York Times.
3
Brett wrote this too soon. He says Nancy Pelosi should have waited, He should have waited till 9/26/2019.
2
You can't make deer-in-the-headlight true-believers greater believers. And those are the only people still supporting Trump and his cult of personality. And, frankly, I'm tired of politicians pandering to the moronic 35% of the population that support this career criminal. If it was up to people like Bret Stephens, no one would ever stand up for anything, out of fear of reprisal. And that, my friend, it the path of unmitigated cowards. Cowards like "bone spur" Donald Trump for one.
4
Mr. Stephens, my feelings about Trump match yours exactly, and your sense of foreboding about impeachment is entirely justified. As has been pointed out by many NYTimes opinion pieces over the past two days, impeachment is a political, not a legal, action. That means the case for must be sold to the citizenry, not the courts. Unless there is flagrantly damning information in the whistle-blower's report, I do not believe the Dems will be able to make a persuasive case in the public mind. And that means that an election, instead of a contest about who has the best ideas for inspiring and improving the country and the world, will be about Donald Trump's character and ethics, a topic that is depressingly empty of meaning and interest.
What a horrible column. You failed to mention to your readers that the Quinnipiac poll was based on poll data from September 19-23 (i.e., *before* the latest and greatest controversy). To say that this information was "as of Wednesday" is basically a lie, or at the very least, a misrepresentation of facts. You're trying to pretend like you support impeachment while doing what you can do bolster Trump supporters.
2
Ha ha! It's unusual for you to be THIS wrong . . . you're really missed the boat this time! Have you alternative plans?
3
Thank you, Nancy. Obviously you are a multi-tasking legislator, so while you're trying to impeach the president, please put the same effort toward 30330.
Wrong again, Bret. How many hairs can you split? Do you know what the meaning of “is” is?
Please don't refer to the memo as a transcript, it most certainly isn't a transcript. If you intend to criticize Pelosi you should at least get your facts straight!
Haste?! Hardly.
2
Haste? Really? Speaker Pelosi has been running interference for the president, trying to collect as much as she can. What is the tipping point? Is it when the president, for a second time, seeks dirt on a political opponent from a foreign power? How about when credible information was delivered about a payoff to a porn star and a centerfold model? How about when he stands in the Oval Office with Russian oligarchs, without anyone else and releases information about Israel to them? How about just flat out lying to the American public, basically daily? Does not the oath of office seem incongruous with respect to the behaviors exhibited by this president? That reversal is exactly what Trump wants.
1
Stephens is showing his Republican colors in his comment. Pelosi has long resisted impeachment of Trump. I agreed with her. But something changed. Trump put pressure on a foreign government to attack one of his political rivals, Joe Biden, in the upcoming presidential election. That was stupid and Pelosi had to react. Nixon would never had done what Trump did. He was smart. Trump is stupid.
2
Why haven’t you shared my comments Bret
The fact that any amount of my subscription goes to this garbage is offending.
is this a real opinion?
Who is Bret Stephens? Certainly not an unbiased thinker.
https://newrepublic.com/article/155144/conscience-bret-stephens
Trump just shot America on 5th Ave and you know he's right--getting away with it......
If whatever is already known is not enough to impeach, "God Save the Queen". Let us tear up the constitution and be governed by King George.
Bret,
I wish Trump gets impeached the same day and hour that Netanyahu is found guilty of corruption and gets condemned to a prison cell. That way we can say goodbye to two thugs on either side of the pond.
What do you think?
1
Bret totally nails it.
This is classic trump derangement syndrome. Trump trolls them, and they take the bait. Over and over. Like puppets. Amazing that a novice in politics can be so effective. He has exposed these career politicians as a bunch of dopes.
Pathetic. The Dems will accomplish nothing but waste time, and the voters will not appreciate it.
To the Democrats, in the words of William Butler Yeats,
"do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking."
1
This article is a ridiculous, yet common justification, for not enforcing the law.
At some point, people need to wake up and have an unlawful president impeached. And if the congress and American people lack the will to do that, sorry, WHO CARES who wins the next election? Because it's an election for a country not worth having.
That's the reality that this author, and a lot of people, have to face. Your country is a sham if you decide the answer to your illegal president is just voting him out. Voting is for candidates who are lawful and who are qualified to be elected.
Study that.
1
Granted, most Democrats are feckless. Not Pelosi. She must have information. It's her wheelhouse.
As someone who grew up with mob guys, this a typical soft pressure approach of you scratch my back I scratch yours. This is not poker as if Pelosi is calling a hand she believes is weak, when the reality of this memorandum just confirms the approach that his mentor Roy Cohn would have advised Sen. McCarthy to use to get dirt on the communist hord enveloping Hollywood. How'd that work out in the end. Come on Bret take a stand with some backbone.
Brett Stephens is a climate change skeptic on the grounds that climate predictions are based on computer models and computer models are sometimes wrong as in the case of predicting wrongly Hilary's election win. Brett published this nonsense in NYT and never corrected himself. Whatever he says is wrong because he's been wrong sometimes in the past.
Spot on.
Embolden the base????
Each one has only one vote regardless of how emboldened they become!
Jesus Cristo Brett!
Ha ha ha ha! This guy is funny.
2
How would you feel if a President Hillary Clinton had asked the President of Ukraine for help in proving Donald Trump Jr's malfeasance, to help turn the election in her favor?
Are you waiting for tRump to shoot someone in the middle of 5th Ave before you think impeachment is warranted?
1
I could be the White House janitor that he's trying to investgate for all I care. Any American, especially one that is elected by the people and for the people, who tries to compel a foreign government to intimidate a rival American is a traitor. If a fellow American has committed a crime, bring it to the American justice system.
1
Why is Ukraine so important to Trump and Putin? It's at the heart of Trump-Russia, as I note here https://realcontextnews.com/how-cohens-and-manaforts-ukraine-ties-tell-the-deeper-story-of-trump-russia-and-the-mueller-probe/ Also, as Giuliani embarrasses himself over Ukraine and Biden, a look at Rudy's own shady ties to Ukraine and the Russian mafia https://realcontextnews.com/rudy-giulianis-kislin-connection-raises-issues-for-his-role-as-trumps-russia-lawyer-exclusive-analysis/ And with Trump using his official power as POTUS in conducting foreign policy to target Joe Biden, we may have his most explicit attempt to make govt into his own personal political tool for hurting his political enemies, part of a trend with him/GOP I note here https://realcontextnews.com/trump-gop-destroying-the-pillars-of-democracy/ On impeachment, I believe that Trump should have been impeached some time ago, but practical considerations make this issue much more complicated, as I noted before here https://realcontextnews.com/the-impeachment-of-donald-trump-russias-victory/
What's helping the president, Bret, is conservative apologists in positions of power, who think and rationalize like you, and who also continue to ignore the president's criminality.
2
"disgraceful behavior is not the same thing as criminal behavior"
Criminal behavior is irrelevant. You start from a false premise that impeachment is only appropriate for "crimes," completely misunderstanding the actual meaning of the Constitution's "high crimes and misdemeanors" clause. It does not mean crimes. The common law legal and historical meaning is purely political, and intended to unseat kings, criminals, clowns and idiots alike. Wiki it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_crimes_and_misdemeanors
Asking a foreign power to help you win an election is treason. That's more than enough evidence to convict.
1
Stop raining on our parade, Brett.
"...The best way to end this administration...is for him to be convincingly turned out by a vote of the American people next year. Impeachment risks putting that goal much further out of reach..." [op cit]
--
I reluctantly agree.
--
The Dems seem to be banking, as usual, on another upcoming revelation of a gigantic breach of trust [between the President and the American People], that never quite seems to manifest itself. [Read, "Oh darn! No smoking gun, this time. Maybe? Next time.”]
And I agree. That’s an extremely dangerous strategy, even for betting men.
***
As I reluctantly open my eyes to what the Pendergast Dynasty once labeled, "things as they are," I can't help but see that the cards are really stacked against the Democrats!
--
Trump has the whole Executive Branch sewn-up, plus half of Congress, and for all practical purposes [thanks to Leader McConnell and the Republican thugs on the Senate Judiciary Committee] the Supreme Court.
—
All the Republicans “really," have to do is just keep on obstructing as they have up to now—all the way to November 2020--and Trump will win.
***
The moral is this:
America needs the rudest of awakenings, in the form of a terrible tragedy that affects all of us, that will turn out to be solely of our current President’s making. And that, in my opinion, is the only way to dislodge Trumps base, and turn them against him. And then the Dems will finally have a chance of winning.
—
Please don’t shoot the messenger!
Dear Bret – I am worried about you. The reader’s responses are most uniformly critical of your opinion(s). The venomous NYT subscriber crowd may petition to impeach you and get you off the columnist list. I hope it does not come to that. I love reading your stuff.
Pelosi can't win, fer cryin out loud. She's too fast, too slow, too cautious except when she's too impetuous. Give it a rest.
Looking for something original in this opinion piece. Not finding anything.
Haste? Seriously?
Once again I share concerns and agree with a Republican opinion columnist. As corrupt, disgusting and venal as Trump is, I agree that the best solution is to vote him out of office. As George Bernard Shaw said "Never wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it."
Assistance in a US election from a foreign national, whether governmental or private, is prohibited under federal election law. Both the President and his lawyer admitted that they sought the assistance of a foreign power to harm the electoral prospects of a rival. Where are we not seeing a crime?
1
@David J
When you have blinders on as Mr Stephens has, you don't see much.
3
I agree with Bret Stephens. So far, all we have is the call, which appears to be merely yet one more "tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
13
@David R
There are none so blind as those who will not see.
18
@David R No, it's not. We have the full complaint.
9
As usual, the Dems manage to shoot themselves in the foot and drive voters away.
In the echo chamber of Dem outrage, as represented by comments here in the NY Times, is blinding and deafening. Maybe that's why it is hard for anyone to recognize that Bret Stephens, although a conservative, is trying to help liberals by giving them some perspective.
How can anyone NOT conclude that this impeachment is a partisan political attack, when no Republicans support it? When the impeachment is spearheaded by Nancy Pelosi, the bete noire of Republicans for decades? Why couldn't Pelosi wait a few days until the facts came out?
The impeachment inquiry, as everyone knows, will end without a Senate conviction, and Trump will remain in office at least until the next election. With Dems' unipartisan, failed attempt to sully Trump and remove him from office, it is more likely that he will have a second term.
Constant outrage has made the entire Democratic party seem unhinged and irrational. I'm a progressive, but I can't stand the liberal contempt for Republicans, who are (like my parents) also Americans and for the most part, very fine people. The moralistic tone of the attacks adds to the feeling of blind partisan wrath. I'm disappointed.
73
@Unconventional Liberal you want "the facts to come out" - but you don't want an impeachment inquiry?
Tell me, how do you expect to have one without the other?
Pelosi is known for being anything but irrational - if you notice, she's certainly not saying "let's impeach him right now." She's opening an inquiry to see whether he's committed impeachable offences. In light of the fact that he and his personal lawyer both admitted on camera to asking a foreign leader to interfere in an American election, that hardly seems "unhinged" or "irrational" to me. That seems eminently sensible and in fact the minimum that's required.
83
@Unconventional Liberal
An impeachment inquiry does not have to end in impeachment. And guess what, as soon as the House opened the inquiry, the President and the entire Senate caved and agreed to turn over the whistleblower complaint, which the White House has been illegally withholding.
Maybe there’s nothing there and the House decides not to impeach. That’s ok.
The House wouldn’t need to go though this drama if the President would stop criminally stonewalling the House and simply obey the law.
65
@Unconventional Liberal
He will probably have a second term whether or not there is an impeachment inquiry. At least the impeachment inquiry will try to address the concern that the country is rapidly becoming a lawless kleptocracy.
28
Hesitation signals lack of conviction and that is like fresh blood in the water for a raving maniac like Trump. Pelosi and the Democrats are dead on this time (though the nation might be too far gone to save anyway).
17
There’s a scene in the Sopranos where Tony tells a man in a nice restaurant to remove his hat. The man balks. He does not want to take off his hat. Tony doesn’t say a word. He just glares at the guy.
The guy takes his hat off.
Sometimes you don’t need words to make your point
Mr. Stephens, you would have done well to hold your tongue for a day. Perhaps you regret this piece now that the whistleblower Complaint is out. If the Rough Transcript was damning, the Complaint is beyond damning. The great irony here is that, according to reports that I have read and heard, the DNI or others concluded they could release the Complaint because Trump waived "executive privilege" when he released the Rough Transcript (though I don't believe such a privilege existed with respect to the Complaint). Now we know the vastness of a conspiracy to coverup Trump's nefarious conduct, which included, among other things, efforts to bury the Rough Transcript.
Excellent opinion article.
AND...
52 U.S. Code § 30121. Contributions and donations by foreign nationals [...]
(2) a person to solicit, accept, or receive a contribution or donation described in subparagraph (A) or (B) of paragraph (1) from a foreign national.
In 1973 17% supported impeaching Nixon.
Shakedown artists like trump never come out and say what they want, instead they create a series of conditions that force the hand of the other party.
There does not need to be a stated quid pro quo for there to be a criminal abuse of power.
On with the Impeachment of this monstrosity!
No quid pro quo? How naive!
Bad Impeachment call ???
Tell that to the children in cages on the border or the minorities who feel under siege since 2016 or go tell it to the brave people in eastern Ukraine fighting to preserve their sovereignty and democracy...
Call us when you return to reality Mr.Stephens,or actually,in fact,don't bother...
I read the declassified transcript of the phone call waiting to get to the smoking gun and came away thinking that as far as grounds for impeachment, it was a nothingburger.
Never has impeachment been proven faster. The release of the transcript is all we needed. Centuries of constitutional norms demand an impeachment. If voters decide to give an impeached charlatan, liar and pay-off-prostitutes-husband four more years then that’s the end of the American constitution. Democrats and voters who support them have done all they could. I will rest peacefully one day knowing this
Bret Stephens: Impeachment is a bad idea unless you have already obtained a notarized transcript, attested to by six witnesses (all Republicans), a simultaneous video recording, and a clear statement of Trump saying "I, President Donald J. Trump, hereby commit treason, an impeachable and capital offense, against the United States of America."
Good grief, what is it with these hot takes today? There is clear (albeit incomplete) evidence of Trump engaging in--or at least trying to--conduct that is clearly illegal, coordination amongst high-level cabinet officials to accomplish those goals, and a consistent history of using every possible means to derail legitimate investigations. So what are we supposed to do? Just put up with this behavior until 2020? Even if he is blatantly using his position to swing the election? We just cower in fear of hurting the feelings of ignorant Trump voters who won't change their mind no matter what?
This is such an idiotic take. If this doesn't warrant opening impeachment inquiry (an investigation mind you, not a vote yet), then what does? What is the point of impeachment if it's never used?
So please Bret, enlighten us on exactly what would be sufficient to warrant opening articles of impeachment? What would it take for you to say doing so isn't too "hasty" and it might end up "helping" the President? Because I almost guarantee no matter what Maguire says, no matter how explosive, you would argue it's premature.
Just when I thought you, Stephens, had clearer vision, here you deny that assumption. Haste? Continue to allow the baby in the high chair to throw his food? Are you, too, the adult in the room, willing to allow this heinous Presidency continue while you wring your hands in despair? The list of transgressions committed by this Administration headed by this willfully ignorant narcissist known more for his lies than for his embrace of the truth and fact can no longer be ignored, by the Congress, or for that matter, the responsible American citizenry, period.
1
Pelosi should have sent Donald to his room without a cookie. He’s a petulant child. Holding him to a standard as if he was the President of the USA and an adult with free will would be a disaster for democrats.
Mr. Stephens, given what we know, do you have any belief that the 2020 election in this country will be honest? That our president will have loaded up with every foreign government, dirty intel, and dirty tricks in order to be re-elected in the most dishonest election in our nation’s history?
And your solution is we can all watch this country sink further into chaos and you can write articles for the next 6 years about the Trump presidency? No thanks. Bill Clinton was impeached in his 2nd term. Over lying about having sex. His transgressions should not ever be compared to what we have endured the last 2 and 1/2 years.
Sorry Bret you are all wet on this! We the people expect our representatives to protect our laws. Since Trump has been in office we have been calling for political courage and ethics from congress, and now is the time. Trump has pushed hard and finally at least the dems have said enough. No thanks to your republicans as for some reason they still support his office, which consists of lies, name calling, attempts to breakdown our political system and to serve his owns needs and ego. HE MUST GO.
"Arresting Harvey Weinstein might make more people interested in seeing the movies he's produced. Why give him the free publicity?"
Thanks, Bret -- you're a genius.
What else does the man have to do to be declared guilty? The Republican standard for proving quid pro quo corruption is so narrow, it would be practically impossible to prove in court. You may not know this, Mr. Stephens, but the guilty rarely says it, draws a diagram, and sends up a smoke signal confessing the crime. Let’s stop engaging in foolishly obtuse cluelessness and call this for what it plainly is. Trump is rotten, and if he gets away with this he is guaranteed to do worse yet.
If it walks like a crook, talks like a crook and acts like a crook, it must be a trump.
Mr. Stephens you are just another republican trump apologist denying that the Earth is round.
So Ross you are correct about the polls. But that was even more true during Nixon’s demise and yet he was effectively impeached when Barry Goldwater told him the Senate would vote to convict.
And that was because after an impeachment inquiry, the facts came to light and when people saw who he really was, they changed their minds. An impeachment inquiry will either do that or do as you say and give the Dems a huge blowback.....if the facts aren’t there for impeachment.
But here’s the thing. Like others, as a centrist independent I was not in favor of impeachment. But with these and other facts from the Muller report their is no other way to hold a President accountable. He will not allow anyone in his administration testify and people like Cory Lewandowski gave Congress the middle finger in his testimony claiming executive privileges he does not have! It was a disgrace to watch.
If in the end if the only consideration is political blowback or seeing all of the facts before you investigate, they are not doing their jobs. To get the facts they must first investigate. And investigating under an impeachment inquiry appears to be the only way for us to get people to testify.
If they don’t investigate the President in effect he becomes above the law. Unfortunately, an impeachment inquiry is the only way to do that.
2
This is no longer a time to try to manage so that Trump does not win, Trump it smart and Trump always will work all angels.
I say, sod the right thing morally and leave to a loving god. You cannot control all the angles all the time.
Nancy Pelosi did the right thing. Go Nancy! Get off here back, would you do any better?
1
Bret is not a stupid boy. Therefore, you can't credit a thing he says.
Having announced his disgust with all things Trump, and done so in way drawing extraordinarily tight borders around the site of his displeasure, he also has made clear he has no choice but to vote for some random third party body to manifest in this sad old world the depth of his...what shall we call it?...pique?
This of course means he is functionally casting his vote for Trump and Republicans.
Now, from the safety of faux-very-public-self-exile-carefully-couched-in-terms-preserving-his-Conservative-bona fides-and-allowing-graceful-return, Bret launches advisement balloons at the people who really bother him.
