19 December 19
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 19 December 19 It's Live on the HomePage Now: Reader Supported News Sure, I'll make a donation!
RSN: William Boardman | Republicans Defend Trump With "Four Facts" That Are Fake
 William Boardman, Reader Supported News Boardman writes: "Again and again during the House impeachment hearings we heard one Republican after another assert 'four facts' in Trump's defense. The phrasing varied, but the assertions remained substantively unchanged."
The phrasing varied, but the assertions remained substantively unchanged. Here they are in capsule form as expressed by Rep. Jim Jordan on Fox News in response to the interviewer’s comment about the hearings that “You did not engage each other so nothing was done.” Jordan’s reply is like a spousal batterer (“she just won’t listen!”):
I get that but again, they won't accept the facts. Four facts have never changed, they will never change. They've always been there. We have the transcript. There was no quid pro quo on the transcript. We have the two guys who were on the call. President Trump, President Zelensky, both have said no pressure, no pushing, no linkage of an investigation to the security assistance money. We have the fact Ukraine didn't even know aid was paused at the time of the call and most importantly Ukraine took no action, i.e., never made any announcement of investigation into anybody let alone the Bidens to get the aid released. Those facts have always been there but they don't care….
Yes, we have “the transcript.” It is not a verbatim transcript, it is a composite transcript compiled from the notes of an unknown number of notetakers who listened to the 30-minute phone call as it happened on July 25, 2019. In the words of the White House: “The text in this document records the notes and recollections of Situation Room Officers and NSC policy staff assigned to listen and memorialize the conversation in written form as the conversation takes place.” There is no assurance that this is a complete or fully accurate transcript, but it is five pages long, single-spaced and is the best record we have of this phone call between two presidents. No one knows whether a verbatim transcript exists. So what does this composite transcript show about the Republicans’ alleged “four facts”?
#1 “There was no quid pro quo on the transcript.”
The phrase “quid pro quo” has no inherent value. A quid pro quo can be good in one circumstance or bad in another. The phrase means, literally, “something for something,” an exchange of items of value made freely or under duress. A quid pro quo can exist in a variety forms from proposal to completed deal. The transcript shows that on July 25, both presidents were considering a variety of quid pro quo arrangements without formally settling on any specific tradeoff.
#2. “We have the two guys who were on the call. President Trump, President Zelensky, both have said no pressure, no pushing, no linkage of an investigation to the security assistance money.”
This is a profoundly dishonest Republican talking point, riddled with irrelevance.
President Zelenksy and Ukraine desperately need US support to become and remain a free and independent democratic nation. ANY exchange with the US is inherently full of pressure for any Ukrainian president. The power imbalance is huge and continuing. The US is in a position to make offers that Ukraine can’t refuse.
President Zelinsky is not going to say publicly that he felt pressured. That would be madness and against his national interest.
President Trump is not going to say he pressured Ukraine because he doesn’t have to admit an obvious reality and he’s comfortable lying.
There is no specific linkage investigation and the aid money, but there is an implicit linkage. When Zelinsky raises the aid issue, Trump’s silence speaks volumes, and adds to the pressure.
There is a very specific linkage of an investigation and a White House visit. The White House visit is more important to Zelensky than most foreign presidents. Not only does Zelensky need to bolster his presidential credibility in any way he can, Ukraine need the US to show the Russians that it will be a reliable ally for Ukraine. For Ukraine, this is close to life and death.
The Republican talking point is disgusting in its distortion of reality and in its implied willingness to discard an actual reformer in Ukraine in defense of a corrupt destroyer in the US.
The reality for Ukraine is worse than Republicans or Trump ever admit. That reality includes the presence of the Russian military along the entire eastern border of Ukraine as well as active Russian involvement on the side of the separatists in eastern Ukraine, the Donbass region, since 2014. (Crimea is another constant issue for Ukraine.) The Russian involvement in the Donbass may not rise to the technical definition of war, but the combat has been intense enough to kill more than 13,000 people.
