October 24, 2019

Shorter Wall Street Journal: Donald Trump Is Too Stupid to Be Impeached

The paper’s editorial board mounts a curious defense of the president.

Ron Sachs/ZUMA

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As more Americans back the impeachment inquiry each day, President Donald Trump and his allies have relied on a string of curious defenses, as well as questionable legal acumen, to protect Trump from the mounting threat to his presidency. Trump has baselessly asserted that the stock market would tank if he’s removed from office. Former acting attorney general Matthew Whitaker attempted to come to Trump’s aid this week with his astonishing declaration on national television that “abuse of power is not a crime.”
 
Today, the Wall Street Journal editorial board has chimed in with a bizarre, new argument for why Trump should not be impeached: he’s simply too inept. No, seriously.
Intriguingly, Mr. Taylor says in his statement that many people in the Administration opposed the Giuliani effort, including some in senior positions at the White House. This matters because it may turn out that while Mr. Trump wanted a quid-pro-quo policy ultimatum toward Ukraine, he was too inept to execute it. Impeachment for incompetence would disqualify most of the government, and most Presidents at some point or another in office.
The editorial continued by echoing the current Republican grumbling that the probe should be more transparent, a demand that culminated in yesterday’s publicity stunt featuring a herd of white, male Republicans storming a closed-door impeachment hearing held in a secure facility. There, they ordered pizza for reporters. Some whipped out their phones, in violation of security protocol.
 
If that’s too much stupid for you, we’ll leave you with this:

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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