There is a Jamaican saying, “Bucket go well every day, one day di bottom a go drop out.” Well Donald Trump has been going to the well too often. Those trips involved Russian interference, not releasing his tax returns, violation of the emolument clause, campaign violation involving hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, obstruction as laid out in Mueller’s report, and on and on.
While the bottom of Trump’s bucket has not fallen out yet, it has developed a major leak that if nothing else will make it almost impossible for him to continue going to the well. Maybe not, because we’re talking about Donald Trump a man who seems to act as if he is above the law or don’t know what is legally wrong or right.
On Trump’s last visit to the well, the bottom of his bucket did not fallout, but it developed a major leak. This happened during a phone call to Ukraine’s President Zelensky on July 25. In this call, he is alleged by a whistleblower to pressure Mr. Zelensky to provide dirt on VP Joe Biden who is his main opponent in the 2020 election. Trump apparently dangled the carrot of foreign aid that would help them arm themselves to defend against Russia’s threat of invasion.
The dirt that Trump was seeking on VP Biden relates to his son, Hunter Biden who had some business arrangement with a Ukrainian oligarch’s company. Hunter was a board member of that company which was being investigated by a former Ukrainian prosecutor. Although this business arrangement has been said to involve no wrongdoing, Trump and his campaign obviously wants to resurrect it to damage VP Biden.
Donald Trump has been said to benefit from the Russian interference of the 2016 election. Remember his famous line where he appealed to Russia for help against Hillary Clinton when he said, “Russia if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing.” He won the election, so that’s why he went back to the well to get help in the 2020 election.
The Democrats have been calling for Trumps impeachment following the Mueller’s report, but Speaker Nancy Pelosi being a shrewd politician has managed to restrain the troops until Tuesday afternoon. The Ukrainian phone call and the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) not forwarding the whistleblower’s report to Congress (a statutory requirement) became the proverbial straw that broke her back. She announced that the Democrats would be launching an official impeachment inquiry into Trump’s phone call to the Ukraine as it was a violation of the constitution. This changes the impeachment calculus, which was been stymied by the Republican congressional members and the White House’s lack of cooperation.
Over the next couple of weeks, pressure will continue to build against Donald Trump as the congressional committees will now have more legal basis to get documents that they will need. The whistleblower’s report will be turned over to Congress tomorrow and Trump has said he will release the transcript of his phone call to the Ukraine.
If the whistleblower’s report and Trump’s phone call transcript (and it remains to be seen what the White House turns over) reveal that Trump violated the Constitution, it would trigger an avalanche in the Congress, i.e., Republican congressional members who have so far defended Trump could now find themselves in a corner or forced to stop defending him. On the other hand, if there’s not much there, then the Democrats will have to continue to build their case around the other violations Trump has committed.