That would be us.
Thanks, really, for your concern Bret but I somehow doubt your sincerity here, and am, unfortunately, deeply aware of the duplicity of those, like you, from the deepest, hardest Right.
Do enjoy voting, though, if you can.
"What it does *not* show, however, is Trump tying his request to the release of U.S. military aid in the manner of a quid pro quo."
Uh...yes it DOES, Bret. As countless cable-news pundits have pointed out over the past two days, just because Trump didn't explicitly say, "Give me dirt on Biden or you won't get your Javelins, Ukraine," doesn't mean that the implication wasn't extremely obvious to anyone reading that transcript.
Helen Keller wouldn't have missed the underlying threat in their conversation.
Remember that third-act diner scene in Goodfellas when Robert De Niro asks Ray Liotta if he could fly down to Florida on vacation “and take care of this thing”? Mobsters and crime bosses never say, “I want you to murder this guy because he ratted us all out,” or, “I want you to stick an icepick in this guy’s neck in order to keep him from testifying against me.” They say, “I know you’ll take care of the problem.”
Pence=Theocracy
Trump Family collects billions and lives happily ever after.
Nancy retreats to her vineyard and drinks wine in her mansion.
The American people watch reruns of "Idol' and 'The Apprentice' and put selfies on instagram.
After church.
OK, now we KNOW impeachment is the right choice
Bret, this has NOTHING to do with what you argue is "liberal" miscalculation. It has to do with the constitution and rule of law.
Your not liberal president has very likely broken the law. The full facts will come out.
Your cynicism about when and why to do this is...well... depressing...because you are an opinion writer for the most important newspaper in the United States and likely the world!
1
Mr. Stephens - It's your party's haste and outright stupidity that has helped the President. Whatever one's criticisms of Nancy Pelosi might be, the choices that need to be made wouldn't even be necessary if you could have a serious candidate (which, with the exception of the elder Bush, you have not had since Eisenhower).
Mr. Stephens only has eyes for Israel and what he thinks is good for Israel. Because Trump has blessed Likud and Netanyahu with every gift they have requested, impeaching Trump is bad, Stephens concludes.
Impeaching the President seems warranted, but how do you impeach his circle of stooges, his hundreds of executives, his thousands of political enablers and his millions of followers?
I guess a smoking gun is no longer a smoking gun. DO US A FAVOR. Meh.
Bret Stephens must have written this column before reading the whistle-blower's complaint. I trust we will see a total retraction in his next column.
Bret, does doing the right thing for its own sake have any merit in your book?
1
What a waste of editorial space by the Times. Mr Stephens knows less about what used to, and hopefully will again after trump’s impeachment, make America great.
It’s called INTEGRITY. Something that trump, Mr Stephens, Mr Netanyahu and the Republican Party seem to have lost in their pursuit of power and riches. Yes riches. Ever hear of an impoverished Republican elected official?
Shameful.
No quid pro quo, do not make me laugh. What a pathetic excuse.
The most powerful man in the world withholds 400 Million dollars in aid, and then asks for a political opponent to be investigated, and to involve both his consigliere and the Attorney General of the United States.
You can read between the lines Bret.We've all been there before. Did the GOP uses similar pressure to make you write this pathetic excuse for such a disgraceful and corrupt president.
What is your quid pro quo?
So you believe that Trump is disgusting. But the way you carry on, he's less disgusting than any reasonable alternative. And, the way you carry on, the American people are incapable of thought--evidence of criminality won't matter if the clearly biased Senate acquits. Well, not to the base, but remember, that's a minority of us. But, you seem to argue, this minority rules and that's in the long run good. Have I tied you up in knots yet? Not really, you do all the tying yourself.
We can't be cowards. The dems have to act. Fearmongering is a waste of good energy. Let's get this crooked guy.
Somehow I would trust Nancy over Brett any day.
Yep, calling for an impeachment inquiry before the evidence has been presented is a gift to Trump. Foolish.
Universal suffrage democracy is a popularity contest & money game. It has very little to do with ethics and doing the right thing. It's understandable why Bret and others still question the need to move forward with impeachment.
As always: "It's the system, stupid!"
To Americans pondering whether Trump might win a second term: if it happen, blame Universal Suffrage Democracy & the voters who still support him.
So in this column Stevens gaslights women who were sexually assaulted by a sitting SC Justice, and twists the prima facie facts of Trump’s blackmail of the Ukrainian President for personal political advantage to somehow conclude the opposite. All in a day’s well remunerated work I suppose.
How about, Brett, if you used your platform as a conservative columnist, supposedly concerned about preserving the US Constitution and system of government to rail about your right-wing, racist, white supremacist, corrupt, authoritarian, President ignoring the constitutional limits on his power and inviting a foreign government to dig up dirt on his rivals with a very apparent reference to aid that the US could provide? No? Maybe then his lying about everything? His support to Nazi groups? His war on the environment? His retaliation against scientist, such as meteorologists, who insist on fact-based hurricane warnings? His refusal to provide information to congress to allow it to perform its oversight responsibilities? No, you use your NYT-provided platform to say it's risky to impeach. Just how risky is it to keep him in power? I want my representatives, at this time of crisis to be counted on the side of doing the right and just thing. And, as for those who will stand by Trump, no matter what, including you, I want some record of where you stood when it counted.
2
To the Trump deranged, facts no longer matter. Innocent until proven guilty no longer matters. If someone points out abandoning one of the most essential principles of a democratic society, the woke among them will slough it off by claiming it was all just a convenient cover for slavery as of 1619 or some other clap trap they read in the new improved activist NY Times (while AM Rosenthal who tried to keep the paper as truly the newspaper of record squirms in his grave).
And wait until the DOJ's investigations are complete and they show how much meddling and dirt digging the Democrats did in the Ukraine to try to bring a political opponent they despise down to goose the Russian Collusion hoax along. It won't be pretty.
Even uglier will be the election results in 2020 for Democrats. Not to mention the can of worms involving Joe Biden and his son Hunter that can no longer be closed. Even if nothing criminal occurred, would one of the remaining sane Dems please explain how someone with zero experience in Ukraine or in the natural gas industry lands a consulting job paying $50,000 per month by sitting on the board of a Ukrainian gas producer? Not counting Hunter Biden and John Kerry's step son Chris Heinz' firm a cool $1.5 billion deal from China the same day he visited China with his father traveling there on Air Force Two?
A once proud and vital political party implodes run by a mob that no longer can be controlled ... even by experienced party elders who know better.
'handing their Republican opponents a P.R. coup."
A PR coup? Hardly.
It really is astonishing just how many NYT pundits seem perfectly happy to tolerate laws being broken in the Oval Office.
Hi Bret,
Already got the R talking points memo. Don’t really need the column today.
1
Thank you Bret for so eloquently writing exactly what I was thinking. That's why you get paid the big bucks.
"A pundit making confident predictions about the political fallout from the impeachment of Trump is a pundit far out on a slender limb." Frank Bruni in today's NYT. Brett maybe you and Frank should get coffee. Or a strong drink.
Haste? No. Whistling past the graveyard again, Bret?
If we take off our Dem or Repub hat, and just look at the lists of offenses itemized by NYT Milbank and Leonhart, how can you not say impeachment is due?
Trump is going to obstruct the continuing investigations anyway. So add another brick on the load.
No quid pro quo? What version of The Godfather did you see?
Put in the correct language, when the President of Ukraine asks for weapons in its war with Russia, the Don response is “Do me a favor.”
I thought Bret Stephens learned his lesson. Times obviously hasn't either.
Nancy Pelosi's haste? Haste? Seriously?
Bret, you really have am emotional attachment to the Cavanaugh thing
It’s your drum beat
It seems really personal to you
Just wonder what someone who is so defensive of cavanaugh is hiding
That’s all I really saw in this article
1
Hahahahahaha! Thanks. I needed a little humor today.
Bret, what is it about "inquiry," you don't understand?
Mr. Stephens is using the same approach Republicans use to mass shootings: Now is not the time to talk about doing __(the right thing)__. No...let's wait til __(a time later than now, when today's urgent issue will be in our past and more easily forgotten)__, that's when we can resolve this problem. If we talk about __(doing the right thing)__ now, that will risk getting anything done because it will polarize the electorate (wink - the electorate is already completely polarized but let's pretend doing the right thing is what will polarize the electorate).
Utter nonsense. The better time to have started an impeachment inquiry would have been any other time before now.
1
"I write all this as someone who thinks that Trump disgraces the office of the presidency every day he occupies it, and did so again with his call to the Ukrainian president."
There's no need to apologize, Bret. We know you're anti-Trump ipso facto. Otherwise, you wouldn't have a columnist job at the NY Times in the first place. A NY Times columnist -- if not describing Trump weekly as a cross between Heinrich Himmler, Bernie Madoff, Nathan Bedford Forrest and Vlad the Impaler -- is expected to always find fault with anything he says or does.
You're allowed some leeway when it comes to agreeing with Republicans occasionally on foreign policy or issues involving the free market vs more government control of the economy, or debates over crime and the environment, even moral questions about late trimester abortion, or defending Israel occasionally; but never ever take Trump's side on anything. If he says "A", you better be saying "B".
Otherwise, the NY Times' entire business model and reader base is at risk (look at the outrage when the Times first printed a headline simply stating what Trump had said which was fairly exemplary ‘Trump urges unity vs racism’ - without any derogatory qualifier.
If the temptation arises to fully agree with Trump on something, you better be sure there's an opening at the Wall Street Journal, NY Post or the actual newspapers of record these days that try to show fairly all points of view such as The Hill or RealPolitics. Just to be sure.
1
"The Speaker's haste." Sorry Bret, what are you talking about? Pelosi has been anything but hasty, obviously. Now it is indeed time to at least pretend we believe in the Constitution for awhile before going back to business as usual. Don't muck up the process with your increasingly tiresome snark about Liberal missteps being made in the games of government. Just get on board with Gail Collins, for once. You'll still have a job, afterwards.
1
If anybody actually believed the Constitution was a functional document, he’d be impeached a long time ago. But we know it’s totally feckless, flawed at the root and insufficient for life on planet earth in 2019. Bret doesn’t use those words because he has passed through all the necessary filters, so he talks about the drama of an upcoming election like the dominate narrative dictates, where a small minority of us will get to decide and the others will be ignored. Please stop lying to us. You don’t believe in the Constitution and know it is failing us. You’d sound prophetic in a few years if you’d only start admitting it now. Though I’d image that would be the end of your tenure at the NYT.
Brett, you're just flat out wrong, and time will prove this. The president commits 2 Federal felonies, and breaches his oath of office? What should persons of good conscience do? The moral imperative dictates exactly what the Democrats are doing.
The word “though”
1
I'm honestly just surprised that Mr. Stephens didn't CC this column to Nancy Pelosi's boss to try to get her fired.
Mr. Stephens writes: “But what if the facts don’t vindicate [Dems'] belief … that the president is manifestly guilty of … high crimes and misdemeanors.”?
Ahh. But they do:
* The president of the United States, at his inauguration, put his hand on the Bible and before God and the American people swore he will "take care that the laws are faithfully executed."
* The solicitation by a public official of anything of value from a foreign leader -- such as dirt on a political rival -- is, without more, a crime. The crime is complete at the solicitation.
* Trump has admitted to doing this. And what he has admitted to is documented by the recently released 5-page transcript.
* This makes Trump a criminal.
* A criminal president cannot be said to be taking care that the laws are faithfully executed.
* It is already evident, therefore, that Trump has betrayed his oath of office.
* It follows that what Trump has already admitted, together with the transcript, are a sufficient basis for impeachment. Right now.
This is why Noah Bookbinder, formerly Chief Counsel for Criminal Justice for the United States Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote in yesterday's NYT: “Simply by asking a foreign leader to [to investigate a rival candidate] Mr. Trump committed an impeachable offense.”
Dear Mr. Stephens: Get a job at Fox Noise. We don’t need your alternative “facts” here in the guise of an “opinion”. 45 committed many impeachable offenses before the call to Ukraine. Thank goodness that FINALLY got Pelosi off her duff.
Can the New York Times seriously not find in this country of 325 million with many world class institutions of higher learning a coherent and intelligent spokesperson for conservative politics?
No surprise Bret Stephens is against impeachment, the man doesn't even accept climate change for Pete's sake. I'm just wondering why the rest of the NYT hasn't come out swinging in favour of Pelosi's action. It's as if y'all are worried you might lose the guy who keeps readers reading.
(Oh, and Kavanaugh should NEVER have been approved by Senate as a Supreme Court Justice, but as he's a Republican, hypocrite Stephens will take him.)
Brett, I am surprised - you are normally sensible and appear not to grasp what has happened here.
Bring it all into the light of day.
Stop being a helpless bystander and feckless apologist for authoritarianism.
YEP. Got that right Brett. Once again the house Dems shoot at the foot and get dead center. The Dolphins have a better record
Bret apparently is still just waiting for him to stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody - only then impeachment may be reasonable.
You're a right-wing Republican who purportedly doesn't like Trump. Yet your columns here consistently criticize Trump, and then back him.
You rest your argument initially on Brett Kavanaugh. A notable choice considering you slavishly praised Trump in the Times for so wonderfully taking down all those horrible "bullies", like Christine Blasey Ford, who dared to testify against Kavanaugh, and Democrats who dared to question his fitness to serve on the Supreme Court.
Further, you bolster a Trump/GOP lie about Joe Biden's supposed connection to corruption, propping it up by blatantly misrepresenting a Times Editorial Board piece from 2015. The Times Editorial Board never "scolded the senior Biden in December 2015 for his son's profitable connection with a Ukrainian oligarch".
The Times Editorial Board stated it believed Joe Biden was concerned about Ukrainian corruption. His honesty was never once questioned. Instead it said that "the credibility of Mr. Biden’s message may be undermined by the association of his son with a Ukrainian natural-gas company." How was that in any way a scolding?
The New York Times Editorial Board merely concluded that "the fact that Burisma’s owner, Mykola Zlochevsky, has been under investigation" weakened Joe Biden's "efforts to help Ukraine."
One is left wonder how the Editorial Board feels about a member of the editorial staff misrepresenting what the Editorial Board actually wrote so as to advance his right-wing partisan political agenda.
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Mr. Stevens, look into the eyes of the children of this nation, in fact in the eyes of all children, and tell them that it is not ok to stand up against one of the most powerful politicians who is a pathologically liar, blatantly corrupt, incompetent and a demented narcissist. Your message is so lacking the courage our children desperately need to see from us.
What is it with republicans that they forgive trump for everything he does, stupid smarmy to outright criminal?
Once a republican always a republican? Hate the left so much you just can't get past it and will side with the dark side, the wrong side of history in almost all things?
Democrats and Pelosi are standing on principal and if it means defeat by trump's clueless base and the intransigent republicans, then so be it.
Even should that happen, it will only underscore what a lawless, corrupt country we have become under the republicans and their low-life minority president.
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What the country needs now is a lightning fast impeach in the house followed by a quick and dirty predictable un-impeach in the senate. Then move on to the real battle. Vote!
Are these Trump’s republican talking points???
Where were all of you holier than thou, no one is above the law liberals when Clinton was impeached? Why didn't boorish behavior (including credible accusations of rape), enriching oneself from the office, lying under oath, etc., etc. rise to the level of impeachable offenses when a Democrat was in the hot seat? Probably the same place as Pelosi and Nadler.
Wrong and partisan as usual.
-Trump runs the country like a mobster
-Trump is a traitor
-Trump is packing the courts with Federalist Society judges to sew up alliances nit because he is a "conservative".
Trump will wreck and threaten who or whatever to remain in office and cover his criminal tracks
-Trump will die in prison, broke.
WHAT DO YOU THINK A MAN IN THAT SITUATION WILL DO?
I stopped reading at the word “haste.”
Good Call!
Things are happening fast. Right this column reads as though it hit paper about 6 hours early.
Nancy Pelosi was born for this. She has forgotten more than you will ever know, Bret.
Pelosi was right, "he will self impeach"
This is you job, just what are you looking at, Bret?
Number of conservative white men with opeds in the Times telling us what they think about Trump’s impeachment (notice how they are essentially the same oped): Infinity
Number of immigrants who lost relatives or suffered abuse themselves in Trump’s detention centers, with opeds in the Times: 0
*Willy Wonka Meme*
Tell me again how The Times is some kind of bastion of Democracy.
Yet another dog and pony show brought to you by the Democratic Party. ‘Tiresome’ is putting it mildly...
Well said!
Yep. Trump will come out on top on this one. At this point, it's all just blah, blah, blah. Russia, Russia, Russia. Collusion, Collusion, Collusion. Mueller, Mueller, Mueller. And now Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine. The big losers in all of this will be Biden & son.
The main reason Kavanaugh receded to the background is because the trump chaos monster upstaged him.
It's hard to focus on a squirrel in your attic when you discover there's family of skunks living in your basement.
In case you weren't cc'ed, Bret, here are your talking points. Try and stay on point.
https://www.scribd.com/document/427434940/Ukraine-Call-Talking-Points#from_embed
Trump is dead. Long live Trump in jail or in exile.
The idea that the Speaker has been "hasty" in her actions is laugh-out-loud dumb.
“But what if the facts don’t vindicate that belief?” Did you read the telephone call transcript, sir? Good gracious! Do you really need more?
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Mr. Stephens is overly focused on the most recent alleged outrage and its details. Like Mr. Stephens, if I considered this incident in isolation, I could imagine a President who was otherwise upright getting off the hook here. But what we have here is a last straw situation, comparable to the Watergate break-in. A fairly minor incident in and of itself, Watergate fit into a pattern of outrageous executive overreach, lawlessness, and contempt for the Constitution. Madame Speaker did not make a bad or premature call here. She spoke for We the People who have had it with this President who undermines the common good each and every day.
An inquiry is an investigation not an indictment. If the investigation exonerates Trump--so be it. As long as the investigation discovers the facts, and they lead to nothing untoward, the House will suffer no shame for the probe.
Republicans fear any actions they can not control. They wail and beat their breasts in protest even before there is a result. I believe Republicans have an approach/avoidance attitude about Trump. On on hand they loath and fear him--on the other, they were made ecstatic by his enriching the rich and denuding many environment laws.
Trump has propelled the GOP into another universe.
What a surprise. When should she act, November 5? Sometimes you have to do the right thing for the right reason. You wouldn't understand or you'd have bailed on the GOP decades ago.
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Great strategy Bret! What happens if Trump wins re-election? Than what? And how about the base's frustration with the Democrats doing nothing while this president commits criminal acts in full view? Have you noticed how many of them are being challenged in primaries in 2020 because of voters frustration with them appearing weak and confused by this reality star president?
