I apologize for not reading this entire thread and only being a casual observer of this mess. I have a question about the Republicans line of defense that does not make sense to me.
It would appear they had two distinct paths they could follow for defense, but they had to choose only one. It appears to me that they may have chosen the wrong one. Please correct me if they are pursuing both paths simultaneously which would be even more odd.
Defense 1: There was no Quid Pro Quo, white house visits or delivery of US military aid were not conditioned on Ukraine announcing or starting a corruption investigation.
Defense 2: There was a Quid Pro Quo but it was for legitimate purposes.
There are other republican defenses....
Such as 'it was Quid pro quo, and it was wrong, but its not serious enough to justify impeachment'.
Or the most common defense: "Look! A squirrel". (Basically trying to use every available distraction... attacks on witnesses, using complaints about the process that are based on Republican lies.)
They have basically been throwing every scam defense against the wall (even mutually exclusive ones) with the hope that their idiot supporters accept one of them (and ignore the others).
Some associated ideas:
Trump had taken a position early on that he did not want the US to be the world's policeman (this must have really ticked off John Bolton) or the world's unconditional candyman when it came to foreign aid. Using Quid Pro Quo for foreign aid is not a new idea. Several current Democratic candidates have suggested using a Quid Pro Quo: military aid for stopping settlements in the West Bank.
There is a difference between using aid as leverage to enact changes that benefit the interests of the united states and/or improve the global situation, and using aid as a leverage to encourage a country to illegally interfere in the United states elections to benefit one political party.
It seems it would have been an easier road trying to show the legitimacy of the object of the Quid Pro Quo. Russian/Ukrainian corruption has been a long time concern of the State department and previous administrations. Asking Ukraine to check out a specific situation in a known corrupt company to see if there was corruption was certainly better than asking for approval of one of his golf course resorts.
If the U.S. had legitimate concerns over corruption, there were legitimate channels that they could have gone through. The fact that much of this was done through back channels should be a cause for concern.
Also, Trump and company were not interested in 'corruption' in general, but specific actions which targeted the Democrats (including a debunked conspiracy theory regarding their email server).
Back to the West Bank example. What if Elizabeth Warren (who could be part Palestinian, who knows) was President and wanted to implement the military aid for stopping settlements in the West Bank Quid Pro Quo. If she had family or property interests in the West Bank would she have to stop and say: I'm sorry Palestinians, you will have to wait another 4 or 8 years for this action, it would not be proper for me to do it?
In that hypothetical example, her interests in the west bank would not preclude her in offering aid in exchange for stopping settlements. As long as such aid was also supported by a significant number of congress critters and/or other foreign countries.
This was not the case with Trump and his shady dealings regarding Ukraine, where he did NOT build a case or any sort of public support for his bribery/extortion scheme. He was trying to do it all under the table. He did not go to congress, to NATO, or any other organization. He was keeping it all hidden.
I want to stress that I am not blindly supporting one side or the other.
Here's the problem though...Sometimes, when you have 2 opposing sides, one side can be so out to lunch that an actual legitimate defense of them is impossible.
There is no legitimate defense for the Trump administration. They engaged in an extortion attempt in an attempt to push conspiracy theories that benefitted only Trump and the republicans, using U.S. taxpayer dollars to do so.
So, by assuming that the Trump administration may have been acting appropriately is giving them too much credit.
