Once more, Democrats get ahead of the evidence

WASHINGTON — Remember when Democrats insisted that President Trump was “working on behalf of the Russians,” only to have special counsel Robert Mueller declare he “did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities”?

Well, we now have the rough transcript for Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and it’s clear that, once again, Democrats got ahead of the evidence.

Keep in mind, when this story broke, The Washington Post reported that “two former U.S. officials” said “Trump’s interaction with the foreign leader included a ‘promise’ that was regarded as so troubling that it prompted an official in the U.S. intelligence community to file a formal whistleblower complaint.” Well, it turns out Trump makes no “promise” anywhere in the transcript. He makes no threats, either.

NBC’s Katy Tur claimed that the transcript shows Trump said, “Will you do me a favor and investigate Vice President Biden’s son?” No, he didn’t. When Trump asked Zelenskiy to “do us a favor,” it had nothing to do with Biden. According to the transcript, he was asking Zelenskiy to cooperate with an official Justice Department investigation into the origins of the Mueller probe that is being led by U.S. Attorney John Durham, a career prosecutor.

The transcript also backs up Trump’s claim that he put a temporary hold on some U.S. military aid to Ukraine because he was concerned that the European allies were not doing enough. During the call, Trump tells Zelenskiy the United States is doing “much more than the European countries are doing and they should be helping you more than they are.” Zelenskiy responds: “Yes you are absolutely right. Not only 100%, but actually 1000%.” He tells Trump that German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron “are not working as much as they should work for Ukraine,” and says that “the European Union should be our biggest partner but technically the United States is a much bigger partner than the European Union.” The whistleblower offers no evidence that Trump had any other motivation.

What about Biden? Multiple news reports suggested Trump “repeatedly pressured the president of Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden’s son.” Turns out Trump only mentions Biden by name toward the end of the call. He tells Zelenskiy, “The other thing, there’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it. … It sounds horrible to me.”

Should Trump have done this? Absolutely not. But the reality of this call is a far cry from overheated charges that Trump used U.S. aid to repeatedly pressure Zelenskiy to investigate Hunter Biden. At a news conference with Trump at the United Nations, Zelenskiy said the call was “normal” and “nobody pushed me.”

The irony is, thanks to the Democrats’ impeachment push, the president is going to get his investigation of Joe Biden’s son — except it won’t be carried out by Ukraine but by the U.S. Congress.

Marc A. Thiessen is a syndicated columnist.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/2m5pBgc