Trump Pivots to His Favorite Defense: The Democratic ‘Witch Hunt’

We’ve seen enough of Donald Trump as president to know that
anytime he or his administration are caught up in a new scandal, the response
will always be to blame Democrats for mounting a “Witch Hunt” from the sordid and mythical world of the “Deep State.”

And why not? This almost laughable manner of responding
plays well to his cultish base, and meanwhile, he
believes nothing will come of the Democrats’ efforts to hold
him accountable in Congress. So far, he hasn’t been wrong about that.

In the latest scandal, The
Wall Street Journal reported that Trump had pressured
the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, eight times during a phone call
in July to work with Rudy Giuliani on an investigation aimed at damaging Democratic
candidate Joe Biden ahead of the 2020 presidential elections in the U.S.

In a bonkers interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Thursday, Giuliani
first denied that he had pressured officials from Ukraine to investigate Biden,
and then immediately
admitted it seconds later. He accused Cuomo and other members of the news
media of covering up a different alleged scandal involving Biden and his son,
Hunter Biden, who until recently worked for a gas company in Ukraine.

All of this follows reports that acting Director of National
Intelligence Joseph Maguire is refusing
to turn over to Congress a credible whistleblower complaint that is
thought to denounce, in part, Trump’s phone call to Zelensky, among other
allegations.

Trump responded
this week by calling the mounting scandal “Fake News,” and saying that his
phone call was “No problem!” because he knew intelligence agencies and others
likely were listening in on the call.

Biden responded by calling
Trump’s actions “particularly abhorrent,” if true.

“If these reports are true, then there is truly no bottom to
President Trump’s willingness to abuse his power and abase our country,” Biden
said in a statement. “This behavior is particularly abhorrent because it
exploits the foreign policy of our country and undermines our national security
for political purposes.”

The former vice president called on Trump to publicly release
the transcript of the phone call and demanded that Maguire turn over the
whistleblower complaint to Congress.

Hillary Clinton, who has a bit of experience in being the
victim of such political manipulations by the Trump team, also weighed in on
the issue:

Trump lashed out again on Saturday, accusing the Democrats
of “fabricating” the story to politically damage him, and repeating Giuliani’s
attacks on Biden and the press. The president called the new scandal the
“Ukraine Witch Hunt.” Clever.

But as calls for Trump’s impeachment reached a fever
pitch by the start of the weekend, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made it
clearer than ever that she still opposes
such a move. Instead, Pelosi wants the passage of a law that would
allow future presidents to be indicted, which, of course, Donald Trump would
never sign and Republican senators would never pass.