Ex-U.S. Attorney Says Government Officials Have Been Convicted For Doing Exactly What Trump Did

[babylonsister]

https://www.politicususa.com/2019/09/23/ex-us-attorney-government-officials-convicted-doing-exactly-what-trump-did.html


Posted on Mon, Sep 23rd, 2019 by Sean Colarossi
Ex-U.S. Attorney Says Government Officials Have Been Convicted For Doing Exactly What Trump Did


As Democrats determine how to respond following the shocking news that Donald Trump – again – sought election dirt from a foreign government, former U.S. attorney Barbara McQuade said on Monday that the controversy is pretty clear-cut: The president broke the law.

According to McQuade, government officials have been convicted for doing exactly what Trump did when he got on the phone and tried to bribe the president of Ukraine into handing over damaging information about Joe Biden and his family.

“This is the kind of act that an ordinary citizen probably couldn’t commit because of his position, but it really does echo the statutory prohibition on bribery and extortion,” she said. “Unlike the kinds of crimes Mueller was investigating of obstruction, there actually is reference of bribery in the Constitution as a grounds for impeachment explicitly.”

Link to tweet

McQuade said:

This is the kind of act that an ordinary citizen probably couldn’t commit because of his position, but it really does echo the statutory prohibition on bribery and extortion. It’s essentially demanding a thing of value to which he is not entitled in exchange for the performance of an official act. In my district, the former mayor of Detroit was convicted of an extortion scheme that was very similar. He would withhold contracts, public works contracts, that were worth millions of dollars unless he got a demand met and received a thing of value. That was his friend getting put on all of these contracts, to cash in on some of the proceeds of those contracts. I see this in a very similar way with parallels to bribery and extortion. And unlike the kinds of crimes Mueller was investigating of obstruction, there actually is reference of bribery in the Constitution as a grounds for impeachment explicitly.

Democrats have a smoking gun

snip//

As Barbara McQuade pointed out on Monday night, there is nothing ambiguous about what happened.

It is now up to Democrats to react with the same clarity to make sure what Donald Trump and his Republican protectors in Congress and the Justice Department don’t have time to build another false narrative around yet another crime committed by this lawless president.