Wednesday 25 September 2019

Nancy Pelosi has made the worst decision of her career

She held off for months, saying no no no to her fellow Democrats' demands to start impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump. Then up pops Ukrainegate and Nancy Pelosi gets a rush of blood to her head and she says yes yes yes, let's impeach the president. I predict it will all end in tears. Her instincts about impeachment over the last year or so have been absolutely right. She was against it because she knew they didn't have enough of a prima facie case to bring the president down. The Russiagate stuff, collusion with Moscow etc and obstruction of justice, was never going to work especially when special counsel Robert Mueller concluded there was no case to answer, and all the other potential ingredients for an impeachment, like the president's failure to publish his tax returns, the plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow and allegations of abuse of office, were all wishy-washy stuff that didn't amount to a whole lot, especially the Moscow Trump Tower plan which never happened. So why did Pelosi think Ukrainegate as I have called it was the answer to the Democrats' dreams? Ok, on the face of it, it looks distinctly dodgy. The president seeking the help of a foreign leader to dig dirt on a man likely to be his rival for the presidency at the next election. But Trump is brilliant at dismissing this sort of stuff as hogwash and innocent and harmless chatting and has offered to publish a transcript of his conversation with President Zelensky of Ukraine in which he suggested it might be a good idea to investigate Joe Biden's son, Hunter, and the oil company he worked for in Ukraine that was suspected of being involved in corruption. Well, that now seems to have happened and there's a transcript to read which seem to stand up Trump's argument that it was all very chatty and not in the least threatening. No mention about withholding military aid unless Zelensky investigated Biden. But even if more comes out about the phone chat and other calls Trump had with Zelensky, and even if the intelligence agency whistleblower emerges from the woodwork to give evidence about what he or she heard the president say on the phone, will it amount to a row of beans? Far more likely is that Joe Biden's bid for the presidency will be destroyed when details emerge about exactly what he did when he was vice president and put pressure on the Kiev government to sack the prosecutor who was investigating corruption at his son's place work in Ukraine. And what, one might ask, was Hunter Biden doing being paid thousands of dollars as a director of a company in Ukraine and also being party to a $1.5 billion donation from a Chinese businessman to a private equity company on which he was also a director? It may be all innocent and above board but in the nasty game of politics, Trump is going to play this one till it blows up in father Biden's face. Joe Biden could be the biggest loser in the Democrats' push for impeachment. This will be good news for Trump because then Senator Elizabeth Warren will win the Democratic nomination and I really don't see her beating Trump because she is seen as a socialist, however centrist she tries to become. Thus Trump will win reelection in 2020. So, Nancy Pelosi, do you still think it was a good idea to back impeachment? Impeachment of Trump will fail, Nancy Pelosi will fail, and the Democrats will be blamed by the country for besmirching the status of the presidency. Trump, I suspect, is delighted by the call for impeachment. He will fight it all the way and it won't do his 2020 reelection campaign any harm at all. Just the opposite.

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