Impeachment Today: Tuesday Not So Good for Trump Defenders
On Tuesday, the witnesses called before the House Intelligence Committee were:
Jennifer Williams, a State Department employee who was detailed to Vice President Pence on Eurasia matters
Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the lead Ukraine expert on the National Security Council
Kurt Volker, the former special envoy to Ukraine
Tim Morrison a former National Security Council aide
All four witnesses contributed testimony bolstering the problematic nature of having both an official and unofficial policy toward Ukraine.
Ms. Williams got the Trump Tweet tantrum treatment over the weekend, characterizing her as a Never Trumper and associating her with other "Never Trumpers." She also was blocked by the White House from testifying publicly about a September 18 phone call, but agreed to submit a written statement to respond to concerns about classified information.
From Politico:
Jennifer Williams, a State Department official on loan to the Vice President’s office as a special adviser for Russia and Europe, said she wasn’t expecting to be “called out by name” by Trump, who tweeted over the weekend that she’s a “never Trumper.”
She told Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) that she wasn’t a “Never Trumper” and was surprised by the president’s broadside.
Himes called Trump’s comments “witness intimidation” and an effort to “tamper” and “shape” her testimony.
https://twitter.com/KevinMKruse/status/1196817130370555904?s=20
Lt. Col. Vindman was the Republicans’ designated punching bag for the day, which started off with press accounts regarding threats being made to the Ukraine expert’s family.
The GOP side questioned his loyalty, belittled his job performance, and even tried to cast shade on the fact that he appeared (as required when testifying before Congress) in dress uniform.
Donald Jr, went on Twitter and claimed Vindman (who was awarded a Purple Heart after his vehicle hit an IED in Iraq) was not a soldier, but instead a “low level bureaucrat.”
Suffice it to say the antagonistic tone of the GOP members didn’t go over well.
https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1196858116232622080?s=20
The afternoon was supposed to be better for Republicans on the committee, both witnesses were on their list of people who might make the President look better.
It didn’t go so well.
Special envoy Kurt Volker had a bunch of “revisions” to his earlier testimony. He’d testified behind closed doors and said he’d seen no indication that the President had conditioned a White House meeting and military assistance for Ukraine on a promise from the country's president to investigate Trump's political rivals.
"I have learned many things that I did not know at the time of the events in question," Volker told the House Intelligence Committee in his prepared remarks on Tuesday.
https://twitter.com/jonfavs/status/1196899392831119360?s=20
NSC aide Morrison was trying his best not to spoil the day for the Dear Leader.
Chairman Schiff asks Tim Morrison, if it was a perfect call, them why did you have three concerns about the call?
Was it really a perfect call?
Morrison: No..
Rep Devin Nunes ended the day by calling Volker and Morrison “your witnesses” in a comment to committee chair Schiff.
Nope. Here’s the GOP’s letter asking for their testimony.
***
Excuses Are for Losers
Jack Holmes at Esquire has been keeping track of the Trumpanistas excuses for what we know now was an attempt to extort the Ukraine for information on a domestic political rival.
Here are the 22 reasons he came up with, reformatted for your reading pleasure on mobile devices:
Trump's defenders attacked The Whistleblower
They said there was "no quid pro quo";
They attacked The Process;
They said Trump didn't know what he was doing;
They said he failed in his extortion attempt, so it's all good;
They said Ukraine's president—still completely beholden to the U.S. for aid to fend off Russian aggression–said there was no extortion;
They said there were "differences of opinion";
They went back to "no quid pro quo";
They tried to cast Rudy Giuliani as a rogue agent;
They tried to pass off withholding aid as normal policy in the national interest;
They said Trump was refreshingly transparent about his motives;
They said it was appropriate because he was asking them to look into generalized corruption (he wasn't);
They said it was inappropriate but not impeachable;
They said the Trumpists couldn't possibly have figured out how to do a quid pro quo;
They said it was a coup.
It happened.
It didn't happen.
It doesn't matter that it happened.
Democrats.
Whistleblower.
Read the Transcript.
And the best of all: What you have to understand is that Donald Trump cares deeply about corruption.
After three days of testimony, I don’t think the term smoking gun is appropriate; perhaps smoking arsenal is. Team Trump is hoping citizens have given up trying to follow the bouncing ball of excuses.
I’ll wrap up this post with a quote from Greg Sargent on the Big Picture here.
Trump himself has constantly pushed the idea that those testifying to the corrupt plot are “Never Trumpers” and “Deep State” denizens out to get him. This is pernicious and destructive in a much deeper sense as well.
As political theorists Laura Field and Sean Illing have shown, the coin of the Trumpist post-truth realm is confusion and nihilism. The basic goal is to eradicate public faith in the very idea that government professionals like Vindman might actually make reasoned judgments about Trump’s misconduct that are rooted in good-faith empiricism.
Such judgments can only be rooted in tribal disloyalty to Trump. You are either with Trump or against Trump. If you are against him, your facts and judgments are inherently suspect. The great body of known facts is thus rendered irrelevant.
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