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@Bill. "What happens if Trump wins re-election? "
I hope the Democrats will start to do some soul searching on how and why they alienated so many Americans to the point where we see an amoral, vulgar, grifter as less bad for the country than their policy proposals are. But I won't hold my breath.
i guess this article just goes to show you that the news cycle today is measured with an egg timer. not a clock. not a calendar.
the bad impeachment call may have looked bad to you yesterday, but now that the complaint has been released, the cover-up exposed, and the involvement of other members of the administration and trump's personal attorney, it is looking very appropriate.
the president and members of his administration along with giuliani are now all exposed once and for all as criminals. the contents of the complaint and the naming of witnesses removes. beyond a reasonable doubt, that the president and his willing followers need to be removed from the positions of power.
i hope congress can find a suitable gerald ford-like caretaker for our government because pence is in the middle of this, which comes as no surprise to me.
the impeachment and ultimate trial in the senate are now forgone conclusions. the removal of the president will be determined by republicans in the senate. i pray that they fulfill their oaths of office. they ignore it at their peril.
TRUMP OUT NOW!
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I concur with all of this. One upside, though, may be that it takes down Biden, who should never have run anyway.
What Mr. Stephens appears to be ignoring is that this is an impeachment inquiry and not a call to vote to impeach.
And because of the constant stonewalling of Congress from the White House, Mrs. Pelosi needed to call for an inquiry to gain more leverage to force cooperation of the Executive Branch.
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Dear Dean Baquet,
When are we going to see the impeachment opeds written by victims of Trump regime policies?
Immigrants who were housed in detention centers, journalists who have been threatened by Trump supporters, Muslims who have been targets of hate crimes by Trump supporters, Jews who have been targets of hate crimes by Trump supporters........
It’s not like those people are hard to find. Do you plan on giving them a chance to voice their opinions, or is it only the voice of conservatives that you value?
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Wrong side of history much, Bret?
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This isn't dating well. It was published YESTERDAY.
Fail.
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You hit the nail on the head. The beltway gang just doesn't get it. The average American is sick and tired of these idiots who spend all of their time, energy and our tax dollars fighting petty partisan political battles instead of addressing our needs such as infrastructure, healthcare and education. This is going to backfire big time. The whole sordid charade serves as a testament for the need for term limits. These career opportunists (excuse me - politicians) are a disgrace.
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Stephens, your head is in the sand. The abuses proliferate exponentially, because he (perhaps rightfully) so believes he can get away with anything.
But the real flaw in your argument is that the american people should just vote Trump out (while the HOR ignores the trampling of our Constitution). Trump (and the Vichy Republicans) will do everything possible to steal this next election. We the People must do everything possible to defend our country. Pelosi did not want to do this-- she was forced.
Oh Bret. I am disappointed in you. The Constitution either means something or it doesn't. We are either a nation of laws or we are not. A criminal is occupying the White House and a criminal AG is trying to protect him. The law states that the DNI shall furnish Congress the IG report within 7 days. The DOJ has no role in this process. That was criminal obstruction. The smoke screen about corruption was blown out of the water by the Pentagon.
https://www.npr.org/2019/09/25/764453663/pentagon-letter-undercuts-trump-assertion-on-delaying-aid-to-ukraine-over-corrup
Please stop embarrassing yourself.
This time, I think you are wrong.
Trump to Zelensky: "Help me find dirt on Biden or I'll throw you to the Russians."
You're right, Brit. We should just all sit back and let this traitor continue to lie, bribe, steal and coerce. He's done so much for our country already.
Bret Stephens. Wow. If NYT insists on trying to maintain ideological diversity, couldn’t they at least get someone good? Btw, don’t tell Bret I made this comment, he might email my boss.
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I think Bret Stephen's column raises an important question about strategy here. And he may or may not be correct in his analysis. My question is, what strategy can actually work against Trump? He's committed so many offenses (for reference, please read David Leonhard's column from Sept. 22nd - "Donald Trump vs the United States of America") and he's gotten away with all of them; nothing has every stuck against him in his life - he's gotten away with stiffing contractors out of deserved payment, tax fraud, disclosing unauthorized classified national security information to foreign leaders, sucking up to the worst authoritarian dictators in the world, paying off porn-stars he had affairs with while his wife was pregnant to avoid negative campaign news...and on an on. What will finally stick on this crooked man who is president? Is voting him out of office even going to work? He has said he won't leave; and will the Supreme Court also allow him to get away with whatever he concocts to remain in office after the first Tuesday in November of 2020?
"Haste"?
"Haste"?
Why are concentration camps full of children not enough to galvanize the Democrats, but digging up dirt on some rich white man's failson is?
Is it because it's a little too late to impeach Obama?
Trump was at a 7 month low in polling just a few weeks ago on the 538 popularity tracker. But ever since impeachment talk has ramped up, he's hit 43% approval which ties his highest 538 approval since spring 2017. Today is also the first day of Trump's presidency, Day 979, where his 538 approval is higher than Obama's was on the same day (Day 979).
Americans are stupid, we all know that. Is impeachment going to help Trump?
You can't deny the polls.
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Mr. Stephens go hide behind the xenophobic, racist, sexist, etc occupant of the WH
Bret, shouldn't you be writing your 4,000th column on safe spaces on college campuses or something?
Has Bret been in hibernation for the past 6 months? Pelosi’s call for impeachment is hasty? Bret, my god! Nancy has been patient, bided her time, kept her powder dry, while all around her called for Trump’s scalp. She knew the time was not ripe, she waited until the idiot Donald went over the line. And now Nancy knows, Trump stepped in it, he is a dead man walking. Stephens should not make the mistake of underestimating Speaker Pelosi...
Bret, you disgust me. Do you ever support what's right, rather than what might or might not be politic? Donald Trump poses an existential threat to our democracy, and you apparently are content to act as an apologist for him. Pathetic. History will not be kind to you.
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Dems have lost their minds over Trump and if they keep it up they will lose the House as well. People are sick of this hyperbole and "grave" consequences for our democracy. If you don't like Trump vote him out of office, this is a democracy. If you want Mob Rule consider the guillotine and how well that worked out in the French Revolution. STOP THIS NONSENSE !!!! NY Times stop the vitriol !
Please have an election in 2020 if the people vote Trump out of office fine, if he wins fine. This is democracy not the hype from the NY Times, WAPO, Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, Brightbart, etal.
Nancy Pelosi is rightly testing if 2016 was just a fluke, or if, despite clear and present knowledge of Trumps' filthy , illegality, the American electorate will re-elect him anyway in 2020 - then he, sadly, would be the President that they deserve.
it is called fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
Now we, (BB Stephens), are blaming Pelosi for Trump's well-known ineptitude, corruption, and progressing dementia?
Take a step back though, both Republicans and Democrats are being played. All of US.
BrettBart Kav is just a scapegoat frat boy, he was used to inflame/rile the Democrats. We all fell for it. He is the most used person. Poor Brett.
Trump does stupid again for the umpteenth time. He was unexpected but determined useful by PTBs. Republicans have their heads in the sand again. Facts, intelligence, urgent, whistles, vindicate, belief, promises, impeachment...
All Trump was doing was trying to give Ukraine money to buy US manufactured guns from the US, using taxpayer money— with strings attached. He didn't know it was illegal and immoral to ask for quid pro quo. Poor fella. He is terrified. How could he be expected to know such things?
Still, follow the money. $391m was all intended to be spent purchasing guns and WMDs. Ukraine would rather it go to its citizen's welfare but guns will do in the climate such as it is.
Meanwhile, the US has a thriving gun and bomb industry even as it loses its agriculture, green energy, auto, steel, etc...industries. We should be glad about that?
What the world needs now is guns, more US guns. It's the only thing that there's just too few of...Not just for some but for everyone.
It's the guns, stupid?
It's tripe like this that keeps me from buying a subscription to the NYT, I don't want any of it to be used for Stephens salary. Call it my personal Hyde Amendment, only this one os for a good cause.
July 24, 2019 Trump tells a room full of young members of Turning Point USA that Article 2 of the Constitution allows him to do whatever he wants as president.
This is Trump's mindset, a mindset that has been reinforced by soul sucking sycophants since day one. And Trump's mind is never on anything but what will personally benefit he and his "Family".
Really, America? You fought a bitter war in order to deny the divine right of kings only to end up with a Constitution that restores such divinity? If there's a single Republican "constitutionalist" or "statesman" left he/she is hiding.
Perverse doesn't begin to describe the non-stop lies, conspiracy theories, excuses and tortured reasoning thrust upon the world in order to avoid holding the King Clown accountable.
Let it all play out...in Congress and the Courts....better to know whether or not trump enablers and the Supreme Court believe having a King Clown is the "right direction for the Country to go".
Hard to believe that I actually agree with Bret Stephens, for once.
The way to get rid of Trump is at the ballot box.
However, the Democrats don't seem to have any goodies to offer Main Street at the ballot box beyond "orange man bad", but the top tier Democrats (Clintons, Obamas, Bidens and their respective cabals) will still profit nicely from Trump's mansion-dweller tax cuts.
This is going to make the Dems once again, look like fanatical lunatics hell bent on impeaching Trump. The adults have left the room.
If there ends up being no there, there, then it will be just another brouhaha like Russia-gate was.
How is this latest going to help the Dems in 2020? Americans are going to be disgusted, once again, that the Dems are hell bent on destroying Trump's Presidency.
Impeaching Trump on the issues of Russiagate or Ukraine will only encourage the corrupt DNC and liberals. It was Hillary Clinton, Victoria Nuland and Joe Biden responsible for the Ukraine coup in the first place putting Nazi types in charge of Ukraine. This newly elected Ukraine president is making peace with Russia which the US deep state doesn't like at all.
If Trump is to be impeached, at least make it over a real issue.
3
Is this piece meant as parody?
1
The third of the country that will decide the election are not nytimes readers, and they will not understand this particular reason for the pursuit of trump when it fails. The dems were stupid enough to let the other side call the tune, as usual. This time in election season. Dumb.
You lost me at Lyndon Johnson digging up dirt on Goldwater and other presidents doing the same. The argument is idiotic.
Did Johnson ask Nikita Khrushchev to dig up dirt on Goldwater? No, he didn’t. Nixon did not ask Mao to dig up dirt on the Democrats, he sent the “plumbers” and the rest is history.
I trust Nancy Pelosi’s judgement over yours.
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I take back any good thing I ever said about Bret Stephens. He is a fool. Trump is clearly a con-man and crook.
History will out this episode as one of the saddest of American history.
This is just rubbish. Trump shook down
a foreign leader to help him politically
Took Putin's side on Ukraine
Times has managed to find someone worse
than William Kristol.
Giving Douthat a run for his money.
Trump looked like a whipped puppy. he knows
the air is going out of the balloon
Haste?
Dear Bret, could you make up your mind.
I agree!
The democrats are nuts.
Just beat him!
Impeachment is a waste of time, and will make him a victim, and that fits his narrative.
Yeah, let's wait to impeach until his next term....lol!
Would you want to impeach DJT if he had an affair with a White House intern? Just asking.
Just once could the New York Times print an opinion criticizing the impeachment inquiry of Donald Trump that isn't from an aging privileged White Republican?
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Stephens must be the only person in America who is not reading these damning documents and listening to Rudy and Trump bury themselves further. They clearly broke the law. Rudy is a certainty and has probably dragged Barr and Pompeo into the mess as well. Trump tried to enlist a foreign government to solicit dirt on his political opponent for personal gain. This is enough by itself. But, adding icing to the cake of impeachment is the withholding of aid money allocated by congress for Ukraine while Trump strong armed the new president.
1
You and Bruni need to sit down, shut up, and let the Constitutional process take its course.
Bret,
perhaps you should revert to your classic form and complain to Pelosi's boss?
"Haste"???? You have got to be kidding.
Haste?!!!?
This column is replete with whataboutisms and nonsequitors. Of course if the facts don't bear out, there won't be an impleachment. But the facts so far are pretty damning, and the White House's refusal to provide information in response to previous demands has forced the Democrats' hand here.
Also - whether or not Trump's efforts broke a law is not the test. Everyone knows that.
Whatever LBJ did - fifty years ago - is irrelevant. No one has said it would be okay. (And digging up dirt on your opponent is different from trying to get a foreign government to do it for you.)
No quid pro quo is needed for there to be a serious breach of the president's duty to the nation and the Constitution.
We all know this, and here we are.
Finally, I seriously doubt the administration is happy with the impeachment inquiry. They sure don't sound happy.
Mr Stephens says he is "someone who thinks that Trump disgraces the office of the presidency every day he occupies it, and did so again with his call to the Ukrainian president".
Yet, he thinks impeachment is not appropriate.
Not because he thinks the criminal in chief has committed impeachable offenses, but because of some political (mis-)calculation.
Or, he is another timid moderate, afraid of how Trump, FoxNews, and other red hatted traitors will spin the facts.
Just like Mr. Bruni.
Our Constitution requires this process to be conducted, regardless of how scary it mat be to some people.
I’m so tired of former Republicans telling Democrats/Progressives how to govern. Like it or not we are the current elected majority in the House. Sorry Bret, but the man in the White House is guilty of disregarding his oath office, as well as multiple other crimes and misdemeanors. There’s a time when you need to stand up for what’s morally correct. Impeach!
Wish I shared your confidence that Trump will be “turned out” in the next presidential election. He has already won one election with the aid of a Russian disinformation campaign. Moscow Mitch and the other Republican moral midgets in the House and Senate have done nothing to ensure that our elections will be free of foreign interference, and it’s obvious that Trump sees American foreign policy and military aid as just another means to obtain dirt on his political opponents. If he gets away with the Ukraine caper he will be “making deals” with every foreign power who might help him steal another election. Mr. Stephens, might it just be possible that Nancy Pelosi has information that you are not privy to concerning the latest Trump criminal endeavor?
Brett Stepens is misguided There is a substantial list of impeachable offenses - published in the opinion section of this paper, - nd Trump needs to know he cab't continue in this way without impunity. Can you imagine what Trump is doing behind the scenes! No, he needs to go asap.
Do you mean the “facts” that are already clear in the “not verbatim “ reconstruction or the “facts’ of what Trump himself has said? Nothing like Kavanaugh two weeks ago. At all.
Sometimes you must do what is right. This is long overdue regardless of the outcome. It is time to choose and be counted.
Only the opening of impeachment hearings carries enough clout to force testifying before congress and prying relevant documents from the administrations grip ...
get real Bret
Trump withheld the aid. He then spoke with the Ukrainian president and said 'we do a lot for you but we don't always get a lot back'. He then asked the Ukrainian president to investigate Biden. How much clearer does it have to be ?
Mr. Stephens misses a huge thing. The DAY after Robert Mueller delivered his testimony to Congress and the world, Trump has a phone conversation with a foreign national/foreign leader/foreign government and "asks"/extorts them to investigate and create a, let's call it a DOSSIER on a (possible) political opponent. Let's call it the Zelensky dossier.
Sound familiar? It should. It's what the Trumpers, the Republicans in general, and perhaps Mr. Stephens himself, spent years and oceans of words frothing about in regard to that horrrible-fake-illegal-illegal-oh-so-illegal foreign sourced and paid Steele dossier on Trump. You know, the thing they screamed should earn Hillary Clinton, everyone in the DNC, President Obama, and numerous individuals in the FBI and CIA serious jail time - because of how criminally ILLEGAL it is to solicit or obtain foreign help in a US election. Republicans were prepared to begin impeachment proceedings the DAY OF Mrs. Clinton's inauguration, had she won, based on highest of high crimes of treason for inviting foreign influence into the election.
Donald Trump himself tweet-screamed for years about a criminal witch hunt based on a fake, corrupt, illegal dossier compiled by foreigners(!), and paid for by the Clinton campaign out to smear and delegitimize him. Donald Trump himself, all by himself, did EXACTLY the same horrible, illegal thing that he shouted loudly and incessantly about. Donald Trump pulled a Clinton. Chew on that Republicans.
If Brett is unhappy with Speaker Pelosi, does that mean he’ll complain to her provost?
Bret, honey, the Kavanaugh debacle wasn't just about "liberals," as you state.
It was about a bogus investigation, and the women who suffered as a result.
The guy is a red-faced, angry drunk, and apparently you think it's cool that he's now a Supreme Court justice.
I am sick and tired of everyone always attacking Nancy Pelosi, one of the few "grownups in the room" who actually takes governing seriously and who has led the Democratic House to pass dozens of important bills, ignored by those who cover politics as a sport, thus giving McConnell cover to obstruct all of them,
Perhaps instead of constant attacks on Nancy Pelosi we should consider that she is thoughtful, strategic, and better informed than most opinion writers about what is happening, who among her colleagues can be persuaded to do what, and what is possible, quietly, in the Congress
Let's focus our attention and criticism on those who deserve criticism, starting with Trump, and, too easily let off, all those who enable him.
Note that the Ukrainian President realized that it would be helpful for him to say that he stayed in a Trump Hotel,
Note also this (better informed than Bret and more informative) column by David Ignatius in the Washington Post, who focused on the real-life impact in the field of Trump withholding from our allies the Ukrainians funding for essential communications equipment all summer while they were fighting on the front lines of Russia's invasion,,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/09/24/trump-thinks-biden-pulled-scam-ukraine-because-its-what-trump-would-have-done/?wpisrc=nl_everything&wpmm=1
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What about the Republicans who've rushed to judgement that Trump is innocent without knowing the full story? Why aren't you writing about how bad they'll look once we know all of the facts of the case?
With all the actions Trump has taken that are borderline criminal, including everything outlined in the Mueller report, if by now you don't think the prez should be impeached, I really
h ave to wonder what you expect of a United States president..Should he be no better than Putin? Is it ok to obstruct justice and use your office and our tax payer dollars to go after political opponents? Is it ok to rake in money from your presidency, including selling your influence to Saudi Arabia for a few sheckels, like the price of a floor of Trmp Tower? Can he refuse to appoint administrators for all the agencies, can he refuse to recognize the scientific opinions of our american research institutions? Really, what does it take for you, Bret, for it to be a bridge too far, what is your standard for behavior for a sitting president? I really would like to kn ow..we need to be prepared for the next joker the GOP tries to foist on us..The previous GOP pick was almost worst than Trump, as Bush killed over 40,000 american soldiers, millions of Iraqis and decimated an entire country for the oil industry (according to Greenspan). What on earth could the next Republican choice be like, if we don't set some standards with this joker.
Brett, its hard to believe that you cannot see the quid pro quo involved in that telephone exchange. When you're talking to the US president, and are waiting for 400 million dollars, and all of a sudden the president asks you for a " favor", doesn't that look like some full-on gangsterism? And doesn't it concern you that he wants to sic the U.S. Attorney General on the case to help you, as well? If there was anybody in the conservative pundit world who I thought would say "its about time", it was you. But apparently, doing the right thing regardless of the political consequences doesn't matter to you.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
-Edmund Burke
We have been doing nothing for too long.
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Oh, I get it...we are all going to start feeling bad for the man who got help from Russia to win in 2016 and got caught trying to run the same play in 2020...
Don’t insult our intelligence.
No, no, no this not a mistake. You will see.
“What it does not show, however, is Trump tying his request to the release of U.S. military aid in the manner of a quid pro quo.”
