Trump’s tweet — in which he said everything “turned bad” in various places Yovanovitch was posted as a diplomat — came as she testified that she was the target of a “campaign of disinformation” that involved Trump’s personal attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani.
Yovanovitch also told the House Intelligence Committee that she felt threatened when she read how Trump talked about her to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on a July 25 call.
Later Friday, David Holmes, a career diplomat, told lawmakers that he overheard a phone call in Kyiv between Trump and Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, during which Trump pressed for updates on Zelensky’s willingness to “do the investigation” — testimony that could significantly advance the House’s impeachment inquiry.
Democrats are seeking to build a case that Trump sought to withhold military assistance and an Oval Office meeting until Zelensky announced investigations into former vice president Joe Biden and his son, as well as an unfounded theory that Ukrainians interfered in the 2016 presidential election to hurt Trump.
●Pelosi calls Trump’s actions ‘bribery’ as Democrats sharpen case for impeachment.
●Trump attacks ambassador even as she describes feeling threatened by him.
●Rough transcript of call shows Ukraine leader wanted Trump to attend inauguration.
●Career White House budget official expected to break ranks, testify in impeachment inquiry.
Who’s involved in the impeachment inquiry | Key documents related to the inquiry | What’s next in the inquiry
Holmes completes closed-door testimony late Friday.
Ukraine embassy staffer David Holmes has completed his closed-door testimony. It had been scheduled to begin around 3 p.m. Friday but started late.
Michael Brice-Saddler
Yoho appears to question Yovanovitch’s loyalty; notes she was born in Canada to Ukrainian parents
Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Fla.) raised doubts about Yovanovitch’s commitment to the United States during an appearance on CNN late Friday, stating “that’s a tough question” when asked if there’s any question about the former U.S. ambassador’s loyalty to the country.
The House Republican made the remark in an interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo after noting Yovanovitch was born in Canada and has Ukrainian parents.
Yovanovitch was born in Canada to parents who fled the Soviet Union and moved to Connecticut as a child. The 33-year career diplomat has served presidents of both parties.
Michael Brice-Saddler
Official White House readout of first Trump-Zelensky call was drafted before it occurred, according to a person familiar with the matter
A White House readout of an April call between Trump and Zelensky that does not match the rough transcript released Friday was drafted before the call occurred and was never updated, according to a person briefed on the call.
The official readout — which said Trump “expressed his commitment” to work with the newly elected president to “strengthen democracy, increase prosperity, and root out corruption” — was based on talking points that the president did not follow, the person said.
After the call, the White House staff did not update the readout to reflect what Trump actually said — and what he left out, the person said.
In response to questions about the discrepancy Friday, deputy White House press secretary Hogan Gidley blamed National Security Council Ukraine expert Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who he said prepared the readout.
But Vindman was not responsible for making the final update to the readout, according to a person familiar with his account, who said he recalls that then-press secretary Sarah Sanders held onto the readout before turning it over for public release.
Carol D. Leonnig
Impeachment witness says he overheard Trump demand ‘investigation’ of Bidens by Ukraine
David Holmes, a career diplomat, told lawmakers Friday that he overheard a phone call in Kyiv between President Trump and Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, during which Trump pressed for updates on the Ukrainians’ willingness to conduct an “investigation,” a day after Trump had asked Ukraine’s president to launch probes into former vice president Joe Biden and his son as well a debunked theory about the 2016 election.
Details of the July 26 conversation were disclosed by Holmes in his opening statement to impeachment investigators, which was obtained by CNN.
Holmes said that at the conclusion of the call, Sondland told him and other aides present that Trump does not “give a shit” about Ukraine and was primarily interested in the “Biden investigation” that was being pushed by Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Guiliani.
Holmes, the counselor for political affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, was with Sondland at a restaurant in Kyiv on July 26 when the ambassador called Trump to update him on the status of his meetings with Ukrainian officials in Kyiv, including with Zelensky.
Sondland told Trump, according to Holmes, that Zelensky would do “anything you ask him to” and confirmed that this included “the investigation.”
“So, he’s gonna do the investigation?” asked Trump, according to Holmes. “He’s gonna do it,” Sondland replied.
Holmes told investigators he could hear the president’s voice through the earpiece of the phone. It wasn’t on speaker phone, but Sondland held it away from his head because it was so loud. The account of the new call has thrust a new fact witness with purportedly firsthand information into an impeachment inquiry that Republicans have attacked as lacking primary source evidence.
Read more here.
John Hudson, Rosalind S. Helderman and Rachael Bade
Pelosi says Trump’s tweet attacking Yovanovitch was ‘wrong,’ calls president ‘an impostor’
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said President Trump’s tweet attacking Yovanovitch was the “wrong thing” to do, adding, “he knows her strength and he was trying to undermine it.”
“Of course presidents appoint ambassadors,” Pelosi said in an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “But people don’t insult people, especially when they’re giving testimony before the Congress of the United States. I think even his most ardent supporters have to honestly admit this was the wrong thing for the president to do.”
Pelosi said Trump’s word’s carry a lot of weight and that he should avoid frivolously throwing out insults.
“I think part of it is his own insecurity as an impostor. I think he knows full well that he’s in that office way over his head,” Pelosi said. “And so he has to diminish everyone else.”
Michael Brice-Saddler
Holmes heard Trump clearly on the phone, Rep. Lieu says
Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) said David Holmes, a political counselor at the embassy in Kyiv, clearly overheard Trump talking to Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland about investigations of the Bidens.
“He has some specific quotes that leave no doubt about what the president of the United States was thinking,” Lieu said, adding that he would like to see Holmes testify in public.
Acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine William B. Taylor Jr. revealed at a public hearing Wednesday that one of his aides overheard a phone call between Sondland and Trump in which they discussed the political investigations at the heart of the inquiry.
The Washington Post later reported that aide was Holmes. Lieu said that two additional people also heard the call because Sondland was at a luncheon with several embassy aides.
Rachael Bade
Trump’s supporters flood social media with message dismissing Yovanovitch
As the hearing unfolded, some of the president’s supporters sought to present a united front online, flooding social media with precise and coordinated messaging.
One line in particular gained traction on Twitter: “I hired Donald Trump to fire people like Yovanovitch.”
