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Bash Putin? The Senate Is Willing. The Trick Is Not Impugning Trump. Bash Putin? The Senate Is Willing. The Trick Is Not Impugning Trump.
(about 7 hours later)
WASHINGTON — As the House of Representatives began debating Wednesday whether to impeach President Trump for undercutting Ukraine in its fight with Russian aggressors, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee met in a small room in the Capitol to consider a bill that has been bubbling along all year with bipartisan support: S. 482, the “Defending American Security from Kremlin Aggression Act of 2019.” WASHINGTON — As the House of Representatives began debating Wednesday whether to impeach President Trump for undercutting Ukraine in its fight with Russian aggressors, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee met in a small room in the Capitol to consider a bill that has been bubbling along all year with bipartisan support: S. 482, the “Defending American Security From Kremlin Aggression Act of 2019.”
The bill’s lead author is Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who introduced it in February, long before he became the Senate’s leading defender of Mr. Trump, and long before Mr. Trump decided to undercut his own administration’s policy. The bill’s lead author is Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who introduced it in February, long before he became the Senate’s leading defender of Mr. Trump, and long before Mr. Trump decided to undermine his own administration’s policy.
Today, the bill looks like it is preserved in legislative amber, an artifact from a different age — 10 months ago — when one of the few topics on which Republicans and Democrats agreed was that if the United States did not push back hard against President Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia, no one else would. Today, the bill looks as if it is preserved in legislative amber, an artifact from a different age — 10 months ago — when one of the few topics on which Republicans and Democrats agreed was that if the United States did not push back hard against President Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia, no one else would. Everyone agreed except the Trump administration, which on Tuesday night — the night before the impeachment debate — turned out 22 pages of objections to the legislation, calling it “unnecessary.”
Now, that debate has mutated to match the politics of the moment. Republicans — Mr. Graham included — remain passionate about going after Russia. They just argue that the president’s shadow foreign policy — holding up security assistance to Ukraine, which American diplomats have testified served to help Russia, unless Ukraine assisted in his re-election campaign — doesn’t warrant impeachment. On Capitol Hill, the debate has mutated to match the politics of the moment. Republicans, Mr. Graham included, remain passionate about going after Russia. They just argue that the president’s shadow foreign policy — holding up security assistance to Ukraine, which American diplomats have testified served to help Russia, unless Ukraine assisted in his re-election campaign — does not warrant impeachment.
The debate that resonated inside the ornate Senate Foreign Relations Committee suite — where senators of a different era debated how to push back against Hitler in the 1930s and how to define Cold War strategy against the Soviet Union thereafter — featured Republicans who said they would vote for any bill that calls for punishing Moscow, or containing its power, even if they had differences over specific sanctions. The debate that resonated inside the ornate Senate Foreign Relations Committee suite, where senators of a different era debated how to push back against Hitler in the 1930s and how to define Cold War strategy against the Soviet Union thereafter, featured Republicans who said they would vote for any bill that called for punishing Moscow or containing its power, even if they had differences over specific sanctions.
The trick for them is to bash Mr. Putin without impugning Mr. Trump.The trick for them is to bash Mr. Putin without impugning Mr. Trump.
“This was something everyone was for, until they weren’t,’’ Senator Angus King, independent of Maine, said this week. He mused on how the country came to this moment because of the president’s decision to trade an issue of huge geopolitical gravity — Ukraine’s security, and thus the United States’ — for a “domestic political errand,’’ as Mr. Trump’s own former top Russia adviser, Fiona Hill, put it so searingly in testimony last month. “This was something everyone was for, until they weren’t,” Senator Angus King, independent of Maine, said this week. He mused on how the country came to this moment because of the president’s decision to trade an issue of huge geopolitical gravity — Ukraine’s security, and thus the United States’ — for a “domestic political errand,” as Mr. Trump’s own former top Russia adviser, Fiona Hill, put it so searingly in testimony last month.
But that is only the beginning of the contradictions in American foreign policy unearthed in the impeachment inquiry.But that is only the beginning of the contradictions in American foreign policy unearthed in the impeachment inquiry.
At Wednesday morning’s Senate hearing, Democrats and Republicans outdid each other in professing their devotion to standing up to Mr. Putin. Mr. Graham termed Russia an “evil enemy” comparable to fighting “the Nazis and the Japanese” in World War II — a bit of exaggeration about the current level of conflict, perhaps, but symbolic of the mood on Capitol Hill. At Wednesday morning’s Senate hearing, Democrats and Republicans outdid one another in professing their devotion to standing up to Mr. Putin. Mr. Graham labeled Russia an “evil enemy” comparable to fighting “the Nazis and the Japanese” in World War II — a bit of exaggeration about the current level of conflict, perhaps, but symbolic of the mood on Capitol Hill.