Really? What does “I would like you to do us a favor though.” mean to you?
Seriously what is it going to take to justify an INQUIRY. They are moving forward with an inquiry. This doesn’t necessarily mean impeachment.
To be honest I’ve been in the fence about impeachment. But intimidating a foreign leader like some sort of mafioso, so they will do a investigation of an American citizen, let alone your political opponent is beyond the pale.
Seriously what would it take to justify an inquiry for you??
..."57 percent of Americans oppose impeachment, against 37 percent who support it."
93 percent of Americans don't know what "impeachment" means.
1
Trump being impeached and still getting re-elected that would only demonstrate generational ignorance, an historical speed bump soon to be erased by the passage of time. The long term health of our constitution is far more important than the short term impact of a bout with mass ignorance
This latest edition of conscience of a conservative is as predictable as it is hollow.
Trump has to be leashed. He’s an out of control mad dog, and if having a functioning Congress performing it’s function gets him re-elected then as a country you deserve him.
1
What is bad is not the impeachment decision. What is bad is the GOP refusing to defend the Constitution if a Republican is involved in any way. This mess contrasted with the Benghazi hearings and the Hillary Tape hearing is absurd and hypocritical.
I don't agree. The important thing about punching a bully in the nose is that suddenly, his cheering squad doesn't see him as some kind of cool guy who gets away with everything any more. Any fourth grader can tell you this. Keep punching, Nancy.
Impeachment is a political process that requires no proof, no evidence, and no crime, merely the political will and power to remove the offender from office. Given sufficient support in Congress, Mr. Trump could (and should) be impeached, convicted, and removed from office for being a buffoon.
You are giving Trump the benefit of the doubt which he does not deserve any longer. Since he's been in office he and his administration have been engaged in turning back time. He supports and encourages violence against others. He calls journalists enemies of the state. He tells 4 representatives, all women of color, only one of whom is a naturalized citizen, to go back to the countries they came from. He lies whenever he opens his mouth.
In my opinion Trump should have been impeached long ago. The only reason he hasn't been is because the GOP is in his back pocket and Pelosi wants as many Democrats in favor of impeachment as she can get. Clinton's impeachment was for a ridiculous reason. He lied about having sex in the Oval Office. He didn't lie about connections to Russia, trying to encourage another nation to dig up dirt about an opponent. And he didn't do what Trump is now accused of doing: withholding US dollars to pressure a foreign country to prosecute or investigate an opponent's son in order to smear that opponent.
Then there is the question of how Trump is enriching himself through the presidency. To be realistic, there are more than a few questions about how he's enriching himself, all of which have been discussed and reported but not formally investigated. Trump lied from day one about inauguration numbers. Nothing has changed since that day.
9/25/2019 6:09pm first submit
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Near dark? Are you kidding? This is an inquiry only, and it’s long overdue. If a Democrat did just one thing that Trump does on any given day, Republicans would be calling in the cavalry. Stop giving a pass to Trump. There’s ample reason to believe he’s corrupt and It’s high time for an inquiry. Period.
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Bret Stephens has it right. Frank Bruni has it right. Trump has done a lot of things that the Democrats disagree with, but they are policy (and stylistic) matters, not crimes. They just don't like him. They actually hate him, and hated him from the moment he announced his candidacy, when all they heard was "Mexicans... rapists." They went berserk when he won the election, as witnessed by the mass protest at his inauguration -- as if the millions who voted for him and the Electoral College were illegitimate -- and have never missed an opportunity to protest his very presence wherever he goes. "Not My President." They have been looking for a reason to impeach him from the day he took office. Now they're a little worried that he will be reelected. So theyre finally grasping at the latest straw. No, it's not the right call. It's not a moral imperative. It's vindictive and desperate. Most Americans see it as that.
"Now prominent Democrats have begun an impeachment process against Donald Trump, based on information that, while potentially devastating, remains arguable..."
Arguable!? The White House's own edited memo of the call clearly shows Tr*mp asking the Ukranian President to investigate a leading Democratic candidate. Preceded by thinly veiled attempts to link that help to military aid and a White House visit.
Please, Mr. Stephens, what is your argument that it's OK for our President to do these things?
Bret, please don’t muddle something that is crystal clear. This wasn’t expected from you. What a shame ! We keep moving to the abyss with abysmal clarifications about clear cut high crimes and misdemeanors.
not sure how you can call Pelosi's actions "haste"
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I think the Times should really reconsider why they hired you. So your opening says that allegations against Kavanaugh (which were actually not completely followed up on as reported in the Times), gave Republicans a P.R. coup. I can tell you many voters are eager for the 2020 elections to show you just how off-target you are. Even though Kavanaugh wasn't kicked down the road like he should have been, many voters I know are sick of the current admins antics (including the Senate's). So even though Kavanaugh has tainted the bench, people see this - and it adds to the list of corrupt actions many of us are tallying.
The recent whistle-blower issue adds tot he pile. So what would you have Congress do - keep turning a blind eye??!!
Sorry, Brett; you're WAY too late! The written call notes released by the White House today provide more than enough evidence for impeachment. That's not to mention his and Giuliani's numerous public statements in the last two days. So, Brett, no worries! OK?
Since when is 'doing the right thing' not in our country's DNA. So far I've read too many of these hand wringing 'oh boy, now you've done it', articles about the perils of rile ing up Trump's base because of impeachment. Sorry, no longer should my country, allow the ignorant 'used' by financial & political frauds, run my country. Ukraine isn't the first or the last despicable thing Trump has done, there is plenty on file (and to come) it's just the final straw. He has 'soiled' every thing about our country's values. He is a clear and present danger and cannot be left unchecked for another 15 months. Bret, everyone, quit the hand wringing, get on board and realize doing the right thing is not a political calculation in this country, it's what we do.
Mr. Stephens would like to wait until Trump is photographed, standing in the middle of Fifth Avenue, over a dead body, with a gun in his hand.
The gun should be smoking.
Trump should have blood spattered on his suit.
The dead person should have scrawled the letters T.R.U.M...
on the pavement in his own blood.
Several citizens should be pointing towards Trump with horrified looks on their faces and cell phones in their hands.
Several police officers should be looking towards Trump, eyes wide, fumbling while attempting to draw their weapons.
A hot dog vendor should be looking towards Trump, mouth agape, holding a hot dog in one hand while squirting mustard on his shirt.
A cabby knocks over a fire hydrant while looking towards the president, mouth also agape.
William Barr is seen, in the background, looking at the pavement and walking by as if nothing is happening.
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I honestly think that the polls are missing the point. WE don’t want Trump to be impeached. WE feel that he left congress with no choice.
Impeachment will be an awful circus, complete with deformed, six-headed beasts. However, congress had better roll up their sleeves and get on with it.
The analogy of Kavanaugh is weak, in as much as Trump’s malfeasance is documented by physical. But I agree with the premise that impeachment may be politically harmful for the Democrats. Given the number of cowards and moral imbeciles emulating their leader who sees nothing wrong in his acts (ever!), their incitement may be a powerful force. However, it was time for the Democrats to avoid the shame and contempt that will soon enough accrue to the GOP. Their grandchildren will not have to change their surnames.
It seems to me that our minds have become so polluted and confused by the incessant, heated and divisive news reporting that we read on our smart phones 24 hours a day that we are no longer able to distinguish between behavior that is manifestly criminal, and that which is merely moronic.
Unthinking, disrespectful, reality show obsessed, immature Americans. Addicted to sinking their USA with denial of actual reality.
Trump's biggest threat is a centrist like Biden. Impeachment proceedings will, inherently, keep alive the ickiness of a VP acting officially in Ukraine while his son made tons of money from a Ukrainian energy company. Regardless of whether there was actual wrongdoing, it smells, and the longer the stench lingers, the harder the path for Biden, who already has plenty of baggage from a public policy perspective.
Carville was right: "It's the economy, stupid." If unemployment remains low and the stock market strong, neither Sanders nor Warren can win. So, it makes sense that Trump would do what he's done, waving bait in front of Democrats and hoping they'll take it. They have. It is a classic Trump trap, wherein the president does or says something outrageous, then wins as the opposition goes nuts. In this case, especially, he cannot lose, given there's zero chance the Senate will remove him no matter what the House does.
Trump didn't get elected by practicing politics as usual, and so there's no reason to believe he's going to start now. Regardless of how one feels about Trump, he is, arguably, one of the best politicians in U.S. history, having gone from nothing and gotten in the Oval Office despite everyone, even members of his own party, hating him.
Trump has taken questions from the press how many times today? Three, I think. That's someone who relishes the spotlight, even this one. Pelosi isn't in the driver's seat here. Trump is.
Mr. Stephens, do you really believe that Americans will get the chance to make an informed choice in 2020, free from Russian electoral interference even worse than in 2016? Impeachment or not, Trump will likely be reelected by hook or by crook--most likely by crook. He must be held to account, even if his disgusting GOP Senate toadies prevent his conviction. We're stuck with him as long as he's alive, so we might as well weight down his awful legacy with a slew of asterisks in the history books...if he doesn't burn them.
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The Democratic Party is on a trip to perdition. Good riddance to you when you get there. Your party has failed miserably to respect the outcome of an election, and has foisted in the public, in complicity with much of the media and the deranged Never Trump Republicans, a host of lies and smears that have tarnished our body politic and poisoned political discourse in our great nation. I look forward to four more years of Trump with a majority in both houses of Congress. You will deserve all that that triumvirate can deliver.
There is a long way to go before any articles of impeachment are finalized.
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It is now a day later: is any of this still true? Stephens continues to help the Democrats understand that all their plans to rebuild the country after Republican destruction are doomed to fail.
I'm sorry -- what is this obsession with whether there was a quid pro quo? There is no requirement that there be one -- this isn't a sexual harassment lawsuit. Asking a foreign power to investigate your political rival is an abuse of power in and of itself. The extortion just really notches it up.
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@Jennifer the allegation is status quo sine time immemorial. Every president since Washinton would be impeached under this standard. Digging up dirt on your opponent is a time-honored tradition on both sides of the spectrum.
@Jennifer Collusion with a foreign government to affect the outcome of a Presidential Election is the same thing Trump did as a candidate in 2016 with Russia.
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Ever since Democrats and their sympathizers on the sidelines (those too superior to bother to vote in a flawed system) reeled back in horror at the prospect of Donald Trump ascending to the presidency, the country has been cast into a near-medieval time of doom and gloom. The expressions of horror and disbelief emanating from Democrats have one glaring flaw that should be impossible to overlook--namely, that Democrats as much as Republicans have to bear responsibility for Trump's victory.
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Bret, I know you wrote this oped before the complaint came out, so now that it has, my question to you is what if Nancy Pelosi did not pull the impeachment trigger?
What excuses would she have left?
What excuses would we have left as a nation?
At what point do we lose track of what is right and what is wrong in this country?
We can either remain a nation of laws where no one is above it or we become a corrupt autocracy that protects the interests of a few and if that is the case Bret, then what are we as citizens holding onto when it comes to law and how to hold one accountable when they break the law?
I harbor no illusions Bret.
I understand the political dynamics.
Our system of laws and checks and balances would become meaningless if Pelosi continued to avoid the impeachment route.
By the very same token, if the GOP still insists on indulging in endless conspiracy theories and protecting this kind of lawlessness, then we need to know this as well.
There are no more excuses for this Bret.
None whatsoever!
This is no longer about Trump, though it is clear that both he and those who enable him must go.
This is about what is left of the country are trying to find a way to go beyond tribalism and trying to remember what is right and what is wrong.
There are some things worth fighting for Bret and this is one of those times where all of us must fight back against this kind of corruption and force everyone to go on the record.
We have no other choice.
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You argue that the best way to get Trump out is to vote him out. But you mention nothing about our piecemeal voting system, and how it is most likely already hacked. How much will out votes mean then, Mr. Stephens?
Wrong. The question isn't whether or not Trump committed a criminal offense, it's whether or not he abused his power and betrayed his oath of office. If asking a foreign power to help dig up dirt on a political adversary to benefit your upcoming election doesn't meet these standards, then what else does?
The case for impeachment is as clear as day!
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Thank you Nancy. Thank you Chuck. Thank you Adam. Thank you Jerry. I'm looking forward to another 4 years of this great President and I believe your actions are going to help us achieve that.
The title of this article is rather ironic - it is premature to describe impeachment as a "bad call". Time will tell if the impeachment process strengthens Trump or tarnishes him as corrupt in the larger public mind.
As the election nears, an ongoing inquiry may serve as a form of check on Trump's behavior- fearing he may add more fodder to the impeachment process.
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Stephens wrote "But disgraceful behavior is not the same thing as criminal behavior".
But criminal behavior is not the bar for impeachment. "Disgraceful behavior" - something which Stephens implies is insufficient grounds for removal from office, calling it a "tough sell" - actually comes quite close to the meaning and intent of High Crimes and Misdemeanors.
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It is so delightful to watch the Dems time and again fail to effectively counter Trump. The smart thing to do would have been to simply, and quickly, censure Trump. Then, when censure after censure accumulate, they would have a politically better chance of impeaching. Instead, as true victims of their own anti-Trump anger, they insist -- just like Trump -- on going overboard. And achieving only their own loss of credibility.
Speaking of loss of credibility: It seems fair to conclude that anti-Biden forces (most likely, pro-Warren partisans) are responsible for the timing of the leak now of an August 2018 letter from the whistleblower: It's a two-for: hurt Trump and push Biden's Ukraine quid-pro-quo corruption charge into the headlines. Sorry, Joe, but you just had to go.
Trump should send Nancy Pelosi some flowers and a thank you note.
She just got him re-elected in 2020.
A completely unforced error by an otherwise savvy politician.
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@John
So you admit that he needed this to win
I presume it's because you know that his record is not very good
Well if someone thought he was doing a bad job 2 days ago, bad enough not to be re-elected, and this changes their mind, I don't know what to say
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Society and the Church have not taken action on many a priest who were known to be child molesters. This was done in part for the "good of the Church and the Community". How has that turned out?
I admit that I was initially on the fence about impeachment because of the possible risks to the Democratic Party. The Mueller Report was cumbersome and not presented to the general public properly. Now I feel differently and I refuse to have "possible" trump voters block justice and doing what is right. Anyone who will be gravely offended by impeachment proceedings probably would not vote for Democratic anyway and anyone who would is a lost cause The trick is to bring the message across to the swing voters as to why they should VOTE Democratic, not be fearful of them.
Fear is ugly and I'm through with thinking too much, and I am tiring of the media telling people how to think. Get the minority vote out, get the youth vote out, get the senior vote out, get the anyone who cares about this country vote out. If the impeachment does not turn out the way we want, we should use it to our advantage.
It's a tiresome, disappointing, and ethically limp-wristed (but not surprising) response from Stephens. Could we not, just for once, base our decisions not on what is politically expedient, but what is right and just? If we got in the habit of doing so, more of the Trumps of the world would go back under their rocks without having the run of the world in which to do their evil.
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It's almost like Bret Stephens can't imagine that Nancy Pelosi may know more about this than he does. And it would seem like she must, considering how ably she represented his cautious approach until now. Maybe op-ed writers should also pause and review all the facts before making a hasty decision.
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Stephens is likely right about the political price the Dems will pay for this inquiry. Yet the constitution and the preservation of the Congress as a co-equal branch of government requires it. “They can do no other.” And—take heart—even the release of the whistle blower report today, inclusive of its allegation that the White House immediately set about to cover up this phone call, has without doubt historic value in proving the sleaziness of this regime. Further, we do not know what else will come out, how deep it will go, and if it will in fact affect swing voters—or even bring out non-voters. Sometimes you have to do what you have to do, without knowing where exactly it will ultimately lead.
The vendetta by the Democrats continues. It has permeated this presidency since the election of 2016. People are so weary of the hate and vitriol. This is a sure way for the Democrats to lose the election in 2020. The only positive outcome now will be that more people will go out and vote against the Democrats because they never accepted the results of the 2016 election. Has this president been unorthodox? Yes. Inarticulate? Yes. Disgraceful behavior? Yes. But the fact that the Democrats have behaved so badly, also, only assures that the Republicans will have a good outcome in 2020.
Why now? For those who waited for the 2020 Election, it suddenly became even clearer than it had been before that Trump plans to redo the 2016 game plan, and will undermine or flat out steal the election by:
-False attacks to smear popular Democrats, including spreading lies via Facebook and other social media
-illegal aide from Foreign Governments
-voter suppression, blocking attempts to prevent hacking, and other attacks on the integrity of the election
All this while he continues to ignore the law
--stealing taxpayer money appropriated by Congress for one purpose and using it for a political purpose
--enriching himself by charging top dollar for Secret service and other tax-payer funded people to stay at Trump properties (and note that the Ukrainian President knew to mention to Trump that he stayed at one of his hotels)
--ignoring and ridiculing Congressional oversight
I am wondering... WHY has Trump admitted to this call, and released some documentation about it, when he has admitted to NOTHING previously??? This action makes me very nervous...
Everyone sees Biden fading daily and the rest of the other Democrats candidates are mediocrities at best. Ergo, the only path they have it try to convince the 5% that decide elections that Trump is too corrupt to re-elect. Not going to work. Bill Clinton did much worse AND!
Trump supporters (vast majority of Repubs, plus most independent and cynical fringes) will simply not see "the phone call" as a real problem. It's just realistic business in a zero-sum world. That's response has been proven again and again: they elected him, then felt confirmed when he was "exonerated" by Mueller, "proving" he and they were right all along.
Trump created an astonishing career getting away with this and more - using shrewd advice of amoral lawyers. He's not a genius as his true believers hope, but a clever enough survivor to always take things right up the legal limit, sticking it to his opponents, then declare victory and sail away to fight yet another day. It the only thing he's good at. This skill is no accident: his Murdochian father trained Trump in it, and put trump in amoral-survivalist military academy training as his adolescent boot camp.
The progressive and self-righteous minority in the Dems naively believe their moral high ground will win the day. They don't yet (and may never) know how to handle amoral Machiavellian assassins like Trump and his acolytes. Pelosi wisely tried but could not fight the immature "progressives" without splitting the Dems. Thus her daring chess move today is the best under the circumstances... but it means all bets are off!
Putin is watching closely and likely enjoying a special power-blend cocktail right now.
This nonsense will infuriate the Republican base leading to a strong base turnout in 2020. This nonsense will strengthen Trump and eventually knock out Biden when the corrupt relationship between the Biden family and the government of the Ukraine is further exposed. 31 House Democrats are representing districts won by Trump. These Democrats can suffer heavy losses in 2020 if they vote against Trump. On top of that, it looks more and more likely that the Democrats will nominate Warren. Her nomination has the potential to be a complete electoral disaster for the Democrats. On top of that, which 20 Republican senators are going to vote to convict? Maybe Sass or Romney will fold but that is about it. Bring it on Nancy. You are flirting with disaster.
Is Stephens soldiering along with Moscow Mitch to defend treason? Yes he is, and one day Stephens will deeply regret it facing disgrace.
