The President of the United States is involved in a controversy with a Ukrainian leader that has birthed a movement that poses a direct threat to the future of his presidency. It has been alleged that he probed help from Volodymyr Zelensky, his Ukrainian counterpart, to increase chances of his re-election. The allegations have caused immense outrage, resulting in the launching of an impeachment inquiry by Pelosi and other Democrats.
Key Events leading up to the Impeachment – and the President’s stance on the matter
April 2019: Volodymyr Zelensky, a comedian with no prior political experience is elected as Ukraine’s leader in a landslide victory. He promises to focus on ending the war against the separatists housed in the East of the country.
May 2019: The President’s personal lawyer backs out of a visit to Ukraine after the Democrats accuse him of pushing the country to open investigations that would benefit Trump politically. The Democrats stated that his visit was a clever effort to recruit a foreign nation to sway the next election.
His lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, said in an interview, “We’re not meddling in an election, we’re meddling in an investigation, which we have a right to do.”
July 25: The pinnacle of the impeachment inquiry. Trump makes a phone call to Zelensky directly asking him for a ‘favor’. This was in the midst of discussing US military aid with the other party. The White House memo had stated that the call will be released.
The call spanned 30 minutes during which Trump asked of two favors from Zelensky. First, to investigate Joe Biden, the former Vice President who was the potential Democratic opponent in the upcoming elections and to probe into CrowdStrike, which is a cybersecurity firm that worked with the Democrats in the 2016 elections. The company is operating from Irvine, but Trump believed that it was based in Ukraine.
The President requested Zelensky at least 5 times during the call to work with William Barr, the Attorney General. This put the nation’s highest law enforcement official in the middle of the House inquiry on whether Trump misused his powers and put national security into jeopardy by requesting an outside government to probe into a potential U.S. president.
Trump also asked the Ukrainian leader to speak with his personal lawyer. The lawyer has notoriously led his efforts to probe into Biden and his son Hunter who previously sat on the board of a Ukrainian gas company.
The President reportedly said, “I will have Mr. Giuliani give you a call and I am also going to have Atty. Gen. Barr call and we will get to the bottom of it. I’m sure you will figure it out.”
He also said, “There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution — so if you can look into it…. It sounds horrible to me.”
The White House released a non-verbatim script, which holds the whole record of the call made by note-takers.
August 12: An anonymous whistleblower complaint is filed with Michael Atkinson, the inspector general of the intelligence community.
September 9 and 13: Atkinson shares the complaint with the House Intelligence Committee. On the 13th, the intelligence committee Chairman Rep., Adam B. Schiff, issues a subpoena for Joseph Maguire, the acting Director of National Intelligence, as the complaint had not been shared with congress.
Sept 18: News of Trump’s promise to a foreign leader is printed in The Washington Post.
Sept 19: The intelligence inspector general turns down discussing the contents of the complaint at a private House Intelligence Meeting. The President dubs the report as ‘presidential harassment’ and ‘fake news’.
Sept 20: House Democrats demands the publicization of the whistleblower complaint. The scandal sheds light on Trump’s attempts to slander Biden.
Sept 24: An official announcement of the launch of the formal impeachment inquiry is made by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
She states, “The actions of the Trump presidency have revealed the dishonorable fact of the president’s betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of our national security and betrayal of the integrity of our elections. No one is above the law.”
September 25: The White House puts out a record of the call before Trump meets with Zelensky in person at the United Nations.
Zelensky makes a statement: “I don’t want to be involved in democratic elections of the USA. Nobody pushed me.”
September 26: The whistleblower complaint is publicized. It details that the White House attempted to hide the Trump-Zelensky call.
October 4: The House Congressional committees hold impeachment hearings. The hearing publicizes WhatsApp messages from US Diplomats inviting Zelensky to the White House. The invitation was dependent on whether he would publicly announce that Ukraine would look into Joe and Hunter Biden.
October 6: A second whistleblower complaint emerges.
October 8: The White House releases a letter accusing the Democrats of trying to push Trump out of the White House and declining cooperation with the impeachment inquiry.
Summing Up Why
The President’s impeachment inquiry was propelled by the belief that he had betrayed his oath of office, put the nation’s security at risk, and undermined the democratic flavor and integrity of the Presidential elections.
The President is outraged by the accusations and the inquiry. He tweeted, “There has been no President in the history of our Country who has been treated so badly as I have. The Democrats are frozen with hatred and fear. They get nothing done. This should never be allowed to happen to another President. Witch Hunt!”
Explaining Impeachment
Impeachment is essentially a vote by the US House of Representatives charging a government officer of high rank with misconduct, starting a process of removing her/him for the office. Here, impeachment refers to the process of removing a President from office.
The Constitution says that the President can be impeached and removed from his office over reasons like “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”
The process needs a majority vote from the House to impeach. This has to be backed by two-thirds majority in the Senate to convict and remove the accused official from his/her office.
It is essentially a punishment for wrongdoing, ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’. Basically, it is a violation of the Presidential oath in this case and might not be a crime in the traditional sense of the word.
Therefore, there doesn’t need to be solid, clear evidence of wrongdoing to remove the President from his/her office.
The Consequences of Impeachment
If the President was impeached, convicted and removed from his office, Mike Pence, the Vice President would take oath of Office and step up as President.
If both Trump and Pence were impeached, the office of President would go to Speaker of the House, Ryan.
One can argue that removing Trump with Pence is not an upgrade as Pence has publicly talked against gay marriage, abortion and denied climate change.
Moreover, in the event Trump was impeached, he can still run for office in 2020. In previous impeachment trials the Senate has gone two ways: convicting and acquitting the President, therefore removing him from office or barring him/her from running in the next Presidential elections.
Political support for impeachment has been diversified. The support from the Democrats has risen to 83%, while 44% of Independents and 14% of the Republicans backed an inquiry.
Nevertheless, there is a chance that the fear of the Democrats that impeachment could increase his support base and embolden Trump might be realized. Fox News rallied to his side and the Trump’s 2020 Presidential campaign has put out accusations of attack via impeachment against the Democrats.
Trump’s campaign manager Brad Parscale reportedly said, “The misguided Democrat impeachment strategy is meant to appease their rabid, extreme, leftist base, but will only serve to embolden and energize President Trump’s supporters and create a landslide victory for the President.”
The Latest Key Updates
- Biden advocated impeachment for the first time. Speaking at a rally in New Hampshire, he stated, “To preserve our Constitution, our democracy, our basic integrity, he should be impeached. He’s shooting holes in the Constitution, and we cannot let him get away with it.”
- Trump agreed to cooperate with the Democrats and hand in documents and a testimony if they gave them his rights.
- Zelensky also denied any incidence of blackmail. He stated that the call was simply to plan a meeting with the President and there were no prerequisites placed on the aforementioned meeting.
- Guilani was subpoenaed in the impeachment inquiry.
- Trump held a campaign rally and dubbed the inquiry a ‘brazen attempt’ to remove him, and promised that it would back fire.
- Yonavitch, the former ambassador to Ukraine, states that Trump pressured the state Department to remove her because she insisted on launching investigations against Biden according to protocol.
- Reeker, the acting assistant secretary of state, was called to testify in the impeachment inquiry. He was expected to state that he did not know about the pressure for Ukrainian investigations.
