Trump Just Comes Out and Admits to Entire Ukraine Scam

By Bess Levin, Vanity Fair

17 February 20

How are Republicans feeling right about now?

ears after O.J. Simpson was found not guilty for the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, he wrote a book called If I Did It, in which he basically explained exactly how the two were killed with a level of detail that only someone who participated in the murders could possibly have been privy to. Now that Donald Trump has been acquitted by Republicans for extorting Ukraine for personal gain, he’s kind of doing the same thing, except (1) he freely admitted to many of the details of the alleged crime even before his Senate trial, and (2) he’s not even doing the people who let him get away with it the courtesy of throwing an “if” in there for plausible deniability’s sake.

In a podcast interview with Geraldo Rivera that aired on Thursday, Trump was asked, “Was it strange to send Rudy Giuliani to Ukraine, your personal lawyer? Are you sorry you did that?” Rather than stick with his previous denials of ever having dispatched Giuliani to Ukraine to investigate the Bidens in the first place, Trump happily copped to it all, responding: “No, not at all...I deal with the Comeys of the world or I deal with Rudy,” the former of whom, per the president, left “a very bad taste” in his mouth due to the whole Russia investigation. “So when you tell me, why did I use Rudy, and one of the things about Rudy, number one, he was the best prosecutor, you know, one of the best prosecutors, and the best mayor,” Trump said. “But also, other presidents had them. FDR had a lawyer who was practically, you know, was totally involved with government. Eisenhower had a lawyer. They all had lawyers.” FDR and Eisenhower didn’t use their personal lawyers to uncover nonexistent dirt on their political rivals, but, sure, great history lesson.

In the new interview, Trump defended the decision to “use” Giuliani, even though U.S. diplomats previously testified that Giuliani had undermined long-standing U.S. policy toward Ukraine.... Multiple witnesses described how Giuliani met with former Ukrainian officials in search of dirt against Joe and Hunter Biden. Other key players described how Giuliani and his allies pressured Ukraine to announce investigations into the Bidens. Trump’s past denials came in November, when the House of Representatives was investigating the president’s conduct with Ukraine.

Trump, of course, has insisted up to this point that he never sent Giuliani to Ukraine, claiming last year that didn’t direct the former NYC mayor to take a fact-finding trip to the Eastern European country, and that the “great corruption fighter” had taken the initiative himself.

Obviously, the president didn’t exactly try to hide his corrupt ways prior to the formal impeachment proceedings, having stood in front of the White House last October and called—on camera!—for Ukraine and China to investigate the Bidens. But now that he’s free of the fear of impeachment, he’s apparently just going for broke with the admissions, in addition to getting revenge on the individuals who had the audacity to cooperate with the House’s inquiry, like Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who was escorted out of the White House last week and whom Trump has asked the military to further punish for disrespecting the king. (In other “just coming out and saying it” news, Trump tweeted this morning that he’s never asked Attorney General William Barr to do something underhanded in a criminal case but totally could if he wanted to, which means he probably has already.)

Anyway, the many lawmakers who chose to acquit the president while insisting that he’d totally learned his lesson have not yet commented on the fresh confessions, but presumably they’re feeling pretty stupid right now (and will continue to let Trump get away with whatever his heart desires moving forward).