The story of Trump's phone call to the Ukrainian president seems to have Trump running scared. I think he knows that he committed an impeachable offense, and he has tried a variety of excuses to try and get himself out of trouble.The first thing he did was to use his favorite weapon -- he lied. He denied asking the Ukrainian president to investigate Joe Biden and his son. That didn't last long. A White House transcript of the call showed clearly that he did ask for that investigation.
He then tried to claim there was no quid pro quo, but his refusal to release military aid provided by Congress to help Ukraine defend itself from Russia made that unlikely. Then we have messages sent between government officials that clearly show there was a quid pro quo -- an investigation would get Ukraine those military funds and also a White House visit.
The third excuse from Trump was that he was just trying to fight corruption in general. That one was just pathetic, considering that Trump himself is the most corrupt president in U.S. history -- and the ONLY person he wanted investigated was his likely 2020 opponent. The truth is that Trump has no problem with corruption (as long as it helps him). He just wanted Ukrainian help to smear his possible Democratic opponent.
Now he has come up with a fourth excuse, and this may be the silliest one of all. He says he didn't want to make the call at all, but was talked into doing it by Secretary of Energy Rick Perry. I have never been a fan of Rick Perry, but I find this excuse ridiculous.
Perry's aides say he did ask Trump to call the Ukrainian president to discuss making a deal about oil and liquified natural gas. He did NOT ask him to call to get him to investigate Biden. That was Trump's own idea to help his electoral chances in 2020.
Perry had already said he would be leaving his cabinet post around the end of this year. It looks like Trump decided that since Perry was leaving, he might as well throw him under the bus. Trump may demand loyalty from those serving in his administration, but he doesn't return that loyalty. He'll knife any employee in the back if he thinks he can benefit from it.