This president's intervention in Ukraine may be much worse than it appears at first blush. It may be a charade looking for an excuse to slow down military aid, critical to the war against Putin. We need to get the bottom of this and given that the Department Justice is colluding with the White House, impeachment inquiry appears to be the ONLY way to get to the facts.
I think a recent slogan "Trump IS the Swamp", may prove true. Time to drain the swamp by getting rid of Trump.
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Mr. Stephens should rewrite his column now that the whistleblower's report has been released. The report not only reveals Trump's effort to bully Ukraine into searching for dirt on a potential Trump challenger but also exposes a broad White House conspiracy to cover up Trump's treasonous action.
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I stopped reading at sentence 4: "Now prominent Democrats have begun an impeachment process against Donald Trump, based on information that ... remains arguable." That's the Trump Party line: all words are "arguable"; nothing can be "proved"; everything is open to interpretation. There are no facts. All that is left for Americans is to "argue".
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When did honorifics towards a seated President lapse?
Completed a Communications and Media degree from Notre Dame a few years back and remember something regurgitated about a capital 'P' for a seated President. If the opinionated writer agrees with the elected occupant at the time.
Lee Iacoca = president of Ford Motors
Donald Trump = President of the United Stateds
This one's different...I think they have him this time.
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@Unconventional Liberal Newsweek reports that 30 Republican Senators would vote for Impeachment if the vote was secret.
1
What is more important, winning an election, or defense of the Rule of Law?
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Shouldn't let a thing like treason slide, regardless of election concerns. To someone with the moral compass of a Republican, acknowledging the illegal behavior of their president would of course be a bad call, but here Democrats seem to be erring on the side of country over Party - "shooting themselves in the foot" as described by the Machiavellians. Do the right thing and let the chips fall. (Clearly not a Republican motto.)
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If you don’t see that enlisting the aid of a foreign government to investigate a domestic political rival, quid pro quo or not, is not treason then you have fallen victim to precisely the disease that Trump is spreading: the ability to trust ones own eyes and ears.
America turned itself inside out for two years as mueller investigated the possibility that Trump had colluded with the Russians to assist him in the 2016 election. Here, in five ugly pages, is irrefutable truth that Trump colluded with the Ukraine to provide him with assistance in the 2020 election. You have been shown the smoking gun. Believe your own eyes Mr. Stephens, or, at the very least, stop spreading the Trump disease.
At some point, the Dems run out of accusations or worse, trust with the public that a crime has been committed. It would have been better to have waited until there is no doubt that a crime has occurred. In this case, the transcript doesn't even mention that aid from Ukraine is being withheld until they assist to investigate Biden. The boy who cried wolf too many times was not believed when there was a real wolf...
Excellent opinion article, putting different angles into perspective
The difficult question for Democratic leaders is whether, based on what we know today including the horrendous Ukraine allegations, it is better for the country to let Trump continue to wreak havoc for the next 16 months, at the risk of possibly improving Republican prospects in the 2020 election, or let him play it out. If Trump had his finger on the nuclear trigger, we would urgently try to stop him. How bad do things need to get before we say "Enough" and try to stop him?
It's a bad call because Pelosi's message to future Presidents is this: starting illegal wars, torture, illegal drone strikes, illegal spying, assassination of American citizens without due process and similar offenses - no problem, we got your back. But, watch out what you say on the phone when talking to a newly elected head of state about corruption in his/her country.
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Just a quick question Mr. Stephens.
If Robert Mueller, in his investigation, had uncovered a phone call between Donnie and Vladimir wherein Donnie had asked very specifically for Vlad’s help in digging up dirt on Hillary, what would you have said?
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Although I appreciate his take on the Trump presidency being a blight, I take issue with a few points of Mr. Stephens's column.
There are quite a few aspects of this situation that Mr. Stephens overlooks. Saying Trump was lawfully elected is a stretch. We know he encouraged, allowed and sought help from foreign powers. We would know even more but for the fact that, as Mr. Mueller said, the obstruction of the investigation itself prevented a fuller gathering of evidence to nail the case down.
Trump plays the game well. Just as he obstructed the investigation into Russian interference he will do so again in this matter. It has already begun. For Maguire to say that disclosure to Congress of the whistleblower complaint is in contradiction to the clear language that the DNI “shall furnish” that complaint to Congress is part of that effort.
Mr. Stephens confuses a political matter – impeachment – with a criminal standard of conduct.
Ongoing impeachment hearings that will erode this presidency. It will happen over time. Drip, drip, drip.
Remember also that at the beginning of the Watergate hearings the public was overwhelmingly in support of Richard Nixon, and the Senate was firmly behind him. It was only when the last bit of Senate support eroded that Nixon resigned. That will be the case here.
Impeachment is political. Pelosi had a choice to make and she can now make the full case as well. Her caucus will be held together and provide the work and cover to see this through.
Your roll-over-and-play-dead attitude is what has ruined the Democratic party. If you think now is the time for tiptoeing, you should pack your briefcase and go home for a nice cup of tea.
OK Bret, I understand, so apparently your thinking is more of job/yourself then country posture. You seem to forget that we have a Constitution, and that we have a democracy.
In the same breath you say "someone who thinks Trump disgraces the office of the presidency" which means you apparently do not believe that Congress has the power to impeach a disgraced, corrupt, crooked, lying, traitorous POTUS.
Why should not the Democrats exercise their duties by virtue of their oath of office in attempting the removal of an unfit POTUS on the grounds of damning verifiable articles of impeachment? If anything the Democrats have waited too long, but maybe now the real facts will be presented to the American people.
Of course they should, but Bret you stand in the middle of the aisle nudging towards the GOP that no longer exists, and will never return as it has corrupted itself beyond repair.
Maybe you should just stick to stuff you know best that being a reporter. Otherwise, leave the rest to those who our founders charged to do the right thing for our country.
If The Constitution requires an impeachment inquiry; then
this is what is happening.
The FACTS....Bret Stephens....must come out.
The House is required to investigate...not decide.
so...hold on to your ...seatbelts...yup it really IS going to be
a 'bumpy ride'...wait and see...
Speaker's haste????? you can't possibly be talking about Pelosi. Haste is not in her nature. Get a grip Bret.
It’s long over due and it’s the right thing to do. Michael Cohen is serving time as his co-conspirator lies about another crime against the USA. Basta!
1
What do you think of impeaching Netanyahu? Is there a process in Israel for impeachment? At least, you would be discussing a topic that you are an "expert" on.
Stop. Gaslighting. Us.
3
Bret Stephens is a xenophobic, openly racist, border-line insane war hawk. He is one of the most destructive active political commentators. The New York Times giving him column space is an egregious affront to any ethical values this paper purports to further. This column is another example of his vapid, prevaricating, and cowardly nonsense. He'll lambaste Trump for paragraphs on end, but his criticism never results in any action or substantial criticisms. Are you enjoying your tax cuts, Mr. Stephens?
Oh please stop with the stupid opinions. The future is unknown. The dems are fighting for it.
1
I'm really tired of this Bret Stephens guy. His opinions are nearly as weighted against the Democrats as Fox News. Where does he get off on saying that Congress actually for once standing up to their responsibility of providing "checks and balances" on an obviously out of control Executive a "bad call"? Who on the NYT staff decided to publish this rancor?
1
Nancy acted in haste? Instant no credibility column!
1
Is this what the Times pays Bret Stephens for? Laughable false equivalencies? Right wing columnists have a reputation for "mailing it in," but this is slothful analysis even by the very low bar reactionary pundits have set for themselves.
One only has to look back in history at our reticence in entering WW2. Of course nobody wanted to engage in such a ghastly, costly affair, but when circumstances push you to the necessity, you get out of your comfy chair and reach deep into your resolve to do what's right and needed, even if it disturbs your pleasant afternoon nap. Maybe if enough Germans and European leaders had not bought into the comfortable acceptance and enabling of Hitler, it wouldn't have been necessary, but there you go.
Are you still around, Bret?
"Haste"? Pelosi has been "hasty"? Where did The Times find this guy?
1
Spineless - but this time it’s the columnist.
1
Oh, for God's sake, Bret. Grow a spine and grow up.
The Times Pick's for this column are astonishing and not remotely representative of the bulk of the responses. I know this is not going to get published, but it's my own small way of saying you have your thumb on the scale.
Oh look - a coward and a traitor.
It's a sad spectacle watching the progs demand impeachment.
First, the conversation with Zelensky was nothing. It was a congratulatory call re the elections. Then some verbal bro hugging. After Zelensky brings up Ukraine corruption in past admins, Trump in two short passing sentences references the Biden affair -- which is clearly a case of corruption.
Second, the whistle blowers memo is nothing but a recapitulation of what the "whistleblower" had heard about, and that Trump's admin was trying to make sure the transcript didn't see the light of day. Wrong. Another nothing.
But the most important thing (which of course the left doesn't recognize) is that using this conversation as the basis for impeachment would render all future presidents impotent. They would have to fear that any conversation they had with any foreign entity might be found to be unpalatable to political adversaries and thus impeachment might occur. That ain't no way to run a country.
So if I were Pelosi I would think this over very carefully. She may pass articles of impeachment, given how radicalized her caucus is, but the senate won't impeach and congress' action will look like what it is -- witch hunt part xxx. Trump will easily win in 2020, and Biden (who probably deserves it) will be destroyed.
And the real fear may be is that the dems must do something to counterweight what might well be a damning report on the origins of the collusion investigation coming to a theater soon.
Always like to check in on bret’s lastest dopey crap.
Defense before today, today, and the taste of bile in their mouthhs tomorrow... that's the feeling you get when you realize you have been defending the wrong side of history... and that your name and honor have been sucked into the black hole of history.... The complaint, if verified and proven true, certainly could represent the right side of history.... we'll have to wait and see how the investigations unfold... if true, alot of folks are going to face punishment...
Bret. Care about the country, not the politics. Facts will come out in the proceedings that will further damn trump for his impeachable and illegal activities.
Should we not protect the country from this?
1
If there is a thorough inquiry enumerating all of the impeachable behavior up to and including the Ukraine exchange, the Senate will be forced to account for their votes on conviction. That accounting will - I hope - work out in favor of conviction.
1
Let's look at what could happen going forward.
OK, say President Trump is impeached and the Senate does not vote to convict him, as we expect. Just as Trump's conclusion that the Mueller report showed no collusion and no obstruction, and he was almost immediately on the phone asking for foreign interference in our election, what will happen after the Senate's acquittal of him?
Maybe he will give Vladimir Putin a contract to help oversee our 2020 election, to verify voter registration and so forth. Why not? It's in President Trump's power to do so. After all, you can't trust the "deep state" with such responsibility. We know there are so many Trump opponents in our government that only seeking outside assistance will guarantee a free and fair election.
Mr. Stephens,
I was thinking of a quote as I was reading your op-ed.
"We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution. "
-Abraham Lincoln
I was against impeachment at first, because I remember President Clinton and how his popularity increased, but I also remember why President Clinton, was popular. (economy and a waste of taxpayer money to find adultery) In my many years of voting since I was 18 years old, I have never seen a President, speak to a foreign government blatantly about winning an election and holding aid hostage, in order to do his personal bidding. It's disturbing. These are the moments when Americans need a civics lesson about the Constitution. Nancy Pelosi, hands were tied, if the House didn't do anything, President Trump, in my opinion, would still push the rules further and if this continue, I think you would have even more public cynicism, about the constitution and the government. This is why I am now for the impeachment inquiry.
1
Stephens would be more believable if he correctly characterized the issues at hand before giving his perspective on them. But that is not the case. Here are some of the errors and omissions. First, Trump was requesting help FROM A FOREIGN GOVERNMENT in getting information on a political opponent. Second, he was using his private attorney in these inappropriate conversations with another head of state. Third, there is now evidence of a cover-up. Stephens, in several instances, shades the evidence to benefit Trump or chooses to omit evidence that is clearly concerning. Therefore, his conclusions are undermined by his bias.
I don't know why some conservatives (Stephens & David Brooks most notably) who claim to object to Trump use the power of their platform to defend him, but it is certainly concerning. Equally concerning is the question of why the NY Times offers them prominence.
2
Defenders of the Trump presidency (no matter how reluctant) seem to have a quaint faith in the permanence of opinion polling. We should recall that Richard Nixon was highly popular and the idea of impeachment highly unpopular until it all changed, just as public opinion would also drastically shift over the Vietnam War.
Agree with the author that politically defeating Trump is far preferable to this circus.
However, the media trope that this helps Trump is factually and logically wrong.
First, the idea that impeachment proceedings (that haven't really even got off the ground yet) would rally Trumps base and make him hard to beat. This is a false narrative. Trump holds ralleys almost monthly (corruptly at taxpayer expense). His base is about as torqued up as possible, whether its false immigration claims, or whatever else he blathers on about. Impeachment won't change that.
Second, the Bret Kavanaugh comparison is a reach, at best. I remind the author that even after that fiasco, the Dems swept the House in the biggest electoral defeat of the GOP since ... Watergate. (Kavanaugh is also unfit; the Senate Judciary Committee conveniently omitted a handful of women with testimony similar that heard. In other words, it was fixed.)
Third, the midterms were a referendum on curbing Trump's abuse of power, corruption, and self-enrichment. This motivated the Dem's base.
Fourth, impeachment won't matter for Trump's base. They are emotional, not logical or fact-based voters. Dem turnout is key in 2020. Obama got the vote out. HRC was a poor candidate and close to 60 million voters stayed home. If the Dems change that math they are in with a shout.
Last, Trumps incompetence (trade war, pointless tax cut, coddling dictators, abusing power, general kraziness) are all against him.
Sorry Bret.
Let's be clear: Donald Trump HAS NOT been impeached...yet. What the House is doing right now is conducting an impeachment investigation. That is, they are gathering the facts in this matter and will then decide, based on the evidence, whether or not Donald Trump's actions merit impeachment. Calling this "impeachment" now is putting the cart before the horse.
1
Mr. Stephens: impeachment is a political process, not a criminal one. the grounds for impeachment do not require breaking the law. breaking the law may be grounds for impeachment but breaking the law is not a requirement. violating the people's trust to not abuse the powers of the office, is the essential ingredient which this president does every day, twice a day in incrementally more serious ways. Yes, Nancy Pelosi is leading us out on a limb because the abuse has become so fundamental and pervasive that not to try to impeach could be dereliction of duty. the "phone-call" is clearly not the most abusive of this president's actions but it may be the clearest and easiest to 'prove'. I think it was Bugsy Siegel, in the 1920-30, a notoriously violent gangster, was sent to jail for 'tax-evasion,' not because it was his most serious crime but because it was the easiest to 'prove'. if successfully removed from office, tRump can be fairly tried in a regular court of law for the crimes the Special Prosecutor uncovered; not for vengeance (we've had enough of that from him) but to unequivocally demonstrate his abuse of power.
I am disappointed by another round of UkraineSplain.
Bret, I think you are not considering all of the ramifications of either Trump's conversation or this impeachment effort.
Trump put a hold on both Pentagon and State funds for Ukraine only a couple of weeks before he spoke with the new Ukrainian president. Right after Volodymyr Zelensky mentioned how his country needed help in the face of various actions in Ukraine's vicinity, Trump said he needed a favor. It wasn't a diplomatic or trade favor. He asked for them to investigate Hunter Biden's actions while current presidential candidate Joe Biden was VP.
That looks like extortion to me.
The impeachment would hopefully get Trump out of office, yes, but it's about a lot more than that. Trump has quite brazenly broken the law. If we claim to be a country based on equality under the law, his lawbreaking cannot be allowed to go un-tried.
Two more points to consider:
1) When they started impeachment proceedings on Nixon, who did similar lawbreaking, initial public support was around 19%. It was more like 35% last week regarding Trump. Public support is not the sole measure of why we start this.
2) After Nixon resigned in disgrace, he still had a good 20% of the public who felt he'd been wronged. Given modern narrative framing, I'd consider it likely for 25-30% of the population to keep rooting for Trump even after impeachment and conviction. Not everybody will be pleased.
And that's America.
2
I can only assume Mr. Stephens wrote this before:
1) stopping to think that Pelosi has access to documents and accounts that are not in the public view;
2) before the IGs letter was released; and
3) without giving credible thought to the fact that Pelosi has done anything but act in haste. It’s not in her DNA.
Impeachment is intended to reveal information to determine wrong doing. It helps Congress gather needed evidence in the House; the Senate then conducts a trial to determine if there has been abuse. Mr. Stephens seems ignorant of present and long standing actions by the administration to turn over documents. By announcing a formal impeachment, the House has more leverage and more options to compel, if not force, the WH to give over data. I should think Mr. Stephens would welcome this given the abuses of the WH.
It was time that either Pelosi take impeachment off the table or engage it in full. The president’s actions demand the latter. She made the correct decision based on the whistleblower accounts (don’t forget there are two), her caucus, and the need to maintain the rule of law.
2
Impeachment is the right thing do, but that doesn't mean it has to be done. He deserves to be impeached, but political chaos is Trump's forte. He's the child who has been given no discipline for his whole life and now at the age of 18 the parents think a stern talking to will make a difference. Trump rules by Trump's rules, and no one else is allowed to play by those rules. On almost a daily basis, he is given a pass for behaviors and statements that would not be tolerated by any other public figure. If the press points out that Trump lies, the press looks petty. He's off the leash, and he won't listen. He'll either beat the impeachment, and become the king. Or he'll destroy everything he can in his loss. We let him get to far.
Dear fellow Democrats: do not listen to Mr. Stephens. He's going to vote for Trump no matter what, just like the rest of his Republican bedfellows. Do not let him psyche you out, do not let him plant that seed of doubt; his political goals are in direct conflict with yours. He does not have your best interests at heart.
3
@Greg
This (Greg's) comment is calumny.
Mr. Stephens explicitly says that he does not want to see Trump remain in office.
1
@Greg
So true. And you can apply this to Brooks and Douthat as well. Their "I don't like Trump but . . ." are just attempts to muddy waters that are crystal clear. Trump is a traitor to democracy and so are his enablers.
1
It is likely that Democrats will misplay the opportunity they have been handed by President Trump--no surprise there. While Trump's interactions with Ukraine appear to rise to the level on an impeachable offense, I do not think this alone will play for many voters. A majority was not particularly upset by Russia's interference in the election that gave us Trump. Why should asking for foreign help with the next election bother those people? I think congressional committees should use the power of impeachment to dig out as much dirt as they can, particularly financial dirt, and make a case for a wider pattern of corruption. I am also amazed that a number of people have not been charged already with contempt of congress and locked up.
There is very strong evidence that Trump engaged in a major abuse of power and the White House tired to cover it up. The White House has also stonewalled most of the Congressional oversight, arguing that absent a formal impeachment process, they don't have to turn over anything. Pelosi starting a formal process was quite warranted.
Also, this is just an impeachment investigation, stop acting like they are about to vote on actual impeachment.
1
Mr. Stephens: "The Speaker's HASTE?????"
