TRUMP’s dishonest “DENIABILITY” Attempts

Donald Trump not only spins, exaggerates and LIES, but he often manufactures “evidence” for the DENIABILITY of his misconducts.

2 Recent Examples:

I ) Trump had an infamous phone-conversation with the President of Turkey Recep Tayyib Erdogan (Oct 6th, 2019) before he ordered US troops to move out of the area of conflict near the Turkish-Syrian border.
Most interpreted their conversation – the exact content of which still remains unknown – as Trump green-lighting Erdogan’s impending military operation. Not that Mr.Erdogan needed permission from Trump to start this operation he had warned about for some time, but the green-lighting of it by his American Counterpart made it look even more legitimate.

Trump received severe criticism for his decision from both Democrats and Republications. With good justification, he was widely accused of betraying the Kurds who have helped fight the ISIS alongside the American forces.

Yet, anticipating this criticism, Trump also put a DENIABILITY “evidence” in the record in the form of a brief letter to Erdogan (dated Oct 9h), just 3 days after he already green-lit the Turkish military operation (In this author’s opinion, it was a justified military operation on Turkey’s part to clear the area from the Kurdish armed terrorists, albeit with unfortunate and unintended loss of some innocent Kurdish civilian-lives).

In that letter (dated: Oct 9th), Mr.Trump now seemed to argue, half-heartedly, against Mr.Erdogan’s pre-warned military-action across the Turkish-Syrian border against the Kurdish terrorists, ending the letter, rather comically, by writing : “Don’t be a tough guy. Don’t be a fool. I will call you later. Sincerely”.

Therefore, when people accuse him of not trying to stop Erdogan from taking the military action in question, Trump calculated that he could deny the charge by pointing to his letter of Oct 9th he sent to the Turkish President. A clever-by-half way of implanting “evidence” for DENIABILITY; a very dishonest attempt by Mr.Trump to have it both ways.

BTW: Mr.Erdogan, on his recent visit to the White House (Nov 13th), promptly and respectfully returned the letter to Trump, making the American President look like a big fool that he in fact is. Good for the skillful politician Mr.Erdogan, too bad for Donald Trump the buffoon who has no business being the President of the United States.

II ) There is overwhelming evidence that Trump and his associates operating on his behalf asked Volodymyr Zelensky, the President of Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden (Trump’s presumptive political rival in the 2020 elections) as a condition for allowing the American aid to Ukraine to go through. This was clearly an abuse of power and misconduct by Trump, also characterized, alternatively, as an attempt of shakedown, bribery and extortion of Mr.Zelensky.

The “quid pro quo” nature of the deal insisted on by Trump has been testified to by many witnesses, including even his close associate and friend Gordon Sondland (a co-conspirator attempting to protect Trump early on during the Congressional hearings, till he suddenly realized that lying to Congress under oath could put himself in jail).

Although Sondland had to eventually admit under oath that there indeed was a ”quid pro quo”, he couldn’t help himself throwing a one last life-line to his boss by clumsily claiming that he had a phone conversation with Mr.Trump on September 9th where the President presumably said: I don’t want anything from Zelensky. He should just do the right thing. No quid pro quo!….or words to that effect.
Mr.Trump immediately latched on to this phone conversation Sondland claimed to have taken place (although there is no record of it that it actually did), yet the stated timing of it (Sept 9th) reveals it’s true purpose: to implant another DENIABILITY “evidence” for Trump, in this case for his misconduct in the Ukrainian affair, and his lie: “there was no quid pro quo!”, while there indeed was a very clear “quid pro quo” from the get go.

It’s worth noting that this fictitious-sounding phone conversation between Sondland and Trump follows the date of the official filing by the “Whistleblower” complaining about the inappropriate nature of the Trump’s ongoing dealings with the Ukrainians. And, Trump found out about the official complaint filed by the whistleblower around late August.

Therefore, the obvious CONCLUSION is: Trump panicked and tried to cover his tracts, in collusion with Sondland, once again by resorting to the tactic of implanting or simply claiming a DENIABILITY “evidence” for his Ukraine related misconducts.

Whether these particular misconducts in dealing with Ukraine are severe enough to render Mr.Trump IMPEACHABLE is another matter yet to be determined by the Congress. In this author’s humble opinion, they indeed are, especially coming at the heals of ALL his other misconducts in office since becoming the President.

May peace be upon us all.
Celik Kayalar, PhD.
Former faculty in chemistry, biochemistry and molecular biology at
UC Berkeley and UCLA.
Writer, director and producer of “THE TRAFFICK”.