This is the tipping point in the Trump crisis
Every crisis has a tipping point. Ever since he took office as President, Donald Trump has been under threat of impeachment. He has cut such a malign and ludicrous figure as the Leader of the Free World that it seemed only a matter of time before he finally went too far even for what has proved to be a morally derelict, Republican Party.
But the moment never came. Trump survived every scandal, every excess, every racist tweet. It was as if nothing could stop him and the only question was, could he go on to win a second term?
Until now.
Now he has done it. The truth is out there in all its gory detail. Whether or not Trump will still be in the White House a month from now is the question on everybody’s lips.
On Tuesday, members of the US House of Representatives investigating Trump’s dealings with the Government of Ukraine – the diplomatic equivalent of the dark web – took a dramatic turn when the outgoing U.S. ambassador to Kiev, Bill Taylor, gave evidence that demonstrated beyond all doubt that Trump had made military aid to Ukraine conditional on its government dishing dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden, currently the front runner to be his democratic opponent in the 2020 presidential race.
This was dynamite. Until Taylor took the stand, Trump and his team, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, looked as if they might get away with their claim that no “quid pro quo” had been sought in return for the military equipment and that a seemingly damning telephone conversation between the two leaders released after revelations of its content by a CIA whistleblower had in fact been misconstrued as part of an ongoing Democratic witch hunt.
“No quid pro quo” became the Administration’s mantra, issued by every Republican and every White House spokesperson whether in Congress or on television or when answering questions from the press.
Taylor’s eight-hour deposition and testimony cut through that defence like a knife. The veteran diplomat is the sort of State Department official who commands instant respect. A former professional soldier and Vietnam veteran, who had previously held a number of top posts in hardship embassies around the world, including, in a past life, Ukraine, he had in fact retired and was only tempted to return to Kiev at Pompeo’s personal invitation.
What he found was a minefield. The new Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, a former stand-up comedian, had taken a phone call from Trump in which, amid all the usual diplomatic niceties, the US leader had asked him to investigate Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, whose business dealings in Ukraine, he said, could be shown to be in some way corrupt.
The CIA whistleblower, after learning of the call, had decided to go public with his knowledge, which led to the first stage of an impeachment investigation. But it was Wilson’s revelations to Congress on Tuesday that exploded the myth that there had been no quid pro quo. The ambassador had been “in” on the call and knew from the start that it was both unlawful and unconstitutional. He had in fact on several occasions alerted his boss, Mike Pompeo, to the egregious nature of what had taken place, only to be fobbed off, causing him to retire a second time and to line up his appearance with House Democrats.
All of that would have been bad enough for the President, who looked very much as if he had finally been caught holding the smoking gun. But it was when Republicans, led by South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham – a diehard Trump loyalist – recoiled visibly in horror from the testimony laid before them that the Oval Office’s defence began to unravel like outtakes on the cutting room floor.
Can Donald Trump, having been shown by one of his country’s most respected diplomats to have conspired with a foreign power to undermine a political opponent, hope to recover from this latest sledgehammer blow? Having witnessed Trump wriggle free again and again from damning evidence of wrongdoing, up to and including his recent desertion of the Syrian kurds, I would normally say no, or at most, let’s wait and see. The jury seems to be permanently out and never actually delivers a verdict.
On this occasion, however, if the Democrats can only assemble their case and make good their prosecution of this parody of a President, the jury will be the US Senate. And even with a Republican majority in charge of the trial that must surely now lie ahead, what other verdict can there be but guilty as charged?