GOP's laughable defenses of Trump can’t erase the fact it's ‘never appropriate’ to ‘demand’ a foreign government investigation of a US citizen: conservative

This Wednesday, December 18, the two articles of impeachment that the House Judiciary Committee has approved against President Donald Trump — one for abuse of power, the other for obstruction of Congress — are expected to come up for a full vote on the House floor. With Trump likely to be indicted for both articles by the House and later judged “guilty” or “not guilty” in a Senate trial, many Republicans are aggressively rallying to the president’s defense. But conservative Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin, on the other hand, has been an outspoken supporter of impeaching Trump — and in a December 16 column, she asserts that many of the defenses coming from Trump’s defenders in the GOP are bogus.

Rubin notes that Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, during a recent interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, claimed that Trump was requesting a perfectly legitimate investigation of “corruption” in Ukraine during his July 25 conservation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Cruz insisted, “That is inherently within the authority of the president, the Department of Justice to do, and that is their responsibility to do.”

The conservative columnist notes that Cruz, “launched into speculation about Hunter Biden, who no one has shown to be guilty of anything other than questionable judgment.” And Rubin adds that “it is never appropriate to demand a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen,” including Hunter Biden —the son of former Vice President Joe Biden.

Rubin points out that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, in defense of Trump, has insisted that the president “does not want foreign governments interfering in our elections.” Yet Trump’s actions, according to Rubin, make it clear that he does.

Pro-Trump Republicans, Rubin writes, are arguing that “it is okay to get a foreign investigation into a debunked conspiracy theory if you actually believe it — since Trump is so out to lunch as to believe Ukraine interfered with our election, it’s all good! This begs the question of whether someone who buys into debunked conspiracy theories is fit to serve.”

Rubin wraps up her column by emphasizing that no matter how much pro-Trump Republicans claim otherwise, trying to bully a foreign power into investigating a political adversary is unacceptable — period.

“You really cannot object to receiving foreign help to win an election while you excuse strong-arming a foreign power to give you help,” Rubin writes. “Well, unless you are Ted Cruz and the rest of the Republicans who discarded logic, consistency, principle and fidelity to the Constitution years ago.”