“To put on the garment of legitimacy is the first aim of every coup” – Barbara Tuchman
By Glen Reaux
The Trump-Ukraine scandal has captivated the country for more than two weeks. Throughout our history, the mere idea of an American president soliciting the aid of a foreign government to interfere in our internal politics has been unimaginable. Yet, Donald J. Trump, the current resident in the White House has surpassed any challenges to the collective imagination of the American people. Trump extorted the President of Ukraine into helping him smear his greatest opponent to re-election, has admitted to it and is attempting to convince the country that it’s okay and legal. As if that were not enough, he has openly invited China to do the same in exchange for a favorable trade deal and an end to a trade war that he started. These are treasonous crimes punishable by incarceration and heavy fines for any individual except Trump who has been deemed immune from prosecution by his justice department. Effectively, this is making him above the law. These crimes by Donald Trump have forced the Democrats to start an impeachment inquiry in-line with their constitutional duties of oversight. Republican lawmakers have not been able to defend Trump’s actions and in violation of their oaths of office, are now attempting to legitimize these crimes on a global stage. More than 50 years ago, America’s great, two-time Pulitzer Prize Winner and historian Barbara Tuchman warned of what the intentions of actions of this sort were designed for: “To put on the garment of legitimacy is the first aim of every coup.” This article, “Trump-Ukraine Scandal Is A Coup Threat to Our Democracy: Read Texts” is an examination of the Trump attempt to overthrow our government, an attempted “coup.” The actions of Donald Trump and his crimes committed in a conspiracy with Ukraine against Joe Biden is not a stand-alone coup attempt. Rather, a full examination of the actions of his administration’s employees and the complicity of the Republican Party will reveal the full threat to our democracy posed by this event.
This is not an assertion that upon election to the office of President that Trump conspired with his Republican minions (trumpions) to overthrow our government. Nor is it an accusation that members of his administration did the same. However, either through ignorance, coincidence, lack of vision or unpatriotic behavior on the part of the Republican leadership and government employees, Trump has by intent, fear or comedy of errors manipulated events resulting in our current situation. That situation is that a “clear and present danger” to our democracy in the form of a coup now exists and Trump’s-Ukraine scandal is the latest event to place an exclamation point behind the word coup! As of October 7, 2019, our military has not been involved in a violent overthrow of the American government. But, other nonviolent actions on the part of Trump and the Republican leadership are actually proving to be more effective than a military takeover. A coup does not have to involve the military to overthrow a government. Instead, in a constitutional, democratic republic when one political party controls two or more branches of government that refuse to follow the rule-of-law, the government is rendered moot and without firing a single shot the people fall under tyrannical rule.
Donald Trump rules the Republican Party with an iron fist. Never before has anyone dominated the Republican Party in the way that Trump has. Party members are terrified of Trump. Since the time of the Nixon administration, history has documented Republican political strategy as being one of divide and conquer pitting the poor against the middle-class, white people against black, Asian and brown people, the use of fear to intimidate and scare voters and economic policies that have caused the largest wealth gap in American history. These tactics have been very successful in dividing the country and subjugating average Americans. Now, the Republican leadership and party members are beginning to feel and act just like the average Americans they have preyed upon for the past 50 years. The Republican Party is now being subjected to the same tactics of divide and conquer and terror that once worked so well for them. The perpetrator is Donald Trump and Republicans are now being terrorized by their new fearless leader. Any semblance of courage, conservatism, honor, nobility or patriotism has been abandoned in service to King Donald. Despite their disagreements with Trump’s policies, distaste for his uncouthness, his mistreatment of our allies, dissolution of treaties and disregard for long-standing Republican ideals, even Lindsey Graham and Moscow Mitch cower in fear of Trump’s idiocy and his minion mob aka his base. This paralysis by fear has caused the Republican Party to support all of Trump’s racist policies, attacks against our own government institutions, more than 6,500 lies, criminal behavior and most recently extortion of a foreign ally and calls for interference into our elections in 2016 and 2020. By Republicans not honoring their oath of office to implement oversight and investigate this president, they have by default “placed a garment of legitimization” over all of this Donald Trump’s crimes against the constitution. Their inactions, endorsement and complicity have placed this nation at risk and susceptible to a coup. A coup that involves Trump inviting foreign governments to interfere in our elections to deny your constitutional right to a “free and fair election is happening at this very minute.”
