The term “quid pro quo” was at the center of the obsessive attempt to unseat then-President Donald Trump during the first impeachment saga.
The assertion was that Trump was pressuring the Ukrainian government into investigating the Biden family’s business dealings, leveraging a $400 million military aid package in return. Critics argued that Trump was leveraging national power and foreign policy for his own personal political benefit. Trump was essentially impeached for offering something in return for something else. Indeed, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) pushed for impeachment based on one phone call Trump had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, describing it as a “shakedown.”
This was all despite the fact that Joe Biden boasted about doing a very similar thing.
“I looked at them and said: ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.’ Well, son of a bitch. He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time,” Biden said of the withholding of $1 billion in loan guarantees for Ukraine with the demand that the country’s top — and corrupt — prosecutor be dismissed.
IRANIAN INSTRUCTORS TEACHING RUSSIANS TO USE DRONES IN UKRAINE, KYIV SAYS
Come 2022, just weeks from the midterm elections, Quid Pro Quo Joe is at it again. At least, according to Saudi Arabia. On Wednesday, Riyadh announced:
“The Government of the Kingdom clarified through its continuous consultation with the U.S. Administration that all economic analyses indicate that postponing the OPEC+ decision for a month, according to what has been suggested, would have had negative economic consequences.”
Yes, we should take anything uttered by Saudi Arabia with a handful of salt. Still, if this statement is accurate, it appears that Joe Biden made a demand of Riyadh for his own politically convenient reasons. Namely, he wanted to avoid rising gas prices before the midterm elections.
If Trump was guilty — as the House of Representatives clearly believed — of impeachable offenses by using the office of the president to pressure foreign governments into beneficial behavior, then Joe Biden is guilty of precisely the same thing. If anything, Biden’s actions are worse.
Why?
Compare the political standing of both Trump and Biden when both of these alleged actions were carried out. Trump’s quid pro quo occurred prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, which was a major cause of his administration’s downfall in the 2020 elections. Presuming, for sake of argument, that the accusations of impropriety laid out during the first impeachment efforts were accurate, what did Trump have to gain? The answer is simple: dirt on his opponent. But his victory or defeat was still uncertain.
Compare this to Biden, who has single-handedly steered the American economy to the brink of inflation-laden collapse, with gas prices standing apart as one of the most prominent symptoms of Biden’s failure. Asking the Saudi Arabian regime to delay — not cease — their decision for just long enough for the midterm elections to pass is a clear demonstration not of Biden’s care for the American people, but for his political future.
While the outcome of Trump’s supposed effort to elicit investigations into the Biden family is unclear, the missed reward for Biden is clear. As gas prices rise, his midterm election chances fall.
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Ian Haworth is the host of Off Limits with Ian Haworth. Follow him on Twitter @ighaworth.
