There’s been a great deal of focus on the Trump administration’s attempt to pressure Ukraine into investigating Hunter Biden. As an aside, I don’t believe Trump pressured Ukraine to investigate Biden, I suspect he pressured Ukraine to announce that they planned to investigate Biden, which is a very different proposition (and far worse).
Elsewhere, the administration has backed away from a longstanding US policy of discouraging corruption in Eastern Europe:
America’s effort to combat graft in central and eastern Europe is now in trouble. The Trump administration has given it only intermittent support. Meanwhile, the impeachment investigation is highlighting behaviour in America that resembles the practices it condemns elsewhere. The damage is “incalculable”, says a senior State Department diplomat (and life-long Republican). “It will take decades to rebuild our credibility. What other countries are seeing in this White House is everything we’ve preached against.”
This is a pity. Anti-corruption activists in former communist countries have relied on American support ever since the end of the cold war. American aid has backed independent investigative media, trained judges and prosecutors and helped set up transparent registers for government procurement. The State Department budget for Europe and Eurasia ($615m last year) is a lifeline for civil-society organisations. In Ukraine, Romania and Moldova, America has supported reformist politicians when they came under attack from oligarchs. In Poland and Hungary it has backed independent judges when ruling parties tried to subvert the courts.
I suspect that the Trump administration is losing interest in fighting corruption because it means pressuring regimes that share Trump’s nationalistic outlook:
America’s emphasis on fighting corruption began to waver in 2017, when A. Wess Mitchell took over responsibility for State Department policy in eastern Europe. He believed America’s sharp criticism of corruption was hurting it diplomatically, pushing countries like Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria closer to Russia. Mr Mitchell resigned early this year. But while many ambassadors still pursue anti-corruption policies, they can no longer be sure the White House is behind them.
Populist governments in Eastern Europe often have a high level of corruption, which helps to explain why Eastern Europe is poorer than Western Europe. These governments tend to play the nationalism card when the European Union puts pressure on them to conform to EU standards of transparency, accountability, the rule of law, etc. The Trump administration seems more sympathetic to authoritarian leaders like Victor Orban than to abstract principles such as clean government.
READER COMMENTS
Lawrence D'Anna
Dec 17 2019 at 7:01pm
Is it necessarily such a different position? If he sought the announcement for its own sake, just to get a news hit, that would be very different. If he sought the announcement to get a public commitment, which would be hard to walk back from without performing the investigation, that’s not so different.
I suspect Trump simply believed the conspiracy theories about “the server”. I suspect Trump believed Hunter Biden was corrupt. Biden probably isn’t corrupt in the sense of committing a crime but he obviously is corrupt in the sense of accepting a nepotistic sinecure, in an industry he knows nothing about, in foreign country, while his dad was representing the US diplomatically to that country. I believe Trump could have believed there was something in that worth investigating.
Is it really so far fetched that Trump is a paranoid guy who believes conspiracy theories about his rivals? Is that so inconsistent with his character?
Scott Sumner
Dec 19 2019 at 1:17pm
I’d say it’s pretty far fetched to assume that Trump cares about corruption in the Ukraine. Even more far fetched to assume he cares about only one single case of corruption in the Ukraine.
Lawrence D'Anna
Dec 20 2019 at 7:44pm
I think Trump is at least as susceptible to motivated reasoning as the average person. And the average person is quite susceptible.
The problem with this impeachment so far is that they haven’t really established corrupt intent. They haven’t established, for example, that he intended to set up a sham investigation just to get a news hit.
They’ve established that he tried to pressure Ukraine to investigate his rivals. That he did so on the basis of a wild conspiracy theory. That he did so in an incompetent, irregular, dishonest, and slipshod manner. That he did so knowing that it would create the appearance of impropriety.
That’s consistent with a sham investigation. It’s also consistent with paranoia and motivated reasoning.
The problem with inferring corrupt intent based on what we have, is that we have practically the same fact pattern for the Crossfire-Hurricane investigation. An investigation into people associated with a presidential campaign, carried out in a shoddy and dishonest way, in pursuit of a conspiracy theory, with reckless disregard to the appearance of impropriety that such an investigation would obviously produce.
You can decide that the FBI deserves the benefit of the doubt and Trump doesn’t. But you can’t complain on an objective basis if republican senators take the opposite view.
I hope the senate does call witnesses. Maybe with Bolton’s testimony we could get a better picture of what happened that’s on a firmer basis than who we think deserves the benefit of the doubt and who doesn’t.