In the eyes of the majority of American citizens, the 2016 elections resulted in an illegitimate president thanks to election interference on the part of Vladimir Putin, Russian oligarchs and the Russian government. While the Mueller Report did not result in a conspiracy indictment of Trump campaign officials for coordinating their campaign with the Russians, plenty of evidence was provided that proved that there was a conspiracy. Due to lies and obstruction of justice on the part of Trump and his campaign officials, Mueller decided not to prosecute. But, he provided a two volume, 450 page report to Congress to be used as a road map for impeachment.
One of the most important elements in executing a coup d’e’tat is the dismantling of government agencies and departments or rendering them ineffective when necessary to hinder the governing and security of a country. Since taking office in 2017, Trump has launched never-ending attacks on the nation’s intelligence community and intentionally hurt the effectiveness of these agencies to do their jobs and protect the country. He has sewn discord, distrust, destroyed morale and destroyed their credibility in the eyes of the American public. He has appointed a lawless Attorney General in Bill Barr that has covered up his crimes, defied Congress and conspired with Trump to break numerous laws which include campaign finance, whistleblower protection, tax laws and obstruction of justice. As Chief Executive of the nation, he has appointed Supreme Court Justices and circuit court judges that are more loyal to him than to the constitution. He controls law enforcement which includes the Justice Department and the FBI. In the Senate, Republicans have supported each and every one of his criminal moves and policies. Being in control of two and a half of the three branches of government, all of which refuse to uphold the constitution has made Trump a dictator. This type of control over our government which is not holding him accountable for blatantly breaking our laws, means that in reality, Trump has executed a coup. This is evidenced by the recent Trump-Ukrainian scandal which involves Trump, Secretary of State Pompeo, Attorney General William Barr, Vice President Pence and other high ranking officials in his administration. They have conspired to extort the President of Ukraine to concoct a dishonest scheme to hurt Joe Biden, a political rival.
U.S. Law as defined in US 30121 prohibits accepting or soliciting aid or interference from a foreign power:
Contributions and donations by foreign nationals
(a) Prohibition
It shall be unlawful for-
(1) a foreign national, directly or indirectly, to make-
(A) a contribution or donation of money or other thing of value, or to make an express or implied promise to make a contribution or donation, in connection with a Federal, State, or local election;
(B) a contribution or donation to a committee of a political party; or
(C) an expenditure, independent expenditure, or disbursement for an electioneering communication (within the meaning of section 30104(f)(3) of this title); or
(2) a person to solicit, accept, or receive a contribution or donation described in subparagraph (A) or (B) of paragraph (1) from a foreign national.
(b) “Foreign national” defined
As used in this section, the term “foreign national” means-
(1) a foreign principal, as such term is defined by section 611(b) of title 22, except that the term “foreign national” shall not include any individual who is a citizen of the United States; or
(2) an individual who is not a citizen of the United States or a national of the United States (as defined in section 1101(a)(22) of title 8) and who is not lawfully admitted for permanent residence, as defined by section 1101(a)(20) of title 8.
Evidence of this extortion scheme which violates US 30121 is provided by the following transcript memo released by Trump. This memo is an admission of guilt toward breaking the law. This is enough evidence to impeach and convict Trump if he were tried in a court of law. However, Republicans in the Senate and the House are supporting his criminality in defiance of the constitution and their oaths of office making him immune to the rule-of-law.
Excerpts from transcript:
President of Ukraine stated to Trump during the telephone conversation; “… we are almost ready to buy more Javelins from the United States for defense purposes.” To which Trump without acknowledging Zelenskyy’s comment on purchasing more weapons or agreeing to the purchase, Trump replied: “I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it.”
This request on the part of Trump amounts to extortion considering that Trump was withholding nearly $400 million in military aid approved by Congress in compliance with the 2014 Ukraine Support Act. This law does not require presidential approval nor does it give the president the right to withhold funds.
According to Webster, extortion: obtaining a benefit or gaining of property or money by almost any kind of force or threat of violence, property damage, harm to reputation, or unfavorable government action.