The statement gained about 12,600 interactions — meaning tweets, retweets, mentions and replies — during a roughly 2½-hour period on Friday morning, according to analysis conducted by Marc Owen Jones, a disinformation researcher and assistant professor at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Doha, Qatar. It continued to spread through much of the afternoon, appearing on other major social media platforms, such as Facebook, as well as on Trump-friendly message boards on 4chan.
The line echoed the defense mounted by the White House and congressional Republicans that it was the president’s prerogative to dismiss the career diplomat. And it picked up steam as Trump assailed Yovanovitch with a mid-hearing tweet of his own.
Dialing up the volume on the single line was evidence of the discipline that is a hallmark of Trump’s online followers.
While the online mantra appeared to originate with an authentic user, some of its amplification seemed to exhibit coordinated activity that alarmed researchers. Jones said it was unusual to see a tweet copied and pasted without attribution “on such a large scale from so many accounts.” Many of the accounts in question were created in January 2017, further pointing to the possibility of a centralized campaign.
Isaac Stanley-Becker
Stefanik said she disagrees with Trump’s tweet, but focus should remain on impeachment
Addressing reporters after Friday’s public hearing, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) said she disagreed with Trump’s disparaging tweet about Yovanovitch, but added it does not amount to witness intimidation.
The focus, Stefanik said, should remain on impeachment, which is a “constitutional matter.”
“You can disagree or dislike the tweet, but we are here to talk about impeachment, and nothing in that room today and nothing in that room earlier this week — nothing rises to the level of impeachable offenses,” she said. “This is wishful political thinking by Democrats, this is not the first or last tweet they’re going to complain about.”
Stefanik was the first GOP lawmaker to question Yovanovitch in the five-minute rounds, and her inquiries sought to get the witness to confirm statements helpful to Republicans’ defense of Trump.
Several Democrats on Friday accused Trump of trying to intimidate Yovanovitch during her testimony. Asked if she found the tweet to be intimidating, Stefanik emphasized that while she disagreed with the tone, Yovanovitch was “still able to answer questions.”
“I happen to disagree with the tweet — but again, as we know, Democrats want to continue making this a political food fight,” she said.
Michael Brice-Saddler
White House blames Vindman for discrepancies between official readouts of Trump-Zelensky April call
The White House displaced blame for the discrepancy in the official readout offered in April of Trump’s first conversation with Zelensky and the memorandum of the phone call released earlier Friday, saying it was the fault of National Security Council Ukraine expert Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman.
“It is standard operating procedure for the National Security Council to provide readouts of the president’s phone calls with foreign leaders. This one was prepared by the NSC’s Ukraine expert,” said White House spokesman Hogan Gidley.
Vindman, who was on both calls Trump had with Zelensky and provided damaging testimony against the president in his closed deposition, will testify publicly Tuesday and will certainly be asked about this.
The official readout after the initial call said Trump discussed rooting out corruption in Ukraine, but in the rough transcript Trump does not mention corruption at all.
Colby Itkowitz
House investigators prepare for closed-door deposition
With the public hearing over, House investigators are preparing to hear from another witness in a closed-door session, Ukraine embassy staffer David Holmes.
Holmes is one of two people believed to have overheard a July phone call in which Trump was said to have asked U.S. ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland about “the investigations” sought from Ukraine into Trump’s political rivals.
Trump has told reporters that he has no recollection of the call.
John Wagner
Schiff says Trump’s tweet ‘part of a broader and incriminating pattern of conduct’
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) told reporters after the hearing that Trump’s disparaging tweet directed at Yovanovitch was “part of a broader and incriminating pattern of conduct.”
“The president’s attack on a witness today is not something we view in isolation,” Schiff said. “This is part of a pattern to intimidate witnesses.”
Other Democrats suggested earlier Friday that Trump’s tweet could form the basis for a separate article of impeachment.
John Wagner
Schiff gavels public hearing to a close, applause breaks out for Yovanovitch
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) gaveled the open hearing to a close after praising Yovanovitch’s service and courage.
In closing remarks, Rep. Devin Nunes (Calif), the top Republican on the panel, disparaged the proceedings as a “show trial.”
Applause and cheers rang out as Yovanovitch got up to leave the hearing room.
John Wagner
Yovanovitch shoots down Trump ally’s 2016 election conspiracy theory
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) pressed Yovanovitch about criticism in 2016 from several Ukrainian officials of then-candidate Donald Trump — but Yovanovitch said the comments didn’t, in her view, constitute election interference.
Jordan, a staunch Trump ally, listed a number of negative comments several Ukrainian officials made about Trump and asked Yovanovitch whether she could see why Trump was frustrated and therefore justified in being skeptical of Ukraine.
“No one did anything,” Jordan said, asking if “you see why maybe, maybe the president was a little concerned about what went on in Ukraine.”
Yovanovitch responded: “I can’t speak for the president on this. … From my point of view, that doesn’t create a Ukrainian government strategy to interfere in our election. ... “It doesn’t necessarily constitute interference.”
Rachael Bade
Trump says he’s allowed to defend himself, doesn’t think his words are intimidating
Asked to respond to allegations that he committed witness tampering by tweeting disparagingly about Yovanovitch during her testimony, Trump pivoted and said the real tampering was done by the Democrats for not allowing the White House lawyers to ask questions or the Republicans to call their own witnesses.
“I have the right to speak. I have freedom of speech, just as other people do,” Trump said, when pressed by reporters at the end of a White House event on lowering prescription drug prices.
A reporter asked Trump if he was trying to intimidate Yovanovitch with his tweets, but Trump ignored the question, repeating, “I just want to have a total — I want freedom of speech.”
A reporter asked the question again several times, then asked whether he believed his words could be intimidating.
“I don’t think so at all,” he said.
Trump also criticized the Democratic-led impeachment inquiry more broadly, saying it was getting in the way of getting other things done.
“I think it’s considered a joke all over Washington and all over the world,” he said.
Colby Itkowitz and John Wagner
Yovanovitch calls request for investigation ‘bizarre’
“In all of your years of service, you ever come across a president ... or known of colleagues who were asked by an American president to have to help that President get an American investigated overseas?” Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Tex.) asked Yovanovitch.
“I’m not aware of that,” she replied.
Yovanovitch was recalled from Kyiv in May, well before Trump personally asked Zelensky for the “favor” of investigating Hunter Biden, the son of the former vice president.
But Castro posed a hypothetical: “If a president asked you to investigate the former vice president for this purpose, what would you have said?”
