More evidence

Today there is more evidence, not only of Trump's unfitness for office, mentally and morally, but of conflicts of interest that make it hard to believe he is acting in the country's interest and not his own. Trump himself admitted in an interview a few years ago that he has a conflict of interest when it comes to Turkey; he has franchise naming rights on a very large building ("two towers!"!)  in Istanbul.

On Sunday he took a call from Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey's authoritarian president and immediately afterwards announced that he would pull troops out of northern Syria. The sudden withdrawal, decided without any consultation with the his NSA, the NSC or the military top brass clears the way for Erdoğan to launch a military campaign not the region. And that he did three days later.

Not only does Trump's decision strengthen China's and Russia's standing in foreign affairs, it is morally indefensible. And because of Trump's business dealings in Turkey, its is entirely possible that Erdoğan used this a leverage to get what he wanted. "wouldn't it be a pity if the Turkish Parliament decided to expropriate the building?" he might have hinted.

So on top of digging into Trump's Ukrainian shenanigans, Congress needs to subpoena the records to that telephone call too; if betraying US allies and compromising US foreign policy for personal financial gain (or to avert personal financial losses) doesn't rise to the level of a a "high crime and misdemeanor", it's hard to see what does. 

We have reached a point where collectively we must decide whether we are a country that turns a blind eye to corruption in high places or one that stands for the rule of law.  More evidence that we are on the brink of degenerating into a banana republic.