11/14-15/19: Thursday, Americans were left to digest the public testimony of the first two witnesses in the impeachment inquiry hearings on Wednesday. But all day Thursday, and again Friday, important developments continued to spill out. On Friday, a third witness testified for several hours, this time, Marie Yovanovitch, former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine.
As they say, you can’t change a leopard’s spots. Nor can you
keep President Trump’s itchy fingers off the Twitter button. Friday morning, at
10:01 a.m. with Ms. Yovanovitch just beginning testimony in front of cameras
and under oath, the President of the United States could not resist insulting
her, as he has done several times before.
Let us pause a moment, to remember famous public testimonies in years past. You had, of course, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton answering questions for eight hours as part of the Benghazi hearings. That testimony came on October 22, 2015, in an era before Republicans started screaming about “perjury traps.”
There was, of course President Trum….…No. Wait. President Trump refused to testify publicly as part of the Russia investigation.
His lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, made it clear the president would have to jump over his lifeless corpse, before Rudy would allow him to stick either foot, or both feet, in any “perjury trap.”
(Your humble blogger would note that a “perjury trap” seems to exist any time President Trump moves his lips.)
____________________
“Well, I want to let you know, Ambassador, that some of us here take witness intimidation very, very seriously.”
Chairman Schiff
____________________
Now, we had Trump insulting a witness, via Twitter – at a
moment when that witness was set to testify. Chairman Schiff halted proceedings
immediately when alerted to that fact. He read the following tweet out loud.
Then he asked,
Ambassador you’ve shown the
courage to come forward today and testify notwithstanding the fact you are
urged by the White House or State Department not to, notwithstanding the fact
that as you testified earlier the president implicitly threatened you in that
call record [of July 25]. And now the president in real time is attacking you.
What effect do you think that has on other witnesses’ willingness to come
forward and expose wrongdoing?
There were gasps in the hearing room and Yovanovitch let out a loud puff before she could respond.
“Well, it’s very intimidating,” she said.
“It’s designed to intimidate, is it not?” Schiff continued.
The ambassador pondered her answer. She had an air of dignity and long training as a diplomat (33 years in the field) had taught her to choose words with care. “I mean, I can’t speak to what the president is trying to do,” she responded, with a slight roll of the eyes, “but I think the effect is to me intimidating.”
“Well, I want to let you know, Ambassador,” Schiff said,
“that some of us here take witness intimidation very, very seriously.”
Republicans on the panel spend most of their morning time, ignoring what Yovanovitch has to say, instead, blasting Schiff and Democrats for how the hearings are being conducted. But they are careful not to attack Ambassador Yovanovitch, and almost effusive in praise after lunch. Apparently, they have been tipped to the fact that the president’s attacks on an active witness are not playing well with the general public.
Rep. Brad Wenstrup of Ohio gently asks Yovanovitch if it were not true: a president could remove any ambassador he might want.
“I obviously don’t dispute that the president has the right to withdraw an ambassador at any time for any reason,” she agreed, before adding, “but I do wonder is why it was necessary to smear my reputation also.”
Clearly caught off guard, Wenstrup had no idea how to respond, saying lamely, that that was not the question he asked.
It was, however, the question, Ambassador Yovanovitch answered. The president could have removed her at any time. Why, then, had it been necessary for Rudy Giuliani and his team (four members of which are now under arrest), and the president and his media allies, to tear her reputation down?
All Americans – not counting the 122,600 fools who “liked” Trump’s tweet – should demand an answer to that question.
Trump was once again threatening the rule of law.
Asked later about that Twitter post, even Rep. Jordan, didn’t defend it. When a reporter wondered if it was appropriate for Trump to smear Ambassador Yovanovitch, Jordan reverted to GOP Talking Point #1. “Where’s the whistleblower?” he demanded to know. We have to hear from the whistleblower in public. We have to expose him or her. A whole pack of cowardly Republican lawmakers stood behind him when the reporter asked again: Should a president ever smear a witness?
Rep. Elise Stefanik spoke up, as if a random thought had popped into her head, “We’re not here to talk about tweets.”