“I mean, with what I know today, I would have said no,” Yovanovitch said, adding, “There are channels for conducting proper investigations, and that would have been the best way to handle something like this. But certainly it would be, it’s bizarre for a president to ask that some American be investigated by another government. It’s very unusual.”
Mike DeBonis
Quigley calls Yovanovitch’s dismissal ‘the end of a really bad reality-TV show’
“It’s like a Hallmark movie — you ended up at Georgetown; this is all okay,” Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) cheekily started his questioning, seeming to ridicule Republicans who have argued that Trump had every right to dismiss Yovanovitch, who is now serving as a fellow of Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service.
Quigley asked her a series of questions about her earlier plans to remain in Kyiv through the end of her tour of duty. “There’s nothing wrong with Georgetown. It’s a fine place, right?” Quigley concluded.
“It’s a wonderful place,” Yovanovitch replied.
“But it’s your only choice, at the end of a distinguished career,” Quigley said. “After all that, it’s not the end of a Hallmark movie. It’s the end of a really bad reality-TV show, brought to you by someone who knows a lot about that.”
Many in the room, recognizing the reference to the star of “The Apprentice,” chuckled.
Mike DeBonis
Yovanovitch says there’s a process for launching corruption investigations
In response to a Republican lawmaker’s question, Yovanovitch said that it is appropriate for the United States to investigate foreign corruption but that there’s a regular process to follow for doing so, suggesting the way Trump sought to do it was irregular.
“I think it is appropriate if it is part of our national strategy. What I would say is that we have a process for doing that. We have one with Ukraine. Generally, it goes from our Department of Justice to the Ministry of Justice in the country of interest,” Yovanovitch said.
Rep. Chris Stewart (R-N.J.) also asked Yovanovitch if she had any information regarding Trump accepting bribes or being involved in any criminal activity at all.
Yovanovitch answered “no” to both.
Colby Itkowitz
Yovanovitch wonders why Trump found it ‘necessary to smear my reputation’
Under questioning from a Republican lawmaker, Yovanovitch questioned why the president had to “smear my reputation” — even as she confirmed his right to fire her.
Rep. Brad Wenstrup (Ohio) sought to have Yovanovitch confirm, as other Republicans had before him, that ambassadors serve at the pleasure of the president.
“I obviously don’t dispute that the president has the right to withdraw an ambassador, at any time, for any reason,” she said, “but what I do wonder is, why it was necessary to smear my reputation?”
Wenstrup responded curtly before yielding his time back.
“Well, I wasn’t asking you about that, but thank you very much, ma’am.”
Rachael Bade
White House defends Trump’s tweet about Yovanovitch, says it wasn’t witness intimidation
White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said Trump’s tweet attacking Yovanovitch in the middle of her testimony “was not witness intimidation, it was simply the president’s opinion, which he is entitled to.”
Other Republicans had mixed reactions to Trump’s tweet.
“I’d rather not be attacking the poor career Foreign Service officers who are just trying to do a good job,” said Rep. Francis Rooney (Fla.)
Rep. K. Michael Conaway (Tex.) said, “It’s not something I would do,” but declined to say whether it was witness intimidation.
But Rep. Lee Zeldin (N.Y.) said the Trump has the right to defend himself.
Other Republicans on Capitol Hill declined to comment, while still others said they hadn’t seen Trump’s tweets.
Colby Itkowitz
DNC consultant responds to accusations she worked with Ukraine to interfere in 2016 election
Alexandra Chalupa, a former Democratic National Committee consultant, pushed back at GOP accusations that she was working with Ukraine to get dirt on Trump during the 2016 election and said she had instead raised concerns about Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s relations with Russia.
“For the record: I have never worked for a foreign government,” Chalupa tweeted. “I have never been to Ukraine. I was not an opposition researcher. In 2008, I knew Manafort worked for Putin’s interests in Ukraine. I reported my concerns about him to the [National Security Council] in 2014 & sounded the alarm bells in 2016.”
Chalupa has said the Ukrainian embassy was helpful when she sought information about Manafort but that the country was not trying to interfere in the U.S. election.
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) advanced the conspiracy theory in his opening statement, accusing Democrats of ignoring “Ukrainian election meddling even though Chalupa publicly admitted to the Democrats’ scheme.”
Republicans included Chalupa on the list of witnesses they wanted called in the impeachment inquiry.
Colby Itkowitz
Republicans remain fixated on whistleblower
Rep. Michael R. Turner (R-Ohio) read about a half-dozen news article headlines from late September about the whistleblower whose complaint sparked the impeachment inquiry reaching an agreement to testify before House investigators.
Democrats have since said that hearing from the whistleblower is now unnecessary since they’ve had many witnesses who corroborated what the whistleblower alleged in his complaint.
Colby Itkowitz
Stefanik thanks Yovanovitch for her service after Trump’s Twitter attack, setting different tone for the GOP
Rep. Elise Stefanik, the first GOP lawmaker to question Yovanovitch in five-minute rounds, thanked the ambassador for her service, just hours after Trump’s Twitter attack on the witness, setting a drastically different tone than the president.
Unlike Trump, the New York Republican did not call into question Yovanovitch’s effectiveness, even as she sought to get Yovanovitch to confirm statements helping the GOP defense of Trump.
Stefanik, for example, asked Yovanovitch to confirm that she believes she “serves at the pleasure of the president” and that she is still an employee of the State Department on leave as a fellow at Georgetown. Yovanovitch did.
Yovanovitch also confirmed for Stefanik that the Obama administration’s State Department prepped her for her ambassadorial confirmation process in part by grilling her about Hunter Biden’s position with Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company who paid the former vice president’s son $50,000 a month.
“Obama’s own State Department was so concerned” about Burisma, Stefanik said, “that they raised it themselves while prepping this wonderful ambassador nominee for her conformation.”
Democrats, however, Stefanik continued “cry foul when we dare ask questions” about Biden and Burisma.
“But we will continue asking,” she said.
Rachael Bade
Schiff brings up new White House rough transcript
After 45 minutes of questioning from Republican counsel, Schiff used a moment with the microphone to put the focus back on Trump.
He noted the memo the White House released Friday detailing a first call between Trump and Zelensky in April — and that the memo doesn’t match a description the White House put out previously.
A White House readout in April said the call underscored “the unwavering support of the United States for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.” The readout also said Trump spoke with Zelensky about “reforms that strengthen democracy, increase prosperity and root out corruption.”
None of those topics are mentioned in the rough transcript released Friday.
