Donald Trump’s Impeachment Inquiry: The Unraveling?

In the Trump world, of course, the conspiracy to corrupt the elections happened in the opposite direction. For him, the rest of the world colluded with the American "deep state" to help Hillary Clinton. This fixation explains his effort to recruit the Ukrainian government to prove that the hacking of the Democratic National Committee originated not from Russia but from Ukraine; and that the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike had hidden the Democratic National Committee’s server in that country.
 
The Ukraine crisis somehow brought all the problems pertaining to this administration to a head. So, the political and constitutional drama unfolding in the United States reads like an engaging criminal story without much mystery. That crisis unfolded over a conversation that Trump had with the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky. Based on the reconstructed summary of the conversation that the White House submitted to Congress, Trump asks Zelensky "to do us a favor". The implied favor is for Ukraine to find dirt on the Biden family, former Vice President Joe Biden being Trump’s most threatening rival at this stage of the electoral cycle in the upcoming Presidential elections of 2020. Furthermore, Trump asked Zelensky to contact his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and the Attorney General of the US, William Barr, to proceed.
 
What made this politically-driven and self-serving "favor" even more egregious on the part of many centrist Democrats was the fact that prior to the conversation, the White House, upon the explicit demand of the President, suspended the delivery of $391 million worth of military equipment to Ukraine that was already appropriated by Congress for that country to fight the Russian army.
 
In the words of a Democratic congresswoman, a former US Air Force officer, who, at first, opposed impeachment, but then dramatically changed her position in the wake of the news of the phone call, "a sitting president allegedly withheld foreign military expenditures from an ally fighting against a foe of ours in exchange for information on a possible foe of his in an upcoming election." This, in the judgment of many Democrats, legal experts and commentators is exactly the kind of behavior that the founding fathers had in mind when they put in place the procedure of impeachment for acts "of high crimes and misdemeanors".
 
Congress became aware of the conversation thanks to a whistleblower report that the administration declined to send to Congress, as the law suggests. This development broke the resistance to impeachment of one of the most seasoned politicians in the US, the speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. After having blocked the demands for impeachment for a long time, suggesting it would politically backfire, Pelosi came around and defended her decision to let the investigations proceed on the grounds of "keeping the American Republic". In a way, the decision that was politically risky meant that the Democratic leadership crossed a threshold whereby defending Constitutional integrity was well worth the political risk to them in the upcoming Presidential elections.

It is still true though, that the politics of the country has shifted to a different plane. During the event, once the scandal was exposed and compounded with new revelations and Trump’s erratic, self-incriminating behavior, the so far anti-impeachment public opinion began to shift, ever so gradually. After all, the President asked for the Chinese government to investigate his political opponent, Joe Biden, in plain view of TV cameras and thus crossed the line openly on asking for a foreign government to interfere with American elections. Moreover, the example of the first whistleblower seems to have encouraged other personnel within the American government, who stayed publicly quiet out of loyalty, careerism or sense of duty, to come forward. Even the ever supportive, insidious Fox News gave signals that they might occasionally take positions that would make the President uncomfortable.
 
At the moment, the dysfunctional nature of this administration is in full display, as is its corruption. The abuse of office for personal gains, whether these are in political or business terms, has been exposed many times. The fact that the Attorney General of the United States, who is supposed to be above any taint of partisanship, is acting as the personal attorney of the President symbolizes the degree of corrosion in proper conduct and use of authority of office. Trump’s base remains defiantly loyal to him despite all the revelations. Yet, his responses and behavior suggest that, under fire, his grip on power is unravelling, as the swift and forceful reaction from Congress and the bureaucracy to his decision to withdraw from Syria demonstrated.
 
American politics will be in turmoil for some time and the Presidential primary and campaign seasons are likely to witness bitter recriminations and even incitement to violence. The House of Representatives expects to wrap up its impeachment proceedings by the end of the year, although it may be more advisable for them to go slow and let the public digest the profundity of the corruption in the Trump administration. The Senate, that will sit as a court if the President is impeached by the House, is unlikely to produce the required two thirds majority to find Trump guilty and remove him from office.
 
It is safe to say that for at least another year, the world will not have a coherent American leadership in substantive global matters or any matters pertaining to transatlantic security. In such a period of global flux, an introverted and institutionally weakened America will be a force for instability.

Copyright : Brendan Smialowski / AFP