In the face of these current events on top of the previous two and a half years, the failure to act would be framed as an act of political calculation aimed at the next election. Is that better, in your opinion?
Well if Lyndon Johnson did it in 1964 then surely it's very cool and very legal and we should let it keep happening today.
The implicit argument that people like Mr. Stephens are making is this: without the opposing party controlling *both* houses of Congress with safe majorities, we have no means to check the president.
This argument is insidious and exposes the fundamental flaw by the founders. They assumed political competition would take place between the branches of the government and not between political parties. These are the same people who warned against the dangers of factions, only to form them before the constitution was ratified.
1
You apparently feel no urgency to derail or prevent further damage that Trump almost certainly will cause over his final year in office, left unchecked. You also apparently see no problem with letting bad and inappropriate behavior go unchecked with the possible further erosion of reasonable checks on such behavior. Impeachment now does one important thing. It says "enough" to any leader who abuses or seeks to further abuse the norms and laws spelled out in the US Constitutions. That is why it must be done in my opinion. I am assuming you do not agree, that another year of the status quo that is "Trump" is acceptable, not abusive and damaging enough to take any action of accountability. I respectfully disagree.
4
The Democrats in House are nothing more than a bunch of "old fogies" and ”young reactionaries” trying to show they have some kind of imaginary power. The endless impeachment hearings will do nothing more than keep the matter alive long enough to bore the public and force Biden to step down --- guilty of bad press, unverified innuendo and an son's unexplained $600,000 a year position for a foreign gas company.
The fact is even if Articles of Impeachment are put forth, the Senate will exonerate the President (a not guilty verdict on all counts) giving Trump a clean bill for health for 2020 and no realistic challenger.
1
POLITICS IS A GAME
While Bret may be right at many levels, I think that releasing Trump tax returns will be a game-changer and impeachment is instrumental to this end. He used the same tactic in Ukraine as he did in Russia, and it paid off; he is now seating in the White House. The comparison of Trump-style with mafia bosses is fair.
Hunter Biden affair in Ukraine is not going away, and it may have the same effect as Hillary missing emails. Candidate Biden carries as much baggage as Hillary, and democrat voters are on notice. Most American voters may agree that Trump is not fit to be president and impeachment will stain his reputation even further. Politics is a game, gerrymandering and Bill Barr in the Justice department are gainful for conservatives. So, Democrats have the right to get the same with impeachment.
1
I don't want my remark here to be taken in any way as not desiring that Trump not remain in office.
However, as much as I regret saying this, doesn't Trump have as much as any American, the right under the First Amendment to ask anyone for information about a political opponent? Even if that information is "dirt" and even if it from a foreign leader?
To be sure, if Trump explicitly was asking for something illegal in return for that information - then that would indeed need to be investigated. Whether it would rise to the level of a "high crime or misdemeanor" would need to be determined by the House of Representatives.
1
Digging up dirt on political opponents is a feature of American politics and has been so since Thomas Jefferson's time. But such digging - even in your cited JBJ example - was restricted to domestic digging. Involving foreign powers in your electioneering is clearly and obviously wrong and an abuse of power that warrants impeachment.
As to the charge that Pelosi is somehow rushing into this is wide of the mark. Her Party, particularly the left, has been exerting enormous pressure and opprobrium on her since the spring for not agreeing to an Impeachment investigation. She seems to me to be a model of restraint. She is in the position of a traffic cop who witnesses a driver speed past clocking 90.
2
No one who voted for Hillary will now vote for Trump. On the other hand, there are those who voted for Trump who will now reconsider their anti-Hillary vote and vote for the next democratic nominee.
It's not Math; it's Arithmetic.
2
@Honora
if you do not dream, your dreams will never come true.
my comments were cogent..yours, ambiguous
1
This doesn't take into account a critical detail - the whistleblower made his complaint in part because the transcript of the call was altered, it is incomplete. I am surprised this crucial detail has been so little reported or mentioned. People are reading that transcript and making the decision it doesn't sound as bad as all that. But is not the complete call... I am frustrated with journalists right now who seem to have their heads you know where. That detail should be front and center of any mention of this transcript, otherwise we are just helping Trump and Barr whitewash another crime.
I understand this analysis, I have some fear it is correct, but I disagree. Even if impeachment fails, it is necessary to check this president. It is the duty of the house and people were losing faith in the Democratic party more for their lack of action then anything else.
Those poll numbers reflect people's fear that impeachment will backfire, not that people think Trump is innocent. I suspect (and it has been rumored) that Pelosi has a lot of other charges lined up. Those numbers will flip fast. Even is the Senate blocks impeachment, the disclosures to come will destroy Trump's chance at success.
I don't believe a failed impeachment will hurt Democrats. It will fire up their base way more than it fires up Trumps.
1
I share Chris T's concern about the media glossing over key aspects of the Whistleblower story. In my view, the public is distracted from the central point - that Ukraine was/is in desperate need of military assistance to ward off a hot war being waged in eastern Ukraine at the direction of Putin. Any delay in providing weapon systems and aid would only inure to the benefit of the Russians - who so successfully meddled in the 2016 election.
Moscow Tower anyone?
1
There are always pros and cons.
Your point of waiting until the whistleblower is taken.
At some point you have to stand up for what is your duty to the country.
5
Impeachment may well be a tool to attack the integrity of the person currently occupying the White House. But it will not remove him.
He can only be removed by voters.
Unless the Democrats can convince the swing voters to vote for their candidate, we will be stuck with this clown for another four years, which include unwanted gifts that keep on giving, such as Supreme Court appointments.
Those same swing voters have been told by the media - using campaign speakers of some of the Democratic candidates - they could lose private insurance, pay more taxes and will be over-regulated. Assuaging their fears through education should be a priority of the Democrats. Pursuing impeachment will consume all available bandwidth for that important task.
Play to win the presidential election, not the moral indignation beauty contest.
Per Brett’s analysis, we would still be waiting for the signing of the Declaration of Independence
5
If it is not the right call, then there is no limit to wrongdoing to be tolerated by any president nd Nixon should be apologized to, perhaps given a Medal of Honor and the Medal of Freedom.
3
The fact is that the president sought to get another country to pursue criminal allegations against a political opponent and his son. One has to ask why, if the president had cause to believe that the former vice president and his son were involved in criminal behavior, why did not the DOJ and FBI investigate this behavior and request evidence from Ukraine as provided with the treaty between the US and Ukraine on mutual legal assistance on criminal matters?
1
The case being prosecuted by Congress involves principles that are fundamentally important for the survival of our system of government. I simply don't see how the President's conduct could be endured any longer without our lawmakers trying to find a constitutional remedy. Each and every legislator will have to go on record now and declare their opposition or support for the Executive's conduct.
4
If justice and accountability is wrong, I don't want to be right.
2
Nancy's "bad call" was to tell the investigators to focus on this one call. Even without this one call there's more than enough to impeach just on what we know from previous court proceedings against Cohen and from the Mueller report. Both of those things pointed to several potentially impeachable crimes/offenses and all of them need to be investigated.
As for Trump asking for the Ukraine to "collude" to help him get dirt on a political adversary, I'm not sure how that can be called anything but impeachable with or without the "quid pro quo" (which was heavily implied but not explicitly spelled).
1
People, you are so strategic, scheming, and in love with your own intellect. How about simply doing the right thing to uphold the constitution and the law of the land? If you think that Trump can play 3D chess ten moves ahead, you project your own moral confusion onto him.
7
Looks like P.T. Barnum Trump has done it yet again, led the Dems to the edge of the cliff, but this time they lost their balance.
Instead of focusing on voting him out of office in a mere 14 months (yes, I know it will seem like an eternity), and maybe even flipping the Senate, Speaker Pelosi and the Dems have succumbed to a desperate need. The need to enforce the law. Noble but ... The problem is Trump, with no apparent moral compass, has been flaunting the laws of this country with seeming impunity his entire life. He is well practiced, and he is now doing it in classic Roy Cohn fashion on the biggest stage.
The House will eventually vote along party lines; the Senate will not convict; and the master huckster will likely get a reprieve. The Electoral College (an oxymoron) will again act contrary to the majority of voters.
More SCOTUS judges will be seated; the environment will be further destroyed; generations will be saddled with more and more debt; forget gun control; socio-economic imbalance will tilt even more to the haves; America will be viewed as a nation incapable of keeping a promise; ...
All this because well meaning legislators in 2019 were too impatient to do the right thing for 2020 and beyond in our nano-second, instant gratification culture.
1
"Nothing ventured, nothing gained."
This old proverb says it all.
Democrats should all be shamed
if they’re scared to trip and fall.
By November of next year
failed attempts will be forgotten.
Not, however, our fear
to impeach the one who’s rotten.
Don’t forget: if we impeach
(or we try, no matter what),
there’s a stain Trump cannot bleach,
and I am good enough with that.
3
I'm not sure how you want to square this.
The president is clearly in violation of the law in the case where Michael Cohen is in jail today. So we understand that the president cannot be even charged with criminal behavior let alone be impeached for it.
Now he does a mafia shakedown of a vulnerable foreign country to attack his domestic political opponent and you're saying that he should not be impeached for it.
What exactly can he be impeached for? Shooting someone in the middle of fifth avenue? I'm sure you and your old buddies in the WSJ editorial board can come up with a justification against that.
5
He treats Congress like they are merely office staff...He has refused, since the House changed hands in 2018 to treat the majority party with respect, inclusion or even accept their role in our government. Refused legal requests for documents, refused to allow anyone in his administration to testify and has basically behaved like they have ZERO role or power in elected government.
Sorry, there comes a point where we either roll over like obedient sheep, as has been done in McConnell's thoroughly impotent Senate, or somebody stands up and points out that he is violating our founding document, the Constitution, daily. with utter contempt, and mean spirited ignorance.
He is a bully who used his power and OUR tax dollars to intimidate and bully a newly elected foreign leader........I don't care what his reason was, it was insulting to this taxpayer that he claims investigating corruption was his goal
Where was that high minded belief when the body of a WAPO reporter was cut up and removed in garbage bags by the Saudi's?? When our weapons were sold to them to bomb civilians, children, in Yemen?
It literally was well beyond time to frankly, stand up for our Democracy. While we still have one to fight for.
3
As Trump stated on the campaign trail "I Could Stand In the Middle Of Fifth Avenue And Shoot Somebody And I Wouldn't Lose Any Voters".
He perfectly understand how well protected he is. Should he be impeached? Yes, definitely, for many reasons. Will he be removed from office via impeachment? Over McConnell's dead body. The Senate(GOP) will never allow it to happen. Nonetheless, someone has to send the message to Trump/GOP that they cannot continue to bend,twist, and at times break the Constitution without repercussions.
2
This Democrat agrees with Brett all the way. Impeachment is not likely to lead to conviction, and brings up the prospect that it will not sway electoral votes in 2020. I do, however, keep in mind that Pelosi may know things that we don't yet. One thing that an impeachment inquiry does is remove a lot of the impediments to investigation. Folks will have to testify. This aspect isn't much discussed lately. Let's see how it unfolds.
Getting Brett Kavanaugh appointed to the Supreme Court was indeed a P.R. coup. It was also a travesty of justice. Arguing that Congress should ignore high crimes, again, because it could be a bad "P.R." move is beyond comprehension.
When did once honorable men decide "seeming acceptable" is preferable to "being acceptable?" When seeming has become the compass for action, there certainly is no there there.
Thank God Congressional Democrats concern themselves with a good deal more than mere appearance!
8
The problem with Bret and others is that they think of political games before they think of The Constitution, right and wrong, ethics, morality. That toxic town has to wake up to the fact that winning at any cost needs to go. The amorality of that town and the political games have gone beyond acceptability. Power and money are empty goals.
3
Breathtaking stupidity by Pelosi.
The greatest value of impeachment proceedings, Senate be damned, is that Trump is naked without his cloak of lies. All of Trump's financials will be made visible. Evidence on other matters that he has managed to conceal behind toadies like Barr or any number of acting directors will be available for all to see. That kind of truth is going to hurt, but not for Democrats. It will be Trump's end whether the Senate acts or not. But I sure hope the Sergeant at Arms got a heads-up this time. One shouldn't expect this to be easy or different from what we have seen.
4
Speaker Pelosi formally announced an inquiry into impeachment which had been going on in the background anyway. Given the volatile energy of the news cycle, if this blows up on the Democrats it will also blow over as President Trump blames George Soros for the next Hurricane, or whatever. Trump is a juggler of chaos. He has many balls in the air: China, Iran, Korea, trade-war, deep-state, fake-news, Joe Biden etc. Given his irregular hyper-mania he will drop one and trip on it before tossing up another. I think he welcomes a fight but alternatively frets about the outcome: This is who he is.
1
The sad truth is it doesn't matter what the facts are.
Even if Trump is completely innocent the impeachment will be affirmed by the House and referred to the Senate.
And even if he is guilty as sin he'll be acquitted by the GOP's Senate majority.
1
In the end it won't matter if the Democrats impeach Trump or not. If Trump's known behavior to date is not enough reason to vote him out the American people will prove to be ignorant and irresponsible. They will deserve what they get if they re-elect someone who has proven to be an amoral con artist who is disrespectful of the law, his office and any Americans who did not vote for him. Bret, tell me about American exceptionalism again.
2
Wrong,wrong,wrong. Read the conversation again. The word "though" says it all.
Turn a blind eye to this and the nation is lost.
3
Lenny has been found with the dead puppy.
1
I recall someone in the Office of the Presidency saying at some point in his impeachment proceedings, while trying to defend himself against an impeachment charge, "It depends on what the definition of 'IS' is". It was a ludicrous statement.
Nancy Pelosi has been waiting for Donald Trump to say the words or take the action to convict himself. He has done that: The U S has been good to Ukraine...Do us a favor...look into the Biden situation...I'll set you up with Rudy Giuliani and the people in the right office....
How can that conversation be mis-interpreted?
Even an inquiry into impeachment proceedings is distasteful stressful, and depressing. Everyone one of us suffers through it. But that is no excuse to avoid doing the right thing for our country. Stand up for Truth and Reality.
2
No quid pro quo? Let's look at the timeline:
Congress appropriates military funds for Ukaraine's fight with Russia.
A week before meeting with the Ukrainian President, Trump orders the freezing of those funds.
At the meeting with Trump, the Ukrainian President says he needs missiles. Trump responds that he needs a favor.
Not clear enough for you Mr. Stephens?
3
The Democrats will incur short term loses and will lose the election in 2020. But our country may experience long term gains. Eventually we will wake up and figure out that we have a constitution and we have laws. We will than reestablish balance and equity in the constitution and we will begin to enforce laws in an fair way. It may take 20 years. In the rear view mirror we will observe a group of leaders who tried to stand up to corruption and a group of leaders who sold our country out.
3
As much as I hate Trump, it seems obvious to me this is a losing issue, where people will see it as Biden's "corruption" against Trump's attempt to fight it. We're walking into a trap. Only good side is maybe it will weaken Biden and lead to Warren or Sanders winning the primary.
1
I don't think this impeachment effort will succeed until the Democrats can convince enough Americans (not just those in the permanent anti-Trump bubble) that Trump has been personally enriching himself while in office. This is his real vulnerability, and here's why.
Trump was elected to infuriate Washington elites, turn their complacent institutions inside out, and generally "drain the swamp". As long as his actions - however clumsy, arrogant, or vulgar - appear consistent with those objectives, his average supporter will continue to tolerate him.
Thus, his call with Ukranian president looks like just the kind of thing his defenders would expect. Trump appears to them to be be asking Ukraine to help root out corruption in American politics. They don't care about the subtleties.
Nor, by the way, do they care if his actions help him get re-elected or consolidate his power, since they have rationalized that his power is their power.
If, however, it came to light that Trump was making personal business deals from his office - secret deals that only made him richer without helping them at all - most of his hard-working, blue collar fan base would start turning on him. Enriching himself was not the reason they sent him to Washington.
If Pelosi & Co. can find a smoking gun on that front, they might be able to convince the majority of the country that Trump has to be impeached. Good luck.
1
@Patrick Talley Finally, someone who gets it. I personally find Trump morally repugnant, and always have. Not as morally repugnant as a Clinton (thus my vote in 2016), but repugnant nonetheless. That said, I don't see a quid pro quo in the transcript of Trump's conversation with the Ukrainian president, but if I did, as you rightly explain, what is morally (or legally) wrong with attempting to expose corrupt behavior from a political opponent? Nothing. Nothing at all. Politics is not a gentleman's/gentlewoman's game (as the Democrats have so perfectly illustrated over the past 2+ years), and their absurd handwringing over every distasteful thing Trump does or says reeks so blatantly of hypocrisy that even the most apolitical American voter is repelled by the stench and will happily flush the offending party down the crapper in 2020.
The transcript is the facts, and the facts show that the man must be removed from office. It wouldn't matter whether Trump offered military aid in exchange for Ukraine's help in smearing his political opponent while putting the Justice Department to work as campaign operatives - but it adds to the crime. To equivocate on this is cowardice, complicity or both. I would put neither past a columnist who has devoted his life to a faux conservatism which has decayed into disaster.
3
If Trump had tied the release of funds to Ukraine that Congress had already allotted to them and then lied about the delay (which it looks like he did) when asked why the funds hadn’t reached the destination (Ukraine) that Congress allowed for for close to a year then can we call it a high crime.
After all, Trump once again aided the Russians who are fighting within the Ukraine and had already annexed Crimea. And where is Moscow Mitch on all this? Surely, because he is ALL-KNOWING in Washington and his wife sits in the Trump cabinet that Ukraine was being denied much-needed aid. I’m sure ALL the fiscally conservative (when a Dem is in office) GOP read the WSJ and Financial Times who months ago questioned why Ukraine had not revveived funding.
And offering the US (that’s the United Eates, not Trump’s) Attorney General to aid in an investigation with a foreign nation of a PRIVATE US citizen must go beyond just the misdemeanor portion of Impeachment.
And lastly, you say Pelosi is acting in haste. Do you really think for one second the WH would have turned over anything if she didn’t start Impeachment inquiries? Because he also said he’d turn over his taxes, he’d turn over the Mueller report (which he did but weeks after his lap dog Barr distorted the findings).
1
The real question is this: How do you deal with a person (in this case POTUS) who will do whatever he can get away with?
If you do nothing, you obviously play into his hands, and we can only wait for the next act. If you oppose, you may still end up playing into his hands, but then again - you may not. You may however, even if the chances are slim, stem the rot - or at least bring to bear a moral and ethical code. It is a risk, but the choice is between perpetual appeasement of a crook and taking a principled stand. The latter is regrettably the only way to proceed with a person who has no ethical code of conduct, without oneself becoming a party to the crime.
3
Sir, it’s because a series of Presidents and executives have gotten away with, literally, murder, theft and collusion, have not been held accountable. Reagan, the Bushes and their crimes against humanity cronies Cheney, Gingrich, Barr et al.
Today’s digital front page has three negative narratives on Democrats and a maybe Trump story.
