Seth Abramson:Firtash end of the Ukraine scandal makes it one of the worst in US history

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The Firtash end of the Ukraine scandal—which House managers avoided out of a fear they'd over-complicate their case—is what makes the Ukraine scandal one of the worst in U.S. history.

Upshot: Democrats are fighting Trump with both hands behind their back.

PS/ Indeed, one of the stranger arguments that the GOP could potentially make (accurately) about the Democrats—but would, of course, also backfire on Trump—is that the Ukraine scandal is *so* horrifying Democrats are withholding 75% of their case to release to the public *later.*

PS2/ Again, I don't think that's Democrats' reasoning. They think a) they have *more than enough* to impeach/remove Trump on now (and they do, as a matter of evidentiary fact) and b) if they reveal the full case—the "black ledger" cover-up, Naftogaz, et. al.—it'll confuse people.

PS3/ But it *does* mean watching the trial is frustrating for those who've researched the Ukraine scandal extensively—as we keep seeing Trump's team cite defenses to the charges you couldn't *possibly* offer if you even knew 10% more about the scandal than the Dems are providing.

PS4/ For instance, Trump sought to harm Ukraine via a withholding of lethal defensive assistance—efforts aimed at (a) helping himself, and (b) helping Putin—in *four consecutive years*: 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019. So his claim that this is about one July 2019 call is i-n-s-a-n-e.

PS5/ Moreover, efforts to remove Yovanovitch began a *year* earlier than Trump's defense team is saying, and were motivated in *significant part* by an effort to aid a Kremlin stooge—Firtash—who was offering fake Biden/Clinton dirt if Trump helped him take over Naftogaz by proxy.

PS6/ So Trump sought to aid Russia in *winning a war against a European ally of the U.S.* in order to a) please Putin for personal (business) reasons, b) help Putin end sanctions and acquire a piece of Europe, and c) get illegal election aid from Kremlin agents—as he had in 2016.

PS7/ I'll simplify still further: *after* he'd been caught seeking illegal election aid from Russia in 2016, Trump concocted a *new* plan to do *the exact same damn thing* a *second time* and thereby steal a *second election* but this time made it *look* different. But it wasn't.

PS8/ Think of the years of anguish *all* Americans went through because of what Trump sought to do secretly with Putin—destroy U.S. policy on sanctions pre-inauguration, corruptly close a deal in Moscow while running for president, aid/abet Putin's election attack after-the-fact.

PS9/ Having now thought about *all the pain and damage* Trump caused America in colluding—at a level that couldn't be proven beyond a reasonable doubt as criminal only due to Trump's obstruction—imagine him doing the *same thing* a *second time* and *again* trying to cover it up.

PS10/ That's what the Ukraine scandal is—a dramatic *expansion* of the Russia scandal, to a degree of treachery we couldn't see even after Mueller's investigation. I often say there *is* no "Ukraine scandal"; it's *all* the Russia scandal—America's biggest political scandal ever.
NOTE/ If you really want your mind blown, how about the fact that if you take the *entirety* of the Russia scandal—Mueller and Ukraine, the totality of which is America's largest scandal ever—that *entirety* is just part of a larger scandal involving Saudi Arabia, Israel and UAE?

NOTE2/ Trump is seeking to remake America as an autocracy, and is doing so in league with other autocrats around the world: MBS, MBZ, Netanyahu, Putin, el-Sisi and others. It's a policy that, if he ever revealed all of it publicly and at once, would have Americans in the streets.

NOTE3/ The vision Donald Trump has of America going forward is essentially a cross between Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Israel: a religious autocracy that suppresses human rights, commits war crimes abroad, has no values but realpolitik and is run by an autocrat without term limits.

NOTE4/ Autocrats around the world love this new vision for America, as it means they can commit war crimes and human rights violations around the globe with impunity—as long as they pay off America's autocrat, who holds power via a coalition of nationalists and religious zealots.

NOTE5/ There is *no*—I repeat *no*—aspect of Trump's foreign or domestic policy not in service of this deeply treacherous vision of America's future as a post-democratic autocracy. *Each of his scandals*—Russia, Ukraine, Iran, China, Venezuela, Turkey—is in service of his vision.

NOTE6/ To be clear, I continue to say Trump's no genius; he's not the fake-addled Reagan of Phil Hartman's SNL imagination. He's simply a narcissistic sociopath with the native instincts of a career criminal. That's all he needs to establish this new path for America (under him).

NOTE7/ Feel free not to believe what I'm saying—it's only the product of researching and writing two massive books on Trump's foreign policy totally 1,600 pages and 6,200 citations, plus all my research on the "Ukraine scandal." But every data-point we have confirms the research.

NOTE8/ Folks online (understandably) don't understand me well—they think my concern about Trump is policy-based somehow, like I get super upset if my views on (say) choice aren't reflected in my government. Nope—I believe in elections. I'm saying America *itself* is disappearing.

NOTE9/ I feel that, as long as elections are free and fair, we get the government we get—we all fight for our values leading up to an election, and after the election, but on some level must accept when we *lose* an election. This is different—this is a man trying to end America.

NOTE10/ Ironically, that's what the GOP said about Obama—they just had *zero evidence* it was true. That's why they wrote 1,000 books about it with *no* sourcing or evidence. It was *rhetoric*. The left doesn't work that way—and neither do I. We're always looking at the evidence.

CONCLUSION/ Hopefully this explains the intensity of this feed—and its maximalism. I know from my work that what we're facing is an existential threat to America, not a dispute over individual policy prescriptions. And that's something I've never said of any other president. /end