“The White House readout said that the president discussed helping Ukraine root out corruption,” Schiff said. “That, in fact, does not appear anywhere in the call. I want to ask you, ambassador, why would . . . the White House put out an inaccurate reading . . . that the president said something about corruption when he said nothing about corruption?”
“I cannot answer that question,” Yovanovitch said.
Aaron C. Davis
Lutsenko keeps up his war with Yovanovitch during her hearing
As Yovanovitch testified in Washington on Friday, Yuri Lutsenko, the former prosecutor general who fed Giuliani adverse information about her, was criticizing her on social media.
“She lies. And I have proof,” Lutsenko wrote on Facebook, in response to a post by Adrian Karatnycky, the former president of Freedom House, who is now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.
Karatnycky had posted that it was “ironic” that Yovanovitch, who had been a victim of a smear campaign, “is engaging in a smear campaign of Maidan hero and former political prisoner Yuri Lutsenko,” also spelling out Lutsenko’s name in Ukrainian Cyrillic.
“If she has proof of his corruption she should bring it forth,” he wrote.
Yovanovitch and other diplomats, including Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent, have described Lutsenko as a “corrupt” prosecutor who had a personal vendetta against Yovanovitch and the anti-corruption work she was doing in Ukraine.
Among their contentions are that Lutsenko effectively covered up for a ring of government officials who were selling fake passports by outing the undercover agents who exposed the operation. Kent testified that that was “a breaking point” for the United States, who decided to end “capacity building assistance” to his office as a result.
The GOP asked Yovanovitch why she never brought up her complaints about Lutsenko to him directly.
She said she “didn’t feel like there was any purpose to it” as he clearly had an animus against the U.S. embassy in Ukraine. “He was working with Americans, so I reached out to the American side in this case the State Department,” she said.
Karoun Demirjian
Yovanovitch rebuts suggestion publication of ‘black ledger’ amounted to U.S. election interference
During her testimony, Yovanovitch said why she did not consider the publication of the “Black Ledger” — containing evidence of payments made to Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort by the political party of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych — to amount to improper election interference.
The ledger was released by Serhiy Leshchenko, a Ukrainian journalist, and, at the time, a member of parliament.
“I realize we are looking at this from an American perspective,” she said. “From a Ukrainian perspective, I think that what Mr. Leshchenko and others who were looking into the Black Ledger were most concerned about was actually not Mr. Manafort, but former president Yanukovich and his political party and the amount of money that they allegedly stole and where it went and so forth.”
She added, “I think there’s just a difference in perspective depending on which country you’re in.”
Mike DeBonis
Yovanovitch asked if she could have done more to fight smear campaign
GOP lawyer Stephen R. Castor asked Yovanovitch if she developed a “game plan” to fight an incipient smear campaign that she believed was being directed by Giuliani.
Yovanovitch said that she raised it with David Hale, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, when he asked her to consider extending her stay as ambassador in March.
“I wanted him to be aware of that, and he said, you know, he understood, he still was hoping that I could extend for another year,” she said. “Fast forward to late March ... once it became a public political story here in the United States, the tenor of everything changed, because I think that the State Department felt that it wasn’t manageable anymore and that the more prudent thing would be for me to come back in July.”
Castor asked if there was “anything you could have done differently” to fight the unsupported allegations.
“I think that, sure, maybe I could have done that, but I think they were aware,” she replied, indicating she later learned from Deputy Secretary John Sullivan that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo “had been well aware of this since the summer of 2018.”
Mike DeBonis
GOP attempts to highlight Yovanovitch as irrelevant
Republicans attempted to dismiss Yovanovitch as irrelevant to the investigation, pointing out just how much she didn’t know, and questioning why the Intelligence Committee was wasting its time with her.
“I’m not exactly sure what the ambassador is doing here today,” said Rep. Devin Nunes (Calif.), the top Republican on the panel, suggesting Yovanovitch just had a personnel dispute with senior administration officials that would be “more appropriate for the Subcommittee on Human Resources on Foreign Affairs.”
“The ambassador’s not a material fact witness to any of the accusations that are being hurled at the president in this impeachment inquiry,” Nunes continued.
Nunes and the GOP’s counsel, Stephen R. Castor, asked Yovanovitch questions to prove her irrelevance, asking if she was involved in preparing for the July 25 call between Trump and Zelensky, or if she had taken part in plans for a White House meeting between the two heads of state, or if she had ever spoken with Trump or acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, among other queries. Yovanovitch answered no to all of them.
Castor also asked why, if the Trump administration had been trying to push her out of the way to facilitate untoward objectives, they would have appointed a person such as William B. Taylor Jr. to be her replacement for the post.
“No ambassador has yet been named,” Yovanovitch corrected Castor, a reference to Taylor’s acting status, though she agreed that Taylor is “absolutely. . . a man of the highest integrity.”
Karoun Demirjian
Republicans try to upset impeachment rules, to show Schiff shutting down the GOP’s sole woman on the panel
Rep. Devin Nunes (Calif.), the top Republican on the Intelligence Committee, attempted to pass his opening question time off to Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), the GOP’s one woman on the panel, in violation of the rules the House passed last month to govern the impeachment proceedings. The move appeared to be geared toward the cameras.
Stefanik has been building a case in the open hearings that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) has been denying the GOP their rights to ask questions, objections she restated at the top of Yovanovitch’s hearing.
But the moment also served another purpose: giving the public an image of a male chairman shutting down a woman trying to ask questions, a potential counter to the image of how Trump dismissed Yovanovitch on his July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky as “the woman” who was “bad news.”
As Schiff banged his gavel, Stefanik tried to launch into her questions and loudly voiced objections to being shut down, as she put it, yet again. She claimed that Schiff had yielded time to a Democratic member. That was false — Schiff had only yielded time to his counsel, Daniel Goldman, during the Democrats’ opening question time.
While it is customary, as Nunes pointed out, that members can yield to one another, the House’s rules for impeachment expressly state that the first 90 minutes of open hearings are controlled in equal measure by the chairman and ranking member, and in that time the only person they can defer to are staff counsels. Nunes attempted to defer to Stefanik just a few minutes into his opening question time.
Nunes eventually dropped the cause and deferred to his counsel, Stephen R. Castor.
Karoun Demirjian
Hearing resumes with GOP questioning
The House Intelligence Committee hearing has resumed with Republican questioning of Yovanovitch.
