Trump starts impeachment battle with self-inflicted woes

Bloomberg

President Donald Trump’s battle against an accelerating impeachment inquiry is growing tougher after a week of damaging revelations and self-inflicted wounds that emboldened Democrats and put the White House on defense.
The president added to the frenzy by publicly calling on Ukraine and China to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, echoing the conduct that sparked the impeachment effort — that the president is leveraging his power to target a political enemy. On top of that, closed-door depositions and the release of a series of text messages bolstered the case further.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to begin a formal impeachment inquiry has paid off so far. And now, the House effort is poised to intensify further in coming days as investigators seek to meet with diplomats, including the former US ambassador to Ukraine — who was reportedly removed by Trump because she failed to facilitate an investigation of Biden.
Trump even appeared resigned to the likelihood of his impeachment — which would be the third in American history — as he spoke to reporters.
“The Democrats, unfortunately, they have the votes,” Trump said. “They could vote very easily.”
The House opened its inquiry with a probe of Trump’s conduct in a July 25 telephone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. After freezing military aid to Ukraine, which is battling a Russia-backed insurgency, the American president asked Zelenskiy to investigate Biden, one of Trump’s top Democratic rivals in the 2020 presidential contest.
Trump claims that Biden improperly helped his son Hunter profit from business deals in Ukraine and China. The allegations related to Ukraine have been discredited, and those related to China aren’t supported by publicly known details. Joe Biden’s campaign has dismissed the allegations as without merit.
Trump suffered his biggest setback with the release of the text messages. Those included US envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker telling a Ukrainian official he had “heard from the White House” that a Zelenskiy trip to Washington was conditioned on the Ukrainian leader convincing Trump he’d “get to the bottom” of a probe Trump sought into the 2016 election.
Other texts showed US and Ukrainian officials brokering a proposed announcement of investigations into a Ukrainian gas company that employed Hunter Biden, and alleged electoral interference aimed at undermining Trump. There were also internal exchanges between two Trump administration officials debating whether security assistance from the US would be conditioned on investigations.
“As I said on the phone, I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign,” US Charges D’affaires in Ukraine Bill Taylor wrote in one message. The other official said there was no such quid pro quo but then urged an end to text exchanges.