March 1, 2019: Michael Cohen Testifies for Seven Hours - GOP Lawmakers Miss Every Key Point

 

March 1, 2019: I’m going to assume you did not have seven hours to invest in watching former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen testify before the House Oversight Committee. I’m retired. So, I watched till my eyes bugged out. 

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In those glory days, Cohen was lying for Trump.

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It was hard, while watching, not to imagine that Republicans on the panel were suffering from mass hysteria. They were boiling mad to learn that Cohen had lied to Congress in September 2017, even though they controlled both the House and Senate at the time and could have investigated more thoroughly if they had wished. Then again, in those glory days, Cohen was lying for Trump. 

A few observations follow.

 

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LET’S PICK UP the thread of testimony, allowing for a little literary license, with the first Republican speaking and/or yelling: 

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): ADMIT IT, MR. COHEN, YOU ARE A LIAR! DID ANYONE EVER TELL YOU THAT? 

Cohen: Yes. 

Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI.): Admit it! You are a COLOSSAL LIAR! 

Cohen: I did lie. 

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-VA): Admit it! You lied to CONGRESS? 

Cohen: I just admitted it. 

At that point, Foxx “yielded back” her time (each representative had five minutes) to Rep. Jordan, who started shouting again. Rep. Jordan looked like he wanted to leap over the dais and throttle the witness. You got the feeling he was the kind of guy who could strangle a puppy without remorse.

 

I decided to pause my TV and look up what Cohen said back on September 19, 2017, testifying before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. That’s when he lied. In those days, Republicans, and the president himself, were thrilled with what Cohen said under oath. 

Given my own proximity to the President of the United States as a candidate, let me also say that I never saw anything - not a hint of anything - that demonstrated his involvement in Russian interference in our election or any form of Russian collusion.

 

I assume we will discuss the rejected proposal to build a Trump property in Moscow that was terminated in January of 2016; which occurred before the Iowa caucus and months before the very first primary. This was solely a real estate deal and nothing more. I was doing my job. I would ask that the two-page statement about the Moscow proposal that I sent to the Committee in August be incorporated into and attached to this transcript.

 

I hit the pause again, to restart the hearings. 

Jordan (still yelling at Cohen): YOU SNAKE! YOU ARE A HUMONGOUS LIAR!!!

 

Me (thinking): Cohen knew in September 2017 about a secret June 2016 meeting with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort with agents of the Russian Federation. That was the meeting all three “forgot.” Then the truth came out because the “enemies of the people,” in the free press were digging to find it. Then the president lied about the purpose of the meeting. Next, Press Secretary Pinocchio lied and said her boss never lied about that purpose. Later the president’s lawyer admitted, “Okay, he did lie.”

 

My reverie was interrupted by another shouting Republican, Rep. Bob Gibbs of Ohio. He called Cohen a liar. 

 

The President of the United States had to know. 

Me (still thinking): Cohen lied again when he claimed negotiations to build a Trump property in Moscow ended in January 2016. Those lies served to shield Mr. Trump. Surely, the next GOP lawmaker to speak is going to realize…

 

Mark Meadows (R-NC): I hope you rot in jail for 5,000 years, Mr. Cohen. You are a liar. Have we not asked if you are? 

Cohen: I lied. So did the presi….. 

Meadows: SILENCE!! 

Me: Cohen lied about payments to keep a porn star’s story out of the news. Those lies also benefited Trump. Someone on the Republican side is sure to bring this up.

 

Mark Green (R-TN): Liar, liar, pants on fire! Let the American people note: We have a poster to make the point! 

(He gestures toward it.) 

Meadows, Jordan and Massie: inordinately proud of their poster.

 

Me: If Cohen lied to Congress, the President of the United States had to know! The president had a tongue that wagged and Twitter thumbs to tap out correction. Even the greatest idiot ever elected to Congress should be able to figure this out…

 

Thomas Massie (R-KY): I’m not going to ask you again, Mr. Cohen, you fraud, you faker, you falsifier? You LIED, DIDN’T YOU! 

Cohen: Yes. 

Massie (beaming): I knew it!!!!! 

Me (thinking, as always): Maybe I should mute the TV when Jordan talks next and just watch facial expressions…. 

Jordan: ----- 

Me: I never knew veins on a neck could stick out that far. Okay, next is this Democratic guy; I’ll unmute the TV.

 

Rep. John Sarbanes (D-MD): I wonder……………if………Mr. Cohen………… 

Me: This guy is phrasing his question so deliberately I don’t think he’s going to get it out before his five minutes are up. 

I take a quick bathroom break. When I return Sarbanes is done but I have no idea what he said. Another Republican is shouting at Cohen. 

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ): You are a THUG, MR. COHEN. Also, has anyone mentioned that you are a cheat, a phony, and a swindler? If President Trump was a liar, a cheat and a racist, as you claim, why did you work for him for TEN YEARS!” 

Gosar gets so fired up, because he thinks he has Cohen trapped, that he blathers on and when he tries to launch into a quotation that he says he loves, his five minutes are up. He’s left mumbling incomprehensibly into his microphone. 

Me (pondering the obvious): If Cohen was a thug and a liar, why was Trump happy to keep him around for a decade? 