Zelensky is acutely aware of the Donbass, and resolving it has been one of his highest priorities. That’s why he needs US support, as a check on Russia. That’s why he needs Javelin missiles, as a check on Russian tanks coming into Ukraine. When Trump withholds military aid, including Javelins, he sends a signal that not only pressures Ukraine, but that also reassures Putin, reinforcing Trump’s image as pro-Russian. Zelensky’s vulnerability and Zelensky’s limited maneuverability are apparent to anyone who examines his situation. For Republicans to act as if that situation does not exist is quintessential bad faith and tantamount to lying at an existential level.
#3. “We have the fact Ukraine didn't even know aid was paused at the time of the call….”
This is, at best, a disputed “fact” of limited relevance. At Trump’s request, the Office of Management and Budget had put a hold on $391 million in aid by July 3. By July 25, Zelensky was surely aware that the aid had not been delivered and, assuming basic competence, his government had at least made discreet inquiries as to when it might be expected.
As of July 3, the hold on Ukraine aid was a secret to most of the relevant US officials, including those who had approved its being sent. By mid-July, knowledge of the hold had spread, to the concern of members of State, Defense, NSC, and other agencies. One OMB official feared that the hold violated the Impoundment Control Act.
The OMB didn’t put the hold in writing until after the July 25 phone call.
According to news reports, Ukraine officials learned of the hold on their aid package in mid-July, and had been making inquiries by July 25.
During the July 25 call, President Zelensky raised the issue obliquely and got no answer. Raising a stink about not receiving a gift hardly seems like an effective diplomatic approach if the goal is to get the full $391 million.
#4. “… and most importantly Ukraine took no action, i.e., never made any announcement of investigation into anybody let alone the Bidens to get the aid released.”
Insofar as this is “most important,” it’s a clear measure of how bankrupt the Republican defense of Trump has become.
The critical timeframe is from July 25 to September 11, when the aid was released. During those seven weeks, Trump officials put increasing pressure on Zelenksy to announce the Biden investigation. They even wrote out the statement they wanted him to make. Eventually, Zelensky agreed to go on CNN to make the announcement, and a date was scheduled in September.
But on August 28, Politico broke the story. On September 9, the House announced an investigation. On September 11, the White House released the aid. At some point, Zelensky cancelled his CNN appearance.
The only reason Zelensky didn’t deliver on the quid pro quo demanded by Trump was that Trump’s impeachable chicanery was exposed.
The Republicans’ defense of Trump, their ritual recital of “four facts” that are fake, is an unsupportable sham. But for them it doesn’t really matter. They’ve managed to muddy the waters to Trump’s benefit. And the Senate – the jury in any impeachment trial – is already coordinating with the defendant on his acquittal, the Constitution be damned.
William Boardman has been writing for Reader Supported News since 2012. A collection of his essays, EXCEPTIONAL: American Exceptionalism Takes Its Toll, was published in September 2019 and is available from Yorkland Publishing of Toronto. He is a former Vermont assistant judge.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
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EPA Sued for Allowing Slaughterhouses to Pollute Waterways
Nina Lakhani, Guardian UK Lakhani writes: "A coalition of conservation and community groups representing millions of people is suing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for refusing to update national water pollution standards for slaughterhouses."
excerpt:
More than eight billion chickens, 100 million pigs and 30 million cattle are processed each year in more than 5,000 slaughterhouses in America. Around 4,700 of these slaughterhouses discharge polluted water into waterways including the Chesapeake Bay, the country’s largest estuary.
“[Current] EPA standards are either weak and outdated or nonexistent,” said Sylvia Lam, a lawyer with the not-for-profit Environmental Integrity Project, which filed the lawsuit on Wednesday.
“Cleaner plants have already installed technology to lessen the pollution they send into their local rivers and streams. By not updating these nationwide standards, EPA is rewarding dirty slaughterhouses at the expense of the public.”
The Clean Water Act requires the EPA to set industry-wide water pollution standards for slaughterhouses and to review those standards each year to decide whether updates are necessary in order to keep pace with advances in pollution-control technology.
In October 2019, the EPA announced it would not revise the federal water pollution standards for slaughterhouses that directly discharge processed wastewater into waterways. The EPA last revised these standards 15 years ago and more than a third of these slaughterhouses operate under guidelines that date back to the 1970s.
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