One line of defense being used for Trump is that Trump and his people are so incompetent that they thought everything he was doing was perfectly fine. Since he had no intent to commit wrongdoing, he's fine.
First, that's an argument he shouldn't be president all by itself. If he cannot be trusted not to recognize basic wrongdoing, what are you saying? Second, intent is beside the point here as this is a strict liability issue if there ever was one. Third, and most annoyingly, this is obviously BS. They scrambled to cover their tracks, which is clear evidence that they knew what they were doing was wrong.
House investigators on Tuesday released the transcripts of closed-door interviews with two key officials as part of their impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump: testimony from Gordon Sondland, ambassador to the European Union, and Kurt Volker, the State Department’s former special envoy to Ukraine.
Among the revelations: Sondland significantly altered his original story in an update to his testimony submitted Monday, in which he acknowledged he was involved in Trump’s attempted quid pro quo with Ukraine’s government, after previously claiming he could not recall the details.
"One of the hardest things for me to accept is the fact that Kevin Graham has blonde hair, blue eyes and an English last name. This ugly truth blows any arguments one might have for actual white supremacism out of the water. He's truly a disgrace." - Ajax
EAllusion wrote:First, that's an argument he shouldn't be president all by itself. If he cannot be trusted not to recognize basic wrongdoing, what are you saying? Second, intent is beside the point here as this is a strict liability issue if there ever was one. Third, and most annoyingly, this is obviously BS. They scrambled to cover their tracks, which is clear evidence that they knew what they were doing was wrong.
I agree that it is now impossible to reasonably or honestly escape the conclusion that they knew what they were doing was wrong.
No precept or claim is more likely to be false than one that can only be supported by invoking the claim of Divine authority for it--no matter who or what claims such authority.
“If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think, they'll hate you.”
― Harlan Ellison