The Case for Trump’s Impeachment Goes Beyond Ukraine
He has betrayed America with seven countries. Here’s the indictment.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/09/case-for-trump-impeachment-goes-beyond-ukraine.amp
1. Russia. Trump solicited criminal campaign help from Russia and defended collaboration with the Kremlin to win the 2016 election. These aren’t unproven allegations. They’re recorded on video. At a press conference in July 2016, Trump urged Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails. When a reporter asked Trump whether he had “any pause about asking a foreign government—Russia, China, anybody—to interfere, to hack … anybody in this country,” Trump replied, “No, it gives me no pause.” In 2017, when he was asked about the Trump Tower meeting at which his top campaign officials sought political help from Russian emissaries, Trump said there was no difference between getting help from Russians and getting it from Americans.
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2. North Korea. Last year, Trump formed a public-relations alliance with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, based on the mutually advantageous fiction that North Korea was dismantling or halting its nuclear missile program. Since then, Trump has followed Kim’s lead, ridiculing American officials and politicians Kim doesn’t like. In May, Trump repeatedly applauded North Korea for calling Biden a “fool of low IQ.” In June, Trump portrayed the United States as North Korea’s lowly suitor, boasting—falsely—that Obama had “called Kim Jong-un on numerous occasions to meet” and that despite “begging for meetings constantly,” Obama had been turned down. Trump has also endorsed Kim’s attacks on Trump’s own advisers. Two weeks ago, after North Korea denounced U.S. national security adviser John Bolton as a “human defect” and said Bolton should vanish, Trump fired Bolton and defended North Korea’s invective against him.
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3. Saudi Arabia. Trump is shielding the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, from American intelligence that shows MBS directed the murder of a U.S. resident, journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Last fall, a CIA assessment concluded that MBS ordered the assassination. Trump lied about the assessment, claiming that the CIA “didn’t make a determination.” Congress then instructed Trump to issue a legally mandated report on Khashoggi’s death, but Trump refused. Three months ago, when Trump was asked whether the FBI should look into the case, he said it had been sufficiently investigated, and he claimed that “nobody so far has pointed directly a finger” at MBS. When a reporter pointed out that the CIA had in fact implicated MBS, Trump replied, “I just don’t want to talk about intelligence.”
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6. Turkey. Trump has consistently excused Turkish aggression against the United States. In 2017, he defended his former national security adviser Michael Flynn after Flynn was exposed as a Turkish foreign agent who had spiked a U.S. plan to arm America’s Kurdish allies. Then Trump refused to criticize Turkey’s authoritarian president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan—and even expressed sympathy to Erdogan in a phone call—after Erdogan’s thugs assaulted protesters in Washington. Last year, the White House pressed the Justice Department to look for ways to expel Fethullah Gülen, a Turkish dissident, despite having been told there were no legal grounds to do so. And in a dispute over whether to betray the Kurds in Syria, Trump sided with Erdogan against U.S. officials. Trump capped his treachery by firing Defense Secretary James Mattis, who had protested his abandonment of the Kurds.
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