November 7th 2019

By Emily Singer

American Independent

Full Graham Quote: “What I can tell you about the Trump policy toward Ukraine: It was incoherent, it depends on who you talk to, they seem to be incapable of forming a quid pro quo, so no I find the whole process to be a sham and I’m not going to legitimize it.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has a new defense of Donald Trump against the House impeachment probe: Trump is just not an adept enough leader to have extorted Ukraine.

Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Graham said that Trump’s Ukraine policy was too “incoherent” to have forced Ukraine to investigate Trump’s political enemies in exchange for already promised military aid.

“What I can tell you about the Trump policy toward the Ukraine, it was incoherent,” Graham said. “It depends on who you talk to, they seem to be incapable of forming a quid pro quo.”

Graham isn’t the only person to argue that Trump is not adept enough to successfully carry out a crime.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board last week made a similar argument, writing that, “it may turn out that while Mr. Trump wanted a quid-pro-quo policy ultimatum toward Ukraine, he was too inept to execute it.”

This argument is the latest GOP attempt to protect Trump from impeachment. The argument has taken a winding path from attacking the process of the House impeachment inquiry, to ignoring the mounds of evidence that’s been revealed to proclaim that there was no quid pro quo, to now saying Trump is just not smart enough to commit a crime.

Trump, however, is not happy with his intelligence or leadership qualities being questioned.

After the WSJ editorial board said Trump may be too stupid to do a crime, Trump apparently complained to his aides, saying that if he wanted to do a quid pro quo, he would have, according to a report in the Daily Beast.

“[The president] mentioned he had seen it and then he started saying things like, ‘What are they talking about, if I wanted to do quid pro quo, I would’ve done the damn quid pro quo,’ and… then defended his intelligence and then talked about how ‘perfect’ the call [with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky] was,” an unnamed source told the Daily Beast.

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