Why impeach President Donald J. Trump only to have the Senate acquit him? What’s the point?
You can’t help but be nagged by this question as the trial churns on, despite Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s politically savvy and Representative Adam Schiff’s sharp prosecutorial skills. But just when you’re about to despair, a light or two. There are the tapes by Lev Parnas, the Rudolph Giuliani goon who was in on muscling Ukraine for dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden and son Hunter, who worked for a Ukrainian energy company while his father was in office.
And now there is the leaked unpublished manuscript of former National Security Adviser and perpetual loose canon John R. Bolton, which establishes a link, once again, between the withholding of $391 million in American aid to Ukraine and the quest for damning information on the Bidens, thus undercutting Trump’s argument that there was no quid pro quo. (The manuscript was leaked by someone in the White House, but then, you knew that, right?)
But, but, but, Bolton could be revealing classified information. Uh, “The Pentagon Papers,” anyone? Trump could sue him for libel. Very hard to prove with famous people involved and remember, Trump would also have to demonstrate Bolton acted out of malice. Goes to state of mind, nye impossible to demonstrate.
Too little too late, you say? Maybe. Maybe this is a futile exercise. But then I think how Trump bullied a poor, vulnerable ally, desperate to keep the Russians at bay, how he threatened smart cookie of an ambassador Marie Yovanovitch — also on Parnas’ tape — and I think, if we don’t stand up to thuggishness now for the record, what kind of people are we?
Maybe we’ll lose the battle, but we can still win the war. There is still an election to be had. And history hangs in the balance.