 

“Someone I always liked & respected.” 

The hearings continued. I was amused when GOP lawmakers acted as if they couldn’t believe what a sleazebag Cohen had always been – what with cheating on his taxes, which Cohen also admitted he did. Fortunately, I had a vestige of memory and knew Cohen had been the deputy finance chairman of the Republican National Committee until June 2018. He lost his post only after it became clear he might turn on President Trump and, shall we say, start correcting his story. 

I’m sure no one on the GOP side wanted viewers to recall that Elliott Broidy, another RNC deputy finance chair, had employed Cohen to arrange a secret hush money payment. In that case, Broidy had to fork over $1.6 million to shut up another Playboy Bunny – as opposed to the hush money payment Cohen helped arrange to shut up the other Playboy Bunny with whom Trump had had an affair. 

So, yeah, Cohen, what a thug! 

Or was it a “rat.” Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-MD) seemed interested in the fact that the President of the United States had labeled Cohen a “rat” on Twitter, after it became clear he would cooperate with prosecutors. This seemed odd, because until it became clear Cohen was going to turn, Trump had tweeted, calling Cohen a “good man” and someone “I always liked & respected.” 

Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) spoke next. Higgins, a bullet-headed gentleman, proved unique in that he was clearly baffled by the simplest facts. At one point, Cohen produced evidence, a signed check for $35,000, indicating President Trump was paying him as late as August 1, 2017, for his role in covering up the story of Stormy Daniels, the porn queen, in violation of campaign finance laws. 

He said he had more evidence he could share. 

Higgins (now chastising the witness): By thunderation, sir, where is this treasure trove of documents of which you speak? Why are you hiding evidence, good sir? Do you think we Republicans on this committee are fools? 

Cohen: These documents are in a storage locker. They were seized last April in a raid on my office and home. They aren’t “hidden.” They were returned to me by investigators after they gathered the evidence they needed. 

Higgins: What kind of monster would hide boxes of evidence, by God and all the 12 Commandments!!! 

Cohen: Um…

 

There was, here and there during testimony, some good news for the president. Cohen said that he himself had never been to Prague. A potentially devastating allegation, included in the Steele dossier, was that Cohen flew there in the summer of 2016 to work out payments to Russian hackers so they could keep up their good work interfering in the election to help Trump win. 

A Democratic member, whose name I missed, asked Mr. Cohen about other stories he might have helped “capture and kill” to protect Trump. Was there an elevator tape that might show him striking Mrs. Trump, as had been rumored? Cohen was adamant in stating that he did not believe the president would ever strike his wife. He also said that he did not believe a tape of hookers peeing on a Moscow hotel bed for the viewing pleasure of Donald J. Trump existed. 

 

Trump must have wanted him to lie. 

That was it for the good news. Cohen pointed out that his false testimony in September 2017 had been vetted by defense lawyers for Mr. Trump. He said he discussed his testimony with the president himself. 

Me: So if that testimony was false… 

Meadows: Why are we listening to THIS DECEIVER, THIS DISSEMBLER? 

Me: Trump must have wanted him to lie…

 

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY): “When was the last time you had contact with Mr. Trump in regard to possible testimony before Congress or cooperation with investigators?” 

Cohen: I think…about June 2018. I cannot comment further because the matter is part of an ongoing investigation in the Southern District of New York. I am in constant contact with prosecutors. 

Rep. Jordan gets five minutes “yielded back” by a GOP colleague and spends them calling Cohen a liar. 

Eleanor Norton (D-DC): Mr. Cohen, are there other crimes involving Mr. Trump which this panel should know about? 

Cohen: Yes. But I cannot comment further because investigations are…

 

Rep. Meadows: Mr. Cohen, I would like you to look up here. Behind me, we have Lynn Patton, an actual African American woman! She has worked for Donald J. Trump for many years and now holds a government post. She says Trump is not a racist. How dare you say Mr. Trump is a racist now that we can show he has a black friend?” 

(Ms. Patton stands there, not opening her mouth, looking like a hostage who might want to try blinking in Morse code.) 

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI): The fact that my colleague would use an African American as a prop is, in itself, a racist ploy. 

Meadows (looking like he might be suffering a stroke): How dare you call me a racist!!! 

Tlaib: Mr. Cohen, do you believe the president and others have been trying to intimidate you, to convince you not to correct the record before Congress? 

Cohen: I do. I worry. I never walk with my wife and children in public anymore. I send them ahead. I’m afraid one of Trump’s 62 million Twitter followers might attack the people I love.

 

Finally, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has her turn to question the witness, and here, and in the Democratic questions above, we quote actual questioning and testimony verbatim. The young Democrat from New York goes straight to the point. She has learned, she says, that Trump often overvalued assets, golf courses and the like, if he wanted to win favorable loan treatment from large money-laundering, international banks. To avoid paying property taxes he would then order lawyers and accountants to undervalue the same properties. Was this an accurate assessment, she asked? 

Cohen: Yes. 

Ocasio-Cortez: Would anyone else know about such practices? 

Cohen: Allen Weisselberg, Ron Lieberman and Matthew Calamari.

