The huge hole in Donald Trump’s impeachment hearing
Moves to impeach Donald Trump have divided America, and one factor at the heart of the issue is set to decide what happens to the US president.
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After two weeks of public hearings in the impeachment inquiry into US President Donald Trump, there is a mountain of evidence that analysts say is now beyond dispute.
Trump explicitly ordered US government officials to work with his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani on matters related to Ukraine, a country deeply dependent on Washington’s help to fend off Russian aggression.
The president pushed Ukraine to launch investigations into political rivals, leaning on a discredited conspiracy theory his own advisers disputed. And both American and Ukrainian officials feared Trump froze a much-needed package of military aid until Kiev announced it was launching those probes.
Those facts were confirmed by a dozen witnesses, mostly career government officials who have served both Democratic and Republican administrations. They relied on emails, text messages and contemporaneous notes to back up their recollections from the past year.
Stitched together, their hours of televised testimony paint a portrait of an American president willing to leverage his powerful office to push a foreign government for personal political help. That alone has many Democrats on the brink of voting to impeach Trump before the end of the year, potentially pushing towards a trial in the Senate.
Yet the witness accounts left one prominent hole that offered a lifeline for Trump and his Republican allies.
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None of the witnesses could personally attest that Trump directly conditioned the release of $US400 million ($A589 million) in military aid on a Ukrainian announcement of investigations into former vice-president Joe Biden and the Democratic National Committee.
Some Republicans suggested that even if that link could be made, it would not be enough for them to support impeaching Trump and removing him from office. And without that link, the president’s wall of support among GOP politicians seems formidable.
IMPEACHMENT VOTE SPLIT
Democrats now face the prospect of a House impeachment vote split along party lines. That would mirror public polling, which shows Americans divided over whether Trump should be impeached for his dealings with Ukraine and removed from office.
With the public hearings complete, Democrats are now urgently plotting the way forward with a limited blueprint in just the nation’s fourth impeachment proceeding.
They must first decide whether to begin drafting articles of impeachment based on what has been revealed to this point or to launch a long-shot bid for testimony from additional witnesses who could provide more direct evidence of Trump’s actions.
Democrats have requested testimony from acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and former national security adviser John Bolton, men who spent hours alongside Mr Trump in the West Wing and whose names popped up repeatedly in the testimony of other officials.
In a pointed moment in Thursday’s testimony, former White House national security official Fiona Hill said she believes “those who have information that the congress deems relevant have a legal and moral obligation to provide it”.
Yet it appears unlikely that Bolton and Mulvaney will tell their stories to congress. Citing executive privilege, both men have filed court cases to determine if they must appear.
The case Democrats plan to make in the coming days as they try to sway both Republicans and the American people is that the impeachment inquiry is not just about Trump’s future — it is about what Americans should expect from their president.
Asked what the consequences are if congress allows an American president to ask a foreign government to investigate a political rival, Hill said simply: “It’s a very bad precedent.”
TRUMP’S 53 MINUTE TV RANT
President Trump called into his favourite TV show to blast his pro-impeachment rivals during a 53-minute verbal onslaught following one of the toughest weeks in his presidency.
Mr Trump called into Fox & Friends on Friday morning local time and proceeded to take over the show from hosts Steve Doocy, Brian Kilmeade and Ainsley Earhardt as he lashed out at his rivals and expounded conspiracy theories.
Kilmeade in particular seemed uncomfortable with the situation, frequently asking the President: “Who is your source, sir?”
Undeterred, Mr Trump promoted a debunked conspiracy theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election, a day after a former White House adviser called it a “fictional narrative” that played into Russia’s hands.
He said he was trying to root out corruption in the Eastern European nation when he withheld aid over the northern summer.
Mr Trump’s July 25 call with Ukraine’s president is at the centre of the House impeachment probe, which is looking into Mr Trump’s pressure on Ukraine to investigate political rivals as he held back nearly $A600 million.
But he repeated his assertion that Ukrainians might have hacked the Democratic National Committee’s network in 2016 and framed Russia for the crime, a theory his own advisers have dismissed.
He also took aim at former US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, calling her a Barack Obama person who refused to hang his picture in the embassy in Kiev.
“This was an Obama person who didn’t want to hang my picture in the embassy. It’s standard is you put the President of the United States picture in the embassy. This was not an angel this woman,” Mr Trump said.
