Hypocrisy on Trial

Trump is going to win re-election. Bigly. And the Democrats have ironically all but guaranteed that result with this head-scratching insane witch-hunt of impeachment. The political class may think they have uncovered a cleaver loophole to abort their least favorite President but the rest of us, the American public, can see right through their subterfuge. The core of the argument for impeachment demonstrates the willful hypocrisy so often demonstrated by both parties against the other. They are literally saying that Trump’s political extortion to expose Biden’s political extortion is impeachable whereas Biden’s identical behavior is perfectly fine. Furthermore, these aren’t mere allegations against Biden – we literally have video of him bragging about doing just that. Biden boasted about how he got Ukraine to drop an investigation into Burisma Holdings Ltd in front of a small entourage by insisting if they didn’t do what he asked the foreign aid they had been promised would not be forthcoming. Sound familiar? That seems like an odd request for  a Vice-President. Why would he be so interested in the internal machinations inside Ukraine? Well it just so happens that his son, Hunter Biden, sat on the board of Burisma at the time. Of course no one in the corporate press seems curious to ask how Hunter Biden managed to secure a million dollar a year sinecure on the board of one of the largest Ukrainian natural gas companies. I’m sure it was complete coincidence that this dropped right into his lap while his father was Vice-President. Nothing to see here, move along, move along. 

Basically the new standard they are trying to set in Congress is that as soon as a politician is running for political office they are immune from all investigations of potential wrong doing. The only entity that could open such investigations is the government. And those in the government in the same party as the candidate certainly aren’t going to open such investigations. So that leaves only people from the other party. So the second someone from the other party suggests to open an investigation they themselves will be hauled before Congress on violation of “ethics” rules for having even proposed such a thing.

So what Trump intimated be done is no different than if say Exxon had a new CEO and that CEO asked that some outside party investigate the former CEO because there was strong evidence of wrongdoing. Let’s even say that former CEO was still on the board and seeking to claim his spot again. Even then, would anyone object to this scenario? Seems perfectly reasonable shareholders would want to know if there were wrong doing at the top of their company. Seems perfectly reasonable we would want to know if Biden engaged in unethical horse-trading during his tenure as VP.

Trump simply asked for the matter to be looked into. He didn’t ask them to “get him” by fabricating evidence. It is entirely possible the results could have been to fully exonerate Biden. There is no way to say a priori this request would necessarily benefit Trump politically. Firstly, it was unknown (and still is) who the final Democratic nominee for president will be, and secondly, it was equally likely that Biden could have been cleared or have implicated in something inappropriate. 

The final irony here is that what Trump (or Biden) actually did is something that nearly all politicians do all the time. They are constantly making deals to advance their own interests – that is literally how they get most votes for their bills, e.g. the old “you vote for my bill, I’ll vote for yours.” How is that ethical? A politician willing to undermine the interests of their constituents to advance their own political capital is certainly engaging in far more egregious behavior that what Trump is accused of. He literally was suggesting that a foreign country would not get a GIFT of OUR money unless they help him investigate possible FRAUD committed by a former elected official. Oh, the horrors! Lock up that monster now!