Lorenzo from Oz
Dec 17 2019 at 7:16pm
Look on the bright side, corruption is better than communism. (I am quoting David Horowitz.) In the long run of history, this still represents an improvement.
But yes, retreating from discouraging corruption is bad. And highlights The Donald’s hypocrisy over Ukraine.
Phil H
Dec 17 2019 at 9:21pm
It’s not immediately obvious to me why this should be the case, but it does seem to be true.
I mean, in theory you could be a nationalist who was deeply committed to the national values of transparency and good governance. (Perhaps the Swiss are such beasts.) But in practice, it seems like nationalism is almost always associated with corruption.
robc
Dec 18 2019 at 1:47pm
The Swiss are very canton-oriented, so I don’t think they qualify.
Jens
Dec 19 2019 at 5:02am
Switzerland also has considerable national mysticism (“Rütlischwur”, etc.). But other European nations also have vertically oriented elements of the separation of powers. These can be institutions, such as in Germany, or also more traditional willingness to conflict, such as in France. I think things like that make the difference. Solving conflicts at the institutional level and representing them there, not suppressing them, or being able to resolve the conflicts on the street without directly questioning everything. The problem with nationalism is that one needs people that represent unity. These people don’t exist, and if they exist, they only exist as a myth. If they exist in reality, they are corrupt.
Scott Sumner
Dec 19 2019 at 1:19pm
Good comment.
Scott Sumner
Dec 19 2019 at 1:19pm
The Swiss are patriotic, but not nationalistic. A nationalistic Switzerland would have ended up like Yugoslavia,
Weir
Dec 17 2019 at 9:33pm
Let’s say, hypothetically, you establish a series of errors made by what the Inspector-General calls three separate, hand-picked investigative teams; on one of the most sensitive FBI investigations; after the matter had been briefed to the highest levels within the FBI; even though the information sought through the use of FISA authority related so closely to an ongoing presidential campaign; and even though those involved with the investigation knew that their actions were likely to be subjected to close scrutiny. And in this hypothetical the target is an innocent guy working for the presidential campaign of the Democratic Party, the good guys.
Let’s say, hypothetically, some FBI attorney simply lies and says this Democrat is “not a source” for the CIA when he actually was. Let’s say the FBI knows they’re using oppo research paid for by the GOP, the bad guys, but in this hypothetical the FBI lies about that too for the sake of getting a warrant from the FISA court. A court that issues these warrants 99.8% of the time anyway. So now we got people wearing wires and tapping this innocent Democrat’s phone.
Let’s say the FBI knows but lies about the author’s trustworthiness, having been told by the man’s source that the author has misrepresented him. Let’s say that, from the source himself, we know that the author has introduced certain “inconsistencies” into the dossier. Would this raise any issues regarding transparency, accountability, the rule of law, etc? I think it would, because the Democrats are the good guys, so this stuff would all count as an abuse of power by the FBI, and people would be embarrassed to make excuses for it.
Garrett
Dec 17 2019 at 10:44pm
Let’s say all of that were true. If the president (a democrat in this case) then pressured a foreign government to announce an investigation into a political rival, would you support impeachment and removal from office?
Weir
Dec 18 2019 at 1:18am
In this scenario President Buttigieg finds out in 2022 that the son of the former vice-president was on the Burisma payroll. The son of Mike Pence took the same deal as Hunter Biden.
President Buttigieg’s private opinion is that it was sleazy and corrupt, just as it was President Obama’s private opinion that it was sleazy when his own veep’s son did it.
But would President Buttigieg say publicly that it’s outrageous and a scandal? That’s going to reflect badly on his own party. Joe Biden would look bad. Barack Obama would look bad. That’s the dilemma that President Buttigieg is in.
President Obama didn’t put any pressure on Ukraine over this really obvious conflict of interest. Vice-President Biden wasn’t outraged up until just this minute.
So President Buttigieg could try to make this a story about the son of Mike Pence, but he’s inadvertently going to draw attention to all those other characters from back in the opening chapter.
President Buttigieg can say the scandal is entirely on the Pence family, not the Biden family. It was outrageous that Trump didn’t put any pressure on Ukraine over his veep’s son, just as it was outrageous when he did put pressure on Ukraine over Obama’s veep’s son.
Trump deserved to be impeached for trying to embarrass the Biden family, just as he would also have deserved to be impeached for trying to protect the Pence family. Pressure or no pressure, either way it’s outrageous. And also un-patriotic.