 

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez: A recent article in The New York Times notes that taxpayers spent $127 million to help build Trump Links, a Trump property in the Bronx, my district. But the deal allowed Mr. Trump to keep almost every dollar the golf club took in. Is it possible he undervalued Trump Links for tax purposes? On financial disclosure forms the president claimed that Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, Florida was worth $50 million. Yet he reported to local tax authorities that the property was worth no more than $5 million [emphasis added]. 

Cohen: That is identical to what Mr. Trump did with Briarcliff Manor, another private golf club. 

Ocasio-Cortez: Would it help for the committee to obtain federal and state tax returns from the president and his companies to address that discrepancy? 

Cohen: I believe so. 

That was when I decided to click off the TV and go pour myself a stiff drink. 

 

POSTSCRIPT: The parents of Otto Warmbier react today to President Trump’s recent comments regarding Kim Jong-un. Donald says his pal Kim Jong-un must not have known about the brutal abuse of the young American prisoner. Otto’s parents, Fred and Cindy Warmbier, are having no part of Trump’s sucking up to a murderous dictator. “We have been respectful during this summit process,” they explain in a statement. “Now we must speak out. Kim and his evil regime are responsible for the death of our son Otto. Kim and his evil regime are responsible for unimaginable cruelty and inhumanity. No excuses or lavish praise can change that.” 

You almost expect Trump to lash out at Otto’s parents, but for once someone keeps the president in check, and no Twitter attack results.

July 24, 2019: The Day Robert Mueller Made It Clear Trump Was a Liar

 

7/24/19: Robert Mueller testifies for nearly six hours in front of two congressional panels. He refuses to go beyond what the report he has submitted says. For example, he refuses to say if the president “took the Fifth” in answering written questions. Mueller is precise, measured in response, even dull. 

Almost as soon as he completes his time on the stand, the partying at the White House begins. There are no “bombshells” in the televised testimony. The president will later call Mueller’s performance the worst in all the storied history of congressional hearings. 

Total exoneration, baby!

Mueller testifies under oath - something you never saw Trump do.

 

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“I gather you think knowingly accepting foreign help in an election is an unethical thing to do?” 

Rep. Adam Schiff

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IF YOU WATCHED all six hours of testimony – and took notes – you know the president was not exonerated. 

Dull or not, the facts Mueller laid out were damning. 

It will require a special blog post to address this topic; but a few highlights should suffice till then. First, Mueller slapped away the idea that he had hired a team of “angry Democrats” to frame Trump. In twenty-five years with the Justice Department he had never inquired about the political leanings of any of his hires. “It just isn’t done,” he told a Republican lawmaker who questioned him. He hired lawyers he felt could do the best work, men and women he knew for “integrity,” above all. 

In six hours of questioning, not one Republican member of either committee used the word “integrity” to describe Donald R. Trump. 

Meanwhile, Democrats focused on massive evidence of obstruction of justice. We learned, for example, that Trump called Attorney General Jeff Sessions at home and tried to get him to un-recuse himself and fire Mueller. Trump ordered White House Counsel Don McGahn to get rid of Mueller, too. 

“Did the president ask McGahn to lie?” one questioner asked Mueller. The Special Counsel often answered with one word. 

“Yes,” he said. 

Dull? Okay. But the Special Counsel had just said the president lied – and lied in a failed attempt to obstruct justice.

 

When Louis Gohmert (R-Texas) had his turn to speak and rambled on for five minutes and tried to make Mueller sound like he was on trial, Mueller’s response was, “I take your question.” Nothing more. 

Mueller had his dignity to consider. 

Gohmert was a clown. 

Jim Jordan (R-OH) spent his five minutes asking why Mueller never charged Josef Mifsud, a secondary figure in the investigation, as if something nefarious must have been afoot. 

The real problem: Mifsud has disappeared. 

Neither Jordan nor any other Republican wanted to know why the following members of Team Trump were now convicted felons: Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, General Michael T. Flynn, Michael Cohen, George Papadopoulos – and probably Roger Stone – currently under indictment for witness tampering and scheduled for trial this fall. 

 

“I hope this is not the new normal, but I fear it is.” 

Mueller was also asked, “Isn’t it true that an unsuccessful attempt to obstruct justice is still a crime?” 

“Correct,” he said. He did not elaborate because the statement stands as made. 

Rep. Mike Johnson had the closing five minutes for the Republican side during the first hearing and tried to insist that President Trump had never mislead anyone and cooperated fully.

 

In the second session, Val Demings, a Florida Democrat and former police chief of Orlando, asked Mueller why his team never asked Trump to sit down, face to face, and testify under oath. 

Mueller explained that the president and his lawyers had stalled the investigation for over a year. It was important to turn the report over to Attorney General William Barr, so he might make the decision about what to do next. 

Mueller admitted that Trump left several questions, submitted in writing by investigators, blank. 

“Did he plead the Fifth?” Demings wanted to know. 

Mueller refused to answer. “I’m not going to get into that,” he replied. He was sticking to what was in the report.

 

The rest of her questioning went pretty much like this: 

“Trump did not answer follow up questions?” Demings asked, trying a different tack. 

“No.” 

“Many questions he didn’t answer at all?” 

