Section: New Republic (USA)
Trump’s Ukraine Defenders Are Caught in an Existential Crisis
In the White House’s telling of events, the two staffers who testified on Tuesday morning weren’t credible and also cleared the president of any wrongdoing. “We have learned nothing new in today’s illegitimate ‘impeachment’ proceedings,” the White House said in a statement. “However, buried among the witnesses’...
Trump’s Ukraine Defenders Spend the Day in the Grip of an Existential Crisis
In the White House’s telling of events, the two staffers who testified on Tuesday morning weren’t credible and also cleared the president of any wrongdoing. “We have learned nothing new in today’s illegitimate ‘impeachment’ proceedings,” the White House said in a statement. “However, buried among the witnesses’...
Trump Enforces Omertà With Latest Round of Pardons
President Donald Trump closed out the first week of impeachment hearings with a self-inflicted wound. Marie Yovanovitch, the ousted U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, testified on Friday morning that she felt “intimidated” by Trump’s remark in a phone call with the Ukrainian president that she was “bad news” and “going to go through some things.”...
Donald Trump and the Absolute Power Presidency
Those who tuned into last week’s congressional testimony from Marie Yovanovitch, the ousted U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, heard an awkward phrase over and over again: that political appointees “serve at the pleasure of the president.” For most of those present, the idea that President Donald Trump can lawfully remove ambassadors and other top...
The Media Is Hopelessly Addicted to Donald Trump
The impeachment hearings got their first made-for-TV moment during ousted Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch’s testimony, thanks to a cameo from President Trump. Early in Yovanovitch’s testimony, the president lashed out in a tweet denigrating her service in Somalia and Ukraine. This was an opening for House Intelligence Chair...
Come on Down and Testify, Donald Trump!
Ohio Representative Jim Jordan spent most of Wednesday’s impeachment hearings criticizing the witnesses who testified, the Democratic lawmakers who called them, and the inquiry itself. He also reiterated a common demand among President Donald Trump’s allies: bring forward the anonymous civil servant whose complaint helped surface the...
The Empty Suits of the Impeachment Hearing
Career diplomats are not known for making fashion statements, but perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the House Intelligence Committee’s first day of impeachment hearings was what the two witnesses wore. George Kent, the deputy assistant secretary for European and Eurasian affairs, was resplendent in a three-piece suit and bright bowtie—a...
Paul Manafort’s Lurid Shadow Hangs Over Impeachment
The commencement of public impeachment hearings has already yielded all manner of questions, details—and inane Republican theatrics—centered on the revelation that President Donald Trump tried to extort Ukraine into launching an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden. This is all unprecedented: It’s the first time that a sitting...
Maybe Trump Should Have Listened to These Guys
Republican lawmakers made a few interesting points while defending President Donald Trump during the House’s first day of public impeachment hearings. They noted that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has publicly asserted that he didn’t feel pressured by Trump to deliver on his end of a quid pro quo during the infamous July 25...
Oligarch of the Month: Dmitry Firtash
Rudy Giuliani’s cartoonishly inept dirt-digging operation in Ukraine would not have been possible without Dmitry Firtash, the shady Ukrainian natural gas magnate who has spent at least $1 million investigating the Biden family. Firtash has found himself at the heart of a sprawling international corruption investigation before. In 2006, he...