John Wagner
Trump calls Roger Stone’s conviction a ‘double standard’
Trump reacted to a federal jury’s conviction of his longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone for lying to Congress, among other charges, calling it a “double standard.”
In a tweet, Trump ticked off political adversaries and law-enforcement officials involved in the investigation of Russian election interference, including special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) and Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee.
“So they now convict Roger Stone of lying and want to jail him for many years to come,” Trump tweeted. “A double standard like never seen before in the history of our Country?”
John Wagner
Zeldin says Democrats wanted to make Yovanovitch cry
Rep. Lee Zeldin accused Democrats of asking Yovanovitch questions about her feelings because they wanted to make her cry.
“The reason why that 45 minutes was spent asking her about her feelings is because House Democrats wanted to recreate what happened in the depositions, they wanted her to cry for the cameras,” Zeldin told reporters. “I was in the depositions. Inside the depositions, they take Donald Trump’s words and ask how she felt and get her to cry. That happened previously, it is obvious they were looking to do the same thing they did last time.”
Yovanovitch became emotional during the closed-door deposition when discussing her firing, and investigators paused the interview to give her a moment, according to people familiar with her testimony.
She maintained her composure during a similar part of her testimony Friday, despite repeatedly describing how “terrible” she felt.
Republicans dismissed Yovanovitch as a “nice lady,” as Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) put it, who didn’t have anything substantive to offer.
“We’re learning a whole bunch about her feelings, but we’re not learning anything about a phone call, we’re not learning anything about the relevant time where this whole impeachment process is about, she doesn’t have any relevant facts,” Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) said.
As The Washington Post reported, Yovanovitch’s testimony is delicate for Republicans — she’s the first woman to publicly testify. Nearly all of Trump’s fiercest congressional defenders are men, and she is speaking about a campaign by other male allies of the president to force her from her job.
Colby Itkowitz, Karoun Demirjian and Elise Viebeck
Federal jury convicts Roger Stone on all counts
As the House Intelligence Committee was in recess, a federal jury convicted longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone of lying to Congress and tampering with a witness about his efforts to learn about the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks’ release of hacked Democratic emails in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
The panel of nine women and three men deliberated for less than two days before finding Stone, 67, guilty on all seven counts resulting from his September 2017 testimony to a House committee investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and the Kremlin’s efforts to damage Trump’s Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.
Read more here.
Rachel Weiner, Spencer S. Hsu and Matt Zapotosky
Yovanovitch had been honoring anticorruption activist attacked with acid when told to leave Ukraine
Before the recess, Yovanovitch said that when she received a phone call on April 25 telling her to leave Kyiv, she was at that moment honoring a late anticorruption activist who had been attacked with acid.
“I was hosting an event in honor of Kateryna Handziuk, who is an anticorruption activist — was, an anticorruption activist — in Ukraine,” she said. “We had given her the ‘Woman of Courage’ award from Ukraine.”
Handziuk was 33 when a man threw sulfuric acid on her in front of her house in Kherson, a city in southern Ukraine, on July 31, 2018. She suffered burns over 30 percent of her body in the attack, and succumbed to her injuries on Nov. 4 of that year.
A journalist and member of the Kherson city council, Handziuk had been a persistent critic of corruption in Ukraine, highlighting, in particular, problems within the police and the Interior Ministry.
She continued to speak out from her hospital bed, telling Hromadske Television in September that though her injuries made her look bad, she thought she looked “much better than fairness and justice” in Ukraine, “because they are not treated by anybody.”
Adam Taylor
Democrats say Trump’s tweet could be basis for another article of impeachment
Democrats characterized Trump’s disparaging tweets about Yovanovitch as witness intimidation with some suggesting the episode could be added as another article of impeachment.
Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), who sits on the Intelligence Committee, tweeted: “.@POTUS tampering with and intimidating a witness in real time while testifying is shocking and beneath any office, let alone the Office of the President.”
“The president just demonstrated witness intimidation & obstruction of justice in real time. Yuvanovitch is a dedicated, truth-telling, career Foreign Service official who knows how to put country first, over partisanship. Trumps actions are truly dangerous,” wrote Rep. Pramila Jayapal (Wash.) (Yovanovitch’s name was misspelled.)
And Rep. Ted Lieu (Calif.) tweeted: “Why is @realDonaldTrump engaging in witness intimidation of Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch while she testifies during the #ImpeachmentHearings? Because her testimony is devastating to @POTUS.”
The Trump campaign rushed to dismiss the criticism.
Andrew Clark, director of rapid response for Trump’s reelection campaign, tweeted:
“Wednesday: Quid pro quo!
“This morning: Bribery?!
“10:50am: WITNESS INTIMIDATION!!!!!!
“What a clown show. Democrats are literally pulling random phrases out of a hat and the media is playing along.”
Colby Itkowitz
Yovanovitch testifies about derogatory tweets by Trump and his son
Prior to the recess, Yovanovitch testified that derogatory tweets by Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr. in March repeated fabrications and attacks on her that State Department leaders knew to be baseless.
The tweets, she said, undermined the career diplomat’s ability to represent the U.S. effectively in Ukraine.
But when Yovanovitch asked for a statement of support to be issued by Pompeo, she said she was told the “seventh floor” of the State Department, where the secretary’s office is located, worried any such statement could be undermined by a subsequent Trump tweet.
Daniel Goldman, the Democratic staff attorney, began the line of questioning, noting the president and his son had repeated attacks that stemmed from an article by The Hill’s John Solomon, quoting Yuri Lutsenko, then Ukraine’s top prosecutor.
Lutsenko suggested to Solomon that Yovanovitch had spoken ill of Trump and cooperated with a scheme to help Clinton and undermine Trump’s campaign.
“Were these articles and allegations then promoted by others associated with the president of the United States?” Goldman asked.
“They seem to be promoted by those around Mayor Giuliani,” Yovanovitch replied.
Goldman then read aloud the tweet by Trump Jr., containing a link to Solomon’s writing with the line “we need less of these jokers as ambassadors.”
“What was your reaction to seeing this?” Goldman asked.
“Well, I was worried,” Yovanovitch said.
“What were you worried about?” Goldman asked.
“These attacks were, you know, being repeated by the president himself and his son,” she said.
A derogatory Trump tweet at the time also referenced Fox News’s Sean Hannity.
“Were you aware whether they received attention on prime-time television, on Fox News?
“Yes,” Yovanovitch said.