Further proof of Trump’s criminality is provided in the following excerpt from the transcript in which Ukrainian President Zelenskyy agrees to interfere in the 2020 election:
“I wanted to tell you about the prosecutor. First of all I understand and I’m knowledgeable about the situation. Since we have won· the absolute majority in our Parliament; the next prosecutor general will be 100% my person, my candidate, who will be approved, by the parliament and will start as a new prosecutor in September. He or she will look into the situation, specifically to the company that you mentioned in this issue. The issue of the investigation of the case is actually the issue of making sure to restore the honesty so we will take care of that and will work on the investigation of the case. On top of that, I would kindly ask you if you have any additional information that you can provide to us, it would be very helpful for the investigation to make sure that we administer justice for our country with regard to the Ambassador to the United States from Ukraine as far as I recall her name was Ivanovich. It was great that you were the first one who told me that she was a bad ambassador because I agree with you 100%. Her attitude towards me was far from the best as she admired the previous President and she was on his side. She would not accept me as a new President well enough.”
Trump-Ukraine-Transcript
By extorting Ukraine, Trump violated federal extortion laws, the Ukraine Support Act of 2014 and federal election law US 30121. The constitution guarantees a “free and fair election.” Our government is a democratic republic based upon a constitution which Trump has taken an oath to protect. Trump’s crimes in particular, the violation of US30121 is an attempt to overthrow the constitution. It is an attempted coup with the help of a foreign government making Trump a domestic enemy of the constitution. In violation of their oaths “to defend the constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic,” Republican lawmakers are by default legitimizing Trump’s illegal activities and are complicit in Trump’s crimes against the constitution. Attorney General William Barr has refused to investigate two criminal referrals dealing with this event. The Acting Director of National Intelligence, Joseph MaGuire upon being informed by Barr’s justice department that he did not have to comply with the whistleblower law refused to comply with the whistleblower law. However, he submitted a criminal referral for investigation by the FBI. Similarly, an Attorney for the CIA submitted a criminal referral against Trump to the justice department for the Ukrainian extortion event. Attorney General Barr, at his discretion, dismissed both cases against Trump without investigations. This is a coverup of criminal behavior, a refusal to investigate the president (his boss) a violation of his oath of office amd warrants criminal prosecution of Barr.
Trump’s Ukrainian scandal is extensive and evidence of the coordinated effort by the heads of the State Department and Department of Justice are mounting on a daily basis and demands a solution based upon the constitution to restore our democracy. The Congressional report based upon testimony from members of the Trump State Department outlining the communications necessary to facilitate the crimes listed is provided in its entirety below. Dates, times and actual text messages are provided. Texts from each of the participants in the extortion crime include trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, special Representative to Ukraine Volker, Ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland and Vice {resident Pence. The entire report is provided below.
Ukrainian Scnadal Text Messages Congressional Report
The evidence is clear and irrefutable. Trump has admitted guilt. But, Trump and Republicans in Congress are trying to get you to believe that “what you are reading and what you are seeing is not what is really happening.” In other words, “don’t believe your lying eyes!” And, Trump being guilty of a crime is not the same as you being guilty of a crime. For Trump, Its okay. But for you its jail time and a hefty fine. To put it plainly, when a president who controls the Department of Justice, the court system and the Senate is not investigated for his crimes by these institutions, the government has been overthrown and a coup has taken place. We are no longer being governed by law but by tyranny. Complicity on the part of our institutions tasked with protecting our constitutional rights only emboldens a criminal. And, like all successful tyrants and dictators, Trump continues to commit crimes. On four occasions, Trump has invited foreign interference in our elections. In 2016, he invited Russia to hack Hilary Clinton’s emails. They did and followed-up with a devastating social media campaign and attacks on our election systems. On June 16th, in a nationally televised interview with ABC Journalist George Stephanopoulos, Trump gave an open invitation to any and all foreign powers to interfere in America’s elections by admitting that he would accept interference from anyone. On July 25th, Trump extorted election interference from the current Ukrainian President Zelenskyy. And, once again on October 3rd, Trump invited China to interfere in our 2020 elections in exchange for a favorable trade deal which would involve the lifting of tariffs placed on China when Trump declared a trade war on My 8, 2018. Such blatant violations of our laws by a sitting president which have systematically gone unpunished by the Department of Justice and Congress must be called by what it really is, the first American coup’ d’e’tat. What comes next is tyranny!
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