But while the inquiry concerning Trump himself continues to march forward, another big question looms: What should we do about the fact that numerous Trump Cabinet officials are in on his corrupt scheme as well, and are placing the government at its service?

These Cabinet officials are either actively validating the idea that there was nothing whatsoever wrong with conduct that we all now know actually happened — that is, Trump’s pressure on a foreign leader to help him corrupt our election on his behalf — or are working to cover it up.

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This is driven home by a spectacularly disingenuous interview that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gave to Fox News on Wednesday night. Pompeo floated a bizarre conspiracy theory hinting that the Obama administration held up military assistance to Ukraine to do a favor to Joe Biden’s son Hunter.

“I listened to the call,” Pompeo also said, referring to Trump’s July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as “appropriate.” Pompeo added:

I heard the president very clearly on that call, talking about making sure that corruption, whether that corruption took place in the 2016 election, whether that corruption continued to take place, that the monies that were being provided would be used appropriately, was very consistent with what I’ve understood President Trump and our administration to be doing all along.

One searches the White House summary of the call in vain for any mention of broad-based “corruption.” Instead, Trump pressed Zelensky to investigate a conspiracy theory that Ukraine set up Russia to take the fall for sabotaging the 2016 election, and explicitly targeted potential 2020 opponent Joe Biden, based on a narrative involving Hunter and the Burisma company that is complete nonsense.

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In saying all this, Pompeo is echoing Trump’s constant refrain that his call was “perfect." But Morrison’s testimony, set for Thursday, could provide new information that further dismantles this running claim.

What Tim Morrison knows

Morrison may corroborate parts of the damning testimony from William B. Taylor Jr., the acting ambassador to Ukraine. Taylor testified that around Sept. 1, Morrison described a conversation with Gordon Sondland — the ambassador to the European Union — in which Sondland said he’d told a top Zelensky aide that the military aid was conditional on Zelensky committing to investigate Burisma.

Taylor also testified that on Sept. 7, Morrison told him of a “sinking feeling” after learning from Sondland of strong signals that Trump had conditioned the money on Zelensky announcing an investigation of Biden. Taylor said this was confirmed in a Sept. 8 conversation.

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These calls prompted Taylor to send those now-infamous texts raising alarms about this quid pro quo.

Morrison will reportedly confirm key aspects of this account. CNN reports that Morrison may nuance this, but if he merely confirms he conveyed word of this quid pro quo to Taylor, that will be deeply damaging.

Lots of officials were deeply alarmed

So let’s take stock of all the officials who acted deeply alarmed by Trump’s “appropriate” and “perfect” conduct:

How do we square all this deep alarm about the pressure on Ukraine with this constant refrain from Trump and Pompeo about the president’s conduct?

What this all must inescapably show is that the administration’s actual black-letter position — articulated by the White House counsel — is that the conduct as detailed in the transcript is just fine.

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Pompeo is echoing this. And Attorney General William P. Barr is busily enlisting other foreign officials to help validate a set of narratives — which may even overlap with the one that Trump is pushing Ukraine to help validate — that will absolve Russia of its interference on Trump’s behalf in 2016, as Trump wants.

Barr’s Justice Department also tried to cover up Trump’s pressure on a second foreign power (Ukraine) to interfere on his behalf in 2020, advising against the transmission of the whistleblower complaint to Congress, and declining to investigate its charges.

As one Democrat suggested to me, the Democratic argument now should be that Republicans have no wiggle room left. Trump has made it absolutely clear that he is willing to press the government into service to rig the next election on his behalf — and to cover it up. He has made it absolutely clear that he’ll keep doing just that, by any means necessary.

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If Republicans don’t stop this, it can only mean they’re perfectly fine with it, or are even actively supportive of it.