Quote Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey View Post
This is a long and sordid tale.

A timeline of Trump, Guiliani, Biden, Ukraine

I started at the top and got bored fast, so I skipped to the bottom and was all, WTF?!, so I had to go back to the middle.

This isn't your average scandal. This is withholding taxpayer approved military support to an ally nation at war for personal gain.

This is way beyond chirping nonsense and lies about "chain migration" while having personally chain migrated his in-laws.

But again... he's gotten away with so, so much so far that I can't even predict how this goes down.
The idea that he will ultimately get away with it is still near certain. He'll never be convicted of anything, and if he is, he'll be pardoned by Pence. Not that the notion that he'll get impeached can be taken seriously at this time.
I think the other scandals are objectively just as bad, it's just that they were far more complicated, built on thinner evidence and therefore far easier to obfuscate. They all paint a picture of a president who thinks the rules don't apply to him, and who will flagrantly act in accordance.

But, yes, this one is pretty cut and dry, or at least it appears to be. The detailed timeline is great, but your single sentence summary doesn't really leave anything out:

This is withholding taxpayer approved military support to an ally nation at war for personal gain.


Again, you're right that it's unlikely he gets punished for this. Of course it is possible that this, and whatever is unearthed in the process of impeachment is damaging enough that it locks up 2020 for the democrats. In this case, 46 wouldn't be on his side and wouldn't be likely to offer up a pardon.

Nonetheless, I'm honestly more worried than anything. As you've pointed out, there are many ways that this can bounce off him. And if that ends up happening, we're fucked. The presidency has gone through a lot in these passed few years, but if a president can get away with using congressionally approved tax payer dollars, the weight of the office, and the various arms of the government to further his personal interests, it's game over for this wonderful (although at many times awful) experiment we've been running for the past few centuries.