Mr. Stephens is a muckraker with an authoritarian streak.
He should apply for the White House communications director job.
Please read your drama critics take on the phone conversation.
Now there is real opinion starting with facts.
2
To NOT seek a Trump Impeachment would be to dishonor the American People and not uphold their oaths to the United States Constitution. This POTUS is marinated with corruption, ignorance, and self-interest which is why Pelosi instructed FIVE different House Committees (Judiciary, Oversight & Reform, Ways and Means, Intelligence, Financial) to continue their work investigating and documenting Trump. The majority of Americans knew this slick and odious "man" prior to 2016 and his actions have only confirmed this and they will support impeachment. So too will those who decided to not vote and the never HER hope he works out voters.
3
Trump has been flirting with impeachment almost from the first day he took office.
He has repeatedly breached what is understood to be "high crimes and misdemeanors" which are not necessarily criminal acts as implied by "high" which refers to the office, not the act.
The charge of high crimes and misdemeanors covers acts such as dishonesty, negligence, perjury of oath, abuse of authority, bribery, intimidation, misuse of public funds or assets, failure to supervise, dereliction of duty, unbecoming conduct, refusal to obey a lawful order, including such offenses as tax evasion.
The Mueller Report provided much more evidence of "high crimes and misdemeanors" but few Americans read it or seemed to care. But while it didn't provoke action on impeachment it did serve to show the corrupt nature of this administration.
If this rough account of the Zelensky call was all that Trump was charged with, it would not rise to a level of impeachment. What gives it significance is that it is only the latest instance of his body of corruption.
Trump's sky has been darkening with chickens coming home to roost from the outset, this one may be the last needed to totally blot out his light.
1
Even if the impeachment charges were robbery, rape, kidnapping, treason and murder, and regardless of the evidence, the GOP Senate would still acquit. Basic flaw in the Constitution: Founders forgot about 'partisanship,' This flaw is pervasive: e.g. freezing appointments when the president is of the other party, ignoring House subpoenas for information, etc.
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Opponents of tRump and his thoroughly corrupt administration can't allow themselves to be undone by their fear and anxiety. Yes, there are ample risks down the road of impeachment but there's also an equal risk that having successfully fought off any meaningful attempts to hold him accountable, the doomsayers will bear witness to the re-election of this illegitimate president who has had four years of impunity to use as a base for even greater abominations as yet only imagined. That's the worst case scenario that should have people losing sleep at night.
Do the Right Thing. Let the chips fall where they may.
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This impeachment process has less to do with criminality and more to do with the political alignment of the Democratic party.
Bret Stephens' argument rests on an error. He goes to great lengths to demonstrate that nothing Trump has done thus far is illegal. This may or may not be true (Bret Stephens' is a pundit, not a legal expert), but it's beside the point. The genius of the impeachment clause is that it speaks to unfitness, rather than to criminality. As Robert Mueller has pointed out, criminality can't derail a Presidency, only unfitness can. Donald Trump is manifestly unfit to be President of the United States and this is plain, even to Mr. Stephens. For the good of the country, for our dignity as a nation, for the future of the world, this man should be impeached. Short of that, there should be a record that we tried. This is not about the law. This is about morality.
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The string of impeachable offenses committed by Trump is long....Emoluments Clause violations, obstruction of justice and Russian entanglements as clearly laid out in the Mueller Report and now patently obvious abuse of the power of his office to use taxpayer dollars purchase opposition research from a foreign leader.....ENOUGH IS TOO MUCH!
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Nonsense! (Though hardly surprising).
Pelosi is supporting an impeachment "investigation" which is not the same as calling for impeachment. Opening an investigation would give the house greater authority to conduct inquiries.
The call for Kavanaugh's "impeachment" was based upon what was already known; he had lied to Congress.
But, ultimately, the powers that be decided that since Kavanaugh was confirmed in spite of his being a known liar, there seemed to be no real reason to revisit his confirmation.
Pelosi's decision is the best news Trump could read in the paper this morning.
Trump will win this, folks, and it will help him get re-elected. We saw how to beat Trump in the mid-term elections. Stick with that approach.
Democrats will end up looking bad to most people, but their rabid leftists will feel great about the fight--they will feel they did the "righteous" thing.
I don't care about doing the "righteous" thing. I care about him getting voted out of office. Impeachment will destroy this.
The real driving force is Hillary 2020. This is the only way she can run again. The Clinton machine is driving this whole exercise.
Ukraine is an irresistible twofer, Biden is sidelined and Trump is impeached.
What will happen when Warren peaks, impeachment fails in the Senate, and Trump looks likely to win?
Hillary will come of retirement. The popular vote winner will have another shot.
@Richard Illyes. No Dick...what I’ve heard from Deep State Central is that Hillary is weary and too content in her surprisingly successful “pizza” business to put herself through the wringer again. What is really happening is that Putin is has a fake birth certificate to prove that he was actually born in Des Moines and is taking intensive speech therapy so he can talk Murcan. He hopes to run on the Trump/Putin ticket.
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"What it does not show, however, is Trump tying his request to the release of U.S. military aid in the manner of a quid pro quo."
Brett, of course he doesn't state his request in stark terms, but anyone with reading comprehension can read between the lines. Trump cut off Congressionally approved Ukrainian aid and then made his request, while telling Ukraine that the U.S. has been good to them but that they didn't always reciprocate. My children were taught in school to read between the lines in interpreting text. My grandchildren were too. I also learned that many years ago. Maybe you need to work on your interpretation of text. I do think you are more intelligent than this. However, whatever you think, Trump has shown his lawlessness in many ways. I, too, wish Pelosi had held off but not for the reason you stipulate. I wish she had just because I've already seen the vituperative defense of Trump that will cloud a lot of minds.
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Impeachment is a bigger risk to the Democrats than to Trump. The Biden-Ukraine connection is far from squeaky clean. Without a majority in the Senate Trump will not be impeached. This will be a colossal waste of time, money and energy that could be better spent on trying to win the Senate seats that Republicans have vacated. Impeachment, as we saw with Clinton, will be a negative sideshow in the overall circus of constant political infighting that voters despise. Trump has shown time and again that he is better at the political gamesmanship reqired to weather this latest storm. Like most Republican politicians, Trump believes negative exposure is better than none. He will continue to twist the facts so that he comes out looking like the avenging warrior to his base.
Congress has an obligation to open the impeachment inquiry. Ukraine is just the latest straw, no doubt not the last.
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It is a sad indictment of the author, although typical of our moment, that this is framed as a win-lose political matter rather than a necessity of principle.
The democrats are not responsible for the degradation of our principles. The shrugging response to a morally degraded president surrounded by corruption.
And what alternative does the author suggest? Should Congress have ignored credible claims of sexual assault with Kavanaugh because they weren't going to "win"?
Indeed, most women survivors don't report because we know we won't win.
And should they simply allow the president to, shortly after suspending military aid, suggest a foreign head of state do him a "favour" by investigating a political opponent?
Is that the democracy, the republic, Mr Stephens' thinks the framers envisioned? Is that what we've fought to preserve?
If we are going to bemoan something, bemoan that our principles as a nation have declined so steeply that we elect a man surrounded by corruption who brags about assault. Try to imagine any other politician from any other era (or from any other party in this era) not being held to a higher standard.
If we're going to talk about winning and losing, bemoan that loss.
At this point it has nothing to do with whether it helps the President, our system of government can’t let this nonsense continue.
So, an implicit quid pro quo to get a foreign government to interfere with an up coming presidential election is simply “disgraceful behavior”. I think that will move a lot of the undecided voters against Trump.
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Polls had Hillary winning the election. Trump can be impeached on the "transcript" provided by Trump. The impeachment must be (and is) something a 12 year old understands. Cannot not impeach now.
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Just perhaps, opposing impeachment does not translate into a vote for Trump in 2020?
I agreed with you until the memcon (it's not a transcript) was released. So, apparently, did Nancy Pelosi.
Chronologies matter, as the writer knows. Believing his own propaganda, the President was buoyed by his "victory" in the Mueller testimony the day before he spoke with the Ukrainian President. He thought himself untouchable so he pressured the Ukrainian -- that's obvious. even though Zelinsky gallantly denied it - to feed Hunter Biden to Trump's wolves, led by Giuliani and AG Barr.
When a brave official blew the whistle, the White House and Justice Department (another subject of inquiry, how could Barr claim he wasn't in on the scheme when he tried to smother it?) tried to bury the complaint but failed.
Mr. Stephens is far more sophisticated than this writer but I know a shakedown when I see it. The abuse of office is so glaring that even the lone ex federal prosecutor who writes, in contrast to so many others with his pedigree, that Trump didn't break the law sees impeachment as necessary.
Stephens thinks impeachment is the break Trump needs; not even an evidently listless Trump believes that, The Democrats have the capacity to botch the inquiry but if they do their duty properly the resultant exposure of the Trumpian cesspool will make the election about "keeping the Republic" (Franklin).
I often respect your columns while sometimes disagreeing with you. I'm liberal and you are far from that. With this one, I wholeheartedly disagree. You are way off the mark and I feel compelled to just say this.
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Ok Mr. Stephens, I’ve got an idea: Let’s allow President Trump to continue to seek the help of foreign governments in securing his re-election. Perhaps the next step of his will be to have Putin assassinate the democratic nominee? Or maybe we wait until he has MBS kidnap and torture an American journalist who is hostile to him?
It’s long past due for us to hold this president to account. And republicans in the senate who continue to stand by him must pay a political price.
You do realize that Trump himself, as a private citizen, was all for using the impeachment gambit when he argued that Obama was not a native born American citizen. Where else would such an attack have gone?
Even now, Republicans are countercharging that the "Obama-Biden-Hunter" cabal was guilty of something like high crimes and misdemeanors. Hunter's Ukraine connection has been public knowledge since 2015 (as Bret notes), and using the issue as a campaign ploy is fair game.
Gaming the issue with a foreign power's assistance is not fair. It's foul and impeachable.
Go Nancy! Follow President Trump's lead. Remember, he still has those investigators in Hawaii checking on his predecessor.
Stephens, unlike the rest of the Never-Trumpers, is a rational voice, at least in this article.
I would guess that more than half of Trump voters cannot stand the man; it's just that what's on offer from the Democrats, from elitist sneers and smears to welfare-for-all, is even less attractive.
The impeachment of this President must be done. I'm as nervous as the next anti-Trumper about the possible negative outcomes, however, I'm willing to take the risk in order that all his dirty laundry be aired. I can only hope that Americans wake up and will see that this outrageous behavior must not be rewarded with a second term.
Hypothetical here. If Trump is impeached and convicted, can President Pence pardon him for any and all crimes, and he therefore will get away scott free?
So apparently one of the GOP talking points now is that you can't start an investigation to gather more data because you need more data to start the investigation. Circular logic nonsense. Classic Republican Groupthink.
What a choice to have to make about President Trump. Bret's right about LBJ and his treatment of B. Goldwater. But, he, Bret barely scratches the surface. LBJ, according to R. Caro's bio abused govt power for his whole political life. Democrats, then were not hothouse plants. Hypocritics, yes, but not snowflakes. Pity them today for they either melt in the sun or melt in the snow.
I have news for Bret -- the Republicans will let Trump go so fast your head will spin. He's already done everything they wanted, and they have no more loyalty to him than he does to them.
Surprisingly, Douthat is one of the more sensible voices at the Times currently when discussing impeachment. As someone who would love to see Trump heading up his Space Force and leaving our orbit, I can’t help but see this move as questionable, or at least a little sad.
While it’s nice to see the Democrats standing up to Trump more forcefully, they would be better off spending their energy developing an actual platform to repudiate Trump and Trumpism. It’s time for them to be the adults in the room. He has defined and dominated the conversation since his nomination, and the Democrats have taken his bait every time for years now. Trump wants nothing more than to be the center of attention, like a naughty child, so why reward him? For all the reasons Douthat and others have stated, this will probably ultimately benefit him and his lapdog party. But Democrats have long shown that there’s no opportunity too big or obvious for them to squander and bungle, so here we go into another slow motion train wreck.
When you get elected to and spend years running the House, I'll consider your opinion worth overturning mine in consideration.
For now, I'll just point out that you somehow think this impeachment call is only for Trump's action on Ukraine. Where have you been for the past 3 years? I can't even remember how many crimes Trump has been accused of with credible allegations, so I can only guess that you have forgot them all.
I won't take anyone's time to remind them here of but two. Let's call it Russiagate and the illegal obstruction efforts and conspiracy to keep it from being discovered or prosecuted. In that matter, Trump is "Individual 1," an unindicted co-conspirator.
Pelosi will remind America and the world of this and have us all review the many crimes of which Trump is credibly accused. We will see his tax forms and discover many other crimes.
If you think the Senate Rs will stand behind that criminal enterprise in the public view, you don't understand politics or human nature. Sure, there are a few dedicated white nationalists, gun nuts, and assorted faux religious cloak-wearers who will stick with him, imagining they are strong enough to prevail, but within a year, they will be devastated.
Thank you for writing this column so I could set the public straight on this.
Imagine rats fleeing a sinking ship. Does that help?
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I agree with this article 100%. Very high stakes game. Bes ti just to defeat him next year, maybe censure his behavior.
Another reason to allow Trump the time to getter booted via the voting public in 2020, the next president will not be a Repub that could (and would) pardon him of all crimes he could be charged with in public life thereafter.
The official impeachment is really, really bad for Criminal Trump and his sidekick AG William Barr. It will end badly for both. More importantly, it's officially the beginning of the end of the republican party. Goodbye and good riddance.
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The Dems are doing the right thing because - it’s the right thing to do. You should be writing about Trump corruption and republicans supporting a corrupt administration.
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Bret give me a break. He is actively trying to corrupt the election process and everyone should just wait for 2020? He is an ever present danger and a man who's unfit for office.
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This is a "jump the shark" moment in the Trump reality show, and we are going to see just how low Republicans will go try to normalize the new low set by the administration. Asking a foreign government to collaborate with your AG in an investigation of a rival candidate is impeachable. No quid pro quo is required, but enough of one is there is you insist. The transcripts and Giuliani's incredible television performance speak for themselves. Bret and other supposedly serious Republicans cannot pretend otherwise and maintain even a shred of intellectual honesty.
Republicans accuse Dems of rushing before the facts are out? Then how about Republicans stand down from their ridiculous efforts to defend Trump's actions?
How low will the GOP go to defend Trump? Apparently, we haven't yet plumbed the depths.
Mr. Stevens, would you ever expect a transcript that goes"This is President Donald Trump, I'm not going to give you the money until you help me win in 2020 by destroying my opponent"? Do you actually think there has ever been a transaction of political or corporate corruption that lays out like a Hardy Boys mystery?
With every horrible thing Trump does, conservatives always cry, "where is the hard evidence(?)."
No moderately successful politician/CEO has ever been so ridiculously blunt.
This is why our politicians and our corporate heads get away with everything! They hint at things. They leave it up to others to fill in the blanks. That is how its been done since forever.
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Normally I find Bret Stephen’s articles provocative and compelling. This one is unconvincing.
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"57 percent of Americans oppose impeachment, against 37 percent who support it." That's about what the polls were for Nixon's impeachment AFTER the Saturday Night Massacre, where Nixon tried to get the Watergate special counsel fired and ended up getting rid of Atty Gen Eliot Richardson and his deputy Ruckelshaus. Only when Bork as Solicitor General was Nixon successful. Those favoring impeachment of Nixon did not exceed 50% until the week he resigned!! So, percentage favoring impeachment of Trump will steadily rise, if clear evidence of his unconstitutional actions is made public.
Website at Pew site to graph showing rise in polls for impeachment of Nixon in 1973-74:
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/08/08/how-the-watergate-crisis-eroded-public-support-for-richard-nixon/ft_14-08-08_nixonresignation_2x/
I'm really kind of surprised that Mr Stephens - a Pulitzer-prize-winning commentator - doesn't see the connection between Pelosi's move and the sudden release of the doctored transcript and the decision that the whistleblower's complaint which Barr (NOT Maguire) kept hidden will now be released. If Pelosi hadn't announced the inevitability of impeachment, Trump would still have Congress dancing on strings. Mr Stephens' stance here reminds me of attitude toward climate change: "okay, it's bad, but what the heck. Doesn't bother me that much."
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BTW, assuming you're being sincere, then I think there's something about straws and camels that applies. You're asking the country to wait more than a year to vote Trump out while he is thumbing his nose to Congress. I think some times you have to stand up to bullies. If Trump hadn't stonewalled the whistleblower complaint, nothing would've happened. But the moment he did, Congress had no choice. This is the right thing to do regardless of 2020. If Trump is re-elected because of it, so be it.
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We know that Biden used his political influence to help his son make money in Ukraine and in China. He threatened to withhold $1 billion in aid from Ukraine if the prosecutor who was looking into the company his son "worked" for (what he did sounds more like he was simply a bag man) wasn't fired. The prosecutor was dismissed.
The mention of Biden in the Trump phone call sounds almost like an after thought, the new Ukrainian prez was discussing cleaning his swamp, that he was going to have the best around him etc., and Trump said you ought to find out what happened with Biden's son and how that all happened. So?
The person who should be trembling is Biden, not Trump. If a high Republican official had been engaged in corrupt behavior in a country and once out of office, a dem asks the new leaders of that country for info, the press would applaud that.
There was no quid pro quo. And if anything, Biden is a much easier candidate for Trump to face than Warren or even Bernie. Biden's the establishment punching bag and can be easily disposed of without a scandal.
There was no quid pro quo. No threats. The call was to congratulate on a election. It went from there to some verbal bro hugs and touched on some broad policy issues, one being corruption in Ukraine. It's a nothing burger.
I wouldn't call the Kavanaugh situation/appointment a PR coup.
Poor guy and his poor family and friends. Can you imagine what Kavanaugh's children and wife and parents and friends think of his "wild school days" of the past? And those "wild days" being publicized and defended on the front pages of the whole world... over and over. That doesn't even take into account that his actions were maybe even criminal. I just don't see that as a PR coup. His and Trump's egos have probably ruined Kavanaugh's life and quality of life regardless of him being appointed to the (fanfare trumpets!) the Supreme Court.
Sounds like a horrible life that he's made for himself... I bet he regrets it.
As for Trump... he laid out his strategy from the beginning of his 2016 campaign (although New Yorkers have been aware of his strategies for decades) with his comment about being able to shoot someone on 5th Ave and still keep his voters. Brazen!
Any American can fight that! Impeach!
Major Koch used to say “ I am a liberal with sanity “ . Unfortunately the last drop of sanity left our leading Democratic legislators. Not a word is mentioned about any urgent needs we as Americans yearning for , no serious arguments are brought up about of how to move this great country ahead politically , socially , economically , promoting freedom around the world .....Impeachment became the “Golden Cow “ for Democratic Party . And now they created a trap for themselves out of which they will not be able get out alive . An easy victory for President Trump . What a circus !!!
You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs.
