Trump Deserves Impeachment

AN INSIDE LOOK

By Bill Gouveia

This column appeared in the Sun Chronicle on Monday, October 14, 2019

Ukrainian President Zelenskyy: “We are ready to continue to cooperate for the next steps specifically we are almost ready to buy more Javelins from the United States for defense purposes.”

President Trump: “I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it.”

That discussion is directly from the transcript of a call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelenskyy on July 25, 2019 and released by the White House. A transcript Trump calls “word for word,” a call he says was “perfect.”

Trump goes on to ask Zeleskyy as a “favor” to conduct an investigation into his top Democratic presidential opponent Joe Biden, mentioning him by name and stating “…whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great.”

To review, the president of the United States flat-out asked a foreign nation to investigate his political opponent as a favor immediately after that nation told him they wanted to buy more weapons from the US. He asked the leader of that nation to enlist the help of the top US law enforcement official in doing so. All shortly after Trump had unexpectedly cut off aid to this same country, and then under pressure restored it.

As a result of this behavior, and a lot more, the president is on the verge of being impeached by the House of Representatives.

Reasonable people can disagree on whether or not this particular event with Ukraine rises to the level where impeachment is proper. But only the most partisan of political hacks can argue with a straight face that what Trump did was not wrong and did not compromise the integrity of both the presidency and the nation.

If you still support the president and his policies after this, that’s one thing. If you believe he is merely a victim and did nothing wrong – you are either in denial and woefully uninformed, or just dishonest.

And if you are employing the “but look at what they did over there” defense where you point at others because you can’t defend the president’s behavior — like Trump himself is doing — then you need to grow up. The president of the Unites States has to be responsible for his or her own actions.

Since releasing the transcript, Trump has flat-out lied about what it says. He has changed his story on why he said it several times. He has added China to the mix, claiming they should also investigate Biden.

I have been an opponent of impeaching of Trump. He will never be convicted in the senate, and it always seemed a useless exercise. I wanted to wait for the election.

But this has become a bridge too far. If you are willing to accept his disgusting actions and lies and self-serving ways for short-term economic gain — then you simply don’t care about the integrity of the nation any more than he does.

Donald Trump is a dishonest liar and unfit to be president of the United States. Whether he is removed or not, he deserves impeachment. Our nation needs to stand up to his treachery.

Bill Gouveia is a local columnist and longtime local official. He can be emailed at billsinsidelook@gmail.com and followed on Twitter at @Billinsidelook.