Trump isn't loyal to Russia -- or America. Only to himself.
Ever since the revelation in the summer of 2016 that Russia was hacking the Democratic National Committee to help elect Donald Trump, his critics have been searching for evidence that he is loyal to Russia. We still don’t know the full story of President Trump’s ties with Moscow; an FBI counterintelligence investigation is apparently still going on. But from what we know, it’s a mistake to imagine that Trump is loyal to any country — whether the United States or Russia. His only loyalty is to himself. His policy is not “America First.” It is Trump First.
That message was hammered home by the revelations of last week. The week’s major news story — the one that has made impeachment inevitable — is that Trump pressured the president of Ukraine to launch an investigation of Joe Biden. The president’s own words, in the rough transcript released by the White House, convict him of two offenses against U.S. interests. First, he encouraged a foreign country to interfere in a U.S. election despite a federal law that makes it a crime to “knowingly solicit, accept, or receive from a foreign national any contribution or donation.” Second, apparently as a pressure tactic, he held up military aid for Ukraine that was authorized by Congress to help this front-line ally defend itself against Russian aggression.
Whether it can be proved that Trump acted criminally (and it will be hard to put a value on the campaign aid that Trump wanted from Ukraine), he deserves to be impeached because he violated his oath to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” He subordinated the public’s interest — in holding free and fair elections and ensuring that foreign aid is used for the purposes intended by Congress — to his own personal interest in getting reelected.
Trump acted with similar disregard for the national interest during and after Russia’s intervention in the 2016 election. Though former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III did not find sufficient evidence to conclude that Trump was part of a criminal conspiracy with Moscow, there remains ample evidence of his willingness to encourage Russian interference. “Russia, if you’re listening,” Trump said on July 27, 2016, encouraging Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails. The Mueller report revealed that Russian hackers tried to do that just hours later.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/09/29/trump-isnt-loyal-russia-or-america-only-himself/
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