What is really at stake in trump’s impeachment inquiry? | thearticle

When Donald Trump arrives in London next week for the Nato summit, one question is bound to overshadow his visit. Will the impeachment inquiry serve as a political distraction, or will it

bring about his political downfall? If this month’s public hearings are any indication, the balance weighs heavily towards the former. Twelve speakers were grilled over the course of two

weeks, including US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch and her successor as _charg__é __d’__affaires_, William B. Taylor Jr.

They attempted to shed new light on negotiations between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky this summer. Above all, they focused on a whistleblower account suggesting that the

President had improperly withheld funds for personal and political purposes. The hearings revealed personal conversations and private phone calls with Trump. The task of the inquiry is to

decide whether this truly was an instance of the abuse of power. The US media had a field day (or, based on its length, field trip), discussing every little twist, turn, nook and cranny they

could find in clear view or manufacture out of thin air. Democrats in the US House of Representatives predictably called the facts uncovered by this inquiry a national disgrace, and every

major or minor comment the equivalent of a smoking gun. In turn, Republicans called the inquiry a waste of time, money and resources. For them it was, to quote Trump, a “witch hunt”. But

this polarisation has now gone to even greater extremes in Washington. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told CBS’s _Face The Nation _on November 17: “What the President did was so much worse than

even what Richard Nixon did, that at some point Richard Nixon cared about the country enough to recognize that this could not continue.” House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff

then chimed in a few days later and suggested this incident was “far more serious than a third-rate burglary of the Democratic headquarters”— in other words, Watergate. This means that

Pelosi, Schiff and (one assumes) other Democrats believe Trump’s conversation with Zelensky was actually worse than Nixon’s Watergate. Think about how preposterous that sounds on the

surface. Yes, Nixon serves as an example because he wasn’t impeached — but that’s only because he resigned before an inquiry was arranged by Congress. The only two US Presidents in history

who were impeached in the House of Representatives, Andrew Johnson (1868) and Bill Clinton (1998), were both acquitted in the Senate. Trump will surely follow in Johnson and Clinton’s

footsteps. The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives has been salivating at the mouth to impeach him for years, and will most likely do so. The Republican-controlled Senate has no

interest in bringing down a (nominally) Republican President and ruining its political brand, so they will most likely acquit him. The only way this could potentially change is if the

political narrative goes off in a completely different direction from the US-Ukraine controversy. Based on the public hearings and the information we currently know, this doesn’t seem to be

the case. Some fear a precedent has been set for the Democrats and Republicans to use the threat of impeachment to remove any President they don’t particularly like. That remains to be seen,

but one hopes they wouldn’t cheapen the constitutional legacy set by America’s Founding Fathers more than two centuries ago. These important provisions were put in place for a purpose, and

crafty political games shouldn’t be part of the equation. The biggest question that remains is: what will have ultimately been accomplished by the impeachment inquiry? Not much, it seems. As

I mentioned in a piece last month for _TheArticle_, the Trump-Zelensky discussion will ultimately stand as matter of interpretation. The revelation that one world leader privately asked

another world leader for help isn’t surprising or in itself questionable, but it would be if the request was part of a re-election bid. The allegation of withholding financial aid to Ukraine

in exchange for looking into the business dealings of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, the so-called _quid pro quo_, certainly raises some red flags, but the

breadcrumb trail is far from complete. As for the whistleblower account, it has to be taken with a grain of salt, since some whistleblowers are selfless and patriotic, while others are

selfish and motivated by personal or political gain. So, the same people who like or support Trump will continue to be in his corner. The same people who dislike or hate Trump will continue

to criticise him incessantly. Everyone else will see the impeachment inquiry as a show trial with no legal ramifications, and an exercise in democracy that has its strengths and weaknesses.

The Democrats’ masterplan is two-fold. Even if the impeachment inquiry fails, as senior leaders privately know it will, they’re hoping that more seeds of doubt about Trump’s leadership have

been planted for the 2020 presidential election. Time will tell if this not-so-secret strategy ultimately works, but political distractions like this one rarely do.