Take it from Nancy Pelosi: “In signing the Declaration of Independence, our Founders invoked a firm reliance on divine providence. Democrats, too, are prayerful, and we will proceed in a manner worthy of our oath of office to support and defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic, so help us God.”
Take it from Adam Schiff: “These career civil servants, diplomats and veterans of our armed services are American patriots and shining examples of what it means to defend and protect our Constitution.”
Take it from Jerry Nadler: “The patriots who founded our country were not fearful men. They fought a war. They witnessed terrible violence. They overthrew a king. But as they meant to frame our Constitution, those patriots still feared one threat above all, foreign interference in our elections. They had just deposed a tyrant and they were deeply worried we would lose our newfound liberty, not through a war. If a foreign army were to invade we’d see that coming, but from corruption from within.”
These shining patriots in the Democratic Party are the only thing standing between treasonous Republicans and the destruction of the integrity of the undefiled American nation. Clearly the GOP hates the American nation, and probably the flag too.
“Sadly,” says Pelosi, “but with confidence and humility, with allegiance to our founders, and a heart full of love for America, today I am asking our chairmen to proceed with articles of impeachment.” Amen.
shecky
Dec 18 2019 at 8:06am
So, is that a yes or a no?
Garrett
Dec 18 2019 at 11:51am
He won’t engage with a simple clarifying question and would rather spend his time writing fiction.
Tom DeMeo
Dec 18 2019 at 9:44am
The guilt or innocence of Joe or Hunter Biden is irrelevant. The most serious possible conflict of interest an office holder can have is to directly involve themselves in the legal liabilities of his or her political rivals. It is a line that simply cannot be crossed.
That doesn’t mean that rivals are exempt from the law. It just means that the office holder cannot be involved.
robc
Dec 18 2019 at 1:52pm
I am not sure how that follows. As the head of the executive, that would mean none of Trump’s political rivals could ever be investigated by the Federal government for anything. And he is safe from the NY state government, as a political rival of the governor. And NYC too.
That is an awesome get-out-of-jail free card.
Tom DeMeo
Dec 19 2019 at 10:57am
robc-
I think you know that entire branches of government are not subject to conflicts of interest. Individual office holders are. The Executive branch is well designed to manage such conflicts and to allow public interests to be served even when individual office holders, even the President, have conflicts.
E. Harding
Dec 18 2019 at 1:46am
“Populist governments in Eastern Europe often have a high level of corruption, which helps to explain why Eastern Europe is poorer than Western Europe.”
Not true; Poland, Hungary, Czechia, and Romania are some of the fastest growing economies in the region. The outlier is Russia (where corruption is a genuine problem and growth is genuinely slower than appropriate), where the government is not so much “populist” as “establishment”. There is no reason to believe the E.U. or U.S. are capable of making countries less corrupt.
“America has supported reformist politicians when they came under attack from oligarchs.”
There is not the least bit of evidence for this, and quite a bit of evidence (from Russia, Ukraine, Macedonia, Montenegro) to the contrary.
Scott Sumner
Dec 19 2019 at 1:22pm
I never said they were not faster growing, I said they were poorer. And they are.
Dylan
Dec 19 2019 at 6:29pm
I won’t link to it, since doing so always gets my posts sent to purgatory, but there is a paper from last year that looks at this, and interestingly enough, finds no correlation between the level of corruption as measured by CPI (Corruption Perception Index) and per capita GDP in the central and eastern European countries. In all other parts of Europe the correlation was pretty strong. There also wasn’t a significant relationship between the change in CPI perceptions and GDP growth, as there was in the rest of Europe.
From the conclusion to the paper:
Paper is Corruption Perception Index (CPI), as an Index of Economic Growth for European Countries
Brian Donohue
Dec 18 2019 at 10:09am
We don’t need an investigation to know that Joe Biden set up his crackhead son with a $50K per month seat on the board of a Ukranian gas company.
The Ukraine crisis began years ago, a policy of overreach on the part of NATO and the EU to continue pushing up against a weak Russia. Turns out Russia drew the line here, after watching most of eastern Europe fall into Western hands. Recall that the original Rus came out of Kiev a millenium ago and Ukraine has been in and out of Russia’s orbit for literally centuries. Deep historical ties.
Were we prepared to fight Russia for Ukraine? Smart people like Mearsheimer thought it was a dumb idea. Obama successfully resisted bipartisan war-monger pressure in Congress and the Pentagon throughout his term.
