Trump, McConnell orchestrate impeachment cover-up

by Tom Maertens, Vox Verax co-editor

Tom Maertens has worked in national security for both political parties in the White House and in the U.S. Senate.

The impeachment hearings demonstrated conclusively that President Donald Trump attempted to influence the 2020 election by withholding military aid in order to strong-arm Ukraine into investigating his rival, Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.

There is no evidence that the Bidens committed any crimes; as former Ukraine prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko said, “Hunter Biden did not violate anything.”

The reality is that Trump and McConnell jointly orchestrated the most egregious cover-up in recent times. Trump has prevented his present and former staff from testifying and blocked responses to any subpoenas for documents, while claiming he is innocent and asserting “absolute immunity.”

Innocent people don’t block witnesses who could exonerate them.

Senate Republicans were in a hurry to vote down witnesses before more evidence leaked out from John Bolton and Lev Parnas that discredited their cover-up.

Bolton’s book reportedly implicates Mick Mulvaney, (chief of staff) Gordon Sondland (former EU ambassador) and Rudy Giuliani in a “drug deal” to strong arm Ukraine, at Trump’s direction.

More ominously for Trump, evidence from Lev Parnas, Rudy Giuliani’s indicted associate, implicates high levels of the government in a conspiracy to smear the Bidens. Parnas accuses Trump, Mike Pence, Rick Perry, Mike Pompeo, Bill Barr, Lindsay Graham, Devin Nunes and his aide, Derek Harvey, along with the Fox News fabricators John Solomon, Joseph diGenova, and Victoria Toensing of participating.

Parnas’s evidence is overwhelming and includes videos, memos and emails.

Joseph Bondy, Parnas’s lawyer, said Parnas personally delivered Trump’s quid pro quos to President Petro Poroshenko in February 2019 and to President Zelensky’s Chief Aide, Sergey Shefir, on May 12, 2019.

Crowdstrike is part of Trump’s conspiracy theory, which he claims sent the DNC server to Ukraine. In reality, the DNC had 100 computers — servers — that the FBI mirrored (copied). Nothing went to Ukraine, despite Trump’s fabrication.

If Trump thought either Biden committed a crime, why has he never ordered the DOJ to investigate? And why has the administration never identified any crime or used the 1998 Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty with Ukraine to request action.

For the record, Hunter Biden has a Yale law degree, was an executive vice president of a major national bank and a partner at a white shoe law firm, specializing in corporate governance (not energy).

If Trump were concerned about nepotism and conflict of interest, he would do something about his family. Ivanka and Jared made $82 million in one year while working in the White House.

Does anyone know what Ivanka does, except wander in and out of international meetings, like the G-20 and Davos Forum, pretending she’s a cabinet secretary? She has collected dozens of trademarks from China and elsewhere since the election.

Eric Trump has spent millions on business trips at taxpayers’ expense, including at least $97,000 for just one trip to Uruguay; Trump Jr. spent even more for trips to Ireland, India, Indonesia, Dubai and elsewhere.

And how is it that Rudy’s son and Barr’s son both work at the White House?

Trump himself, according to CNN, has spent at least 260 days at a Trump golf club and 340 days at a Trump property as president, at a cost of more than $120 million. A trip to Mar-a-Lago costs taxpayers approximately $3.6 million, according to the GAO.

The New York Times called him “the most corrupt president in modern times.” They could have said the most dishonest too: The Washington Post database shows over 16,000 Trump lies, something he does on a daily basis.

As for Trump’s “concerns” about corruption, Ukraine has 1.8 million companies; Trump has claimed corruption at precisely one of them, Burisma, and only after Joe Biden entered the presidential race.

It was Trump who reportedly proposed eliminating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act that prohibits American corporations from paying foreign bribes. “It’s just so unfair that American companies aren’t allowed to pay bribes to get business overseas,” Trump whined in spring 2017, according to “A Very Stable Genius.”

It was Russia not Ukraine that interfered in our election: Neither the intelligence community nor the FBI support Trump’s claims, nor did any of the 17 House witnesses, or the Mueller report.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said that “no information indicates Ukraine interfered.” Trump’s own Department of Homeland Security said: “It’s not only a conspiracy theory, it’s completely debunked.”

History will not be kind to participants in the Trump cover-up. In the end, the truth will come out.

Following Watergate, 69 people were indicted and 48 were convicted.

Following Iran-Contra, 14 were indicted and 11 were convicted.

Eight Trump associates have already been found guilty. There will be more.

This article also published in the Mankato Free Press, Feb 12, 2020.