Opinion

KLAVAN: A True Picture Of Trump Emerges From Otherwise Worthless Hearings

   DailyWire.com
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the media before departing from the White House on November 20, 2019 in Washington, DC. President Trump spoke about the impeachment inquiry hearings currently taking place on Capitol Hill. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
Mark Wilson/Getty Images

From the very first, I deemed the Ukraine Affair nothing but the latest Acme Impeachment Machine of the Wile E. Coyote Democrats. So for the most part it has turned out to be. We watch catatonic as Deep State mediocrities discuss their precious feelings about third-hand information while the media declares each Hamlet-like meditation a “bombshell,” and Never Trumpers gravely scratch their chins.

Trump’s approval ratings rise. Support for impeachment falls. It’s a waste of time and money in service of obscuring the real scandal: Obama’s FBI/CIA spying operations against the Trump campaign.

But for all that, and in spite of the largely worthless testimony, a more realistic picture of the Trump Administration has emerged. It was outlined in an impressive letter from Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin — a letter brought to my attention by Daniel Henninger’s latest column in the Wall Street Journal.

Johnson, a famously straight shooter, wrote the letter in answer to queries from Congressmen Jim Jordan and Devin Nunes. The congressmen wanted to know if Johnson, who has become involved in Ukrainian affairs through his work on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, had any “firsthand information… about President Trump’s actions toward Ukraine.”

Johnson makes it clear that he views “this impeachment inquiry as a continuation of a concerted, and possibly coordinated effort to sabotage the Trump administration that probably began in earnest the day after the 2016 election.” His direct dealings with Americans working on Ukraine, including Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, convinced him that “a significant number of bureaucrats and staff members within the executive branch have never accepted President Trump as legitimate and resent his unorthodox style and his intrusion onto their ‘turf.’”

He notes Vindman’s testimony that an “’alternative narrative’ pushed by… Rudy Giuliani, was ‘inconsistent with the consensus views’ of the relevant federal agencies and was ‘undermining the consensus policy.’” Johnson notes that other witnesses’ use of “similar terms such as ‘our policy,’ ‘stated policy,’ and ‘long-standing policy,’ lend further credence to the point I’m making. Whether you agree with President Trump or not…the Constitution vests the power of conducting foreign policy with the duly elected president… If any bureaucrats disagree with the president, they should use their powers of persuasion within their legal chain of command to get the president to agree with their viewpoint.”

What makes this statement so powerful is that Johnson did disagree with Trump about Ukraine and did set out to convince him to support Ukraine’s new government in order to strengthen its anti-corruption efforts and protect it from Russian predation.

But Trump repeatedly resisted Johnson’s attempts, in part because he believed Ukrainians had conspired with the Hillary campaign — which, according to a detailed account in Politico and despite Fiona Hill’s testimony, they had. As ex-envoy Kurt Volker quoted Trump during testimony, the president thought, “They are all corrupt. They are all terrible people. …I don’t want to spend any time with that.” Johnson does not recall Trump mentioning the Bidens and their dodgy dealings with Burisma, but we know from the president’s phone call with the Ukrainian president that that was also on his mind.

On top of this, Trump expressed to Johnson his long-standing opinion that the U.S. is carrying too much of the burden of foreign aid because our European partners are too happy to stick us with the bill. Johnson paraphrases Trump quoting a conversation he had about foreign aid with German Chancellor Angela Merkel: “Ron, I talk to Angela and ask her, ‘Why don’t you fund these things,’ and she tells me, ‘Because we know you will.’ We’re schmucks, Ron. We’re schmucks.”

When Johnson asked Trump if there were some sort of “arrangement” under which Ukraine would take action and receive U.S. aid — the famous quid pro quo — Trump’s reaction was “adamant, vehement and angry.” The president cursed and said, “No way. I would never do that.”

All of this sounds totally Trumpian and totally with constitutional bounds. It’s perfectly reasonable to disagree with the president’s point of view, or to feel he is too isolationist in his instincts overall. As I say, Johnson did disagree and worked hard to change Trump’s mind. But in the end, the remedy for a president’s misguided policy is to campaign against him.

The hysterical overreaction by the anti-Trump “resistance,” and their Never Trump chorus, clearly indicates that Trump’s election represents an unwelcome intrusion by We, the People into the comfortable, ever-expanding, undemocratic and anti-democratic power of an increasingly unconstitutional Deep State.

Thomas Jefferson famously wrote: “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground.” Trump — by accident, by intention or, as I suspect, by the hilarious whim of a mirthful God — is impeding that progress. And the powers-that-be just can’t stand it.

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