“Was the allegation that you are badmouthing President Trump true?”
“No,” Yovanovitch said.
Aaron C. Davis
Schiff says Trump intimidated a witness ‘in real time’
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) said that “we saw today witness intimidation in real time by the president of the United States.”
His made his comments in response to Trump’s disparagement of Yovanovitch on Twitter to reporters outside the hearing room.
“Once again, going after this dedicated and respected career public servant in an effort to not only to chill her but to chill others who may come forward,” Schiff said. “We take this kind of witness intimidation and an obstruction of the inquiry very seriously.”
He walked away as a reporter asked if witness intimidation would be a separate article of impeachment.
John Wagner
Hearing in recess for House votes
The Intelligence Committee hearing is in recess to allow members to participate in votes on the House floor related to legislation that seeks to reform the U.S. Export Finance Agency.
John Wagner
Yovanovitch responds to Trump tweets in real time, saying they’re ‘intimidating’
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) read aloud Trump’s tweets attacking Yovanovitch that the president had just posted and asked her to react to them.
Yovanovitch listened, her face stoic, as Schiff read the president’s words blaming her for things going badly in places where she served.
“Well I, I don’t think I have such powers,” she said. “I actually think where I’ve served over the years, I and others have demonstrably made things better for the U.S. and the countries I served in.”
Yovanovitch said when the president tweets about her, it’s “very intimidating.”
Schiff responded, “It’s designed to intimidate.”
“I can’t speak to what the president is trying to do, but I think the effect is to be intimidating,” she said.
“Some of us here take witness intimidation very seriously,” Schiff said.
Trump did not personally attack either of the male career Foreign Service officers who testified on Wednesday.
Colby Itkowitz
‘It sounded like a threat,’ Yovanovitch says
Yovanovitch told the committee that she took Trump’s comments about her in a July 25 call with the Zelensky as a threat. Trump in the call suggested the ambassador was bad at her job and said, “Well, she’s going to go through some things.”
“I didn’t know what to think, but I was very concerned,” Yovanovitch said.
“What were you concerned about?” asked a Democratic attorney.
“It didn’t sound good. It sounded like a threat,” she said.
“Did you feel threatened?” asked the attorney.
“I did,” she said, later adding: “It felt like a vague threat, so I wondered what that meant. … It concerned me.”
On the call, Trump also praised a corrupt former Ukrainian prosecutor who had led a false smear campaign that led to Yovanovitch losing her job.
“I was shocked …. and devastated, frankly,” Yovanovitch said of her reaction when she read the transcript, calling it “a terrible moment.” A person who was watching her read the transcript for the first time commented that “the color drained from my face,” she said.
“I even had a physical reaction; even now, words kind of fail me,” she said.
Rachael Bade
Yovanovitch describes her removal from Kyiv as ‘extremely irregular’
Under questioning from Democratic counsel Daniel Goldman, Yovanovitch described the circumstances of her removal from Kyiv — which began with an urgent call in late April from State Department Director General Carol Z. Perez.
The call, Yovanovitch testified, came as she was hosting an embassy event in honor of Kateryna Handziuk — a Ukrainian anticorruption activist who was attacked with acid in 2018 and ultimately died of her injuries.
Yovanovitch took the call from Perez, who told her about “great concern” about her security. In a subsequent call, late that night in Kyiv, she was told to get on the next flight to Washington from Kyiv.
“I argued, ‘This is extremely irregular,’ ” she said. “But in the end, I did get on the next plane home.”
Back in Washington, she described meeting with Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan.
“There was a lot of back and forth, but ultimately he said the words that, you know, every Foreign Service officer understands: ‘The president has lost confidence in you,’ ” Yovanovitch said. “And I said, ‘Well, you know, I guess I have to go, then.’ But no real reason was offered as to why I had to leave and why it was being done in such a manner.”
Goldman asked Yovanovitch how she felt in that moment.
“Terrible, honestly,” she said. “After 33 years of service to our country, this is not how I wanted my career to end.”
Mike DeBonis
Trump disparages Yovanovitch as she testifies
Trump attacked Yovanovitch on Twitter while she somberly testified about getting called home suddenly because the president had lost confidence in her.
“Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad. She started off in Somalia, how did that go? Then fast forward to Ukraine, where the new Ukrainian President spoke unfavorably about her in my second phone call with him,” Trump wrote. “It is a U.S. President’s absolute right to appoint ambassadors.”
Trump’s tweet came moments after Yovanovitch shared that she received the phone call that she was fired from her ambassadorship while honoring an anticorruption crusader who died after an acid attack in Ukraine.
Trump continued in a subsequent tweet, claiming that under his administration U.S. foreign policy is stronger and Ukraine is better off.
“The U.S. now has a very strong and powerful foreign policy, much different than proceeding administrations. It is called, quite simply, America First! With all of that, however, I have done FAR more for Ukraine than O.”
Colby Itkowitz
Yovanovitch opens by saying her removal will create a playbook for how to undermine U.S. policy
Yovanovitch — who has served as a career Foreign Service officer for 33 years under six U.S. presidents — began her public testimony in front of House impeachment investigators with a defense of a nonpartisan diplomatic service which she said is being hollowed out and demoralized by lack of support and leadership at the State Department.
Yovanovitch, who was recalled from her post as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine in May after a concerted effort to smear her by individuals including Giuliani, said her experience should “concern everyone,” because it will lead foreign officials to doubt American representatives abroad and form a playbook for attacking others who challenge corrupt and entrenched interests.
“Our Ukraine policy has been thrown into disarray, and shady interests the world over have learned how little it takes to remove an American ambassador who does not give them what they want,” she said. “After these events, what foreign official, corrupt or not, could be blamed for wondering whether the ambassador represents the president’s views?”
Yovanovitch said that while she understands that she serves at the pleasure of the president of the United States, she continues to find it hard to understand how private and foreign parties were able to engineer her removal.
“Individuals, who apparently felt stymied by our efforts to promote stated U.S. policy against corruption — that is, to do the mission — were able to successfully conduct a campaign of disinformation against a sitting ambassador, using unofficial back channels,” she said.
Yovanovitch noted that Foreign Service officers often face difficult and dangerous jobs abroad. She described service in a U.S. embassy that came under gunfire in Uzbekistan and being caught in a crossfire during an attempted coup in Russia in 1993.
