After no one knows how many hours of impeachment hearings yesterday morning and afternoon, even creeping well past sunset, the Democratic Presidential Candidate's debate was held here in Atlanta last night. The ROM doesn't have too much to say about the debate, other than to express some gratitude that there weren't nearly as many attacks on the front-runners as there were at the last debate. During that last debate, then-front runner Elizabeth Warren had to fend off criticisms and attacks from all comers, but this month's front runner, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, faced far fewer attacks. While Mayor Pete may come off sometimes as something of a white-bread milquetoast, when attacked he can come right back at his opponent with a surprising ferocity and effectiveness, while still looking as calm and as friendly as Mr. Rogers. It would be interesting to see how he would fare in a one-on-one debate with bully Dumbledorf Pumpernickel.
That was yesterday. Today was another gruelling seven hours of hearings and testimony, interrupted by one extended break for a congressional vote on other matters (I went out and got some barbecue during the break). Today's hearing featured two witnesses - Fiona Hill, Trump's former top Russia expert on the National Security Council, and David Holmes, a top aide in the United States Embassy in Kyiv (turns out that in addition to pronouncing it wrong - "Key-EV" instead of "Keev" - I've also been spelling "Kiev" wrong).
Holmes testified about the now infamous phone call in a Kyiv restaurant between Trump and EU Ambassador Sondland, yesterday's star witness, that was loud enough for him to clearly hear. It's extraordinarily irresponsible for the president to take a call from a diplomat over an unsecured cell phone, much less in Ukraine where it's well known the Russians are listening in on everything. Anyway, in the call, Holmes testified that Sondland reassured Trump that the new Ukrainian president "loves your ass," and that the new pres was ready to do anything requested, including launch investigations into the Bidens. Holmes also testified that Sondland later told him that Trump "doesn't give a shit" about Ukraine, but only cares about the "big things," meaning not national security or Ukraine's on-going hot war with Russia, but investigations into his electoral opponents.
Fiona Hill's testimony was devastating. Calmly and professionally, she dispelled notions that anyone other than the Russians were behind the interference in the 2016 election, and that theories to the contrary were nothing other than Russian propaganda that only benefits Vladimir Putin. She and Holmes both had the clear understanding that talk about investigations into the corruption of the Ukraine gas company Burisma was just code for investigations into the Bidens, and that Trump himself was behind the campaign to withhold the aid to Ukraine authorized by Congress. Hill often referred to the investigations-for-a-meeting quid pro quo as a "drug deal," a name given to the scandal by former national security adviser John Bolton ("drug-deal-gate?").
Republicans congressmen, unable to refute Hill's testimony, lectured her instead of asking questions and mansplained the so-called "real" reasons behind the hearings. They used their 5 minutes to recite sound bites about other topics, anything really - Hillary Clinton, the Steele dossier, Hunter Biden's language skills, anything but the scandal at hand. They criticized Holmes for "indescretion" in talking about things that made the president look bad. Creepily, Rep. Devin Nunes, the California congressman with that punchable face, continued to imply that the hearings were all just some sort of attempt to try and find nude photos of Trump, a nauseating concept the ROM for one refuses to picture in his imagination.
The good news is that today was the last day of planned testimony, at least until and if there's some sort of breakthrough on Trump's refusal to cooperate and allow Cabinet members to testify.
The bad news is that nothing new was learned about Trump's character or behavior that's going to change anyone's mind about him. His actions with regard to Ukraine are clearly treasonous high crimes and misdemeanors that warrant impeachment, but nothing was shocking or seemed out of character for Trump - we always knew he was a selfish, cheating, megalomaniac narcissist who would do things like withhold aid to an ally at war with America's foremost adversary in order to benefit himself. The findings, even to those supporters not in denial about the facts, aren't going to change anyone's position on him, Yes, the ROM is confident that the House will vote for impeachment, but sadly the Senate won't vote to remove him from office.
In six months, we'll have forgotten all this and have moved on to the next news cycle.
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