Impeachment looks good on Trump

Benjamin Chait, Editor-in-Chief

Donald Trump has been committing impeachable acts for the past three years and it’s finally catching up to him. 

The most recent offense is the Ukraine scandal. It all started with Paul Manafort, a political consultant who would give the scum of the earth advice on how to stay in power. In 2004, Paul Manafort worked to elect pro-Russian candidate Viktor Yanukovych as president of Ukraine in 2010. Paul Manafort was also Trump’s campaign manager. When he was being investigated by Special Counsel Robert Mueller in 2018, Trump tasked his personal lawyer, former Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani, with investigating Ukraine in order to frame them for Manafort’s corrupt dealings. While doing so, a conspiracy theory came out from pro-Russian figures within Ukraine, claiming that Joe Biden called for the firing of a Ukranian prosecutor who was on the tail of a firm where his son Hunter Biden worked until he resigned due to mounting pressure from both Democrats and Republicans.

 In classic fashion, Trump began to pressure the Ukrainian government to investigate Biden, so he could drag Biden down to his level for the 2020 election. After a few months of pressure applied to Ukraine, a CIA agent realized what was taking place and submitted a whistle-blower complaint to the inspector general. The report concluded that Trump is abusing his power as president to make a foreign government to tamper with our election. Despite an initial delay, it was eventually taken to congress and they were forced to address it. Congress started asking questions and started an investigation. Their findings led them to an impeachment inquiry, and now they’re holding hearings to find out all the facts.

Trump retaliated, tweeting, “Just read the Transcript, everything else is made up garbage by Shifty Schiff and the Never Trumpers!” referring to Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and the Republicans who didn’t support him in 2016. In this tweet, he clearly says that the only illegal thing he did was on the transcripts, but also encourages the reader to read the transcripts, implying that there’s nothing illegal on them. On top of that, The New York Times reported that Trump had left out crucial parts when altering the now public transcript. Even if Trump wants us to read it to prove his innocence, the transcript proves nothing because it was altered and therefore not trustworthy. 

 Not only that, but a procession of intelligence agents and other foreign policy staffers have testified to Congress about what actually took place. They explain that there was, in fact, a quid pro quo deal (which Trump is still denying), and also that Trump committed many more fraudulent acts than on just one phone call.

Trump has committed a myriad of impeachable offenses since his inauguration, but of all of them, this is the worst. He abused his power to bully the Ukrainian government into investigating his future opponent so that Trump could drag him down like he did to Hillary with her emails scandal. If abuse of power for personal gain isn’t included in “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors” as described by our constitution, then I’m not sure what is.

Donald Trump deserves to be impeached for his crimes and the Ukraine scandal is the perfect storm the Democrats have been waiting for. •