This is only the second diary I've ever written, but I don't hear anyone else making this obvious point, so I feel compelled.
There's a good chance that the Democrats will fail in their attempts to hold 45 responsible for his treason, not because the Senate is stacked against them but because in their usual fashion they're going about it all wrong.
Ambassador Taylor, in a very quotable moment, tried to explain where they should be focused. He just couldn't still appear non-partisan and come right out and say "our president is a traitor, and that's what you should be pursuing".
To quote Ambassador Taylor...
"...to withhold that assistance for no good reason other than help with a political campaign made no sense. It was counterproductive to all of what we had been trying to do. It was illogical. It could not be explained. It was crazy".
"Could not be explained", perhaps, in the context of the "quid pro quo" in which the politicians in Washington on both sides of the aisle are framing the matter. Respectfully, Madam Speaker, what happened to "all roads lead to Putin"?
It's now become clear that the Trump administration's treason with respect to Ukraine had very little to do with the Biden family, at least in the beginning. Trump couldn't really say that he was withholding aid to Ukraine at the urging of Putin. He needed a believable reason, and Biden's son provided that.
Which would you rather face if you were Trump - articles of impeachment for treason, or articles for political gamesmanship, no matter how illegal and unethical it was?
And the Dems have taken the bait, as they so often do, concentrating on actions that for the GOP are infinitely easier to defend. The Dems have completely missed the real reason that aid was withheld, which is exactly what the GOP wanted and needed.
As evidenced by his abandonment of our brave allies the Kurds, Trump is bound to do Putin's bidding. The reason for this has nothing to do with a pee pee tape. It has to do with hundreds of millions of dollars that Putin laundered through Deutsche Bank to save Trump from total financial failure.
Hopefully some state or federal prosecutor somewhere is following whatever paper trail there is on that, and maybe some justice will be dealt after our next election.
No doubt that the highest item on Vlad's list was and is military aid to Ukraine - aid that would be aimed right at his troops, and Trump had been doing pretty well stalling that aid, at least until Congress caught on.
When it became obvious that they would not be able to stall the aid indefinitely, Trump and his minions, petty thieves that they are, thought that they might still get something out of the deal by having the Ukrainians attack a perceived political rival, and at the same time provide a much more palatable explanation for the withholding of the aid in the first place.
But getting dirt on the Bidens is secondary and minor to the original treason of withholding aid at Putin's urging, and it's a bit of a distraction. I hope Congress catches on and prosecutes the real motives behind the Trump administration's actions.