“Many thanks to Alex Almazan for this opinion piece.”
We are about to enter a rare period of American history where the House of Representatives initiates an impeachment inquiry into the President of the United States. President Andrew Johnson (1868) and Bill Clinton (1998) being the only 2 with both acquitted and Nixon resigning ahead of the inevitable impeachment proceeding that was coming for him. This one however is very different because of the times we are in. This one is going to divide America further. This one reveals that both major American parties represent the most short sighted and reprehensible simultaneous bipartisan leadership likely in American history. It is as if they have no idea what connects us but surely know what negatively binds us. As if the perception from the rest of the planet is either too irrelevant or incomprehensibly misread. As Americans we ALL will lose here.
If you truly want Trump impeached you aren’t even close yet to having it with his July 25th transcript of the call with Ukranian President Zelensky. The Whistleblower complaint from someone with second hand knowledge released with White House redactions is sketchy in origin and manner of dissemination but now it will be investigated. That one will take some time. What we currently truly know today is absolutely nothing other than what we have respectively and subjectively been individually praying it would be.
If you want Trump re-elected, you are now closer than ever to making that happen as Democrats initiate our country’s 63rd impeachment process in its history since 1789 and only the 3rd one ever against a U.S. President. If this doesn’t end with concrete findings of unquestionable impeachment character, Republicans will see this as the very witch hunt Trump so consistently tweets about and new supporters will rise up to vote for him. Like Clinton and the Republican Newt Gingrich created mess that late 90s proceeding was, the party of the President from which impeachment is sought sails off with his party gaining seats in the next election (2020) and the President rewarded with a larger podium for his remaining term.
What the hell has happened to literally everyone in DC? What echo chamber does everyone there live in? This is what we are now going to spend the next 6 months hearing about incessantly every day? California Congressman Adam Schiff said about his take on the transcripted conference call, “it’s a mafia like shakedown.” What an inflammatory sound bite statement to be publicly made by the man who happens to also be the Democratic Chair of the House Intelligence Committee and to do so now as opposed to 19 hearings and 4 months later. Like the occasional Trump tweet, its unacceptable as was his public “parody” only called that by him after it became an issue in need of being addressed.
Multiple times I’ve read the newly released transcript of President Trump’s July 25, 2019 call with Ukranian President Zelenskyy. I also read multiple articles and excerpts from the Whitsleblower complaint. As for the July 25th conversation? That is nothing. Two world leaders speaking to one another cannot have tone and context conveniently added to it from solely the reading of the written word. It’s bad enough that this whole thing now sets the precedent that conversations with the President of the United State potentially are going to be made available to the globe.
In 2010, when then VP Biden said “This is a big fucking deal” to then President Obama on a hot mic after signing healthcare reform legislation I thought “that is precisely what he should have said.” Regardless of your position on Obamacare, that was a big fucking deal for the two of them and the Democrats at the time. I teach my team and young lawyers to read important emails before hitting send and to read it again but now in a negative tone to ensure a negative leaning recipient can’t reasonably read the message differently with different emphasis on merely a few different words.
World leaders need to be able to speak to one another about matters of concern and must do so first and foremost without fear that their entire conversation will be aired to the world and without having the world fit the words to their preferred narrative when none of them were present for the conversation. I have been a lawyer for over 20 years. I have seen many so-called lawyers make stories out of individual facts that aren’t remotely connected to create narratives as if they were perfectly placed stepping stones in their created storyline to benefit their client. Unethical and immoral as it might be, it isn’t illegal. Democrats now do this here and way too early in this process and way too soon after they didn’t get what they wanted from the 3 year Mueller report nobody talks about anymore. Nobody talks about the US and Ukraine treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters with Annex signed at Kiev on July 22, 1998 submitted by then President Bill Clinton. A self-executing treaty that President Clinton at the time said “should be an effective tool to assist in the prosecution of a wide variety of crimes” providing for a “broad range of cooperation in criminal matters.” I would like to hear more about this and less about impeachment at every turn today.
The timing is at best awful in the midst of an election cycle where once again it’s something other than issues that benefit us as Americans that we are discussing. What happened to healthcare, immigration, border walls, education reform, tariffs and the economy? We already get a fully diluted softball game from the Democratic National Committee, as we do when Republicans have Presidential primaries, during “debates” staged by the party with questions known to the candidates as that party prunes like a peacock to be shaded with the best lighting for us all to see on network prime time TV. They even choose the moderators on the for profit large audience event that is called a “debate.” Now we are going to get pundits on radio, TV and our newly littered social media outlets just spewing about Ukraine constantly (yes I see the irony if you have read this far). I am putting the Ukranian Chamber of Commerce or Tourism Board on my list of suspects now that I think about it.
Here is my advice to everyone. Relax but let your representatives know that you don’t want this crap dragging out into Easter 2020 when resolved by Thanksgiving 2019 is best so we can enjoy the holidays. So we can watch those competing to unseat Trump the old fashioned way and listen to them talk about something other than Russian interference and Ukraine. So we can go back to forcing them to legislate and lead rather than scare and scream.
Everyone today should be appalled that our leaders are publicly taking us down this rabbit hole. Democrats should worry that Biden is likely going down with this ship even if Trump stays afloat. He won’t likely be able to escape the $50,000/month paid to his son to sit on the Board of a Ukranian gas company for almost 5 years with the first 2 occurring while Joe was Vice President of the United States. He won’t be able to escape the inquiries into then Vice President Biden and his son flying to China aboard Air Force Two in 2013 and his possible relationships to Chinese entities appearing within weeks of that trip where affiliates of the advisory firm he worked for planned on raising as much as $1.5B in China. All of this and so much more will garner our collective downtime as it is fed to us on a loop everywhere with most of us mistrusting most if not all of it.
I for one am tired of everything ever coming out of Washington being negative and none of it having to do with legislation. The announcement of the inquiry coming on the day where our President gave an enormously important speech before the United Nations and none of us heard it or about it. The inquiry there to ensure we didn’t while ensuring that day that 16 year old Greta Thunberg became a household name.
I am sick and tired of how our country governs itself with existing Congressional and Presidential leadership. Imagine how our children absent any perspective prior to Obama view today where we don’t even speak to them about politics and all they hear is negative and partisan bullshit. Its like being a Dolphins or Redskins fan. You hear about how good they use to be but unless you are in your 40s all you know is that they have always sucked.
Get ready America, this one will last awhile and everybody who is anybody who opens their mouth with a government job in DC will have an agenda when they open it. One thing is certain. That agenda is clearly no longer what is best for the American people.
Mr. Almazan can be reached at aalmazan@almazanlaw.com.
Professional Profile – Alexander Almazan, Esq.
Mr. Almazan received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Florida College of Law in 1998. While in law school he was a member of the John Marshall Bar, the Spanish American Law Students Association Board and Phi Alpha Delta. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Florida earning a degree in Business Administration with honors. Since attending the University of Florida Levin College of Law with a full scholarship, Mr. Almazan has been selected as a “Top Up and Coming Attorney” multiple times in Florida Trend’s publication on top attorneys in the entire State of Florida and recognized as Florida Legal Elite. In each of the past two years he was recognized as a top lawyer by the South Florida Legal Guide. He has been honored as one of South Florida’s bright up and comers in the “Next Gen” feature published by South Florida CEO Magazine.
