3 Key Impeachment Developments This Week
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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/16/arts/3-key-impeachment-developments-this-week.html Version 0 of 1. Marie L. Yovanovitch, the former ambassador to Ukraine and longtime diplomat, testified on Friday, the second day of public hearings in the impeachment inquiry, about her time in Ukraine. She spoke from decades of diplomatic experience about the situation there and about her removal and the way she was treated by President Trump. Our congressional correspondent Sheryl Gay Stolberg writes that with her appearance, Ms. Yovanovitch “put a human face on the president’s pressure campaign on Ukraine.” Ms. Yovanovitch said she was “shocked, appalled, devastated” when she heard how Mr. Trump had spoken about her to the president of Ukraine during the July 25 phone call at the heart of the impeachment inquiry. According to a rough transcript released by the White House, he said she was “bad news,” among other things. She said that when she read the transcript she was: “Shocked. Appalled. Devastated that the president of the United States would talk about any ambassador like that to a foreign head of state — and it was me. I mean, I couldn’t believe it.” He also said she was “going to go through some things.” On Friday, she said those words “sounded like a threat.” Though Mr. Trump was not in the room, he went after Ms. Yovanovitch on Twitter as she spoke. Democrats, including Adam B. Schiff, the California Democrat presiding over the hearings, saw the tweet as akin to witness tampering. And Ms. Yovanovitch said being attacked via Twitter by the president is “very intimidating.” In a stark contrast, Republicans on the panel were in general careful to praise her service. Brad Wenstrup, an Ohio Republican, tried to make points of connection between his services as a veteran and hers as a diplomat. He also made the point that each president has the right to form his own foreign policy. Ms. Yovanovitch said she didn’t disagree. “While I don’t dispute the President has the right to withdraw an ambassador,” she said, “What I don’t understand is why it was necessary to smear my reputation.” Also read: Who Is Marie Yovanovitch? The key takeaways from her testimony. Keep up with impeachment news by signing up for our daily briefing here. Public testimony kicked off on Wednesday, with William B. Taylor Jr., the top diplomat in Ukraine. He appeared for five hours with George P. Kent, a deputy assistant secretary of state. They explained what they saw as President Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukraine to go after a political rival. Mr. Taylor also revealed that a member of his staff, David Holmes, overheard a phone call between Gordon Sondland, the ambassador to the E.U., and President Trump. After the call, Mr. Taylor said Mr. Holmes asked Mr. Sondland about the president’s stance on Ukraine, and Mr. Sondland “responded that President Trump cares more about the investigations of Biden, which Giuliani was pressing for.” The news of this call was not in Mr. Taylor’s original testimony because he said he did not know about it at the time. Mr. Trump said he knew nothing about the phone call. On Friday, Mr. Holmes privately gave testimony about the call. Republican committee members hammered on the idea that neither man had firsthand knowledge of President Trump’s actions. Though House members tried to draw the men into the politics of impeachment, neither man was having it. When Representative John Ratcliffe, Republican of Texas, asked whether Mr. Trump’s actions were impeachable offenses, Mr. Taylor told him: “I’m not here to take one side or the other. That’s your decision.” One bright spot was Mr. Kent’s bow tie, which, for some, was the star of the show. Also read: Who Is Ambassador Taylor? Key Witness in the Impeachment Inquiry Key Moments From the First Public Impeachment Hearing ____ House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused President Trump of bribery in his dealings with Ukraine. Nicholas Fandos, our congressional reporter, writes: “The speaker’s explicit allegation of bribery, a misdeed identified in the Constitution as an impeachable offense, was significant.” Mr. Fandos continues: “Democrats have begun using the term ‘bribery’ more freely in recent days to describe what a string of diplomats and career Trump administration officials have said was a highly unusual and inappropriate effort by Mr. Trump and a small group around him to extract a public promise from Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and a discredited theory about Democrats conspiring with Ukraine to interfere in the 2016 election.” ____ The video above is a good explainer of the process from reporters who have decades and decades of experience covering U.S. politics. And the stories listed below tell us how we got here in the first place. Trump, Ukraine and Impeachment: The Inside Story of How We Got Here Sharon LaFraniere, Andrew E. Kramer and Danny Hakim explain how President Trump fixated on Ukraine as a solution to his political problems. But, in five months, his obsession upended American foreign policy and threatened his presidency. What Joe Biden Actually Did in Ukraine The aims and the aftermath of a legacy project that underscores Mr. Biden’s years of diplomacy — but has been swallowed by the subplot of his son and a Ukrainian gas company. |