“The president is not a Russian agent,’’ Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, declared, in the first and last mention of Mr. Trump during the hearing. He went on to say that while he had doubts about some parts of the legislation, he would vote for it, because he had to fight “information warfare,’’ and that Republicans had to remember “Vladimir Putin will do to us what he has done to everyone else.” “The president is not a Russian agent,” Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, declared, in the first and last mention of Mr. Trump during the hearing. Mr. Rubio went on to say that while he had doubts about some parts of the legislation, he would vote for it because he had to fight “information warfare.” He added that Republicans had to remember that “Vladimir Putin will do to us what he has done to everyone else.”
After some arguments about whether the new sanctions might harm American companies — the chief concern of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and petroleum industry lobbyists, who argued for watering it down — the bill passed, 17 to 5. A vote in the full Senate would not come until next year, presumably after an impeachment trial. After some arguments about whether the new sanctions might harm American companies — the chief concern of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and petroleum industry lobbyists, who argued for watering them down — the bill passed, 17 to 5. A vote in the full Senate would not come until next year, presumably after an impeachment trial.
But the juxtaposition of the unified denunciation of Russia and the divisions over how to deal with a president who was undercutting the pushback against Moscow was striking.But the juxtaposition of the unified denunciation of Russia and the divisions over how to deal with a president who was undercutting the pushback against Moscow was striking.
In the end, this impeachment is the first over a question of whether the president is selling out American national security. While Ukraine is the proximate event, how the president has dealt with Mr. Putin is the overarching theme.In the end, this impeachment is the first over a question of whether the president is selling out American national security. While Ukraine is the proximate event, how the president has dealt with Mr. Putin is the overarching theme.
One of Mr. Trump’s top advisers argued the other day that the first article of impeachment was flawed because Mr. Trump was not guilty of withholding “vital military and security assistance to Ukraine to oppose Russian aggression.’’ Citing a major pillar of the Republicans’ defense of Mr. Trump, this adviser noted that the $391 million in military aid eventually was released, and the Ukrainian military now has Javelin anti-tank missiles to take on Russia’s ground forces. He argued that Mr. Trump has done more to support the Ukrainian government than President Barack Obama ever did. One of Mr. Trump’s top advisers argued the other day that the first article of impeachment was flawed because Mr. Trump was not guilty of withholding “vital military and security assistance to Ukraine to oppose Russian aggression.”
That ignores the reality that one lesson of the impeachment process is that American allies are on notice that the United States’ protection is up for sale. Citing a major pillar of the Republicans’ defense of Mr. Trump, this adviser noted that the $391 million in military aid was eventually released, and the Ukrainian military now has Javelin anti-tank missiles to take on Russia’s ground forces. He argued that Mr. Trump had done more to support the Ukrainian government than President Barack Obama ever did.
And that the price includes helping a president get re-elected. That ignores lessons of the impeachment process, which American allies are taking in. There are two.
The first is that while the United States may offer the traditional protections that go along with alliances, these days the protection is up for sale. And the price may include helping the incumbent president get re-elected.
The second lesson is that there are two policies for dealing with Russia: The stated, hard-line policy of the State and Defense Departments, which call Moscow a “revisionist power,” and the operative policy, which seeks to avoid extreme pressure on Moscow.
Democrats leapt on the second lesson throughout the impeachment debate in the House. They referred to Mr. Putin as “Trump’s friend” and recited moments from the 2016 campaign when Mr. Trump famously said, “Russia, if you are listening, I hope you are able to find the 30,000 emails” missing from Hillary Clinton’s servers.
The Republicans responded in kind, charging that it was Mr. Obama, not Mr. Trump, who turned his back on Ukraine and naïvely sought a “reset” with Moscow.
It was all a reminder that the argument about Ukraine, the ostensible reason for the president’s impeachment, was not really about Ukraine at all. It was about Russia. And it was about why Mr. Trump never misses an opportunity to redirect blame from Russia to someplace else — several noted the president’s embrace of a discredited theory that Ukraine was responsible for the hacking of the Democratic National Committee’s servers — or to relieve pressure on Mr. Putin.
Remarkably, the State Department made that case again in its long letter to Senator Jim Risch, Republican of Idaho and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Sent by Mary Elizabeth Taylor, the assistant secretary in the State Department’s Bureau of Legislative Affairs, it complained that the bill sponsored by Mr. Graham and Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, was far too harsh.
It complained that the energy sanctions “will negatively impact other U.S. priorities” and hurt American and European firms — something that could also be said of sanctions the administration embraces against Iran. It objected to a requirement that should the director of national intelligence conclude that Russia is meddling in American elections or conducting other malign activities, sanctions would be imposed automatically.
By the end of the day, the politics of Mr. Trump’s dealings with Russia and its adversaries seemed clear. Mr. Trump would be impeached. It was highly unlikely he would be convicted by the Senate. And the Republicans would join with the Democrats in passing the additional sanctions, sending what Mr. Rubio called a “unified message” to Moscow — except that the president hasn’t signed on.