October 24, 2019

Shorter Wall Street Journal: Donald Trump Is Too Stupid to Be Impeached

The paper’s editorial board mounts a curious defense of the president.

Ron Sachs/ZUMA

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As more Americans back the impeachment inquiry each day, President Donald Trump and his allies have relied on a string of curious defenses, as well as questionable legal acumen, to protect Trump from the mounting threat to his presidency. Trump has baselessly asserted that the stock market would tank if he’s removed from office. Former acting attorney general Matthew Whitaker attempted to come to Trump’s aid this week with his astonishing declaration on national television that “abuse of power is not a crime.”
 
Today, the Wall Street Journal editorial board has chimed in with a bizarre, new argument for why Trump should not be impeached: he’s simply too inept. No, seriously.
Intriguingly, Mr. Taylor says in his statement that many people in the Administration opposed the Giuliani effort, including some in senior positions at the White House. This matters because it may turn out that while Mr. Trump wanted a quid-pro-quo policy ultimatum toward Ukraine, he was too inept to execute it. Impeachment for incompetence would disqualify most of the government, and most Presidents at some point or another in office.
The editorial continued by echoing the current Republican grumbling that the probe should be more transparent, a demand that culminated in yesterday’s publicity stunt featuring a herd of white, male Republicans storming a closed-door impeachment hearing held in a secure facility. There, they ordered pizza for reporters. Some whipped out their phones, in violation of security protocol.
 
If that’s too much stupid for you, we’ll leave you with this:

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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