Republicans Will Use Trump’s ‘State of Mind’ to Defend Him from Impeachment
Republicans will argue that President Trump’s ‘state of mind’ exonerates him from wrongdoing over the Ukraine scandal, according to a leaked GOP memo. Republicans are reportedly planning to say that his state of mind during the Ukraine phone call is exculpatory in some way.
“To appropriately understand the events in question — and most importantly, assess the President’s state of mind during his interaction with President Zelensky — context is necessary,” the memo says.
🚨 🧠 🚨 scoop: House GOP will argue Trump's "state of mind" will save him
From impeachment https://t.co/E5YRrONB9w— Jim VandeHei (@JimVandeHei) November 12, 2019
“This context shows that President Trump has a deep-seated, genuine, and reasonable skepticism of Ukraine and US. taxpayer-funded foreign aid, independent of and preceding any mention of potential investigations of Ukraine’s interference in the 2016 elections or Hunter Biden’s involvement with Burisma, a notoriously corrupt company.”
If Trump skates on this, if Republicans turn law into a subjective-state-of-mind joke, it’s going to open the door wide on generations-worth of open corruption and abuse of power that we might never recover from.
— Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) November 12, 2019
This is not necessarily argument. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham has already suggested that the Trump administration’s foreign policy is too incoherent for them to have formed a quid pro quo.
Though this may not quite amount to an insanity defense, it is a very different approach to that favored by Trump himself. The President has repeatedly called his phone call ‘perfect’ and on Monday claimed the impeachment testimony transcripts had been doctored, calling for Republicans to release their own.
It is difficult to see how the GOP will defend his state of mind when he made those statements on Twitter.
