At this point in the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry, it’s evident that the whistle-blower who first brought Donald Trump’s attempts to strong-arm Ukraine to light was far from the only one alarmed by his behavior. A parade of current and former officials have corroborated the original complaint about the president’s July 25 call with Volodymyr Zelensky—and provided evidence that his pressure campaign in Ukraine extended beyond that supposedly “perfect” conversation. And if all that wasn’t enough, there’s the reconstructed transcript of the call released by the White House which, while apparently omitting some key phrases, nevertheless shows Trump asking for the Biden and DNC server probes. Trump himself—along with his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and his chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney—has outright admitted to the allegations at the center of the inquiry.
And yet, Trump this weekend escalated his attacks on the whistle-blower, seemingly staking a huge chunk of his impeachment defense on one official’s credibility, even as evidence continues to mount against him. “The Whistleblower got it sooo wrong that HE must come forward,” he tweeted Sunday, accusing Democrats and the media of protecting the anonymous official to damage his presidency. “Reveal the Whistleblower and end the Impeachment Hoax!” Claiming that the whistleblower is in cahoots with the former administration. “There have have been stories written about a certain individual, a male, and they say he’s the whistleblower,” he told reporters. “If he’s the whistleblower, he has no credibility because he’s a [John] Brennan guy, he’s a Susan Rice guy, he’s [a Barack] Obama guy...and he hates Trump.”
It ought to be a shabby defense, considering how far beyond the whistleblower complaint the impeachment inquiry has now gone. But it beats his other arguments, which have been barely-coherent attempts to claim innocence while at the same time suggesting that it wouldn’t matter if he was guilty. “False stories are being reported that a few Republican Senators are saying that President Trump may have done a quid pro quo, but it doesn’t matter, there is nothing wrong with that, it is not an impeachable event,” he wrote Sunday. “Perhaps so, but read the transcript, there is no quid pro quo!” Still, both lines of attack could allow him to turn the narrative away from the obvious wrongdoing Democrats have unearthed.
Republicans, who’d previously appeared hesitant to stand by Trump, now seem more eager to do so. Last week every House Republican voted against the formal impeachment inquiry, and Senate Republicans are reportedly formulating a strategy to rally around their boss even if the probe proves a quid pro quo or other wrongdoing. According to Axios, the GOP is leaning toward arguing that what Trump did was “inappropriate but not impeachable.” Trump will probably grumble a bit about that line, given his allergy to being told he’s wrong in even the most wishy-washy terms, but it could shield him from the worst of the fallout. Democrats, meanwhile, are pushing ahead with their probe, calling a new slate of witnesses to Capitol Hill this week. But several have already said they will not appear, including national security aide Robert Blair, who was on the July 25 phone call but has been directed by the White House not to testify. That stonewalling is a setback for the Democrats, but at this point they have already built a compelling case for impeachment. Their task now will be to avoid ceding control of the narrative to Trump and his cronies.
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