The impeachment inquiry has proved again that there’s only one problem most congressional Republicans see in President Donald Trump attempting to steal an election with foreign interference: that Democrats would dare investigate it.
Does anyone doubt that these same Republicans would welcome him soliciting Russian help to win, again? And does anyone doubt that this Russian help is coming?
Robert Mueller doesn’t.
On July 24, the former special counsel told the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees that Russian intrusion in our elections was not limited to the “sweeping and systematic” 2016 interference documented in his reported and welcomed by the Trump campaign. “They’re doing it as we sit here,” he said. “And they expect to do it during the next campaign.”
The very next day, Trump made a call in which he asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for “a favor.” The most powerful man on earth requested that the besieged new president of a country first invaded by Russian-backed forces in 2014 “get to the bottom” of two matters — former Vice President Joe Biden’s son and the hacked server of the Democratic National Committee.
Later that July 25, Pentagon officials received an email that said Ukrainian officials were worried about the “security assistance” that had been approved by Congress yet had not been delivered to them.
Trump helps himself and Putin
This high crime — like so many of Trump’s policies, from questioning the NATO alliance to renewing sanctions on Iran — benefited the ambitions of both the president of the United States and the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin.
A public announcement of a “corruption” investigation into the Bidens by an American ally would obviously help Trump. It could cast a “But her emails!” stink on the Democratic front-runner, who happens to lead Trump in most national and swing state polls.
But the scam might even help Putin more than Trump, and not just because it could help his American apprentice win another term. Putin would get a compromised Zelensky, in addition to good odds that bipartisan support for Ukraine would be shaken, if not wrecked, by Ukraine wading into U.S. electoral politics.
Beyond that, Putin for years has been seeking ways to muddy the consensus that Russia interfered in our elections on his orders. That’s how long he has been spreading the canard that it was Ukraine that actually attacked America’s elections.
Now key Republicans have embraced the idea that Ukrainians have the DNC server because they were behind the 2016 hack. It’s too generous to call it a conspiracy theory; it’s just Russian propaganda. Even if there were any truth to it, which there isn’t, it wouldn’t explain away the vast amounts of other Russian interference documented both by Mueller and the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee.
Yet the attempt to confuse voters by continually mentioning Ukraine in the same breath as Russia’s assault on our elections continues not just from Putin but also from Fox News and GOP officials.
Court of public opinion: Facts will help Democrats win Trump impeachment debate even if Senate doesn’t remove him
It’s notable that a couple of Republican senators — Mitt Romney of Utah and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina — have maintained clarity that our elections were invaded by Russia, not Ukraine. But that’s only notable because of how rare it has become for an elected Republican to show any patriotism when it comes to securing our elections.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had to be shamed as “Moscow Mitch” before he allowed the Senate to take any sincere steps to amply fund election security.
It was too little, too late.
Our electoral infrastructure is still fundamentally vulnerable. And attacks on our voting systems by Russian actors keep coming.
Meanwhile, we’ve never gotten a full accounting of how deep into our ballots Russian cyberattacks reached in 2016. And the Trump administration is still running interference for the cyberattacks on the 2018 Winter Olympics that appear to have come from a Russian military service behind a hack that took out the power of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians.
Inviting a foreign power to attack
Though Mueller’s report did not officially look into the issue of “collusion” between the Trump campaign and Russia, it documented plenty of it — just not any that the special counsel thought he could charge as crimes. The question was never if there was collusion, but if the collusion will ever end.
Trump’s shakedown of Zelensky looks a lot like a payoff to Putin that’s also an invitation for more help in the 2020 election. That help is coming. And the GOP has shown it won’t do anything but go after anyone who wants to stop it.
Trump hasn’t just committed the worst misconduct of any chief executive in our history. He is inviting a foreign power to attack our elections, again.
Corruption fighter: Plenty for Trump to investigate very close to home. His home.
On Thursday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the House would “proceed with articles of impeachment” because “in America, no one is above the law.” But we’ve seen with this president that when your party is willing to be your accomplice, an election can put you above the law.
That’s why an election is no solution for a party determined to make sure it can be stolen.
Impeachment that deliberately chronicles all of Trump’s crimes followed by removal is the only solution the Founders provided for a chief executive who would “spare no efforts or means whatever to get himself reelected.”
Now the only question is whether we’ll take to the streets to make sure it doesn’t happen.
Jason Sattler, a writer based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors and host of “The GOTMFV Show” podcast. Follow him on Twitter: @LOLGOP
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Impeachment and removal are the only fixes for America’s Trump crisis