Whatever you think about President Trump’s Ukraine policy (I believe it was good then bad), the president is likely to escape a Senate impeachment conviction. That is unless an audio file is released which implicates Trump in a conspiracy to withhold U.S. aid in return for investigations against the Bidens.
Could that audio exist? It might. As I noted in November and the Washington Post observed last week, there is almost certainly audio somewhere out there. The Russian intelligence services will have prioritized intercepting calls between the White House and U.S. officials handling Ukraine, whether it be Gordon Sondland, Bill Taylor, or Rudy Giuliani. But the question is what might be on those calls.
For a start, if the Russians have locked in on Giuliani’s cell phone and have audio of Trump saying something along the lines of “You tell the Ukrainians no aid or visit unless they get on Biden,” then Trump has a problem. Would it be a problem big enough to swing 20 Republican senators against him, thus reaching the magic 67 number needed for Senate conviction? Maybe.
Then there’s the possibility of an audio file in which Trump subtly suggests a quid pro quo — investigation of Biden in return for aid — without explicitly saying so. That might shift a few Republicans, but probably not enough. With 2020 coming, power, or the retention of it, is foremost in political minds.
The final alternative is audio of Trump saying things about Ukraine, but nothing bad. That would serve the president, but even if such audio existed, it would be unlikely to enter the public domain. Democrats wrongly assume that Vladimir Putin values Trump more than he values American internal discord. The Russian leader would be unlikely to release material that helped Trump. Indeed, Putin would be more likely to release audio, which hurt the president, to make the current soporific, forgone-conclusion impeachment process more rancorous and contested.
His antics aside, Trump’s policy towards Russia has been more robust than those of his predecessor in terms of military spending, intelligence operations, and diplomatic leadership. And 2020 Democrats are certainly more favorable to Putin’s anti-fracking agenda.
The basic point is this. Impeachment now rests on the known unknown of damning Trump audio lurking somewhere out there. Absent that audio, impeachment will die an uneventful Senate death.