“She’s an Obama person,” he said.
Mr Trump also said Democrat Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was “crazy as a bedbug”.
He resurrected his favourite nickname for Democratic presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warden, calling her “Pocahontas” several times in reference to her claim to have Native American family heritage.
Mr Trump, who confirmed he would keep Mike Pence as his running mate next year, hinted that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo may be on his way out the door, as has been rumoured in recent weeks, saying Mr Pompeo “just loves Kansas,” as if to suggest he might soon go back.
He called critic George Conway – husband of counsellor to the President Kellyanne Conway – a “total whack job”, although he then blamed it on Kellyanne.
“Well, first of all, Kellyanne is great, but she’s married to a total whack job. I think she must have done some number on him,” Mr Trump said. “I don’t know what Kellyanne did to that guy.
“He’s got to be some kind of nut job. She must have done some bad things to him because this guy is crazy.”
TRUMP SAYS HE KNOWS WHO WHISTLEBLOWER IS
The president also claimed that he knows the identity of the whistleblower who filed the formal complaint that spurred the impeachment inquiry.
“You know who the whistleblower is. So do I,” Mr Trump told the hosts.
He said he didn’t believe House Intelligence Committee Chairman, Democrat Adam Schiff, who has maintained that he doesn’t know the identity of the whistleblower.
“If he doesn’t, then he’s the only person in Washington who doesn’t,” Mr Trump said, adding he did not expect to be impeached.
He claimed Democrats have “absolutely nothing” incriminating, despite days of public testimony by witnesses who said Mr Trump withheld aid from Ukraine to press the country to investigate his political rivals.
“I think it’s very hard to impeach you when they have absolutely nothing,” Mr Trump said, adding that if the House did vote to impeach him, he would welcome a trial in the Senate.
His claim that Ukraine was behind the 2016 election interference has been discredited by intelligence agencies and his own advisers.
SCHIFF'S "FACT" WITNESSES! pic.twitter.com/Pab2y1BVoN
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2019
CrowdStrike, an internet security firm based in California, investigated the DNC hack in June 2016 and traced it to two groups of hackers connected to a Russian intelligence service – not Ukraine.
One version of the debunked theory holds that CrowdStrike is owned by a wealthy Ukrainian. In fact, company co-founder Dmitri Alperovitch is a Russian-born US citizen who immigrated as a child and graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
The president repeated his claim one day after Fiona Hill, a former Russia adviser on the White House National Security Council, admonished Republicans for pushing unsubstantiated conspiracy theories about Ukrainian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
“Some of you on this committee appear to believe that Russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country and that perhaps, somehow, for some reason, Ukraine did,” Ms Hill testified before the House impeachment inquiry panel.
“This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves.”
The President said “there was no quid pro quo,” in his efforts to push Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to open investigations of former Vice President Joe Biden and his son’s dealings in Ukraine.
The president’s assertion is at odds with sworn testimony by impeachment witnesses.
JOE BIDEN NOT KEEN TO COMMENT ON BEING A GRANDAD AGAIN
Joe Biden shut down a reporter for asking what he called a “classless” question about his son Hunter allegedly fathering a child with a woman in Arkansas, the New York Post reports.
The Democratic presidential hopeful was asked about a DNA test that, according to court papers, confirmed Hunter is the father of a 15-month-old child.
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The baby’s mother, Lunden Alexis Roberts, 28, filed a paternity suit against the former vice president’s son in May.
“I’m wondering if you have a comment on this report, and court filing, out of Arkansas that your son Hunter just made you a grandfather again,” Fox News reporter Peter Doocy asked at a press conference.
Mr Biden, 77, quickly halted the line of questioning, snapping, “No, that’s a private matter and I have no comment.”
“Only you would ask that,” he added, pointing at Mr Doocy.
This is the United States of America. There is not a single thing we have not been able to accomplish once we set our minds to it.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) November 21, 2019
Let's take back this country and lead the world again. #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/te4M9fRGCE
“You’re a good man … Classy,” Mr Biden said with a wry smile.
Hunter, 49, has denied having sex with Ms Roberts.
In court documents, Ms Roberts’ lawyers argued a DNA test Hunter took established with “scientific certainty” that he is the father.
Originally published as The huge hole in Donald Trump’s impeachment hearing
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