Day 989: Buck passer: Trump tries to blame Rick Perry for Ukraine scandal
Donald Trump is embroiled in an impeachment inquiry, predominately, because of a phone call he made and words he used with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.
Just don’t tell Trump that.
According to an Axios report, Trump is ready to eschew the phrase that Harry Truman popularized during his term in office: “The buck stops here!” Looking for a scapegoat for the ever-growing Ukraine scandal, Trump seems to have tapped his reportedly-soon-to-be-leaving Energy Secretary Rick Perry.
President Trump told House Republicans that he made his now infamous phone call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the urging of Energy Secretary Rick Perry — a call Trump claimed he didn’t even want to make.
Behind the scenes: Trump made these comments during a conference call with House members on Friday, according to 3 sources on the call.
But he then threw Perry into the mix and said something to the effect of: “Not a lot of people know this but, I didn’t even want to make the call. The only reason I made the call was because Rick asked me to. Something about an LNG [liquified natural gas] plant,” one source said, recalling the president’s comments. 2 other sources confirmed the first source’s recollection.
Unfortunately for Trump, none of that is relevant, even if it were true.
Perry didn’t dial the phone for Trump.
Perry didn’t coerce Trump.
Perry didn’t speak for Trump.
Trump took the call.
Trump had an idea.
Trump spoke the idea out loud.
Then the White House and Attorney General William Barr tried to bury it until a whistleblower came forward.
According to text messages released earlier this week as part of a disclosure made to Congress, the conspiracy was far deeper than a single phone call anyway. Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani was involved, as was Trump megadonor turned Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland.
That’s not to say Perry necessarily has totally clean hands. As Axios noted, Perry’s involvement with Ukraine runs fairly deep, and Democrats are eyeing his actions as part of their impeachment inquiry.
In May, Perry led a U.S. delegation to Ukraine for Zelensky’s inauguration in place of Vice President Mike Pence, and Democrats have begun to press Perry for more information about the trip and his conversations with Ukrainian leaders.
The House subpoena of Rudy Giuliani also seeks documents related to Perry’s “involvement with Ukrainian leaders last spring.”
Trump has a pattern of refusing to take responsibility for his words and actions. For instance, when called out on a falsehood, he’ll claim things like, “I was just given that information.” When his actions are called into question, he’s quick to point the finger at someone — anyone — else, as he has done for years.
Trump has rarely accomplished anything on his own and has even more rarely taken the blame for his own missteps.
989 days in, 473 to go
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