It was not a proud moment for Stefanik. It was another repulsive performance by Jim Jordan, a man without decency or shame. The lawmakers gathered behind them looked like a class photo for cowards. And anyone with a passing understanding of the Constitution should have realized that the President of the United States was once again threatening the rule of law.
When the hearing ended, and Chairman Schiff announced that
the witness was free to go, Yovanovitch rose slowly from her seat. As she
headed for the exits, the audience in the hearing room, and the Democrats on
the panel rose and gave her a resounding round of applause.
 |
Rep. Stefanik, right. Rep. Jordan is at left. |
*
MEANWHILE, the American people learned that Rudy Giuliani was under investigation himself.
And at the very moment when Ambassador Yovanovitch was testifying, a sixth member of Team Trump 2016, Roger Stone, was found guilty of a series of crimes in federal court. In his case, a jury of his peers convicted him on seven felony counts.
Let that sink in a moment.
Stone had been charged with seven felonies. The jury judged him guilty of all seven, and did so with relative ease. One count, carrying the stiffest penalty, was a charge of witness intimidation. Other felonies involved lying to Congress and lying to Mueller’s investigators. The prosecutor in the case pointed out that all of Stone’s lies had served to protect the President of the United States.
Now, Mr. Stone was looking at up to half a century behind
bars. Or praying for a pardon from a president with a soft spot for felons.
In judging Team Trump 2020, it would seem logical to remember that Stone wasn’t even the member of Team Trump 2016 to rack up the most felonies. That dishonor would go to Paul Manafort, convicted by a jury on eight counts, avoiding ten more convictions only because a single juror held out. That would be Paul Manafort, campaign chair in 2016. That would be Paul Manafort, campaign chair – later admitting that he was guilty of those ten counts, but not being charged, as part of a plea deal – then being convicted of two more felony counts – including witness tampering – after he started screwing around in secret again. So: ten felonies for Manafort! And when did most of this felonious activity occur? During a time when Manafort was working for corrupt politicians and sleazy oligarchs in Ukraine!
(Listen carefully to the hearings next week: It’s a safe bet,
no GOP questioner is going to bring Manafort up.)
In second place – with eight felonies – we have President Trump’s old personal lawyer, Michael Cohen. Two of his felony counts involved lying to protect then-candidate Donald J. Trump. In those instances, Cohen was helping Trump cover up $280,000 in combined payoffs to a porn star and Playboy Bunny he had banged, both while married to the current First Lady of the United States. Meaning: Citizen Trump had cheated on all three of his wives. Meaning, also: You had to be blind, deaf, dumb, unable to write or speak English, with your head in a large, brown paper sack – or a Republican on the House panel hearing testimony – to miss the obvious. Team Trump 2016 was a band of crooks, led by a habitual liar.
Team Trump 2020 was shaping up to be the same, only with different players filling the roster.
Its leader was the same habitual liar.
*
SO: THE BAD NEWS for Team Trump 2020 kept piling up as the week drew to an end. A new witness, an official at the Office of Management and Budget had agreed to testify next week, despite efforts by the White House to block the testimony. A second witness came forward to say that she had also heard Ambassador Gordon Sondland’s July 26 call with the president, during a meal at a restaurant in Kiev. Before Friday ended, we learned that a third person heard at least part of that call. In fact, one witness testified in a closed door hearing late that afternoon; and that witness’s opening statement quickly leaked to the press. It’s a safe bet to say the leaker was a Democrat, or at least no fan of Trump. It’s an equally safe bet that if the statement had bolstered the president’s defense, Rep. Nunes would have been running down the streets of D.C., desperately looking for a friendly reporter he could hand it to.
Ambassador Bill Taylor had first explained, under oath
Wednesday, that he had been told that Sondland said, after the July 26 call,
that Trump cared more about the investigation of the Biden family than he did
about Ukraine. Nunes and his GOP colleagues were at great pains to note that
all Taylor had was “second- and third-hand information.” Jordan got angry again
and tried to make the case that all Taylor had were a few words, heard
sixth-hand, from his wife’s brother-in-law’s second cousin, thrice removed.
Something like that. Let’s just say it can be difficult to follow Jordan’s
logic.
