What a week it’s been, no?

After so many months of the Mueller investigation which, once released, was kneecapped by Trump’s Attorney General Bill Barr -who issues a self-serving memorandum that while incredibly dishonest about what Mueller uncovered admittedly helped push the Trump narrative positively- this whole Ukraine phone call seems to have really hit its target.

I suppose that’s the way things go.

I mean, when you get a professional investigator of high repute in Mueller to investigate a matter as serious as the Russian interference in the 2016 election yet he proves too deferential to stonewalling witnesses -including the President, who refused to be interviewed and instead only provided written (lawyered up) answers to question- it seems in retrospect one can not be surprised the report fizzled to some degree in Joe Average Citizen’s mind.

Too complicated. Too much information. Not enough of a snappy, quick answer to the question.

Joe Average Citizen can be forgiven in thinking Trump’s gotten away with it, whatever “it” was, because the report was too damn long and who in their right mind is going to read -much less make sense of- all that stuff…?

And then, out of nowhere, clarity.

Thanks to someone within the Trump White House, a whistleblower’s concern, plus an oblivious White House releasing transcripts of what turns out to be a pretty damn incriminating phone call (in what world did these people think releasing that transcript would somehow prove Trump did nothing wrong?!), we suddenly have that clarity.

First, the whistleblower’s complaint was that Trump was holding up Congressional approved monies to be sent to Ukraine to help them defend against Russian provocations so that they would help him find “dirt” on Joe Biden and his son, whom they think did some underhanded stuff there.

The accusation was shocking but Trump’s team of Einsteins felt that they had the perfect proof he did no such thing and released their summation of the phone call between Trump and the Ukranian President Zelenskyy. The following part of the transcript and Trump’s statements to President Zelenskyy clearly shows us what the whistleblower feared Trump was up to:

I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they s_say Crowdstrike … I guess you have one of your weal thy people… The server, they say Ukraine has it. There- are a lot. of things that went on, the whole situation ..

Understand, THIS IS WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE ITSELF RELEASED TO PROVE TRUMP DID NOTHING WRONG…! (You can read the full transcripts here, if you’re so inclined).

We’re not talking about some Democratic operative’s leak or some underhanded theft of private property skewed to make “President” Trump look bad, we’re talking the actual material they themselves chose to release.

“I would like you to do us a favor” Trump states, while he is holding back aid to Ukraine. The favor involves getting help from the Ukraine which Trump can use against Joe Biden in next year’s Presidential Elections.

Suddenly, the wrongdoing is incredibly obvious and -better yet for Joe Average Citizen- easy to see.

So easy to see, and so easy to show, that over the weekend those who tried to defend Trump found themselves having a very hard time doing so. I won’t go over all of them, but suffice to say this White House, which has been (I hate to admit it) pretty good at hitting back against outrageous actions they’ve been involved in, were suddenly having a great deal of trouble putting this particular fire out.

Now we have a full blown Impeachment inquiry in the House. I suspect things will go fairly quickly. Hell, they don’t have to do much but show the White House’s own transcripts as exhibit “A” of why Trump needs to be impeached.

How will the Senate subsequently react? The Senate has a Republican majority and a Majority Leader who is loathe to do anything against this administration.

But when faced with what is clearly -to anyone with a set of eyes- a deeply illegal action, how will the other Republicans vote?

I suppose like so many other things, time will tell.