When you can't make an excuse for Trump, just make noise
If there was anything Gaetz and Company demonstrated, it was how desperate GOP lawmakers are becoming. They are running out of reasons to defend President Trump amid mounting evidence of his possible corruption and sinking public opinion polls as the House impeachment inquiry plows ahead.
Significantly, the Gaetz Gang popped up after ambassador William Taylor, chief diplomat at the U.S. embassy in Ukraine, testified on Tuesday to House lawmakers, persuasively backing up with notes much of what the complaint from an anonymous intelligence whistleblower revealed Sept. 26.
The complaint alleged that the White House put a hold on military aid to Ukraine to pressure that country's president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to launch investigations to look into any shady connections between Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company that hired his son Hunter Biden.
Now, after Gaetz's stunt comes reports late Thursday that the Justice Department has shifted an administrative review of the Russia investigation to a criminal inquiry. That move would give the prosecutor running it, John Durham, the power to subpoena witnesses and documents and file criminal charges.
That plays into Trump's long-held suspicions of "deep state" conspiracies against his election and his presidency within the administration. Trump fired James Comey, the FBI director under whose watch agents opened the Russia inquiry,
Part of the House investigation is looking into whether Trump's pressure on Ukraine to open investigations into the 2016 election constituted an abuse of power. His former acting attorney general scoffed at that this week, saying on Fox News, "Abuse of power is not a crime." Yes, it is, but his sentiment appears to be the president's, too.
I'm not going to suggest that the president could be using the Justice Department, headed by his appointed Attorney General Bill Barr, as a hammer to go after his perceived enemies. But as with the Gaetz Gang's distracting stunt, the alternative corruption scenario could hardly come at a more convenient time.
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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)
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