“True.” 

“His answers were often contradictory and incomplete?” 

“True.” 

Did he give answers that “contradicted other evidence?” 

“Yes.” 

Could the Special Counsel say that “the President was credible?” 

Mueller: “I can’t answer that question.” 

Is it fair to say, she asked, that Trump’s answers “showed that he wasn’t always being truthful?” 

“I would say, generally.” 

Those are the exact answers Mueller gave – what pundits were saying made for “boring” TV. 

Mueller wasn’t a TV prosecutor. He was a real prosecutor, with decades of enforcement experience. He was laying out facts. He did not need to showboat, like GOP lawmakers trying to make absurd points. All the evidence anyone might need to begin impeachment was there in the Mueller Report.

 

The best exchange of the day may have come when, during afternoon hearings, Adam Schiff, the Democratic chair of the House Intelligence Committee, asked Mueller a series of simple questions. 

“I gather you think knowingly accepting foreign help in an election is an unethical thing to do?” Schiff inquired. 

“And a crime,” Mueller interjected, his stoic manner momentarily animated. 

“And unpatriotic?” Schiff added. 

“True.” 

“And wrong?” 

“True,” Mueller said again, displaying a trace of disgust, no doubt with the current occupant of the Oval Office.

 

Republicans, and Trump’s avid fans, who purport to love this country far more than his opponents, should try to remember a time when their Orange God ever said we need to protect elections from Russian interference. Mueller might not have stirred the masses with his answers; but he was perfectly clear when he said Russian interference in our elections was “among the most serious” challenges he had seen in all his years in law enforcement. 

Russia, he said in answer to a question from Rep. Will Hurd, the only member of his party to ask about Russians all day, did interfere in the 2016 election. 

They would interfere again. They were, he warned, still interfering “as we speak.” 

A Democrat asked the Special Counsel if he thought this was the “new normal,” that politicians would accept help from foreign powers to win future elections. “I hope this is not the new normal,” Mr. Mueller replied, “but I fear it is.”

BLOGGER’S NOTE (5/11/22): Team Trump blocked testimony by Don McGahn for nearly two more years, until the courts beat down the last challenge, and he went before Congress in June 2021. McGahn told lawmakers that Trump kept pressing him to have Mueller removed as Special Counsel, that he felt “trapped” by the president’s orders, and that he was prepared to resign if pressed to break the law. 

That should tell you something.

November 3, 2019: A "Virtually Impenetrable" Border Wall - And Trump's Twitter Obsessions

 

Twitter was perfect for Trump: posts had to be short and simple and go for the gut.

Way back in 2016, he claimed a Republican primary in Iowa was "rigged."

11/3/19: It turns out drug smugglers can use reciprocating saws to cut through the new bollard walls that the Trump administration is building on the southern border. Mexico, of course, is still not paying for the wall. 

Or repairs. 

Smugglers can purchase the necessary saws for $100 and in ten minutes cut a passage for their drugs and drug mules. 

Asked for comment, the president defends the Great Wall of Trump in exactly the way you’d expect. “We have a very powerful wall, but no matter how powerful, you can cut through anything, in all fairness,” he told reporters. “But we have a lot of people watching. Cutting is one thing, but it’s easily fixed. One of the reasons we did it the way we did it, it’s very easily fixed. You put the chunk back in,” he added. “But we have a very powerful wall. But you can cut through any wall.” 

(Why does this man repeat so often! It’s like he doesn’t even listen to his own jabbering spiels.) 

This is still a bummer, as even Fox News must admit. In a visit to the border in September, Trump bragged about his Great Wall, insisting, it was “virtually impenetrable.” 

Unless you stopped by the hardware store first.

In one case smugglers cut a garage-size hole in the wall.

 

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“The idea is to stack up so much doubt, emotional appeals, and circumstantial evidence ON TOP of facts that we create a landslide of anti-Hill sentiment that permeates through society.” 

Anonymous

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THE NEW YORK TIMES publishes a lengthy analysis of Trump’s Twitter obsessions. If you’ve never paid attention, the picture that emerges is one of a petty man-boy, prone to hate, prone to simplify, and happy to lie. 

First, the president tweets a lot. “He needs to tweet like we need to eat,” top White House aide Kellyanne Conway admits. 

 

The president likes to binge on junk language. 

Carrying the food analogy forward, you might say the president likes to binge on junk, with zero intellectual nutrition. More than 2,000 times, he has tweeted in praise of himself. “I’m the best thing that’s ever happened to Puerto Rico,” he said. His hotel in New York City was voted “#1 ‘Best Hotel in the World.’” He has described himself multiple times as “your favorite president,” and even as “your all time favorite duly elected President, me!” Trump also likes to retweet praise from fans. 

The president often makes government policy via Twitter, then destroys the policy just made, all by tapping on his iPhone. Recently, the president of Turkey mocked our “favorite president” for posting a series of conflicting policy twists and turns regarding the Syrian Kurds. “When we take a look at Mr. Trump’s Twitter posts,” he laughed, “we cannot keep track.” 

Neither can the Pentagon.