She used her moment on national television to decry falling support for American diplomats serving abroad to implement U.S. policy. While she did not mention Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in her opening remarks, she decried that State Department leadership for its silence in the wake of her recall from Ukraine.
“The State Department is being hollowed out from within at a competitive and complex time on the world stage,” she said.
Rosalind S. Helderman
Rough transcript conflicts with White House April readout of Trump/Zelensky call
After Trump spoke to Zelensky to congratulate him on his election victory in April, the White House put out a summary of the call, as it often does after the president speaks to foreign leaders.
In the readout of the call, the White House wrote that Trump “expressed his commitment to work together with President-elect Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian people to implement reforms that strengthen democracy, increase prosperity, and root out corruption.”
But nowhere in the rough transcript of the call released by the White House Friday morning did Trump mention corruption in their 16-minute conversation.
The closest Trump came to offering his support for Ukraine was a reference to his ownership of the Miss Universe pageant.
“When I owned Miss Universe, they always had great people. Ukraine was always very well represented,” Trump said. “We’ll have a lot of things to talk about, but we’re with you all the way.”
Colby Itkowitz
Diplomatic muscle turns out for Yovanovitch
The diplomats who have spoken publicly in the House’s impeachment probe have likened Yovanovitch to some of the greatest giants in the history of their profession. In a sign of that solidarity, Yovanovitch was accompanied to the hearing Friday by the daughter of George Kennan, author of the infamous 1946 “Long Telegram” that became the basis for the Cold War strategy of containment.
Grace Kennan Warnecke is a foreign policy expert and former Soviet Union specialist in her own right, and is currently chairman of the board of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy. She is also a personal friend of Yovanovitch, according to people familiar with them.
But her presence just behind Yovanovitch’s right shoulder — ever so slightly outside most camera frames — is symbolic of how the career diplomatic corps has rallied around Yovanovitch since her ouster, considering her removal for political reasons to be an affront to their profession, even if it is within the president’s purview.
Many witnesses have cited Yovanovitch’s removal as an act that troubled them, and it has motivated some to testify in the impeachment probe.
Karoun Demirjian
White House press secretary says Trump will watch Nunes opening statement
White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said the president did not watch Wednesday’s hearings, but would be watching some of Yovanovitch’s hearing.
“The President will be watching Congressman Nunes’s opening statement, but the rest of the day he will be working hard for the American people,” Grisham said.
Separately, Grisham addressed the release of the rough transcript of the April call between Trump and Zelensky.
“The President took the unprecedented steps to declassify and release the transcripts of both of his phone calls with President Zelensky so that every American can see he did nothing wrong,” she said.
Colby Itkowitz
Yovanovitch sworn in, begins testimony
Yovanovitch has been sworn in and is delivering an opening statement before the House Intelligence Committee.
John Wagner
Schiff praises Yovanovitch, Nunes accuses Dems of ‘Watergate fantasies’
The top lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee offered dueling opening statements on Friday, highlighting the parties’ vastly different views of the Ukraine saga ahead of testimony from Yovanovitch.
Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) praised Yovanovitch as “tough on corruption” in Ukraine — “too tough on corruption for some, and her principled stances made her enemies.”
Schiff highlighted Trump’s comments about Yovanovitch in his July 25 phone call with Zelensky, in which Trump said “the former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news” and that she was “going to go through some things.”
“The woman known for fighting corruption ... the woman ruthlessly smeared and driven from her post, the president does nothing but disparage — or worse, threaten,” Schiff said.
“That tells you a lot about the president’s priorities and intentions,” he said.
Rep. Devin Nunes (Calif.), the committee’s top Republican, accused Democrats of acting like “some kind of strange cult” seeking to “fulfill their Watergate fantasies.”
He steered attention toward several debunked conspiracy theories alleging Ukrainian interference in the 2016 presidential election and what he termed corrupt actions by Hunter Biden, the son of the former vice president.
Then Nunes read a transcript of a Trump-Zelensky call before July 25 in which Trump congratulated him on winning the presidential election.
“It’s unfortunate that today and for most of the next we will continue engaging in the Democrats’ day-long TV spectacles instead of the problems we were all sent to Washington to address,” he said.
Elise Viebeck
Rough transcript shows Zelensky wanted Trump to attend his inauguration in Ukraine
When Trump called newly elected Zelensky to congratulate him on his victory, Zelensky made clear how badly he wanted Trump to attend his inauguration in Ukraine.
In a rough transcript of their April conversation released by the White House minutes before the impeachment hearing began, Zelensky calls Trump “a great example” and says, “I know how busy you are, but if it’s possible for you to come to the inauguration ceremony, that would be a great, great thing for you to do to be with us on that day.”
Trump promised to look into it and send a “great representative” if he couldn’t attend.
Initially that person was going to be Vice President Pence, but then he canceled and Energy Secretary Rick Perry led the delegation instead.
“Words cannot describe our country, so it would be best for you to see it yourself,” Zelensky pressed. “So, if you can come, that would be great. So, again, I invite you to come.”
Trump then said he’d like to invite Zelensky to the White House. A meeting with Trump was allegedly conditioned on Zelensky publicly announcing investigations in the Bidens.
Zelensky thanked him for the invitation and again said, “And I think that it will still be great if you could come and be with us on this very important day of our inauguration … So, it will be absolutely fantastic if you could come and be with us on that day.”
During his opening statement, Rep. Devin Nunes, the top Republican of the Intelligence Committee, read the entire rough transcript into the record.
Colby Itkowitz
Pelosi tweets support for Yovanovitch
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) tweeted in solidarity with Yovanovitch, noting that the longtime diplomat had been “an anti-corruption crusader” — an apparent dig at Trump allies’ defense that he was trying to root out corruption in Ukraine by requesting investigations into the Bidens.
“Today, we hear from one of our most respected diplomats, who spent her career as an anti-corruption crusader,” Pelosi tweeted. “She was viciously smeared by Trump’s allies, removed from her post, then threatened by the President on his ‘perfect” call’.”
Colby Itkowitz
White House releases rough transcript of April call between Trump and Zelensky
Just as the hearing was scheduled to get underway, the White House released the rough transcript of an April call between Trump and Zelensky.
That call took place a few months before the July call — in which Trump pressed Zelensky for investigations that could benefit him politically at a time when U.S. military aid was being withheld from Ukraine — that has been central to the impeachment inquiry.
Witnesses in the impeachment probe familiar with the first call have described it as relatively innocuous.
