Is this Watergate 2.0?

Zelenskiy and Trump (NBC)

To say that President Trump is unpresidential is perhaps the understatement of the century. He is about as unpresidential as anyone can get.

But that is not an impeachable offense. What may in fact be impeachable is the latest revelation about a conversation he had with a Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. A conversation revealed by an unidentified whistle blower who was apparently informed of it in detail by unidentified administration officials.

That conversation included what seemed to be pressure on Zelenskiy to investigate possible corruption by Joe Biden’s son, Hunter. Who was a board member of a Ukrainian gas company that was itself investigated for corruption. Joe Biden is of course seeking the Democratic nomination for President.

The pressure in question is the fact that the President withheld promised financial aid just before that conversation. It does not take rocket science to figure out what happened here. Despite his denials to the contrary, the President probably did want to find dirt on Biden that he could use during the campaign.

Personally I cannot believe how stupid he was. After 3 years of intense scrutiny by his political opponents over accusations of collusion with a foreign government to influence the election,  – which led to one of the most thorough investigations in history by a special counsel for the justice department - the President did this? This is exactly what he was accused of the first time!

And just when you think things could not get any worse… they did. That conversation was actually seen by the President's men to be so damaging, that it was placed in a top secret file – so that no one could see it.

Is what Trump did actually an impeachable offense? Is this the smoking gun Democrats had been looking for in the last investigation – which they now found in this instance?

The answer to that is obvious. Absolutely it is – if you are a Democrat. And absolutely not if you are a Republican. How, one may ask is that possible? Is one side lying? If so, which side? And does that make one side traitorous while the other is patriotic? 

Both sides might answer yes to that question. That was made painfully obvious during a congressional hearing by the House Intelligence Committee yesterday.  Therein the acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, testified for more than three hours. Democrats on the committee saw his testimony as damning. Saying that even what Trump admitted to was impeachable. Republicans saw it as exonerating the President. And accused Democrats of a political witch-hunt.

Republicans say the whistleblower’s report was second hand; the president of the Ukraine forcefully denied he was pressured; and that asking a foreign leader to investigate corruption in his own country is not illegal even if an American citizen is in the middle of it.

What about the fact that promised aid was withheld shortly before that conversation as a means of extortion? That was never mentioned in the conversation about investigating corruption. And the fact that the President himself declassified that conversation and released to the public shows that he did nothing wrong.

What about the fact that the conversation was at first apparently covered up by the President’s men? That can be attributed to overly zealous officials that believed that even the appearance of collusion would harm an innocent President even though he technically did nothing wrong. And thereby harm the country.

I hear both sides of the argument. I also believe that both Democrats and Republicans are basicaly being honest in how they see things. They both believe they are right. Is that because of politics? Probably. A political perspective does color one’s views.  But that does not make them liars.

What is my view about all this? At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter what I think. What matters is what happens next. Here is how I see things playing out. I’m not sure whether there was anything illegal or not with what the President said to Zelenskiy. The Democratically controlled House will probably vote to impeach the President. The Republican controlled Senate will not however vote to remove him from office.

The real battle will take place during the campaign. Democrats will surely use this against the President casting it as Watergate 2.0.  The Democratic base (which includes the media) will fully buy into that notion. With a media spin in that direction - albeit with a neutral sounding tone. Republicans will of course dispute that. Their base will fully buy into Trump’s innocence and be more energized than ever. The country seems to be evenly divided along those lines. Which leaves the swing voters that always decide close elections.

The conventional wisdom might be that they too will see this as Watergate 2.0. Especially the way the media is reporting it. But I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Because there is a little thing called the economy. Which – as former President Bill Clinton was wisely aware of - is probably a greater influence on voters than anything else. If it continues to soar – then the majority of swing voters may not care about a conversation the President had with a foreign leader and vote to keep things as they are. Or not. We’ll see.