Defense doesn't hold water

Trump's 'I want nothing' defense doesn't hold water

Opinion by Elie Honig

Now that the dust has settled after two weeks of riveting impeachment hearings on Capitol Hill, the primary lines of argument have emerged.

In one corner, President Donald Trump and his supporters point to his September 9 conversation with EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland, during which (according to Sondland) Trump said, "I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo."

In the other corner, we have testimony from multiple ambassadors and National Security Council officials that suggests Trump indeed conditioned foreign aid and a White House visit on Ukraine's announcement of investigations into Trump's political rivals.

But the fact that both sides have a line of argument does not mean those arguments are persuasively equal or cancel one another out. The vast weight of the evidence -- supported by logic and common sense -- indicates Trump wanted a quid pro quo. And upon scrutiny, Trump's self-serving denial carries little persuasive or evidentiary weight, and provides a flimsy shield for Trump and his supporters to hide behind.

The "I want nothing" defense -- no matter how many times or how loudly Trump shouts it -- is a cheap distraction and should not divert attention from the actual evidence of his corrupt intent.

The timing of Trump's "I want nothing" comments is crucial to this point. Trump's September 9 conversation with Sondland happened nearly a month after the whistleblower filed a complaint, several days after the White House learned about the complaint, and on the same day Congress received notice of the complaint. As House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff put it, "he got caught." The jig was up, and Trump was in cover-up mode.

Both the law and common sense tell us that a self-serving denial made after a person has been caught carries limited if any value. Criminal defendants generally are not allowed to offer evidence at trial of their own self-serving, after-the fact denials of guilt (indeed, every criminal defendant who goes to trial already has proclaimed his lack of culpability by pleading not guilty).

Impeachment, of course, is not a criminal proceeding, and the rules of evidence do not apply. But it is telling that our established legal rules likely would deem Trump's self-serving denial too unreliable to use in court. The logic is so plain that even a child can understand it: once you've been caught with your hand in the cookie jar, it doesn't make you innocent to announce, "I want no cookies!"

Trump's "I want nothing" defense also is crushed by the sheer weight of the evidence to the contrary. Boiled down, that evidence establishes two facts that even the most ardent Trump supporter cannot credibly contest: (1) Trump held up foreign aid to Ukraine and a potential White House visit, and (2) Trump asked Ukraine to investigate his political rivals. The big question, then, is whether (1) and (2) are related: were the foreign aid and White House visit held up in order to get the investigations, or was it just a cosmically unlikely coincidence that both of these things happened, independent and unconnected to one another?

Common sense alone answers the question, but if that wasn't enough, witness after witness testified that the foreign aid and White House visit were indeed connected to the investigations. Acting Ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor testified that "by mid-July it was becoming clear to me that the meeting President Zelensky wanted was conditioned on the investigations of Burisma and alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 US elections."

Lt. Col. Alex Vindman, who listened to the July 25 call in his capacity on the National Security Council, described "a demand for him [Zelensky] to fulfill his—fulfill this particular prerequisite in order to get the meeting."

Even Ambassador Sondland, central to Trump's September 9 defense, acknowledged that he directly proposed a conditional exchange to a key Ukrainian adviser, and Ambassador Kurt Volker, the former Special Representative for Ukraine negotiations, explicitly offered a similar this-for-that exchange in a text message to the same adviser.

White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney admitted publicly there was a quid pro quo (though he later walked it back). And, upon any sensible reading, Trump himself directly proposed a conditional exchange in his July 25 call with Zelensky, according to the White House's own transcript of the call: "I would like you to do us a favor though..."

Do not be distracted by the "I want nothing!" defense. It has a certain simple, visceral appeal, and provides a convenient bumper-sticker slogan for Trump and his defenders. But it cannot stand up to the facts or common sense.