Republicans want Americans to believe Trump cared deeply — about something he never mentioned

One of the main points made by Republicans during the House hearings on the impeachment claimed that President Donald Trump cared so deeply about corruption in Ukraine that he was holding back the funding. It wasn't bribery because it was all about legitimate foreign policy, according to Trump and the Republicans in Congress.

Their greatest problem is that Trump has never held back speaking out about something he cared for. As the Washington Post noted, the argument doesn't stand up.

“As we’ll learn in these hearings, after expressing skepticism of foreign aid and concern about foreign corruption on the campaign trail, President Trump outraged the bureaucracy by acting skeptically about foreign aid and expressing concerns about foreign corruption,” said House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Devin Nunes (R-CA).

The president tweets attacks about little-known issues, Fox News personalities, golf, tennis, football, attacks on Democrats with various nicknames, attacks on sports personalities, a slew of misquotes, false information and data he gathers from Fox personalities, and more. It's not exactly believable that the president would restrain himself only on this issue.

"It is not only not the case that Trump has not focused on corruption to any significant degree as president and it is not only the case that Trump has basically not focused on corruption in Ukraine at all, it isn’t even the case that Trump focused on corruption in Ukraine in the call he had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky," wrote Phil Bump for The Post. "For all of Trump’s regular insistences that America “read the transcript”—that is, the rough transcript of the Trump-Zelensky call—House Republicans on Wednesday essentially asked that Americans not to read the transcript, lest they learn just how little of a focus Trump put on the subject.

Read the full piece at The Washington Post.