Impeachment Looking More Likely

Last week Terry Harper offered the idea that the impeachment hearings could go bad for Democrats. So far that doesn’t seem likely to happen even though many of Trump’s defenders, particularly congressman Jim Jordan, claimed the testimony was all hearsay, second- or third-hand information. In addition to Ambassador William Taylor publicly testifying with the same information he’d already provided in closed door hearings he added a new witness who can testify with first-hand knowledge as that witness was party to a phone call between Ambassador Sondland and President Trump.

Remembering that Republicans wanted to “lock her up” over Hillary Clinton’s private email server it’s astounding that nothing was said about the fact that the phone call Ambassador Taylor described was on an unsecured line to a cellphone in a restaurant with the volume so high several people at the table with Ambassador Sondland could hear Trump asking about progress on investigations. Call me crazy but were president or an ambassador I wouldn’t want much of anything I had to say about negotiations with a foreign power to be overheard in a public setting.

Even if Ambassador Taylor’s staffer never testifies Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman, a Ukraine specialist on the Nation Security Council (NSC) has already testified in closed door hearings, a transcript of which has already been made public, that he was among several government officials who listened to the July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukraine’s President Zelensky.  That’s the call that got the attention of Congress when the whistleblower complaint was passed to them. Vindman registered concern over Trump's request for an investigation into the Biden family almost immediately with the legal staff on the National Security Council. The colonel told investigators that a top NSC lawyer decided to move records about the call onto a highly classified system that few could access. Vindman testified in public yesterday and we’ll have to see how the public reacts to what he has to say.

When Marie Yovanovitch, the former ambassador to Ukraine, testified to what she knew about Trump withholding congressionally approved military assistance to Ukraine Trump was tweeting about the purported damage she’d done in her prior foreign postings in a continuation of the smears he’s published about her for a year. Upon completing her testimony she was enthusiastically applauded by audience members. She made very clear the concern she has for the damaging behavior exhibited by Trump toward career foreign service personnel. She also made clear that Trump had both the right and the power to recall her and need not have besmirched her reputation to justify doing so.

Trump hasn’t done his case any favors by his tweets about Yovanovitch as the latest polling numbers now show 51% support for his removal from office via impeachment, that’s a 4 point increase over the last week so the upward trend continues. What’s worse for Trump is that a significant part of the increase comes from independents. So I don’t think Terry Harper’s concerns that the impeachment trial will hurt Democrats is anything the rest of us need worry about.