Trump, of course, had already told reporters he didn’t remember that call. That could be added to a mountain of material about which President Twitter Thumbs seemed clueless and uninformed. Trump was now forced to play Whack-a-Mole with a series of witnesses. He said he barely knew Ambassador Sondland. So: add Sondland to a list of people Trump couldn’t pick out of a police lineup, that list already including Taylor, George Kent, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman (Trump: “Why are people that I never even heard of testifying”) and Yovanovitch (I “really don’t know” her, Trump had said, even though he threatened her in the July 25 phone call).
Also unknown to the President of the United States were Lev
Parnas and Igor Fruman (both under indictment at this time, both having been
photographed more than once with Donald J. Trump and even Don Jr., his son).
At any rate, by Friday evening, the opening statement of David Holmes was in the hands of the people who do the “Fake News.”
Only Holmes’s opening statement was real. In it, he alleged that he was at the table on July 26, when Ambassador Sondland called President Trump from a restaurant in Kiev. This was one day after the infamous July 25 phone call, during which our president asked the Ukrainian leader to do him a “favor,” and also threatened Ambassador Yovanovitch, who he said was “going to go through some things.” Sondland apparently had to hold the phone away from his ear because Trump was loud. Holmes could hear part of what the president said and recognized his voice.
We’ll save most of what Holmes says until transcripts of his testimony are released. But if what he says is true, another main prop supporting the president’s defense has been kicked aside. Holmes explained that in his job as a top aide at the U.S. embassy in Kyiv [or “Kiev”], he took notes during two important meetings on July 26. In the second, he said that President Zelenskyy
“stated
that during the July 25 call, President Trump had ‘three times’ raised ‘some
very sensitive issues,’ and that he would have to follow up on those issues
when they met ‘in person.’ Not having received a readout of the July 25 call, I
did not know what those sensitive issues were.”
Not long after, Ambassador Sondland and Mr. Holmes went to lunch. Two other embassy staffers joined them. “Ambassador Sondland selected a bottle of wine that he shared among the four of us,” Holmes explained, “and we discussed topics such as marketing strategies for his hotel business.”
“Big stuff” that benefits the President.
When the wine was finished, Sondland said he was going to call the president and brief him on a recent, one-on-one meeting he had just held with a top Ukrainian aide to Mr. Zelenskyy.
Holmes continued:
I
heard President Trump then clarify that Ambassador Sondland was in Ukraine.
Ambassador Sondland replied, yes, he was in Ukraine, and went on to state that
President Zelenskyy “loves your ass.” I then heard President Trump ask, “So,
he’s gonna do the investigation?” Ambassador Sondland replied that “he’s gonna
do it,” adding that President Zelenskyy will do “anything you ask him to.” Even
though I did not take notes of these statements, I have a clear recollection
that these statements were made. I believe that my colleagues who were sitting
at the table also knew that Ambassador Sondland was speaking with the
President.
An unrelated topic was introduced and discussed. When the call ended, Holmes followed up with a question.
Ambassador
Sondland remarked that the President was in a bad mood, as Ambassador Sondland
stated was often the case early in the morning. I then took the opportunity to
ask Ambassador Sondland for his candid impression of the President’s views on
Ukraine. In particular, I asked Ambassador Sondland if it was true that the
President did not “give a s—t about Ukraine.” Ambassador Sondland agreed that
the President did not “give a s—t about Ukraine.” I asked why not, and
Ambassador Sondland stated that the President only cares about “big stuff.” I
noted that there was “big stuff” going on in Ukraine, like a war with Russia,
and Ambassador Sondland replied that he meant “big stuff” that benefits the
President, like the “Biden investigation” that Mr. Giuliani was pushing.
So, was there any evidence that Trump wanted to clean up corruption in Ukraine before granting military aid?
There appeared to be none.
*
IN RELATED NEWS, Bloomberg reported that Rudy Giuliani might soon become the second consecutive personal lawyer of President Trump to be indicted. Possible charges included campaign finance law violations and failure to register as a lobbyist for a foreign government. Rudy’s “work alongside the president” had also “raised counterintelligence concerns.”
Or:
2016, déjà vu.
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