 

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THE TIMES notes that the president “follows” only 47 other accounts. With one exception those accounts echo the hodgepodge of furies and goofy odds and ends of misinformation and conspiracy thinking that warp the president’s psyche. Seven accounts belong to family members. One is controlled by a member of Congress, Rep. Jim Jordan, a fellow traveler in hate and #1 defender of all things quintessentially Trump. 

Fox News hosts, former Fox News hosts, and Fox News shows are well represented. The president follows Maria Bartiromo – Tucker Carlson – Jesse Waters – Laura Ingraham – Geraldo Rivera – and the rotating cast of morning morons at Fox & Friends. He still follows Bill O’Reilly and Eric Bolling, which is telling, since both were axed in the wake of sexual harassment claims. Above all others, the president follows Sean Hannity slavishly. At least 258 times, he has tweeted links to Hannity’s show or thanked Hannity for his treacly support.

 

The president has a number of other Twitter fetishes. He has used more than 1,700 tweets to push conspiracy theories. He has used 1,400 to question the idea that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. He has described the free press as the “enemy of the people,” or, when really angry, the “ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE” again and again. He has used 580 tweets to decry “Fake News” and mentioned “witch hunts” 334 times. Lately, as his paranoia deepens, the “Deep State” is out to get him too. 

Some of the Twitter accounts he follows are harmless, albeit telling. Of all the sources of insight he might choose, his select circle of 47 includes Diamond and Silk, two brainless African American buffoons. He follows Vince McMahon of fake wrestling fame and his own press secretary, Stephanie Grisham. White House banshee Kellyanne Conway is also part of the select circle. 

Conway’s main job on Twitter is to praise her boss.

 

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President Trump is a sucker for them all. 

THE PRESIDENT’S CARELESSNESS, when it comes to checking facts, gullibility, and penchant for hate, make for a toxic Twitter mix. Since he follows his eldest son’s account, if Don Jr. picks up a dose of racist poison, dear old dad is prone to spread the poison far and wide. 

Don Jr. follows Stefan Molyneau, a Canadian, who calls “white genocide” a worldwide threat. The president’s oldest child used to follow Lauren Southern, another white supremacist kook. Southern likes to boost the “great replacement” theory, which holds that white populations are being overrun by immigrants. And liberal “global elites” are supposedly pushing the scheme! The president and members of his inner Twitter circle have also retweeted QAnon conspiracy theories. QAnon believers warn that a liberal “deep state” exists and controls the world. It’s a variation of the old belief that Jews dominated international banking behind the scenes – often dripping with the same kind of anti-Semitism. According to QAnon, liberal elites are into Satanism, pedophilia, and cannibalism.

True believers: In utter nonsense.

 

That doesn’t stop members of Trump’s inner circle from following such accounts and feeding the president’s very worst appetites. Don Jr., Bartiromo, Ronna McDaniel (chair of the Republican National Committee) and Rep. Jordan follow at least 50 Twitter users that reference “QAnon” in their profiles. 

Bartiromo has retweeted posts from an account, @QBlueSkyQ, which claimed that top Democrats sexually tortured children to harvest their adrenochrome. If you’ve never heard of the substance, you’re not alone. Apparently, it can have hallucinogenic effects at high doses. But the QAnon folks believe it to be “a life-extending elixir.” Therefore: torture of children. 

Eric Bolling has retweeted political posts from @K12Lioness, another QAnon buff. In June, that Twitter user posted: “The Democrats have lost their minds (andrenochrome) eating baby parts. MY GOD Americans, WAKE UP!”

Yes, Americans, wake up. Because there are all kinds of fruit cakes and haters on Twitter, not to mention “bots” and even Russian intelligence agents, masquerading as Americans. Trump is a sucker for them all. Russian accounts have “tagged” him at least 30,000 times. That is, they link to his account, @realDonaldTrump, hoping he’ll notice their tweets and retweet what they say. This drives traffic in their direction and allows them to build presence and spread the kind of disinformation they like. 

On numerous occasions, Trump has fallen prey to, or retweeted the posts of others who have fallen prey to, Russian agents peddling lies. When a phony Russian account tweeted, “We love you, Mr. President!” he retweeted it with the joy of a simple child. Heavy traffic then flowed toward a phony Russian account.

 

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TRUMP first opened a Twitter account in 2009. But it was not till 2013 that he found his calling. And he found it by tweeting and retweeting birther smears aimed at President Obama. 

As the Times explains, 

After Mr. Trump started tweeting on his own in early 2013 – he previously had help from an assistant – he was soon recycling misinformation. He retweeted an anti-Obama account that had tweeted at him, “The birth certificate that you forced Obama to show is a computer generated forgery.” And he spun conspiracies within conspiracies, tweeting: “How amazing, the State Health Director who verified copies of Obama’s ‘birth certificate’ died in plane crash today. All others lived.”

 

According to the Times, it was clear even in 2013, that the worst elements on Twitter planned to twist the medium to suit their needs. Trump, in other words, had come to the right place. An on-line manual offered tips on how to use memes and tweets to batter the reputation of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. “The idea,” the anonymously-authored manual suggested, “is to stack up so much doubt, emotional appeals, and circumstantial evidence ON TOP of facts that we create a landslide of anti-Hill sentiment that permeates through society.” The Russians, if nothing else, were involved in the “anti-Hill” efforts. Trump himself often retweeted misleading information and came to favor hashtags like #CrookedHillary. 

