A Choice To Make

A Choice To MakeIt’s appropriate that the presidential election will take place in 2020, because the decision to be made is very clearly coming into focus — you’d need less than perfect vision not to see it.The impeachment inquiry is just getting underway this week, but there are few revelations to come, except those that will deepen the hole President Donald Trump is in. The available facts, most of which have been confirmed by the official record released by the White House and by Mr. Trump himself, are troubling to the point that an attempted burglary at a political party’s headquarters seems almost quaint by comparison.

Federal law states clearly that it is “unlawful” for a person to “solicit, accept, or receive” any “thing of value” from a “foreign national” in connection with any political campaign. There need be no “quid pro quo” — merely asking another country for political dirt, or for help in smearing a political rival, is a crime. Meddling in the affairs of state was a serious concern to the founders, and they made it clear that it is a fundamental misdeed.

A whistleblower, someone from the intelligence community whose very assignment to the White House is to watch for such threats to national security, reported that Mr. Trump asked the president of Ukraine to launch a probe into Joe Biden, a key political rival, and his son Hunter, on spurious allegations that have been public, and extensively vetted, for months. The president pitches it as a quest to root out corruption, but it’s just another example of his willingness, even eagerness, to involve foreign operators in his bid to win office and stay there — note that the call to the president of Ukraine came just one day after Robert Mueller’s testimony to Congress. (And in the ensuing days, there are reports of similar attempts to enlist Australia in attempts to sully Mr. Mueller’s work.) It’s also telling that much of the “secondhand” information the whistleblower reported came from within Mr. Trump’s own administration, from people too cowed to speak publicly but willing to use the system to report misdeeds under a cloak of protection. In a deeply partisan time, it’s tempting to view every occurrence through a prism of politics. But that can alter the 20/20 view of the facts in front of every American, whether running for office or casting votes for those who are. Finally, we have reached the point where the choice is a clear one: politics or principle. This is a case where you can choose one, but it’s at the expense of the other.Republican leaders are largely in three camps. The first is standing in fealty to Mr. Trump, for fear of his tangible control of a voting base that swings primary elections, discarding principle for political gain. On the other side is a small group of GOP officials who have voiced reasonable concerns that allowing the president to openly violate a foundational principle of our democracy is beyond the pale, and they will risk the political blow to take that stand. A third group, falling in the middle, is the largest — those Republicans are still weighing the comparative costs on both sides.

U.S. Representative Lee Zeldin, who represents the South Fork, falls squarely into the first group. Matching the president’s energy and his message, as he so often does, Mr. Zeldin began dismissing the whistleblower complaint early on as “hearsay” and saying “it isn’t impeachable regardless.” He’s called the impeachment inquiry “a one way express ticket to crazy town,” a “parody” and a waste of time.

It’s a remarkably complete position, considering the facts that are already on the table — released, incredibly, because the White House believed they were exonerating, when they objectively backed up most of the whistleblower’s complaint — and that we’re just starting a process that could only add to the evidence that a lawless president is flouting not just democratic normalcy but its cornerstone principles.

There is a stark choice facing Republican officials these days: statesman or lackey. In the 1970s, the party’s leaders put principles above politics. It was a difficult choice, but they made it.

And so has Mr. Zeldin.History is a harsh critic. It’s possible that, one day, historians will look back on the pending impeachment of Donald Trump as a dark moment in American history, because it was a partisan attempt by his Democratic rivals, via a “Deep State” conspiracy, to bring down a president they couldn’t keep out of office in 2016. Or it will be a stain on the reputation of the White House and the presidency, as a paranoid egotist put his own political interests above those of the nation he took an oath to serve. It’s also going to remember the way bit players responded to the crisis. As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, “It’s up to the Republicans whether they honor their oath of office or honor their oath of Trump.”

As the embattled president raises the rhetorical stakes, calling for the whistleblower’s identity to be revealed, and tweeting about “treason” and civil war, it seems that so many must make a choice between politics and principles. Next November, with clear vision, voters can do the same.