John Wagner
Trump lashes out at Pelosi minutes before scheduled start of hearing
Minutes before the second public impeachment hearing was scheduled to begin, Trump tweeted an attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), saying she should focus on her San Francisco district rather than his impeachment.
“Nervous Nancy Pelosi, who should be home cleaning up the dangerous & disgusting Slum she is making of her District in San Francisco, where even the filth pouring into the Pacific Ocean is rapidly becoming an environmental hazard, is getting NOTHING DONE. She is a Do Nothing Democrat as Speaker, and will hopefully not be in that position very long,” Trump tweeted.
Trump also lashed out at Pelosi because the House has not yet approved trade legislation he is seeking. Pelosi indicated Thursday that passage would come soon.
At the same news conference, Pelosi suggested the House could charge Trump with bribery when it brings up articles of impeachment.
Colby Itkowitz
Yovanovitch arrives on Capitol Hill
Yovanovitch has arrived in advance of her scheduled 9 a.m. open testimony at the Longworth House Office Building on Capitol Hill.
John Wagner
Trump to deliver remarks on health care at the White House
On a day of expected drama on Capitol Hill, Trump has only one event on his public schedule.
According to the White House, Trump will deliver remarks “on honesty and transparency in healthcare prices” at 2 p.m. in the Roosevelt Room.
John Wagner
Yovanovitch scheduled in morning open hearing, Holmes in afternoon closed session
Yovanovitch is scheduled to appear at an open hearing of the House Intelligence Committee beginning at 9 a.m.
She was recalled from her post in May after facing an onslaught of attacks from right-wing media. With encouragement from Giuliani — but with no evidence — conspiracy theorists painted her as an enemy of the president who used her power to covertly undermine him and assist Democrats.
In an Oct. 11 closed-door deposition, Yovanovitch said that she remained worried that she would be a target of retaliation by Trump, who referred to her in a July 25 phone call with Zelensky as “bad news” and someone who was “going to go through some things.”
House investigators also expect to hear in a closed-door session starting around 3 p.m. Friday from Holmes. He is an embassy staffer referred to Wednesday in testimony by William B. Taylor Jr., acting ambassador to Ukraine.
Holmes is one of two people believed to have overheard a July phone call in which Trump was said to have asked U.S. ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland about “the investigations” sought from Ukraine into Trump’s political rivals.
Trump has told reporters that he has no recollection of the call.
John Wagner and Elise Viebeck
Status of transcript of first Trump-Zelensky call remains unclear
It remains unclear when the White House might release a transcript of a call between Trump and Zelensky that took place in April, shortly after Zelensky had been elected president.
That’s a few months before the July call that has been central to the impeachment inquiry in which Trump pressed Zelensky for investigations that could benefit him politically at a time when U.S. military aid was being withheld from Ukraine.
Witnesses in the impeachment probe familiar with the first call have described it as relatively innocuous.
Trump has pledged to release the transcript by the end of the week. He first suggested it would be released Tuesday and then Thursday. It hadn’t been released by Friday morning.
John Wagner
‘Is this an impeachment hearing or an episode of ‘Dance Moms’?’: Media roasted for saying event lacks ‘pizazz’
As the historic public impeachment hearings kicked off Wednesday with televised testimony that threatens Trump’s tenure in office, more than 13 million people tuned into broadcast and news networks while an untold number streamed the event online.
For some critics, however, the opening day of the hearings came up short. It “lacked the pizazz necessary to capture public attention,” according to an NBC News analysis. “Unlike the best reality TV shows — not to mention the Trump presidency itself — fireworks and explosive moments were scarce,” Reuters reported. One Fox News commentator called it “a tepid bore.”
These assessments did not sit well with Comedy Central host Trevor Noah.
“Impeachment is like a family reunion,” Noah said Thursday night on his show. “If it’s sexy, something has gone horribly wrong.”
Noah wasn’t the only one Thursday to attack coverage that focused more on the hearing’s entertainment value than the substance.
Read more here.
Allyson Chiu
RNC chairwoman seeks to play down significance of Yovanovitch’s planned testimony
Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel sought to play down the significance of Yovanovitch’s planned testimony on Friday, noting that she had already been removed from her position by the time of Trump’s July call with Zelensky.
“So the first hearing we heard witnesses who had hearsay of hearsay of hearsay, and now we’re going to hear from somebody who wasn’t even there when the call took place,” McDaniel said during an appearance on Fox News’s “Fox & Friends.” “I mean, it is so ridiculous. Democrats are grasping at straws.”
McDaniel said Republican members of the Intelligence Committee should ask Yovanovitch what she knows about Hunter Biden’s service on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, while his father was vice president. That is among the issues Trump pressed Zelensky to investigate.
John Wagner
Trump says Democrats should apologize for impeachment inquiry
Trump seized late Thursday night on comments by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko to demand that Democrats apologize to the nation for the impeachment inquiry, which Trump claimed on Twitter “IS NOW DEAD!”
Prystaiko was quoted by the Interfax Ukraine news agency as saying his conversations with Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, did not include explicit mention linking U.S. military aid with possible investigations of the Bidens.
Prystaiko, however, commented only on his direct interactions with Sondland, and not other U.S. officials.
“Democrats must apologize to USA,” Trump said in tweets sent shortly before midnight, adding: “THE FAKE IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY IS NOW DEAD!”
His tweets followed a campaign rally in Louisiana at which he mocked two career diplomats who testified publicly Wednesday about their concerns regarding Trump’s actions toward Ukraine.
“How about when they asked these two Never Trumpers, ‘What exactly do you impeach him for?’ They went like, ‘What?’” Trump said.
Several times during Wednesday’s public hearing, one of the two, acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine William B. Taylor Jr., said he was there to present information he had and not to weigh in on whether to impeach Trump.
John Wagner and Colby Itkowitz
Fareed Zakaria details backstory of planned Zelensky announcement on his CNN show
In his Washington Post column, Fareed Zakaria explained the backstory of how Zelensky planned to announce the investigations sought by Trump on his CNN show. The interview eventually was canceled.
“His team apparently concluded that since he was planning an interview with me anyway, that would be the forum in which he would make the announcement, though neither he nor any of his team ever gave us any inkling that this was their plan,” Zakaria wrote. “However, after my meeting with him in Kyiv, my team began to discuss potential logistics of the interview with his team — time and place.”
Read Zakaria’s column here.
John Wagner