Michael Tracey is a liberal reporter, but one that hasn’t succumbed to anti-Trump hysteria like his colleagues. He’s formerly of The Young Turks but has been from day one skeptical of the Trump-Russia collusion myth. He took a victory lap when the Mueller report said there was no evidence of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin during the 2016 election. He, along with The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald, torched multiple liberal writers and publications who had peddled this manufactured crisis for the past couple of years. He’s a decent follow if you’re looking for the other side that isn’t totally nuts. So, his take on this whole Trump-Ukraine nonsense is that maybe Democrats should just do everything they can to win the 2020 election instead of putting the country through the meat grinder with this impeachment circus.
It’s a great idea to plunge the country into the impeachment abyss without even first having seen the transcript of the alleged impeachable conduct. This will go really well
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) September 24, 2019
He made these points known through a Twitter thread, where he noted that Trump appears to ask Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for assistance with the Department of Justice’s ongoing probe into the origins of the Russia investigation. He also noted that maybe the overall conversation was “bad form,” but nothing impeachable. Certainly, there’s nothing illegal.
This paragraph reads as Trump asking Zelensky to provide information related to the origins of Russia/Mueller, in the context of AG Barr's ongoing probe. So at least here, he's asking for assistance related to a US investigation -- not a Ukrainian investigation pic.twitter.com/KF3XNsLsab
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) September 25, 2019
If you believe an investigation into the origins of Russia/Mueller is legitimate (which it is, there are still plenty of outstanding issues) then asking for a "favor" in the context of that specific investigation is not unto itself untoward
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) September 25, 2019
Zelensky then brings up Giuliani, and Trump does one of his typical semi-intelligible riffs about how Biden maybe did something horrible, and Zelensky should talk to Giuliani. Bad form to even bring up Biden? Sure, but it's a lot vaguer than initially presented
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) September 25, 2019
The political question is, what's the best way to reproach a president who routinely exhibits "bad form"? How about an election, rather than an extraordinary Constitutional remedy that will consume the country for months and months?
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) September 25, 2019
That the first subject discussed is Mueller makes all the difference because it confirms there is direct narrative continuity between the Russia investigation and the Ukraine episode. So the whole Mueller/Russia saga is alive and well, and provides the narrative underpinnings
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) September 25, 2019
Any forthcoming articles of impeachment would have to encompass the Russia/Mueller investigation -- this is just the latest iteration of that story. Ukraine phone call cannot be separated from the broader Russia narrative that has dominated US politics for 3 years
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) September 25, 2019
“The political question is, what's the best way to reproach a president who routinely exhibits "bad form"? asked Tracey. “How about an election, rather than an extraordinary Constitutional remedy that will consume the country for months and months?”
That’s a fair point. And since Mueller and the Russia investigation was mentioned, we once again have the Democrats trying to use the Trump-Russia collusion myth in all of this, a backdoor if you will. We all knew the Democrats wanted to impeach Trump based on the collusion probe, which was total political theater, and the findings of the Mueller report. When that blew up in their faces, they waited until this intelligence community whistleblower complaint, which is based on anonymous and second-hand sources, reared its head. The person who filed the complaint is noted to be politically biased against the president and never even listened in on this call. So, yeah, it’s trash. And to use this to push impeachment is even more reckless than the whole collusion fiasco that gripped the nation for years.
Now, as for the 2020 election, maybe Democrats are pushing impeachment so hard because they know no one in their field could beat Trump. Rep. Al Green (D-TX) pretty much gave the game away on that one, right?
