PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon, as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

It is possible that the Trump presidency hangs on three Latin words – quid pro quo.

Democrats in the U.S. House are gathering evidence to show that Trump engaged in a quid pro quo, which means getting “this for that” and that he did so to gain an advantage over a political opponent in the coming U.S. presidential election.

Trump’s acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, provided more evidence by using a recent press conference to say, yes, his boss did condition aid on Ukraine actions to prompting an investigation of the Bidens.

Mulvaney tried “to walk back” his comments, but that attempt only served to underscore what he said initially.

Washington Post columnist Mark Thiessen shows up this week with an interesting column on the “quid pro quo” phrase. He says there is nothing wrong with quid pro quos in general – “it just depends on what the quo is.”

Here are excerpts from what Thiessen wrote:

“…The United States engages in quid pro quos all the time when it comes to foreign assistance. Our aid is not charity; Americans expect to get something in return for it. We have leveraged U.S. assistance in exchange for a host of objectives: Economic reform, democratic reform, better pursuit of corruption, access to strategically important areas and so on.”

In 1978, Thiessen says Jimmy Carter agreed to provide Egypt with billions of dollars in foreign aid in exchange for making peace with Israel, as part of the Camp David Accords. In 2004, George W. Bush created the Millenium Challenge Account, which required countries to meet a host of eligibility requirements — free speech, free assembly, rule of law, property rights, transparency — before they could receive a grant of aid.

Thiessen reports that Congress also imposes quid pro quos on U.S. foreign aid all the time.

“Even former vice president Joe Biden has admitted to a quid pro quo with Ukraine. He held up $1 billion in loan guarantees (a quid) to get them to fire a prosecutor who was not investigating corruption (a quo). This was perfectly legitimate, he says, and he may well be right.”

In the current case, the problem is there is substantial evidence that the quo for Trump was a foreign investigation of Biden, one of his potential opponents in the 2020 presidential race. So, to build off Thiessen’s column, the quo matters.

As more evidence emerges to confirm that quo, it could doom the Trump presidency, though, of course, it is still possible that Republicans in the Senate won’t vote to convict and Trump will continue to get away with serious misdeeds that compromise the presidency, if not the country.

Here’s one person hoping the “Trump quo,” as I now will be calling it, will bring down this president.