Impeaching Trump needs to be the first battle in a war against American corruption
If we have any love for democracy in this country at all, impeaching President Donald Trump needs to be the first battle in a full-scale war against American corruption.
His presidency has been a horror of self-dealing and corrupt actors but getting rid of of them will only stop the bleeding. To ensure that a presidency as corrupt as Trump's is never seen again we're going to have to change the structure through which money and influence flow through our political system.
This has been made painfully clear on Thursday, when two Ukrainian associates of Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, were arrested as they tried to board flights from the US to Vienna, Austria. The pair now stand accused of four counts including conspiracy, falsification of records, and lying to the Federal Election Commission about their political donations.
Parnas and Fruman used an LLC to donate $325,000 to a Trump super PAC led by Donald Trump Jr. They also attempted to use their cash to try and influence former Texas Rep. Pete Sessions. The pair wanted him to support the removal of Marie Yovanovitch, the then-ambassador to Ukraine, who was an enemy of their oligarch bosses.
While Sessions eventually did support Yovanovitch's removal, he claims is was unrelated to his meeting with Parnas and Fruman. Sessions denied any wrongdoing in the case or knowledge of the pair's scheme.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is also all apologies, saying he'll donate the ill gotten gains he received from this dynamic dirty duo to charity. This is far too little too late. Now the American people know that the GOP has been corrupted — and whenever a little corruption comes to light, you can bet there is even more corruption in the shadows.
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-impeachment-is-first-step-to-ending-american-corruption-2019-10
