Visiting Column #27 -- Weirdest Takeaway from the Hearings

The strange Ukraine impeachment hearings run by Adam Schiff, that are weirdly being done in the House Intelligence Committee rather than in Judiciary Committee, are on air as I write this.

I'm not sure that I know all the nuance of all the diplomatic priorities issues buried in a lot of the testimony, particularly from long-serving State Department people.  You get the idea that they weren't too happy with the idea that President Trump, like all presidents before him, actually sets foreign policy, and that they only carry it out.

That might give them reason to oppose him, although perhaps not with the vehemence and injudicious prosecutorial misconduct of the Committee's chair, Adam Schiff.  But let's look at things a little more broadly.

We're talking about impeaching and removing a president.  Well, we're really only talking about impeaching him, because there is more chance that I'm going to wake up six foot tall in the morning than that the Senate would ever remove him.  But either way, it is an incredibly sensitive and serious topic.

That's what I'm struggling with.

You see, the points of fact that constitute "Aha! moments", or even which are claimed as "Aha! moments", frankly seem so far in the weeds that it is insane -- or hyper-political -- to regard them as subject for impeachment.

We understand that Ukraine was scheduled for a large amount of military aid, which their new president wanted.  We understand that it was held up by the USA for some reason we do not, at this point, know. 

We understand that in July, there was a phone call between President Trump and the president of Ukraine, where among a whole lot of mutual congratulations, Trump asked the Ukrainian leader to look into two areas of potential corruption, first regarding the 2016 USA election, and second in regard to the Ukraine energy company Burisma Holdings, which had added former VP Joe Biden's son to its board at a huge monthly salary despite his lack of knowledge of energy or Ukraine -- while Biden was in office. 

And we know that Biden had bragged publicly about suspending aid to Ukraine until they fired a prosecutor investigating a company that his son was being paid a ton by.

We know all that; it is all demonstrated, and not challenged by either side.

We also can see that Trump was heavily suspicious of Ukraine, given that he at least believed that they had expressed large support for Hillary Clinton in 2016, bashing Trump the candidate in articles and Facebook posts.  So it was at least understandable that he would want the new (and possibly more accommodating and friendly) Ukrainian leader to look into what he saw as corrupt.

But wait, there's less.

A president can only be impeached for "high crimes and misdemeanors."  It is a political process almost by definition.  The House has to vote on articles of impeachment that lay out those "high crimes and misdemeanors."

In order to impeach, you have to lay out those articles, and they have to be, well, actual crimes.  And that's my issue with the coverage.  CNN and the rest of the mainstream media breathlessly report that Ambassador So-and-So says that he or she "understood" that there was (or was not) some connection between the release of that aid and President Trump's request for Ukraine to state publicly that it was going after corruption.  That's their "bombshell", a word they use repeatedly.

Here's the thing, though -- that's not a crime.  And if it is not a high crime or misdemeanor, than why is there a hearing in the first place?

"Quid pro quo" is not only not a crime, it is normal practice in diplomacy.  Yet, oh, gee, it's a bombshell when anyone mentions it.

Bill Clinton lied under oath.  That's perjury, and he was caught.  Now, I get that there would not be a crime without an investigation, in his case, but at least there was a crime.  Perjury is a felony, and ultimately Clinton lost his license to practice law, and probably a few other things.  And he was impeached.  Not convicted, but impeached just the same.

The current impeachment hearings are impossible to understand.  You can't impeach, though, because of an "Aha! moment" (well, with Schiff, you can).  And the media don't seem to get that.  They know they can't get a crime assembled, because there flat-out wasn't one.  But for three years it has been fake bombshell after fake bombshell, with no effect and no crime, even as unemployment is historically low, we have seven million more jobs than unemployed people, and 401(k) accounts are hugely happy.

And that is the weirdest aspect to this.  The only Democrat "successes", to call them that, that occur in the hearings, are when there is testimony they like, always from someone not inclined to like President Trump.  Oh yeah, look, bombshell #254.  But none of it even skirts the outside of a defined crime, let alone one high enough to impeach a duly-elected president.

I read the account of the July telephone call at issue.  We can figure by now that it was LTC Vindman, who was on the call, who reached out to the whistleblower, Eric Ciamarella (I'm not the IG, so there's no law against naming him in this column), a Democrat operative, who then went straight to Adam Schiff -- who still claims that he doesn't know the identity of Ciamarella, though everyone in Washington does.  And here we are.

There is no crime, there are political and diplomatic disagreements.  We all understand that.  CNN understands that too, but that's not their bias, so no one is on CNN explaining that there is no crime, even though it is stated outright by pretty much every witness.

No crime.  No harm.  No foul.  No conviction.

Copyright 2019 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here?  There are over 1,000 posts from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com, and after four years of writing a new one daily, he still posts thoughts once in a while as "visiting columns", no longer the "prolific essayist" he was through 2018, but still around.  Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton