More bad news for Donald Trump in Ukraine scandal
It turns out that Donald Trump’s impeachment has been neither the snoozefest nor the divider that Republicans were hoping it would be, instead uniting Democrats and independents who strongly support his impeachment and removal. It’s also shown to be fairly ratings friendly, with more than 70 million Americans tuning in or streaming the hearings when they happen. The other problem for Trump is that he’s running out of excuses for why he shouldn’t be impeached, and his fellow Republicans aren’t exactly doing much better with running to his rescue.
The Republican conspiracy theories were largely a waste of time from the beginning, as was their claim that the president was being impeached on hearsay – and they wisely decided to stop using the defense that Donald Trump shouldn’t be impeached because he was too mentally incompetent to realize he was involved in extortion with another country that just happens to be at odds with Russia. Now their last line of defense – that Ukraine was unaware of Trump deliberately withholding $400 million in military aid – has all but evaporated.
Even worse for Republicans is that there’s not a whole lot they can do about it. Rather than another whistleblower in the administration leaking this information, it’s Ukraine’s former deputy foreign minister, who spoke recently with The New York Times.
“It was definitely mentioned there were some issues,” said Olena Zerkal, referencing the quid pro quo that evidently took place between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Earlier on, anonymous Ukrainian government officials spoke of a meeting that took place after Trump’s phone call and this was discussed. Even worse for Trump is that he tweeted back in November that Ukrainian officials didn’t even know the money wasn’t paid,” something that his lackey Jim Jordan backed him on. Zerkal even goes on to say that the Ukrainians knew of the aid freeze since the end of July, much earlier than has been reported.
This lines up with testimony already given to Congress by administration defense officials – and it’s only a matter of time before other Ukrainian officials begin to speak up. Pressure may be coming down harder than ever on Republicans to turn against Trump, and very soon.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making