Former acting United States Attorney General Matt Whitaker not only claimed that abuse of power is not a crime and not worthy of impeachment, he suggested Donald Trump is “being punished” with impeachment merely for questioning European contributions to NATO.
Perhaps Fox host Laura Ingraham fondly thought of Whitaker yesterday, a day when many were disturbed by Trump calling impeachment “a lynching,” because Whitaker once referred to the Russia investigation team as “Mueller’s lynch mob.”
Whatever the reason, Whitaker appeared on Fox News' The Ingraham Angle last night where he ignored how the bombshell testimony of William Taylor earlier in the day demolished Republican excuses for Trump's Ukraine extortion. Instead, the man who once supposedly represented all Americans told host Laura Ingraham that “these global elitists, these careerists” have “set in place a world establishment.” They're going after Trump, according to Whitaker, for having “completely upset the apple cart” by asking “questions such as why do we do this this way? Why don't people pay - why doesn't Germany and France, why don't they pay 2 percent into NATO?”
“He is being punished for this,” Whitaker added. Then announcing that he’s a former prosecutor, Whitaker announced, “Abuse of power is not a crime. Let's fundamentally blow that down. The Constitution is very clear that this has to be some pretty egregious behavior. And they cannot tell the American people what this case is even about.”
Whitaker is either shockingly ignorant or he’s lying. Constitutional law expert Cass Sunstein recently wrote that the “high crimes and misdemeanors” standard in the U.S. Constitution refers to “egregious abuses of the public trust.” Or, to put it another way, abuse of power. One of the articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon was abuse of power.
Also, maybe Whitaker is unable to understand the case against Trump but Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives, has issued a four-page fact sheet explaining the case in easy-to-understand terms. There are three headings that sum up Trump’s wrongdoings: “The Shakedown,” “The Pressure Campaign” and “The Cover Up.”
Ingraham, a former law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, didn’t offer a peep of challenge to Whitaker’s bizarre claim about abuse of power. Instead, she provided an inane excuse for disregarding Taylor’s testimony: He offered too much detail, as if he were a TV pundit or required to provide an elevator pitch:
NGRAHAM: I'm reading this Bill Taylor opening statement and I - my first reaction was, anything that's 15 pages single-spaced, it's like someone who has to put their resume on two or three pages, that's never someone you want to hire, by the way.
WHITAKER: Right.
INGRAHAM: So 15 endless pages of blah, blah, blah.
Watch this abomination of a legal discussion on a serious issue below, from the October 22, 2019 The Ingraham Angle, via Media Matters.
I was intrigued to learn that while the USA (according to Trump) provided $1.5 billion in aid to Ukraine since it gained independence, Germany (with less than a third of the population) provided $1.2 billion and the EU as a whole provided over $15 billion.
Makes the USA look a tad stingy.
Never but never trust any number that Trump provides.
“Media political class…” “impeachment frenzy…” “global elitists…” “don’t need a war room when you have a warrior (extra credit for directly kissing Trump’s ass)”… “revenge of the global elites…” “fake news…”
Yeah, Laura, there’s a lot of “blah, blah, blah” going on and you’re making my head hurt with it.