Wednesday, April 29, 2020

Quid Pro Quo


Defense shattered.

After initial evidence that President Trump had conditioned military aid to Ukraine in return for an announcement by the Ukrainian government that it would pursue an investigation into Hunter and Joe Biden, there was widespread denial by the GOP that there was a "quid pro quo."

Before eventually adopting the unconstitutionally indefensible "maybe, but so what" defense, the GOP employed the denial tactic, presumably emboldened by the 66% of Republicans who in early November believed there was no deal sought by President Trump to effect an investigation.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy adamantly maintained there was an arrangement. Then-Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney announced there was one, then denied there was. Even after Gordon Soundland's testimony that there was a quid pro quo, House Intelligence Committee member Jim Jordan would "glower" at Mother Jones' David Corn and assert "no quid pro quo."  And President Trump continued to insist there was "no quid pro quo" as if his daily infantile, albeit entertaining, ramblings always were peppered with the phrase "quid pro quo."

We can all put to bed that defense now that during Trump's Tuesday news conference concerning small businesses, he stated

With the states we're not looking forward to recovering 25 years of bad management and to give them the money they lost. That's unfair to other states.

Now, if it's Covid-related, I guess we can talk about it. But we want certain things also, including sanctuary city adjustments because we have so many people in sanctuary cities, which I don't think are even popular even by radical leftist folks because what's happening is people are being protected that shouldn't be protected and a lot of bad things are happening with sanctuary cities. But that's just standing up here answering this question. That's one of the things I think about. If we're going to do something for the states, I think they probably want a, uh, something having to do with sanctuary cities, something having to do with other different points that we can discuss a little bit later.


With the next question having pertained to meat processing plants, the first question to President Trump at his next daily press-enabled campaign rally should be "Mr. President, on Tuesday you suggested a quid pro quo for assisting states in which they'd be required to curb what you referred to as 'sanctuary cities.'  What specifically would which states have to do about immigration in order to receive aid from the federal government?"




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