…regarding Biden’s intervention with Ukraine’s law enforcement in favor of his son. At least that’s how The Wall Street Journal has characterized a phone call between heads of state.
Except that’s not what happened, and to call it “pressure” is to insult, grievously, the mettle and courage of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky. In that phone call, Trump did ask Zelensky to investigate Biden’s role in getting Ukraine’s Prosecutor Generall, Viktor Shokin fired in order to get a billion dollars in already promised aid to Ukraine.
No one serious, though, sees requests as pressure. There were no or elses; not even the WSJ alleges that. Nor have the tabloids that have taken up the cry, The Washington Post or The New York Times. Nor is there any reason to believe Zelensky is such a Milquetoast as to feel pressured because someone merely asked him to do something. Indeed, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko was blunt and clear:
I know what the conversation was about, and I think there was no pressure. There was talk, conversations are different, leaders have the right to discuss any problems that exist. This conversation was long, friendly, and it touched on many questions, sometimes requiring serious answers.
And
President Trump is interested, his advisor, Giuliani, newspapers, Democrats, Republicans are interested in whether pressure had been put on Ukraine. I want to say that we are an independent state, we have our own secrets.
No pressure. Except, perhaps in the minds of Progressive-Democrats who are projecting their own responses to such questions.
Which brings me to Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate and ex-Vice President (during the time of his threat vis-à-vis that Prosecutor Genera) Joe Biden and his distortion of the current situation.
He is violating every basic norm of a president. He’s using the abuse of power and every element of the presidency to try to do something to smear me.
Because the truth is smearing.
On the contrary, the abuse of power and the misuse of every element of the presidency is Biden’s own interference with that Ukrainian investigation into his son’s role in what the Ukrainians were investigating as an illegal, if not criminal, activity. He demanded Shokin be fired so the investigation couldn’t go forward, or he would withhold all that foreign aid.
And then Biden bragged about his successful interference at a US Council on Foreign Relations event.
I said, I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars. I said, you’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch. … He got fired.
That’s pressure, and it was successfully applied by a badly misbehaving American Vice President.
One more thing. Progressive-Democrats and their communications facility, the press, all have the vapors because Trump is insisting misbehavior be investigated. As though it’s OK to misbehave, so long as it’s a Progressive-Democrat government official doing the misbehavior. It puts me in mind of a remark reported to have been made by then-President Richard Nixon (R), that “if the President does it, that means it’s legal.” I’ll paraphrase, slightly. It seems to be the position of the Left that “if a Progressive-Democrat mucky-muck does it, that means it’s legal.”
No. Wrong-doing should be investigated, thoroughly, regardless of who’s suspected of doing it. And that’s what Trump is insisting on.