Republicans pick up where Trump’s “perfect call” left off

So, Donald Trump has betrayed the Ukrainian people for a second time.

His treachery is of historic, maybe even literary, proportions: repeatedly selling out the people of Ukraine for his own political ambitions. He’s been in Shakespearean villain territory many times, but this most recent selfish and heartless move puts him up there with the vilest villains the Bard of Avon ever created.

Donald Trump, private citizen, has insisted to elected members of Congress that there be no bipartisan agreement on new security measures for the southern border — you know, the “invasion” that Republicans are constantly talking about, which Democrats agree is a crisis that must be addressed.

Because Republicans have already tied any changes to immigration policies to their support of more funding for Ukraine, that country’s effort to repel Putin’s illegal, bloody and incredibly destructive invasion is also now suffering.

Does this remind you of anything? Yes, when Trump, then occupying the White House, tried to strongarm Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy into saying that Ukraine was opening an investigation of Joe and Hunter Biden, when Joe Biden was still just one of many Democrats vying for his party’s nomination. Trump threatened to cancel a promised visit to the White House, and funding for military aid was delayed.

You may remember his first “perfect call,” the one that got Trump impeached by the House that first time, with two counts: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

It’s notable that Trump pressured Zelenskyy to merely say Ukraine had opened an investigation of the Bidens. That was all he desired, because any actual investigation would have come up with zilch. But the idea an investigation was underway would affect how voters saw Biden.

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Republicans are still at it, doing bogus investigations out of the public’s view. Their planned impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas, secretary of homeland security, for not........

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