USA Today - 03.10.2019

NEWS USA TODAY z THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2019 z 5A

Vice President/Local News and Audience Development: Amalie Nash

Vice President & Executive Editor/Investigations: Chris Davis

President, USA TODAY NETWORK Marketing Solutions: Kevin Gentzel

Gannett Company Interim

Chief Operating Officer

BARBARA WALL

USA TODAY Publisher

President, USA TODAY NETWORK

MARIBEL PEREZ WADSWORTH

Executive Editor/News: Jeff Taylor

Executive Editor/Audience: Patty Michalski

Editorial Page Editor: Bill Sternberg

USA TODAY

Editor in Chief

NICOLE CARROLL

“USA TODAY hopes to serve as a forum for better understanding and unity to help make the USA truly one nation.” – Allen H. Neuharth, Founder, Sept. 15, 1982

OPINION

MIKE THOMPSON/USA TODAY NETWORK

Let’s say we had a president who did

the following: Redistributed wealth by

taxing the rich and giving to the poor.

Boosted entitlements. Signed a law to

strengthen workplace safety. Poured

money into cleaning up the environ-

ment. Even helped finance National

Public Radio. Liberals would be

pleased, right?

We did have such a president. His

name was Richard Nixon.

Of course, all this is largely forgotten

today, overshadowed by Nixon’s in-

volvement in Watergate — the scandal

that drove him from the Oval Office in

1974, as House impeachment and pos-

sibly even Senate conviction were nip-

ping at his heels.

Because of this mixed legacy, Nixon

ranks as the 28th best president (or the

16th worst, depending on how you look

at it) in a 2017 C-SPAN survey of histori-

ans. In 10 categories, he scores near the

middle for most, though 10th for “Inter-

national Relations.” But in terms of

“Moral Authority” he’s near the bottom,

ranked 42nd. Lying to the American

people and covering up a Constitution-

shredding crime will do that to a guy.

President Donald Trump will be in-

cluded in the next survey, which is tak-

en every time we have a new president.

Where do you think he’ll rank? For

starters, let’s compare his actions with

all the Nixon accomplishments men-

tioned above.

Trump is the anti-Nixon. After lying

through his teeth in 2017 about how

“the rich will not be gaining at all with

this plan,” he gave them (and himself ) a

huge tax break.

Entitlements? He has reportedly

told Senate Republicans that cutting

Social Security and Medicare could be a

second-term project. We got a preview

of his plans to do just that in his 2020

budget blueprint. Funny, Trump likes

to run his mouth on Twitter and at his

rallies, but this is something he hasn’t

blabbed to his wide-eyed, believe-

whatever-he-says base.

Strengthen workplace safety? “We

want to protect our workers,” Trump

said in 2017. But that was another lie.

His administration has rolled back

worker protections, making already

dangerous jobs like coal mining, work-

ing on oil rigs and in meat processing

plants even more so. Overall, “they've

done more things to hurt workers than

they have to help them,” AFL-CIO

President Richard Trumka said last

month on Fox News Sunday.

Public health endangered

And cleaning up the environment?

Nixon proposed a new Environmental

Protection Agency in July 1970, and it

began operations five months later.

Trump has gutted it, and when he brags

about all the regulations he has cut — to

the wild applause of his base — what

he’s not telling them is that he is endan-

gering the air they breathe and the wa-

ter they drink. They applaud and then

go home, apparently oblivious to the 85

(and counting) rules he has rolled back.

Air pollution, water pollution, toxic

substances, on and on and on.

There’s more, but you get the point:

Trump is worse than Nixon. And I

haven’t even gotten to the scandals.

What Trump has done is far more dam-

aging to our country. To me, it can be

summed up from just one event: his in-

famous meeting in the Oval Office in

May 2017 with Russian Foreign Minis-

ter Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambas-

sador Sergey Kislyak.

It was bad enough that Trump re-

vealed highly classified information

that, according to two unnamed offi-

cials cited in The New York Times, ex-

posed an intelligence source in the

Middle East. But we’ve since learned —

based on three sources obtained by The

Washington Post — that Trump told his

Kremlin guests he didn’t care that the

Russians had interfered in our 2016

election.

‘Aid and comfort’ to an enemy

An enemy attacks us and our com-

mander in chief doesn’t care? If this is

true then I will use, for the first time, a

word that distresses me deeply: trea-

son. This isn’t just my view. Article 3,

Section 3 of our beloved Constitution

says: “Treason against the United

States, shall consist only in levying war

against them, or in adhering to their en-

emies, giving them aid and comfort.”

The Russians attacked us. If the

commander in chief who swore to de-

fend us said it didn’t bother him, this is

“giving them aid and comfort.” The

Russians are surely gearing up for more

mayhem in 2020, and what does

Trump care? Treason.

Now we learn that Trump has leaned

on foreign governments like Ukraine

and Australia to dig up dirt that would

help him politically. For all his dirty

tricks, Richard Nixon never would have

dreamed of doing that.

Trump is a man with no ethical com-

pass or shred of decency. Worse than

Nixon? Worse in every way. And worse

than all the rest.

Paul Brandus, founder and White

House bureau chief of West Wing Re-

ports, is the author of “Under This Roof:

The White House and the Presidency”

and a member of USA TODAY’s Board of

Contributors.

Did President Trump

commit treason?

He’s no Richard Nixon.

He’s much worse.

