From Greg Sargent/WaPo:
Three big takeaways from the Democrats’ damning new impeachment report
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... nt-report/
Here are three big takeaways:
The corrupt plot implicated multiple top administration officials and Trump allies.
The report goes out of its way to detail the ways the evolving scheme implicated top officials like acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Energy Secretary Rick Perry.
Trump’s “no quid pro quo” defense has been reduced to smoking wreckage.
The report does a good job in blowing up one of Trump’s biggest defenses: That because he told Sondland that there was “no quid pro quo” on one of their September phone calls, that means it was true.
As the report notes of Sondland’s testimony about one of those calls (it’s not clear how many there were):
Ambassador Sondland also testified that President Trump immediately followed his stated denial of a quid pro quo by demanding that President Zelensky still make a public announcement, while the military assistance remained on an unexplained hold.
Yes, of course. The military aid was still on hold, and Ukraine still desperately wanted it, and Trump superficially told Sondland that there was “no quid pro quo,” while also directing Sondland to tell Zelensky that he must still do Trump’s bidding, but of his “own” accord.
Trump has shown his corrupt undermining of our democracy will continue, posing a danger to the nation going forward.
The report strikingly portrays a president who recognizes zero constraints on his misconduct, making him a continuing threat to the country. As the report notes, Trump was emboldened, and not chastened, by the fact that his campaign’s efforts to coordinate with and benefit from the 2016 Russian attack on our democracy -- and Trump’s extensive efforts to derail the investigation into those matters to cover them up -- ended with him facing no accountability.
Importantly, it was right after all this that Trump pressured Zelensky for another round of foreign intervention on July 25. The report describes this as “the act of a president who viewed himself as unaccountable and determined to use his vast official powers to secure his reelection.”
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