"If a president, any president, were to demand a quid pro quo as a condition to sending aid to a foreign country, that would not, by itself, constitute an abuse of power. . . Nothing in the Bolton revelations, even if true, would rise to the level of an abuse of power or an impeachable offense."
- Alan Dershowitz
Wikipedia defines quid pro quo as a Latin phrase used in English to mean an exchange of goods or services, in which one transfer is contingent upon the other; "a favor for a favor". Phrases with similar meanings include: "give and take", "tit for tat", "you scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours", and "one hand washes the other."
As a salesman, I'm well aware of what a quid pro quo is. I've employed it so many times over my career I've lost count. You could say that quid pro quo has been the basis for most economic transactions since the beginning of time.
So why all the fuss? Why go to all the trouble of impeaching a president for performing a task widely understood to be perfectly normal? Because what Trump did was not just a quid pro quo; it was extortion. I'll explain and I'll use myself as an example.
Let's say I call up one of my customers whose sales are down. The conversation might go something like this:
Me: "Hey, Joe, it's Peter. I've been reviewing the numbers and I've noticed that your business has dropped a bit. Is there anything wrong I should know about? How can I get you to buy more from me?"
Customer: "Well, as a matter of fact, there is something you can do. Your pricing is a bit high on some products. To be honest, I've had to go to your competitors more than I'd like. Can You do something about that?"
Me: "Of course I can. I have the discretion to lower any price in my inventory. But in order to do that, my boss will want a reason. So I need a favor from you, Joe. I need a substantial increase in overall business to justify the reduction in price. I need to see more purchase orders from your company. Can you commit to that?"
Customer: "No problem, Peter. You take care of the pricing, I'll tale care of the POs."
Now in this scenario we have two people working for different companies who are looking for a favor: I need more business; my customer needs lower pricing. I agree to lower my prices and my customer agrees to buy more from me. One hand scratching the other. Again, nothing wrong here. It happens millions of times a year.
Now let's change a few things around a bit on that phone call and see what we come up with.
Me: "Hey, Joe, it's Peter."
Customer: "Hey, Peter, what's up? What can I do for you?"
Me: "Listen, Joe, it's the end of the month and my boss is up my ass. I need some sales in order to make my number. Can you help me out and buy something?"
Customer: "Well, I really don't need anything right this minute. Maybe in a few days."
Me: "I'll tell you what, buy it today and I'll have the accounting department date the invoice next week so your boss doesn't get all over you. And if still gives you grief, I'll issue a RMA and take it back. Just as long as I get the sale posted by the end of today. What'd ya say, can you do me this favor? After all, I did take back that item a couple of months ago and gave you full credit, even though the manufacturer charged us a restock fee."
Customer: "Yeah, go ahead. Just make sure that invoice is post dated. It's my ass if my boss finds out I did this."
Me: "No sweat. Thanks, Joe."
Now what's different about this call? For one thing, by shipping out product and not invoicing it the same calendar month, I've reaped a reward while cheating my company of a payable invoice that is now going to be paid later than it should. In other words, I've committed a fraud. To make matters worse, by involving my customer in this stunt, I've put him in jeopardy.
I'd be lying if I said this doesn't happen, but the fact is that this type of transaction is not an acceptable form of quid pro quo. My customer and I were not advancing the common interests of our respective companies. What we were doing was advancing our own personal interests at the expense of our companies. I got to puff up my numbers to get a commission check and he got the use of some products knowing he had additional time to pay for them. If my boss found out I did that, I would be fired; if my customer's boss found out what he had done, he would likely have been fired. And all because I needed a "favor" and he owed me one.
Both phone calls employ a quid pro quo: the former is legitimate; the latter illegitimate.
To be clear, President Trump did not call up President Zelensky and say, "I'd like you to do us a favor though. Your country still has some issues to deal with. It's wonderful that you ran on a platform of anti-corruption and won. Congratulations. But I need to see more from your administration before we agree to give you more aid. Once I'm convinced that Ukraine has turned the corner and is corruption free, I will commit to sending you all the aid you need."
If he had said that or something similar, we could choose to agree or disagree with his assessment of Ukraine and his policy towards it, but we would not be in this mess right now. Instead, this is what he said on that phone call:
"I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike...I guess you have one of your wealthy people...The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you're surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it.
"I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that's really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved. Mr. Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor of New York City, a great mayor, and I would like him to call you. I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney General. Rudy very much knows what's happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great.
"The former ambassador from the United States, the woman was bad news and the people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news so I just want to let you know that.
"The other thing, There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it. It sounds horrible to me."
Leaving aside the fact that Crowdstrike is a debunked conspiracy theory and that the prosecutor Trump is referring to was corrupt and everyone in the free world with half a brain knew it, this phone call is the quintessential definition of a illegitimate quid pro quo. In fact, it reeks of it. Trump could've cared less about the national interests of the United States or the corruption in Ukraine. Indeed, his own State Department had certified that Ukraine was taking the necessary steps to address its internal corruption, as evidenced by the fact that the U.S. was shipping lethal weapons to help deal with Russian aggression on its eastern border. Trump's own legal team even went to the trouble of mentioning how supportive his administration had been with respect to giving aid to Ukraine. Now, all of a sudden, out of the blue, he becomes concerned with corruption?
When you throw in the fact that the $391 million in aid that Trump withheld had been mandated by Congress and could not be held up legally, what you have here is the legal definition of a shakedown. Not only is Trump guilty of abuse of power, anyone who assisted him in this scheme, from Mike Pomeo to Mick Mulvany to Mike Pence, is just as culpable. With all due respect to Mr. Dershowitz, in the real world, what Trump did would actually be considered a crime, so the whole "You can't impeach a president unless there's a crime involved" defense is bullshit. Take away that OLC memo and this president would've been indicted months ago.
Yes, presidents are entitled to set policy, both domestic and foreign. They are allowed to hire and fire people as they see fit. As the saying goes, you serve at the pleasure of the president. But no president is entitled to run the country like a Ponzi scheme; to bypass the legitimate levers of government in order to advance their own agendas; to carry out personal vendettas against career diplomats simply because they refused to be a party to a shadow government usurping lawful procedures that are centuries old.
It's true that all presidents going back to Adams have engaged to some extent or another in various forms of quid pro quos with foreign governments in order to gain a tactical and strategic advantage on the world stage. But such quid pro quos have always been mutually beneficial and above board; not the cloak and dagger variety employed here. Not even Nixon would've dared do to a foreign country what Trump did to Ukraine.
Look, he did it and he got caught. Everyone knows this, including the GOP. The only question that remains to be answered is whether any of them will have the spine to do something about it. From what I've seen, I highly doubt it.
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