In Defence Of Trump
   Date :01-Jan-2020

In Defence Of Trump_1&nbs
 
 
By O.P. Gupta :
 
Democrats have 233 members in the House. Some party members did not support impeachment whereas all the Republicans voted en bloc against both the articles of impeachment. Impeachment motion thus had no bi-partisan support in the House
 
US President Donald Trump has been facing one after the other frame-ups set up by some ideologically opposed American bureaucrats inducted during the Democratic administrations who could not reconcile to his election in 2016. Failure of President Trump to weed out such bureaucrats before they struck is another cause for his recurring troubles. Democratic politicians took advantage of such bureaucrats to harass Trump. The current impeachment saga is the latest one in chain of palace coups attempts against presidential candidate Trump before the 2016 polls, and, against him after the election.
 
This impeachment chain publicly started on September 9 when Michael Atkinson, the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community notified the House Intelligence Committee that he received a whistleblower’s complaint relating to an “urgent concern” on August 12 and that he found the information credible, and sent “my determination of a credible urgent concern” along with a copy of the complaint to Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, who had seven days to forward the complaint to Congress.
 
But, contrary to “past practice”, Maguire did not forward the complaint to Congress, believing “the allegations do not meet the definition of an urgent concern’ under the (whistleblower) statute”. Consequently, three House committees, all controlled by Democrats, announced investigations into whether Trump and Giuliani tried to pressure Ukraine into conducting “politically-motivated investigations under the guise of anti-corruption activity”. Democratic Representative Adam Schiff, Chairman House Intelligence committee, on September 13 issued subpoena to the Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire to submit all relevant documents.
 
Maguire called the complaint “unprecedented”. The whistleblower complaint filed on August 12 but not released until September 26 - is partially corroborated by official transcript of July 25 call between US President and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky. The transcript released by the White House on September 25, confirmed that Trump asked Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. Trump told Zelensky: “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.”
 
Perusal of the whistleblower complaint shows that he had no firsthand information on telephone talks of July 25 between the two Presidents and that his complaint is based on what he learnt from other un-named officials. Schiff refused to divulge identity of the whistleblower citing the anonymity guaranteed under theWhistleblower Act and refused to call it before the Committee to be cross examined by Republican members of the Committee and attorneys of President Trump. Not giving an opportunity to the President’s team to cross examine the whistleblower violated the 5th and 14th Amendment rights of Trump as an American citizen putting under question mark constitutional validity of the entire proceedings of this committee. Schiff also did not allow Republicans to issue subpoenas and call their witnesses which was objected by Republicans.
 
Schiff held many depositions behind closed doors which was also vehemently opposed by Republicans. President Trump, therefore, did not cooperate with the House Intelligence Committee accusing it of not honouring due process as guaranteed by the US Constitution. Republicans openly suspected Schiff to have vetted the whistleblower complaint before August 12 which he had vehemently denied though admitted that some staff of Intelligence Committee did meet whistleblower to guide him about filing of complaint. Real Clear Investigations recently reported on the identity of the whistleblower and that he is a registered Democrat Eric Ciaramella having close ties to former President Barack Obama, former Vice President Joe Biden and former CIA Chief John Brennan.
 
Not only does Ciaramella have an extreme political bias against President Trump, but he reportedly helped start the Russian collusion investigation into his campaign back in 2016. On December 13, the US House of Representatives Judiciary Committee adopted two articles of impeachment (Resolution H 755) against President Trump recommending his impeachment to the full House of Representatives. Both articles appear to have clay feet which can be demolished by sustained Republican publicity.
 
The first article accuses Trump of abuse of power and the second article of obstructing the Congress. Important thing to be noted is that voting on both articles in the Judiciary Committee was on party lines 23:17, all 23 Democrats voting for and all 17 Republicans against. In the House Intelligence Committee, all Republicans joined hands to issue their version of minority report defending Trump and voted against the report of the Committee. Now as per procedure, the two articles of impeachment were placed before the full House of Representatives for voting.
 
The full House approved the two articles on December 18 by simple majority on party lines: first was passed 230-197 votes and the second by 229-198 votes. Democrats have 233 members in the House. Some party members did not support impeachment whereas all the Republicans voted en bloc against both the articles of impeachment. Impeachment motion thus had no bi-partisan support in the House. (The writer belongs to the 1971 batch of the Indian Foreign Service and served as Indian Ambassador, High Commissioner and Consul General in many countries.)