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| Republicans running out of way to defend Trump - NBC News |
President Trump’s effort to withhold military
aid from Ukraine until they provided him with dirt on his potential political
opponent, Joe Biden amounted to no less than inviting a foreign entity to
interfere in an American election. This is a crime.
This crime was committed in part
during a phone call between Trump and the newly elected Ukrainian president. It
was made worse because the Mueller Investigation, just a few months earlier and
Robert Mueller, himself, just a day earlier speaking before Congress had
condemned Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election.
No one in Trump’s circle, no
Republican in Congress has made any effort to refute the accusations. The case
appears to be very open and shut.
While not condoning his behavior,
they are questioning the Democratic Congress’s method of investigating him—essentially
attack the process. Questioning the motives of the whistle-blower, the closed
hearings, and anything else.
This is not new. Crooks have been
crying foul for as long as crooks have been committing crimes.
So what are they hoping to
accomplish?
Muddy the waters is a common defense
maneuver on par with comparing apples and oranges. It is not, however, a legal
term although it is often a legal strategy. Attacking the process is the
Republicans strategy to muddy the waters so to speak.
In a court of law, no judge would
allow this, but impeachment is not a legal procedure. It is government’s answer
to government misconduct. In fact, muddying the waters, comparing apples to
oranges is practically the definition of how government works. In government,
it is always about this with that in the background versus that with this
attached. Politics is nothing if it is not muddy waters.
This still doesn’t tell us what
Republicans hope to accomplish by arguing process in their defense against
substance. To better understand what is going on in Washington, it would be
helpful to look at what goes on in a football game.
