As anyone who
reads this blog knows I like to provide links to examples of objective
analysis. (Or at least I think they are objective!) The latest story
dominating the news cycle is whether President Trump held back funds from the
Ukraine government unless it finds dirt on the dealings of Joe Biden's son for
his role in the Ukraine based energy company Burisma Holdings Limited.
The first link
takes you to an article written by Alan Dershowitz who
can hardly be described as a Trump supporter. Dershowitz, who is a scholar of
US constitutional law, answers these questions.
[D]id President Trump
commit impeachable offenses when he spoke on the phone to the president of
Ukraine and/or when he directed members of the Executive Branch to refuse to
cooperate, absent a court order, with congressional Democrats who are seeking
his impeachment?
The answers are plainly
no and no. There is a constitutionally significant difference between a
political "sin," on the one hand, and a crime or impeachable
offenses, on the other.
Even taking the
worst-case scenario regarding Ukraine -- a quid pro quo exchange of foreign aid
for a political favor -- that might be a political sin, but not a crime or
impeachable offense.
A quid pro quo has two essential
parts. First, a deal must be understood between the parties. In this case, it
would be President Trump delivering U.S. aid if, and only if, the president of
Ukraine delivers dirt on Trump’s “political rival” and potential 2020 opponent
— Joe Biden.
Second, the goods must
actually be delivered. In this case, President Trump would have had to receive
the requested packet of “dirt” on Biden, in order to trigger release the U.S.
aid to Ukraine. So far, there is not an allegation that Part Two ever occurred.
Without delivery of the dirt, there’s no quid pro quo. Just a quid.
The most that can be
reasonably alleged against President Trump at this stage is that he offered a
quid pro quo — something both Trump and the other party, the president of Ukraine,
deny — but that it was never consummated. New facts could emerge but, right
now, there seems to be less than meets the eye.
I've chosen
Scott Adams for my final example. Unfortunately this article
probably sits behind The Wall Street Journal pay wall so I've provided a couple
key quotes below.
If you’ve followed the
Ukraine phone-call news, you might have noticed reality branching into two
completely different movies. In one, President Trump was doing his job of
protecting the republic by asking an allied country to help out on an important
legal investigation. The other movie involves Orange Hitler bullying a foreign
country into meddling in our elections by “digging up dirt” on a political
opponent.
Which movie is the real
one, if such a thing exists? I’d like to offer a rule of thumb for evaluating
political news: If a fact is reported the same by both the left-leaning and the
right-leaning press, it’s probably a fact. If not, wait and see.
...
One side says the quid
pro quo—in the form of Mr. Trump’s asking his Ukrainian counterpart to
investigate Crowdstrike and Joe Biden at the risk of losing military funds
already approved by Congress—was so obvious it didn’t need to be stated in
direct language. The other side says every conversation among world leaders
carries some kind of implied quid pro quo, and in this case the request for
investigation was entirely appropriate. You might even say it was one of Mr.
Trump’s highest priorities, given the risk that a potential future President
Biden might be compromised in his dealings with a foreign government.
When Adams talks about the two different movies people see
depending on their viewpoint, I have run into this myself. A friend asked if I
was upset with what Trump said in the phone call with the new Ukraine
president. (He referred to Trump as “your president”, not “our president”
because he hates Trump and knows that I don’t.) I said that I read the transcript
of the phone call and didn’t see something that would warrant impeachment. My
friend claims he read the transcript too and disagreed with me. Both of us read
the transcript of the phone call but came to different conclusions. I told my
friend that this shows that while both of us think we’re being objective we
still reached drastically different conclusions.
By the way, Adam’s rule of thumb about evaluating political
news is intriguing. I know it won’t work all the time (or even most of the time)
because each news outlet spins the facts to fit the narrative they want us to
buy. Maybe both sides will present the core facts the same they will conveniently leave out facts that threaten to spoil their spin. For a good summary of the ploys the news media wield to influence us please see
How
to Spot 11 Types of Media Bias from AllSides; they illustrate each type of
bias with real examples.
I subscribe to a variety of daily email newsletters and
Twitter feeds. Since I consider myself to be libertarian about three quarters
of my news feeds come from libertarian or conservative sources. But I also
receive notices from leftist sources to get different perspectives and to test
mine.