Best of all, the limit of 140 characters per tweet, later doubled to 280, meant Trump’s posts had to be short and simplistic. You couldn’t explain complex policy. Indeed, your best bet was to keep posts even shorter (280 characters often proved too much for Twitter users to plow through) and reach for the lowest intellectual denominator. You had to go for the gut. 

At that, President Trump excels. 

 

FUN FACT: After defeating Mrs. Clinton, Trump promised during a 60 Minutes interview that he was going to be more careful as president. “I’m going to do very restrained, if I use [Twitter] at all. I’m going to do very restrained.” 

Not even close.

November 13, 2019: First Day of Public Testimony on Trump's Decision to Hold Military Aid to Ukraine

 

11/13/19: The House of Representatives holds its first day of public testimony in the impeachment inquiry. Aides insist the president isn’t going to watch a single second, because it’s all a witch hunt and a hoax, a swindle, a fraud, a trick, a ruse, a joke and a goddam con. Besides Mr. Trump will be too busy working on making America great again. Or keeping it great. 

Whatever. 

 

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Best of all, we learned that there were people in government who might still make us proud.

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What did we learn if we weren’t “too busy working” to watch? We learned that Rep. Jim Jordan is always angry when cameras are running and probably likes to yell even when ordering from a menu. We learned that Rep. Devin Nunes, the ranking Republican in the hearings, hates the way “Shifty Schiff” is running the show, mostly because he’s making Trump look terrible. We learned that Rep. John Ratcliffe had no idea how diplomacy plays out – but that his plan to defend the president boils down to harassing witnesses, in hopes that stupid people watching will believe Trump could do no wrong – had in fact been wronged, instead. 

We heard from almost every Republican on the panel that the first two witnesses seated before them had no “firsthand knowledge” of events and so, it was a crime for Democrats to want to listen.

 

Best of all, we learned that there were people in government who might make us proud. We learned that George Kent, Deputy Assistant for European and Eurasian Affairs, and Ambassador Bill Taylor were men of honor and integrity. We learned that they, unlike Nunes and Jordan and Trump, were decent men. They had come forward to tell their stories under oath because they were concerned for the safety and security of the United States. They would stick to the facts, as they understood them, and tell us what they knew. 

Taylor made it clear, in the face of Nunes’s attack, that he was not there as a witness for any political party or partisan group. He was there to tell the truth. Both he and Kent smiled wryly at times, as Republicans postured and tried to undercut the testimony they were presenting. At least one Republican, allotted five minutes to question the witnesses, per committee rules, wasted all five rambling on about why the Democrats should all burn to a crisp in political hell. Kent kept listening for an actual question, puzzlement growing, until the lawmaker ran out of time and his harangue ended in a fizzle. I don’t think in the four hours of testimony that I was able to watch, that a single GOP lawmaker asked a single question about anything President Trump might have done wrong. They came in with their minds closed, their mouths loosely hinged, and their ears stoppered with wax. 

I admit, however, that I usually muted Rep. Jordan when he started to yelp. If you’ve never watched him in these hearings, he looks as if at any moment he’s going to get so angry he’ll suffer a stroke.

 

* 

CHAIRMAN SCHIFF opened proceedings by calmly laying out what he believed was at stake. Congress must decide whether or not the President of the United States denied the Ukrainians a meeting in the White House and military assistance for purely selfish political reasons. 

Did Donald J. Trump pressure U.S. allies to dig up dirt on an opponent and thereby help him win the 2020 election? 

Had he placed U.S. national security at risk for no other reason than to get the foreign help he wanted? 

 

No hope for Nunes. 

Rep. Nunes tipped the entire GOP plan in his opening statement. This wasn’t going to be a hearing where testimony mattered. First, he cast doubt on the integrity of the more than a dozen men and women who had testified behind closed doors and under oath. He felt compelled to bring up the Mueller investigation. That investigation, he insisted, had been “a three-year long operation by Democrats, the corrupt media, and partisan bureaucrats to overturn the results of the 2016 election.” 

The “Russian hoax” imploded on July 24, Nunes said, on the day Robert Mueller testified publicly under oath. It was a hoax during which “any Republican who ever shook hands with a Russian” was denounced. 

You knew right away, there was no hope for Nunes – for people like Nunes – or for people who liked people like Nunes. There was going to be no admission that the Mueller Report cited ten examples of what was almost surely obstruction of justice by the president and his sleazebag crew. Nunes wasn’t going to admit that half-a-dozen members of the Trump 2016 campaign had been convicted of, or pled guilty, to felonious activities during that campaign. Not one had been sent to prison for simply shaking a Russian’s hand. 

I found myself wishing Chairman Schiff might put a palm in front of his mouth and fake-cough: Cough. Roger Stone. Cough, cough. 

That would have been fun. 

(Two days later, a jury would find Stone guilty on seven felony counts, for his fine work on behalf of the president.)

