House Republicans’ latest plan to shield President Trump from impeachment is to focus on at least three deputies — U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, Trump’s lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, and possibly acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney — who they say could have acted on their own to influence Ukraine policy.The story they've concocted is this: Mulvaney wanted to withhold assistance to Ukraine because he has a "well-documented penchant for cutting foreign aid," and also he's close to Sondland, who has said that he never actually heard about the extortion plot directly from Trump, but he did hear about it from Giuliani, and as for Giuliani...
Giuliani’s freewheeling approach to representing Trump has frequently perplexed Republicans, who are frustrated by the former New York mayor’s loose-lipped media appearances, in which he has pushed conspiracy theories about Ukraine and even admitted that he directly asked Ukrainian officials to investigate the Bidens. Republicans also point to Giuliani’s business interests in Ukraine as reasons to think he may have been motivated by personal gain, and not his oft-claimed loyalty to Trump, as he ran what amounted to a shadow policy on Kyiv.I don't like that word "freewheeling." It implies that Giuliani really might be doing what he does of his own volition, not with Trump's blessing. (Trump routinely expresses support for Giuliani's most unhinged words and deeds.)
It's often said that Donald Trump demands loyalty of others, but doesn't show any loyalty to those who are loyal to him. Now we have Trump loyalists betraying other Trump loyalists, turning them into the fall guys out of loyalty to Trump.
And I assume the loyalists being thrown under the bus would betray the House Republican loyalists if they had the opportunity.
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