Column: Trump's best option for avoiding impeachment is to do something he loathes — apologize (via latimesopinion)
, as well as several other Trump appointees and aides. Their collective testimony is not gospel, and it contains inconsistencies. But the notion that all of these players are committing perjury to frame the president is absurd.
Common sense also works against the president. If Trump was sincerely concerned about Ukrainian corruption, why has he never expressed similar concerns about corruption anywhere else? And, why, if the issue is Ukrainian corruption generally, did the Trump administration focus almost exclusively on the alleged corruption of a single Ukrainian firm, Burisma, where Biden’s son sat on the board?
The most plausible explanation is twofold. First, the corruption issue was a pretext; under the law, corruption concerns are the only justification for blocking congressionally approved aid. Second, Trump’s real goal was to bruise Biden. Indeed, according to Taylor, the White House said it would settle for a mere statement about Biden’s potential corruption — meaning Trump cared more about political gain than about an actual investigation.
Republican complaints about the heavy-handed tactics of the Democrats have some merit, but they’ll be rendered moot when the Democrats move to public hearings or to a Senate trial. And when that happens, claims that the call was “perfect” and there was no “quid pro quo” will evaporate in the face of the facts.
This is why the smartest Trump defenders are counseling the president to simply admit the obvious: There was a quid pro quo, and the president’s phone call fell short of perfection, but nothing he did rises to an impeachable offense., by insisting there was no quid pro quo, the president made things much easier for the Democrats. The implicit concession in Trump’s position is thatthe charges were true, it would be impeachable.
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