Reality Starts Penetrating The Trump Information Bubble

The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll has no cheery spots for Señor Trumpanzee. Nationally, his approval remains steady at a dreadful 38%, but it also shows "a career low in approval among Republicans, 74%, down steeply from a career-high 87% in July." (18% of Republicans want to see him impeached.) Only 30% of Americans consider his behavior "fitting and proper." 50% agree that he's using the presidency for personal profit.

The red wall around him is beginning to crack as his popularity continues to sag. Republican thought leaders have been abandoning him as well-- and some are treating him like a piñata. David Brooks noted in his column that "The evidence against Trump is overwhelming. This Ukraine quid pro quo wasn’t just a single reckless phone call. It was a multiprong several-month campaign to use the levers of American power to destroy a political rival. Republican legislators are being bludgeoned with this truth in testimony after testimony. They know in their hearts that Trump is guilty of impeachable offenses. It’s evident in the way they stare glumly at their desks during hearings; the way they flee reporters seeking comment; the way they slag the White House off the record. It’ll be hard for them to vote to acquit if they can’t even come up with a non-ludicrous rationale."

Soon

The blows that Trump fears most though, aren't on the editorial pages of the New York Times. His base voters (38%) don't read the New York Times or believe anything the establishment media says. What he fears is when this kind of talk seeps onto Fox News. That's what really makes him take an extra hit or two of adderall. Yesterday, Fox Judge Andrew Napolitano gave Trump a dish of exactly what he doesn't want: Proof of Trump’s impeachable offenses plain to see. "The White House continued to argue that the impeachment investigation is illegitimate and unconstitutional," he wrote for FoxNews.com, "because it has not been authorized by the full House. The president called Republicans who support impeachment 'human scum.' On Sunday evening, the president invited the ringleader of the disruption of the House committee interviews to his box at the fifth game of the World Series." What he laid out for Fox.com readers is something normal Americans already know-- as evidenced in the high calls for approval-- but which rarely penetrates the Trumpist information bubble:

Early this week, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) giving Republicans what they asked for, announced that the full House will vote on initiating an impeachment investigation of the president by the end of this week.

What's going on here?

Congressional Republicans should be careful what they ask for. Their defense of the president has addressed process, not proof. The proof is largely undisputed, except by the president himself. It consists of admissions, testimony and documents, which show that Trump sought to induce the government of Ukraine to become involved in the 2020 presidential election.

Specifically, Trump held up $391 million in American military hardware and financial aid to Ukraine-- which is at war with Russia after the Russian seizure and continual occupation of what was until 2014 a Ukrainian province-- until Ukrainian prosecutors commenced a criminal investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.

That is a mouthful of facts to swallow in one bite, but the legal implications are straightforward and profound. Whether one agrees with federal law or not, it is a crime to solicit assistance for a federal campaign from a foreign government. As well, the crime of bribery consists of a government official refraining from performing a legal duty until a thing of value is delivered to him.

Trump admits he held up the $391 million. He admits he asked for a favor from the Ukrainian president. And he admits that the favor was to dig up dirt on Joe Biden and his son. He even gilded the lily by publicly asking the Chinese government to investigate Biden.

Enter Attorney General William Barr. After knowledge of the presidential holdup of the $391 million in aid to Ukraine became public, the president asked Barr for a formal legal opinion that dirt on a political opponent is not a thing of value.

Barr had his researchers and writers in the Office of Legal Counsel oblige. That legal opinion, which Trump has touted as a form of exoneration, has been so widely mocked in legal and political circles-- because dirt on an opponent is the most valuable commodity for a political campaign, and candidates pay dearly for it-- that congressional Republicans have stopped referring to it. They know better.

The president was just investigated by Robert Mueller and his crew upon the allegation that he and his campaign unlawfully collaborated with the government of Russia to help him win the 2016 election. That investigation found some evidence of collaboration but not enough to indict. And now, incredibly, Trump has admitted seeking to involve the government of Ukraine in the 2020 presidential election.

One can see that the reason Republicans have been attacking the process of impeachment is largely because there is no credible defense to the proof of impeachment. That proof has been hiding in plain sight-- in the president's public words and the context to be provided by witnesses-- and will soon be revealed.

Why and how will all this be revealed? Enter Nancy Pelosi. The "why" will be answered this week by the House vote to commence an impeachment investigation formally; it’s legally unnecessary but politically devastating to the Republicans' process arguments. The "how" will be answered when all this-- the testimony of now interviewed and debriefed witnesses-- goes public.

With the process soon to be as Republicans have demanded, and with the proof of impeachable offenses plain to see, to what will the president's allies resort as a defense? They will claim that that the federal crimes of soliciting campaign assistance from foreign governments and bribery aren't impeachable offenses and that Trump was misunderstood because he exaggerates all the time and often doesn't mean what he says.

And then the American public will decide if all this is skim milk or cream.