Trump gets in and starts selling arms to Ukraine (difficult to square with prevailing Putin stooge narrative, but I digress.) Then Mr. Let’s Make a Deal threatens to suspend arms sales until they get to the bottom of this Biden ho-hum garden-variety everyday routine nepotistic corruption dealio, but yes, let’s talk about how this is using politics to smear a good man.
Is anyone actually curious about what Biden was up to with his kid? Is that not a legitimate line of journalistic inquiry, regardless of what Trump is doing? No, it is not. That’s where we are.
Scott Sumner
Dec 19 2019 at 1:27pm
Almost everything in your comment is inaccurate or misleading. Biden is not corrupt. There was no big push to go to war with Russia. Eastern Europe did not fall into western hands, unless you think Orban is a puppet of the West.
Russia invaded the Ukraine and annexed part of their territory. You act like they were merely righting some historical wrong.
Brian Donohue
Dec 19 2019 at 6:57pm
Hungary is an EU and NATO member, as is the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria, all of which were once Warsaw Pact countries behind the Iron Curtain. Former Communist countries Slovenia and Croatia and former Soviet Socialist Republics Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are also now EU and NATO members. It’s not hard to imagine how this looks from Russia’s perspective, even if you hate the place. Sheesh.
The Crimea was part of Russia until Khrushchev gave it to Ukraine to impress a girlfriend. At the time, Moscow was calling the shots throughout the USSR anyway and figured they always would be.
Just yesterday, in a maudlin speech on the floor of the House, war-monger Adam Schiff said: “Their (Ukraine’s) fight is our fight. Their defense is our defense.” Such a lofty statement might have been forgiven as naive in 1960, but we’ve accumulated quite a bit of data since then. You should check it out.
I’m honestly surprised you’re so hostile to a realist foreign policy.
You won’t believe me, but I’ve always liked Joe Biden. For one thing, he’s less war-mongery than your typical national politician (maybe he absorbed some of the same lessons Obama did), and he’s not a starry-eyed ideologue and he doesn’t pander over much, but have you seen him lately? The guy looks and acts way older than his years, unlike fellow fossils Bernie, Liz, and, yes, Trump. As a supporter, this has to concern you.
And this business of setting your kid up with a sweet sinecure is probably not out of bounds by Washington standards, only asking about it is.
Alexander Turok
Dec 18 2019 at 1:04pm
So America’s interfering in foreign elections?
“Independent judges” = “judges appointed by parties I like.”
Trump is undermining anti-corruption efforts in Eastern Europe and the evidence is that a state department official anonymously reports on the feelings of ambassadors…. okay!
Alexander Turok
Dec 18 2019 at 1:09pm
To see how non-convincing the argument is to those who don’t share your priors, imagine Scott Summer was elected president and an education bureaucrat asserted that President Summer was “undermining education,” with the only evidence being the feelings of a bunch of other education bureaucrat’s who feel that a President they didn’t vote for is “not behind them.”
Scott Sumner
Dec 19 2019 at 1:43pm
There is plenty of other evidence that Trump doesn’t care about corruption:
He was a corrupt businessman, before taking office.
He has been a corrupt president, obstructing justice on numerous occasions.
He violated the law by refusing to provide Congress with his tax return, and then lied about his reason for doing so. He demanded that law enforcement personal be personally loyal to him, not to the Constitution. I could go on and on.
He has often lavished praise on highly corrupt foreign leaders (Saudi Arabia, Philippines, Russia, etc.) and is highly critical of relatively non-corrupt leaders of our democratic allies.
So no, this is no big surprise.
Alexander Turok
Dec 19 2019 at 9:45pm
Is there real evidence for this or is it just a series of “news” articles without evidence, which can be backed up by the fact that the accusation “fit the pattern” established by another dozen “news” articles without evidence?
He was right to “obstruct” that witch-hunt, should have shut the whole thing down.
And you’re highly critical of him, a “democratically elected” leader, does this mean you “oppose democracy?”
TMC
Dec 18 2019 at 6:23pm
I’m really trying to square “longstanding US policy of discouraging corruption in Eastern Europe:” with the fact our last administration engaged in corruption there (and bragged about it on TV), and the current one is being brought to task for fighting it. Trump may may political motives for fighting corruption there, but most people would acknowledge that taking on corruption of the US government is his job, not an impeachable offense.
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