Think before you speak or read before you write. Mr. Stevens, you should read the whistleblower complaint and the Mueller report, if you haven’t read it yet, before you put pens to paper, fealty is not objectivity.
To be fair, that's his point.
Democrats hadn't seen the evidence, or even the complaint, when they moved to impeach. So if one side can rush to judgment, why can't the other?
Can you imagine the republican uproar if Obama had done a half of what Trump has done? When I got my citizenship test one of the things that I fall in love with America was the idea that “nobody is above the law” so far Trump is destroying that idea and we cannot allow that to happen
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Bret, why do I think you’ve got a couple of parents who took you, in a stroller, to civil rights marched, Earth Day parades, Women’s and LGBTQ events ...
And sit home crying over where they went wrong raising their son.
Nobody’s seriously tried to impeach Kavanaugh over all the lies he told the Senate a year or so ago.
It would be proper - even ignoring the sexual abuse and bad taste he exhibited at Wealthy Prep and Overpriced U., it’s the lies he told that proved him as unfit to be a Supreme Court justice as you maybe, sorta think Trump is unsuited to be President.
Nancy Pelosi compares favorably with Tip O’Neill as Speaker of the House, and in a century, when they build the next House office building it will probably bear her name.
She, too, believes impeachment is a very dangerous tool to be used only when absolutely necessary.
And Trump, the very model of a modern would-be dictator has inflicted so much damage to the people of this nation - particularly people who refuse to look at reality just to see how far he has come from the previous nadir of Presidential behavior, deserved to be indicted and removed pending trial under the 25th Amendment as soon as the Mueller Report was released.
But she waited - and watched - frightened by Trump’s utter disconnect with reality until she had a case she had to, by her oath of office, no choice not to bring.
And you know it.
"But what if the facts don’t vindicate that belief?"
That's what delayed things so far, Bret. How will we ever know? What incontrovertible truth must you uncover that'd give you confidence that this is the correct action? Isn't this exactly what impeachment hearings are supposed to disclose?
Are you going to be the Jeff Flake or Susan Collins of the media, Bret? Are you taking a contrarian stance because you need material or just to play devil's advocate? Were all of your concerns about Trump up to now just faux posturing?
C'mon Bret, it's time to get off the pot.
Why doesn't Mr. Stephens understand that actual technical criminality is Not The Bar to Clear for impeachment? He should read his colleague's column in today's paper. Neal Katyal's explainer on this very issue. The constitution's reference to Misdemeanors has nothing to do with crime. It literally means bad behavior. The founders wanted congress to be able to remove a president who didn't necessarily commit crimes but was, through his behavior, unfit for office.
Trump has been the poster child of impeachable Misdemeanor since week one in office. Rather than take up the task as they should have, craven traitorous republicans in the House and Senate have condoned Trump's incessant impeachable behavior by their inaction. The contrast between their sanguine support of Trump and their OCD over instances of the Clinton's behavior and of Obama's birth certificate is irreconcilably stark. They have lost any credibility to instigate and conduct an investigation for the next 16 years.
Comparisons to Bill Clinton are absurd. The difference between Clinton's indiscretions and Trump's indifferent self serving treason is a gnat to an elephant. If voters are too stupid or too amoral for that difference to matter then we deserve our demise. But I don't think they are. I believe there are some Trump supporters who might be jarred out their thralldom when faced with the question "will they keep quiet when a democratic president seeks foreign help to interfere with US elections? Twice?"
"Lawfully elected"? I have my doubts.
Stephens is making himself the prolongation of Trump's threat. Literally .
Geez, Brett. And I thought you were one of the sensible Republicans. Let's look at the evidence. A telephone transcript (released by the Whitehouse) shows that the president of the U.S. tried to strongarm the president of Ukraine by withholding congressionally-approved military payments to dig up dirt on a political opponent. Our president was requesting dirt on a political opponent and access to computer foreign computer servers. This came to light because a whistleblower called out unusual changes in procedure in how sensitive information was stored. How many smoking guns do you need? If not now, when, Brett?
Would like to agree with you, but no longer can. If we don’t impeach this shameful man we no longer deserve, and will no longer be able to keep, our democracy.
Nice try.
First of all it’s an impeachment inquiry. Secondly, it should be more about just the request for dirt on Biden. Third, just asking for assistance with your election is a crime, you don’t need quid pro quo. Fourth, discussing military aid, then saying you need a favor including locating a “missing server” from your opposition party and “the other thing” about Biden is quid pro quo. Fifth, more people support impeachment now than they did when it opened against Nixon. Sixth, it’s mere speculation that the Dems will bungle this (I share that speculation).
Speaking of the server request... he’s essentially asking to break into the DNC. Sound familiar.
How easy will it be for Trump to campaign under the cloud of potential impeachment?
The point is to hurt him and it certainly will.
In a sea of lost editorial writers, you are the last beacon of hope Mr Stephens.
You bring a realistic version of what is happening without the heavy bias of the other writers.
I’m not a Trump fan..never have been - never will be.
This is another travesty of an investigation- like the Democrats were SO CERTAIN Trump would be impeached from Russian interference in the election...the Democrats were SO CERTAIN Trump would be impeached from obstruction of justice...now they’re SO CERTAIN he’ll be impeached over a Ukrainian phone call...
The Democrats don’t know what they should do - they’re like fish out of water - flapping around trying to breath.
They’re self destructive- like Hillary was - Trump will be re-elected President next year - not by me, but by a Country that is continually disillusioned with a delusional and misdirected Democratic Party
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@JMS Agree, they are also self destructive - like Hillary was because they only do what their wealthy donors and overpaid know nothing consultants tell them to do. Would be so easy to win if they would just do the right thing for the majority of the people for once.
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A convincing analysis, and I hope that the Democrats pull themselves together.
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@C.O. really? Given a president was impeached for lying about a personal encounter, the precedent set by Stephens; ( and seemingly your ) party seems to indicate this is above board.
Stephens' main point seems to be "what if theyre wrong" which is laughable.
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Appalling. The cynical confidence that the truth is simply not enough. After the president was disgraced by his actions detailed in the Mueller report, the cynics asked for more proof, a smoking gun, an unambiguous crime. And because he is a career criminal at the genetic level- trump supplied one- a smoking gun.
I’m no longer explaining to cowards and traitors and simpletons why laws matter, why civilization matters and why I still hold faith with the principles my country was founded upon. Collaborating with, sympathizing and apologizing for fascists has consequences. Time for all of you to watch your words and behaviors carefully. Americans have eyes and we’ve had enough.
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Doesn’t national security mean anything here? Or separation of powers? Trump’s DNI and AG and White House were withholding an “urgent” complaint dealing with our national security. This impeachment inquiry got the information out in the open rather quickly. Let’s focus on the facts in front of us now. Not how quickly or how long it took for the straw to break the camel’s back. We’d probably be on the next news cycle and this buried had Pelosi not done what she did.
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We do not know how this will play out. Pundit parallels with Clinton are off base. He was a popular president who was impeached for highly inappropriate behavior but nothing that competes with Trump's daily destruction of our democratic institutions. As a democrat I have agreed with the no impeachment approach. I changed this week. It will be interesting to see how many charges will be leveled---if the evidence provided by whistle blower is strong enough and convincing enough maybe only one charge will be leveled ---- that might convince the Independents to continue their move away from Trump. One thing we know ---Trump loves to fight --are Dems really ready for this?
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@AP
It wasn't Clinton's "inappropriate behavior" that led to his impeachment proceedings; it was his alleged lying under oath about it. Even so, the Republicans' move to impeach twenty years ago was about attacking a political opponent and not about protecting the office of the presidency. It should not have been done. This time Democrats will have to convince the public, other than their already loyal partisans, that it isn't more of the same.
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@AP: Yes. Thank you. I agree with everything you stated. I was opposed to impeachment as well...until this. The overgrown toddler has done too much damage, already.
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@AP This Dem is. I hope our elected reps are as well. Our Democracy is at stake.
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In this column, Bret Stephens does exactly the same thing for which he criticizes congressional Democrats: he jumps to conclusions before he has seen the evidence.
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@Chris Rasmussen Yes "he is a day late and a dollar short"
If the Democrats succeed in removing Trump from office, they may be doing the Republican party a huge favor. They would then be free to nominate a responsible, more centrist candidate for next year's election that would more closely represent the politics of a majority of Americans than either Trump or any of the Democratic contestants do.
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The big problem with not moving forward with impeachment is this: It is now clear that the president will do virtually anything to stay in office regardless of the law. We are naive to think that he won’t declare the 2020 election results “fake” and move to nullify election results if he loses.
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"The speaker’s haste may end up helping the president."
What? It took forever for this woman to decide to impeach to the extent that we thought that she was the best Trump's ally.
Do you wanted her to wait for a couple of years?
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Bret, while I agree with you that Pelosi could have waited a few days, she has an easy out.
She can state that the only way to force the Trump administration to comply with the law was to threaten Impeachment.
Now that the Trump administration has complied, review of the documents will allow the Intelligence Committee to determine the appropriate course of action in a responsible and logical manner.
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Moderately liberal Dem here: I strongly opposed impeachment. Now I support it. I know impeachment will probably lead to blowback on my party, but someone in this country has to defend the integrity of the American electoral system. It is obvious that the Republicans never will.
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I disagree with pretty much everything Stephens has written.
His rationale for not impeaching Trump is inconsistent and circular. Stephens writes that the House should investigate Trump because they don't have any evidence of wrongdoing. He describes the investigation as a shot in the dark. No, the investigation started because of solid suspicions of malfeasance.
Stephens also wonders why the House should bother because the Senate will likely not convict. But I think; So what? Not investigating the president is confirming that a person (Trump) is above the law.
The article wraps the investigation in terms of political gain and loss. This is both cynical and wrong. Upholding the Constitution shouldn't be limited to political expediency. In any case, I think the issue is irrelevant.
"57% of Americans oppose impeachment". That may or may not be true but it is certainly irrelevant. Following the law isn't a popularity contest. Plus, there are few voters who will switch from voting Democrat to Republican (Trump) because the president was impeached. How many Republicans have been voted out of office over gun control despite >90% favoring stricter gun control? Zero.
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Read the whistle blowers complaint, Mr. Stephens. It will be on the front page of the NYT tomorrow. Pelosi read the tea leaves exactly right. Give credit where credit is due.
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Mr. Stephens seems to think that the only time to start an investigation is when you already know the results with absolute certainty. Yet that certainty cannot come about without an investigation! It is not as though the accused is perfectly cooperative and glad to turn over all relevant documents. The accused, in this case, has persistently tried to obstruct justice. Yes, there is some risk in an impeachment investigation - but a bigger risk in doing nothing. People are losing confidence in our system of checks and balances. They have already lost confidence in the Republican party. Waiting risks that they will lose confidence in the Democrats as well (if they haven't already) for allowing this to go on unchallenged.
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Mr. Stephens:
This is a protection racket run against a vulnerable ally.
(The title of Mr. Kristof's column today captures this nicely, actually.)
The NYPD busts similar rackets (at a much smaller scale) all the time...
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The important thing is that the Constitution is enforced.
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Donald Trump has thumbed his nose at Congress again and again. He argues against any oversight as partisan, that he is even immune from investigation, and now he is using the power of his office to shake down a foreign government for his own political gain.
Absent some effort by Congress to rein in this ongoing abuse of the office it will become utterly irrelevant as a branch of government (except perhaps as a rubber stamp for the President's court nominees).
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From a Canadian, the issue with your Presidency is not Trump as much as the Democrats inability to find a candidate and program to appeal to middle America. This premature move to impeachment will bite them in the end.
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@bob ranalli Elizabeth Warren just topped national polling, Canadian. Film at eleven.
@bob ranalli This is about the rule of the law, not policy. Middle America was eviscerated by Reagan, who did it with his movie star, aw shucks, popular appeal. Middle America fell for it and shot themselves in the foot. Now, the Republicans and their corporate overlords have had to cloak themselves in religion, fear, guns and scapegoating the poor to maintain their grip on power. If we don't pull back the curtain, shine the light on them and kick them out, we are lost as a nation.
I am stunned that anyone could doubt the need to respond to Trump's outrageous behavior in some way. The congress is supposed to check and balance, to engage in oversight and otherwise contain the executive branch's egregious excesses.
And this is egregious. If Trump gets away with it, he will be unbound. It's shocking that a non-trivial percentage of the electorate sees this as acceptable behavior. A "nothingbuger" as Lindsay Graham described it.
So if not impeachment, what? There are no other options.
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What the letter shows is a president telephoning a foreign leader not on behalf of the United States regarding governmental business, but as a politician seeking a personal "favor.'' That's an abuse of his office, and, I believe, a violation of federal law that prohibits solicitation of a foreign government to interfere in a US election. This alone is enough to merit an impeachment inquiry -- except to conservatives like Mr. Stephens, who continue to set an impossibly high legal bar for action against any member of their tribe. Perhaps he should open his eyes to the corruption before his eyes.
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Anyone who thinks bribery and extortion is acceptable has no moral compass. To treat them as a political problem shows how far this country's media, and this paper in particular, has fallen.
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"Democrats may now find themselves in the curious position trying to convince the country that Trump should be booted from the office to which he was lawfully elected for behavior that, whatever else might be said about it, was not unlawful. That will be a tough sell."
Bret Stephens might be the most consistently wrong columnist the NYT has, and that's saying something. Polls *already* show that Americans feel that Trump should be impeached for this behavior.
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@G “legally elected” my patootie!
@G
Polls show the opposite. You are in the echo chamber.
This essay is well thought out and well written. I appreciate your work and one reason that I subscribe to NYT is to continue to read your thoughts .
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Problem with this ultra-careful approach is that Trump has been upping the stakes since the Mueller investigation didn’t lead to calls for impeachment and Republicans continued their slavish support.
I was not in favor of going for impeachment- let the election remove him from office. But I’ve changed my mind - it has to stop somewhere and I think that’s here.
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I vehemently object to the media suggesting that impeachment might be a “bad political move” for the Dems, that politicians and the US citizenry are “nervous about impeachment.”
The rule of law either matters or it doesn’t. I don’t care one iota about politicians keeping their jobs. This is about doing the right thing. At this point, it’s beyond politics.
It’s about the extortion of another country by the President for personal gain, by withholding military aid. The Ukraine President can read the news and knows that the President “put a hold on this aid” a week before Trump and he spoke. The threat is there in plain view, well beyond implied, it doesn’t need to be spoken of directly.
Trump needs to go to jail. Extortion is a felony.
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If the law is the law and you want Trump in jail, then impeachment is not the solution. This is not a trial in criminal court. That will begin with indictments on 1/21/21.
@SMcStormy
You miss the point of Stephens' column. His point is that there is no evidence (yet) that there was, in fact, a quid pro quo and therefore Pelosi's action was premature and risky. He argues that impeachment proceedings should move forward when and if there is, in fact, evidence of a quid pro quo ("extortion" as you call it). So far, there is none.
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@TommyStaff/disagree.
The Ukrainian President says, with full knowledge that Trump publicly has put a hold the millions of military aid not a week prior, effectively, 'we really need that aid."
Trump then responds to the Ukrainian President's statement by saying he wants a favor.
That is quid pro quo.
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Wow. Can you imagine how it would be if Conservatives did not consistently stand up for Principle, Responsibility, Protecting the Constitution, and Rule of Law?
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Agree with Stephens, and I NEVER agree with him.
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I would suggest that Mr. Stephens take his own advice. Let the situation work itself out and then you can argue that it was too early or just right. I see no purpose for your article. It is just speculation with no real purpose. The decision to proceed with the inquiry has been made. Let's just see what happens.
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@LGBrown
Now that the hand grenade has been thrown, I guess that there is little point in questioning if it should have been thrown. On the other hand, I can't help but feel that it was a doomsday hand grenade, and that we've given our grim reaper the weapon he needed.
Trump should be impeached for dereliction of duty. He has failed to fully staff the government and uphold the laws that set up various agencies. Some huge percentage of Cabinet positions are lacking either a leader who is competent to run that position or in some cases not at all. And behind that many agencies are being led by people who oppose their mission. This is blatant disregard by the President to run the government in a lawful way. Forget his constant lies and bad behavior. He has obviously failed to do the job. If he was working for a private company he would have been fired long ago.
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@Hugh Robertson is "dereliction of duty " a "high crime or misdemeanor" ?
Mr. Stevens stoops to bothsidesism: "A stronger argument is that no president should use the power of his office to try to dig up dirt on a political opponent — as, for instance, Lyndon Johnson did, abusively and persistently, to Barry Goldwater in 1964."
The link provided is to the WSJ. I don't have a subscription to the WSJ, but I looked online for more information. LBJ apparently had a former CIA agent, Howard Hunt (yes, that Howard Hunt), obtain press releases and position papers from Goldwater's campaign before they were released to the public.
Bad, but unless you see the world in black and white, not nearly as bad as what Trump has done.
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@DL
Not to mention that Howard Hunt was not the president of Ukraine.
Asking the head of state of a foreign country to prosecute the family of a political rival is a very different animal than your standard domestic oppo research.
Indeed, he asked Hunt not Nikita Krushev.
Sometimes doing what is right instead of what is politically expedient is rewarded. Once all of the facts are laid out and Trump is Impeached the ball will be squarely in the court of the Republicans in the Senate. They can either choose to be Americans or they can choose to be Republicans. Trump has made this choice for them. If they choose to be Americans and remove this corrupt stain from office then they have a chance in 2020 to retain the Senate. If they keep Trump in office they have to know that they will be setting the precedent that election tampering is ok as long as their side is the one doing the tampering. You are either ok with corruption from the President of the United States or you are not. That is the stark choice Republicans have. They have to realize that if even 5% more liberals vote in the 2020 election then they will lose. If 10% more liberals show up then they will lose the Presidency and the Senate. Trump won the Presidency with about 80,000 votes spread out over 4 states over a very unpopular candidate in 2016. He has accomplished literally nothing other than setting us up for another recession. Pelosi made the right call and has shown a lot more patience than she should have. Trump should be impeached for his attacks on the free press alone. If not now then when? Should she have waited until he had Congress set on fire and declared himself dictator? That is the current path of this Presidency.
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She had no choice. President Trump's behavior is too outrageous not too. You cannot have presidents pushing foreign countries to coordinate with their personal attorneys and their AG to investigate political rivals. That cannot be allowed to be considered acceptable.
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@ChapelThrill23
Trump acts outrageously because he needs attention, to be the focus, always. The more outrageous his behavior, the better the odds he will not get elected. Now, however, all eyes will be focused on "poor Donald" because of potential impeachment - and he won't need to continue escalating his bizarre behavior to obtain the attention he craves. Alas
"Mr. Atkinson also found reason to believe that the whistle-blower might not support the re-election of Mr. Trump..." OK, so other than proving that the whistle-blower is a sentient animal with a patriotic streak, what does that prove?
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@Jim. Maybe he doesn't support Trump for re-election because of what he has seen and heard.
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@Jim Do you all need towatch WEST WING again...?
1