David Graham: “The moral hazard of the Republican stance on the Ukraine plot was clear. If Trump got away with extorting Ukraine and trying to rig the election process in his favor, he’d take the lesson that he could continue his brazen interference in elections without consequence. The only remaining check on him would be the voters—and he was looking for ways to juke them, too.”
“Reaching this conclusion didn’t require clairvoyance, because Trump was open about it even amid impeachment. As he stood accused of privately pressuring Ukraine to investigate Hunter Biden, he publicly asked China to do so. He continued his pressure play on Ukraine, too, though it never came to anything.”
“Trump quickly proved me right. He began pushing out officials who had testified in the impeachment inquiry. In May, he tried to extort election-procedure changes from Democratic-led states. The post-election moves, and especially the coup call, are the most brazen and direct echo of the Ukraine plot, and they show why acquittal was so dangerous to the republic.”
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