Paul Brandus

President Donald Trump with Russian

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, left,

and Russian Ambassador Sergey

Kislyak in May 2017.RUSSIAN FOREIGN

MINISTRY VIA AFP/GETTY IMAGES

YOUR SAY

I think it’s fair that former Dallas po-
lice officer Amber Guyger was found
guilty of murder. Guyger, who is white,
shot and killed Botham Jean, an un-
armed black man who was sitting in his
own apartment eating ice cream at the
time of the incident. Guyger was sen-
tenced to 10 years in prison. I think it
should be longer.
Too often, white police officers get
away with murder in such cases. Guyg-
er’s story always sounded a little fishy to
me. She stated that she accidentally en-
tered the wrong apartment — the one on
the floor directly above hers. It seemed
more likely to me that she possibly had a
dispute with this man.
Guyger seemed to be of the mentality
that she should shoot immediately and
think later. She acted recklessly and ir-
responsibly, disregarding what would
seem like basic police department pro-
cedures. Instead of entering Jean’s
apartment, she should have exercised
more caution and called for backup. If
she had done that, Jean may still be
alive and she would likely be free.
Instead of showing caution and re-
straint, she rushed to judgment through
an unlocked door and shot and killed an

innocent man she claims she thought

was an intruder.

Sadly, that act-first-think-later

mentality is one that we’ve seen from

many officers in countless videos that

have been released capturing danger-

ous police behavior. For her reckless

actions, Guyger received a sentence

that should have been harsher. Other

officers have faced little to no conse-

quences.

Kenneth L. Zimmerman

Huntington Beach, Calif.

I honestly don’t believe this is a race

issue. She shot him out of fear for her

life. I am not condoning what she did.

Just like so many other officers out

there, she shot too quickly before find-

ing out what was really going on.

Debbie Ganassi

Isn’t this a huge victory for all peo-

ple, including honest cops?

Rick London

Sentence too short in Botham Jean case

LETTERS

[email protected]

WANT TO COMMENT?Have Your Say at

[email protected], @usatodayopinion on

Twitter and facbook.com/usatodayopinion. Com-

ments are edited for length and clarity. Content

submitted to USA TODAY may appear in print,

digital or other forms. For letters, include name,

address and phone number. Letters may be mailed

to 7950 Jones Branch Drive, McLean, VA, 22108.

Let’s stipulate up front that there is
no proof — despite claims by President
Donald Trump and his defenders —
that Joe Biden’s son Hunter engaged in
any legal wrongdoing while serving on
the board of a Ukrainian energy com-
pany called Burisma Holdings.
Nor is there any credence to Trump’s
charge that Joe Biden, as vice presi-
dent, pushed for dismissal of the na-
tion’s chief prosecutor to quash an in-
vestigation of Burisma and its owner.
And it’s bunk to suggest that the Bi-
dens’ actions are comparable with
Trump temporarily withholding nearly
$400 million in securityaid this year as
he pressed Ukrainian President Volo-
dymyr Zelensky to dig up dirt on his
Democratic rival, an act that triggered
the House impeachment inquiry.
All that said, however, two ques-
tions still stand: What was Hunter Bi-
den thinking when he associated him-
self, and his family’s good name, with
business dealings in a country so
steeped in corruption? And why didn’t
his dad, then vice president, more
forcefully advise him against it?
It’s untrue, as Trump asserted with-
out evidence on Wednesday, that “Bi-
den and his son are stone-cold
crooked.” But the record does suggest
poor judgment and imprudence by
Hunter, who accepted a position on the
Burisma board of directors in 2014, de-
spite having no obvious qualifications
for an energy post other than a gold-
plated last name.
To be sure, past American leaders
have struggled with errant or embar-
rassing relatives; examples include
President Jimmy Carter’s brother, Billy,
and a son of President George H.W.
Bush, Neil, who both tried to cash in on
their connections.
Relatives of influential politicians
often get investment and jobopportu-
nities unavailable to other mortals.
Hunter Biden appears to have followed
in that tradition when, at age 44, he ac-
cepted the Burisma director position,
earning up to $50,000 a month.
At the time, Burisma and its owner
were under intense scrutiny. Great Brit-
ain was investigating the company for
money laundering. And prosecutors
would later launch corruption probes.
A business associate of Hunter’s,
Chris Heinz, stepson of former Secre-
tary of State John Kerry, urged Hunter
against joining Burisma out of concern
about reports of corruption, a Heinz
spokesman told The Washington Post.
Hunter told The Post that he joined the

board “to help reform Burisma’s prac-

tices.” It’s unclear what he achieved.

The potential for conflicts was rife.

Prosecutors might avoid probing Buris-

ma dealings out of fear of offending the

vice president. Ukrainian oligarch and

Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky

might claim high-level U.S. influence —

even if false — by virtue of having a Bi-

den on the board.

Joe Biden said he has never spoken

to his son about the directorship. Hunt-

er Biden told the New Yorker that his fa-

ther simply said, “I hope you know

what you are doing.” Hunter, who has a

history of financial problems and sub-

stance abuse, also said that he now re-

grets taking the board position: “I

would never have been able to predict

that Donald Trump would have picked

me out as the tip of the spear against”

Joe Biden.

Perhaps not. But he might well have

predicted that his father would one day

run for president again, and that there

would be some explaining to do about

Ukraine. The day has arrived, and it has

provided Trump, himself an expert on

nepotistic enrichment, a thread on

which to hang his smear campaign.

Hunter Biden’s lawyer and Joe Bi-

den’s campaign declined to provide an

opposing view to this editorial. Andrew

Bates, a campaign spokesman, said in

a statement that the former vice presi-

dent “acted at all times in a manner

consistent with well-established execu-

tive branch ethics standards. He car-

ried out the Obama-Biden administra-

tion’s policies without regard to any in-

terests other than the public’s and nei-

ther discussed this with his son nor was

involved in any way with his son’s pri-

vate business pursuits.”

TODAY'S DEBATE: UKRAINE CONNECTION

Our view: Hunter Biden’s lapse

furnished fodder for smear

Then-Vice President Joe Biden and

son Hunter at a basketball game in

Washington in 2010.NICK WASS/AP