 

Devin Nunes was there for one reason, which had nothing to do with examining the facts. He was there to attack Democrats, even though no Democrat had been accused of pressuring any Ukrainian to provide help in the U.S. election scheduled next year. He couldn’t defend what President Trump had done. So, he must attack. The Democrats, he alleged, had previously stooped so low as to try to get “nude pictures of President Trump from Russian pranksters.” Yes, “pranksters.” Harmless jokers. In point of fact, Russian intelligence agents interfered extensively in the 2016 election – and Mueller and his team had indicted thirteen Russians, including Konstantin Kilimnik, a pal of Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. 

                        

(Kilimnik avoided indictment in related matters by hopping a flight to Moscow, before he could be arrested.)

 

But Nunes was worried about “nude pictures” of poor Donald. Even the First Lady probably wouldn’t want to see those. 

What we had before us, Nunes insisted, was part of an “orchestrated media smear campaign.” These witnesses, suitable for television, had been “put through a closed-door audition process in a cult-like atmosphere in the basement of the Capitol, where the Democrats conducted secret depositions, released a flood of misleading and one-sided leaks, and later selectively released transcripts in a highly staged manner.” The Democrats rejected witnesses the Republicans wanted to hear from and the whole process was a crime and a sham. 

The real issues, according to Rep. Nunes, were, 

First, what is the full extent of the Democrats’ prior coordination with the Whistleblower and who else did the Whistleblower coordinate this effort with?

 

Second, what is the full extent of Ukraine’s election meddling against the Trump campaign?

 

And third, why did Burisma hire Hunter Biden, what did he do for them, and did his position affect any U.S. government actions under the Obama administration?

 

Nunes went on to tell the packed hearing room and millions watching on TV, that what they were about to see was a “theatrical performance staged by the Democrats.” He insulted both witnesses, seated before him, ready to swear to tell the truth, so help them, God. “Ambassador Taylor and Mr. Kent,” he said with a smirk, “I’d like to welcome you here, and congratulate you for passing the Democrats’ Star Chamber auditions. It seems you agreed, wittingly or unwittingly, to participate in a drama,” he continued. “But the main performance – the Russian hoax – has ended, and you’ve been cast in the low-rent Ukrainian sequel.” 

And with that, we were off! 

Remember: the witnesses were under oath.

 

* 

THE ESSENCE of the Republican strategy for the first day of public hearings was to howl about the first “whistleblower” who touched off this whole inquiry, and demand that he or she be unmasked. If Taylor, the witness before them, gave testimony damaging to the president, they howled. If Kent spoke up, they bayed. Where was the whistleblower! They wanted the whistleblower to testify at once! Occasionally, they would stop attacking Chairman Schiff and the media and try to pick at bits and pieces of the previous closed-door testimony of Taylor and Kent (almost 700 pages of transcripts, combined) and quibble about details of what they had said. For example, Rep. John Ratcliffe wanted to know if either man had ever met President Trump? 

No, said Kent. 

No, said Taylor. 

Ah, no firsthand knowledge! See! You almost expected Ratcliffe to leap out of his chair and dance a jig. 

 

Putting U.S. and Ukrainian national security at risk. 

Then again, if you had a brain larger than a peach pit, you could go to the transcripts and start reading, first Kent and then Taylor. If you did, you could find countless examples of firsthand knowledge, which the witnesses had laid out. Or a lawmaker of average intelligence, or an ordinary American, could listen for at least part of the five hours of televised testimony. Taylor explained that he had talked to Ambassador Gordon Sondland. Sondland, Taylor had testified and now testified again, told him during a phone call that “everything” the Ukrainians wanted – a White House meeting – critical military aid – was predicated on their agreeing to investigate Hunter Biden and his dad. That meant Sondland believed there was a quid pro quo.  

Taylor could cite the email he sent to Sondland in response: “I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.” He could explain that withholding vital military assistance put both U.S. and Ukrainian national security at risk. He could tell the panel and the television audience that he threatened to quit his post, rather than undermine the safety of the two nations. 

That would all be firsthand knowledge. 

And if Nunes and his crew wanted even more firsthand knowledge, Sondland would be testifying publicly, next week.

 

As surely as you were seated before the TV, you knew that as soon as Ambassador Taylor finished his answer, another Republican was going to spend his or her five minutes insinuating that the Deep State was out to bring a choirboy president down. 

Mr. Trump had already described these witnesses and all the others who had testified under oath, as “Never Trumpers.” 

Or, much worse, as “human scum.” 

You might have imagined that some Republican on the panel, possessed of common decency, would bring that up and admonish the president as a result. 

None did.

 

* 

IF AMERICANS retain the freedoms we currently enjoy, a hundred years hence, if an amoral president and his sycophant friends don’t win this critically important game, then not a word Nunes or Jordan or the other GOP lawmakers say this day will be remembered at all. 

The bravery of Kent and Taylor will stand out. The only bombshell of the day comes when Taylor reveals that another important phone call, not previously known, had taken place. Since he had testified in closed door session, some weeks back, an aide had informed him of a call that took place on July 26. 

That was the day after the call between President Trump and President Zelensky, which touched off this inquiry. 

Taylor offers, in part, a firsthand account of what happened that day. He and Ambassador Kurt Volker had gone to the frontlines, to observe Ukrainian forces which were battling Russian aggression at the time. 

