Since he first announced his campaign for Presidency, Donald Trump has consistently shown a reckless disregard for the law and truth. He became president despite losing the popular vote, and tweeted, “In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.” Even Trump’s own commission could not find any evidence to support that tweet,  thus, started off his presidency with a blatant lie.

Three years into his four-year term, Trump was impeached by The House of Representatives for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. This scandal came to light  with a whistleblower report revealing that Trump had asked the President of Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, who had been a hired consultant for a Ukranian gas company. Although independent investigations have found no evidence of Biden’s wrongdoing while at the company, Trump reportedly threaten to withhold aid money for Ukraine that had already been approved by Congress, unless Ukraine publicly announced an investigation.

While the evidence released in a transcript from the White House does not specifically state the threat, sources close to Trump, including Lev Parnas, who worked for the President’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, stated that Trump clearly understood this to be a threat.

Even the unclassified transcript is obvious to anyone who can infer the President’s meaning. “I will say that we do a lot for Ukraine. We spend a lot  of effort and a lot.of time. Much more than the European countries are doing and they should be helping.you more than.they are. Germany does almost nothing for you. All they do is talk and I think it’s something that you should really ask them about,” Trump said in the call. Trump was without a doubt withholding the funding for political purposes, which is clearly an abuse of power.

In addition to the obvious manipulation of the vulnerable Ukrainian President, there is evidence that Giuliani spoke to Ukraine officials on the phone, including Kash Patel, a member of the national security council, and Ukraine Special envoy Kurt Volker. Giuliani was talking most frequently with his associate Parnas, and also with Devin Nunes, a Republican from the Intelligence Committee. Giuliani was speaking of taking a trip to Ukraine to further investigate Biden on Trump’s behalf. Giuliani’s plan to go to Ukraine soon became public; many questions were asked, including the intent of the trip and the possible abuse of power, as Trump was using his attorney to give him an advantage in the 2020 election.

Immediately after the trip became public, Giuliani spoke on the phone with Volker and tried to reach out to Patel but never actually connected with him. Giuliani then spoke to  a phone number with the prefix “-1”. Although there was no further identification, The Washington Post believes that number is most likely Trump’s cellphone. After the two phone calls, Giuliani canceled his trip to Ukraine. The frantic panic and quick change in a big decision reeks of a cover up, as many do not call Trump for something as minimal as going to Ukraine. He immediately changed course because he knew he had been ratted out to the public. An innocent man wouldn’t cancel a trip after a few questions were being asked about it.

These calls sparked controversy as it became clear that Trump was abusing his power. To defend himself, Trump claims he had no idea who Parnas was and did not know Giuliani was in contact with him. This was then immediately shot down as multiple videos and pictures were released of Trump and Parnas interacting on many occasions, proving Trump’s claim is a blatant lie and a clear cover up for his involvement in the illegal investigation on Biden to benefit himself in the 2020 election.

Despite the amount of suspicious activity between the President and Giuliani, they are still theories without legitimate proof. And although they make sense, they are still theories. The evidence comes in with a handwritten letter Giuliani sent to President Zelensky. In this letter, Giuliani states, “Just to be precise, I represent him as a private citizen, not as president of the United States.” Using government resources to benefit oneself as a private citizen is a textbook abuse of power and we as a country should step away from political bias and treat our president as what he truly is: a criminal.

Taking advantage of political power for personal benefit is not a simple mistake with a quick fix, nor is it the first time Trump has been unethical while representing America. According to the Washington Post, Trump has 16,241 false or misleading claims in his first three years, with each year having a dramatic increase from the last. The New York Times kept track of every presidential lie told. This data shows Trump reaching 103 lies in his first 10 months in office while Obama sat at 18 lies throughout his eight years in office. Although not every lie might have been accounted for, 103 in 10 months to 18 in eight years is way too drastic of a difference to blame a few inaccuracies in the numbers. Both these articles expose the pattern of flat out faking it that Trump has followed through his presidency. Donald Trump hides behind a bubble of denial and falsehoods while relying on his supporters to follow him blindly and believe everything he says..

It has been proven that in 2019, he averaged over 22 false or misleading claims in a single day.

As stated previously, Trump states false claims boldly and his supporters believe him. One of the most common arguments as to why Trump is a good president is the improvement in the economy. Trump claimed he brought back over 600,000 manufacturing jobs and that his daughter, Ivanka Trump, has created 14 million jobs. Both claims have been proven false by The New York Times fact checker. Despite this, Trump has had some success, as unemployment rates are truly at an all time low. Although Trump may say he did that himself, much of the credit goes to Barack Obama as a graph created by the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that Obama started the drastic decrease in unemployment rates, and Trump simply continued Obama’s work.

A president is meant to represent the United States.  Right now, America is being represented by a man who refuses to admit he is ever at fault while continuing to spew out lies to anyone who will listen. Trump is an embarrassment to this country and it is in all of our best interests to remove him from office.