The GOP Has No Credible Defense Of Trump's Criminality

(Cartoon image is by Clay Jones at claytoonz.com.)

The public impeachments hearings have started, and the nation was able to hear from two career government officials on Wednesday. Both were able to verify that Donald Trump attempted to bribe or extort the Ukrainian government into helping him to smear one of his likely Democratic opponents (Joe Biden). It simply can no longer be denied that happened.

But the congressional Republicans are still trying to defend Trump. And since they can no longer deny the facts, their defense is pathetic and not credible.

Here's some of what the editorial board of The New York Times had to say about their efforts:

And those Americans who tuned in also learned that the Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee have set themselves a degrading task. Rather than engage the facts about Mr. Trump’s Ukrainian escapade, they are twisting them and eliding them and inventing new ones they’d prefer. They spent most of Wednesday stuffing straw men and then ostentatiously knocking them down.

Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio set their tone and pace, apparently betting that a sustained note of incredulity and a motor-mouth delivery could distract listeners from the fragility of his arguments. He insisted the president couldn’t possibly have done anything wrong because, in the end, Ukraine got its money without committing to any investigations.

This point of view has radical implications for America’s system of justice and overcrowded prisons, if Mr. Jordan in fact truly believes that all inmates convicted of attempted crimes are innocent of wrongdoing. . . .

As they have in the past, Mr. Trump’s backers piously insisted on Wednesday that the president cared only about rooting out corruption. It is just a coincidence, in this telling, that the prime target of the investigation Mr. Trump was demanding happened to be Joe Biden.

No one who doesn’t mainline Fox News was buying it on Wednesday. The witnesses made clear how far this targeted Trumpian initiative deviated from the systematic, broad-gauge anticorruption efforts American diplomats have been seeking in Ukraine for years. . . .

Over and over, the Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee attempted to cast the hearings as a sham, a Democratic plot to remove the president. Mr. Taylor and Mr. Kent declined to play along. They came across not as angry Democrats or Deep State conspirators, but as men who have devoted their lives to serving their country, and for whom defending Ukraine against Russian aggression is more important to the national interest than any partisan jockeying. . . .

Another popular Republican argument on Wednesday was that Mr. Taylor and Mr. Kent were offering nothing but hearsay. Of course, this wouldn’t be an issue if Mr. Trump were not obstructing the inquiry by refusing to allow White House officials, including the people who were on the call, to testify. (In fact, one of those officials — Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman — did go before Congress, and Republicans rewarded him by speculating that he was a Ukrainian double agent.)

Perhaps the most telling remark was offered by a Republican staff lawyer, Stephen Castor, who suggested that while the president’s behavior may have been highly irregular, “it’s not as outlandish as it could be.” Here’s a tip: When “not as outlandish as it could be” is your strongest defense, it’s time to rethink your position.