(And still are.) 

He could tell lawmakers, because he was there, what a Ukrainian commander said to him. He explained why U.S. military aid was critical to our ally’s defense. He mentioned that thousands of Ukrainians had already died fighting Vladimir Putin’s forces. One Ukrainian was killed that day, and four wounded. Taylor was a decorated combat veteran himself. He knew what was at stake. 

Rep. Nunes, of course, had never served in uniform. Like the president, neither had Rep. Jim Jordan. 

If they cared about Ukrainians dying, they hid their feelings well. 

Here’s how Ambassador Taylor told the story of the newly revealed meeting – and this would not be firsthand knowledge – meaning Republican lawmakers would have to howl again. “While Ambassador Volker and I visited the front, this member of my staff accompanied Ambassador Sondland” to a meeting with a top Ukrainian official in Kyiv [Kiev]. 

Following that meeting, in the presence of my staff at a restaurant, Ambassador Sondland called President Trump and told him of his meetings in Kyiv. The member of my staff could hear President Trump on the phone, asking Ambassador Sondland about “the investigations.” Ambassador Sondland told President Trump that the Ukrainians were ready to move forward.

 

Following the call with President Trump, the member of my staff asked Ambassador Sondland what President Trump thought about Ukraine. Ambassador Sondland responded that President Trump cares more about the investigations of Biden, which Giuliani was pressing for.

 

Nothing but hearsay, Rep. Jordan spent the next four minutes, loudly and angrily, pointing out. 

Then he “yielded back” his remaining minute and Rep. Elise Stefanik waved a copy of the transcript of the July 25 call. Read it she said, speaking to the American public. This four-page document proved that Trump was innocent of all crimes, at all times, past, present and to come. Did Trump mention a quid pro quo in that call? No, he did not. Stefanik insisted that the transcript be entered into the record. 

I missed exactly what Chairman Schiff said. I think he mentioned that it had already been entered. 

That seemed to make Rep. Stefanik angrier still.

 

* 

President Trump is welcome to come in and take a seat. 

THE POINT Nunes and the president’s other enablers were hoping to obscure was clear. If Taylor’s story of another questionable call was correct, then the Ukrainians knew that they were expected to investigate the Bidens if they wanted any help from the United States. And they knew it no later than the end of July. And it would seem clear Trump didn’t care about “cleaning up corruption” in Ukraine, as he and his enablers claim, or even safeguarding U.S. national security. He just wanted the Ukrainians to dig up dirt on the Bidens. He wanted to be re-elected. 

He didn’t care at what cost. 

Not one Republican lawmaker, as far as I could tell, asked a single follow-up question about that newly revealed July 26 call. Not even Rep. Will Hurd, normally a voice of reason and sanity, seemed to dare. Rep. Ratcliffe only wanted to know why Chairman Schiff shouldn’t be called as a witness himself. Jordan barked again. Only Schiff, he claimed, knew who the whistleblower was. And, by God, the whistleblower should have to come forward and testify too! 

Schiff said that he did not know who the whistleblower was, and that Jordan’s statement was false. 

He did not shout.

 

Instead, he calmly announced that David Holmes, the aide who had heard Trump’s voice on the phone, and who had asked Sondland what the president said, would now be issued a subpoena. 

It didn’t matter that fresh witnesses were coming forward and were willing to testify under oath. Jordan insisted again, at a high decibel level, that the person responsible for this whole mess should be called to testify publicly, should be unmasked, his or her identity exposed. He meant the whistleblower, of course. 

Rep. Peter Welch, a Democrat, was ready with a quick retort. “I’d be glad to have the person who started it all, come in and testify. Uh, President Trump,” he said, waving his hand toward the TV cameras and witness table, “is welcome to come in and take a seat right there.”

 

Welch then went on to add that if his GOP colleagues really wanted firsthand information, perhaps they could convince President Trump to stop telling most of his top aides not to testify or hand over any documents whatsoever to Congress, despite a series of subpoenas already issued. 

As for the president, himself, reporters later asked if he remembered that July 26 call. Trump wore the same blank expression a husband accused of cheating by his wife would try to adopt. 

We know he’s had practice trying that expression on. 

I know nothing about that. First time I’ve heard it. The one thing I’ve seen that Sondland said is that he did speak with me for a brief moment and I said, “no quid pro quo under any circumstances.” And that’s true. But I’ve never heard this. In any event, it is more secondhand information, but I’ve never heard it.

 

* 

WHAT DID we learn by the time testimony was done on Day 1? The Republican position was set in concrete. No parade of witnesses was going to change any GOP minds. Generally speaking, Americans who watched thought Mr. Kent’s bowtie was cool and marveled at the gigantic water bottle from which he occasionally swigged. Kent explained that he had worked for three Republican presidents and two Democratic presidents during his 27-year career. His job was to implement U.S. foreign policy. That’s what he tried to do. Nothing more, nothing less. 

We learned that Ambassador Taylor was most proud of his “combat infantry badge” which he earned by fighting in Vietnam, and that he graduated fifth in a West Point class of 800. We learned that both men were entirely credible witnesses. We learned that their testimony in no way helped President Trump.