Public Impeachment Hearings Shine Light on President Trump’s Ukraine Dealings

The first two weeks of open public hearings in President Trump’s impeachment inquiry have concluded in the U.S. House of Representatives. The hearings were held by the House Intelligence Committee, led by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).

Attorney General William Barr and his Department of Justice have refused to open any investigation into potential wrongdoing regarding Trump withholding congressionally-approved taxpayer money and a phone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, in a possible quid pro quo to get Ukraine to publicly announce an investigation into his likely 2020 presidential opponent, Joe Biden. In an unclassified readout of a July 25th Trump and Zelensky phone-call that was released by the White House, the president responded to Zelensky’s request for more U.S. Javelin missiles by saying, “I would like you to do us a favor though.”

President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani has played a central role in the ongoing investigation. A New York Times report earlier this week showed that Giuliani was privately pursuing business deals with the Ukrainian government worth hundreds of thousands of dollars while simultaneously waging an effort to dig up dirt on Biden in Ukraine. Two of Giuliani’s business associates, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, were recently arrested and indicted for funneling foreign money into U.S. elections. The two men have had 10 recorded interactions with Trump.

Trump has since tried to separate himself from his personal lawyer’s actions in Ukraine, telling radio host Bill O’Reilly that he did not direct Giuliani’s efforts in Ukraine, stating, “Rudy has other clients other than me.” During Trump and Zelensky’s July 25th phone-call, he spoke of Giuliani as “a highly respected man…a great mayor”, while telling the Ukrainian president “I would like him [Giuliani] to call you”.

The first two individuals to testify in the impeachment hearings were senior U.S. diplomat Bill Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent. Taylor testified that Trump consistently focused on getting the Ukrainian government to publicly announce an investigation into his political rival. Appearing alongside Taylor, Kent testified that Giuliani had tried “to gin up politically motivated investigations” while in Ukraine. The next testimony came two days later, when former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch detailed how she was told by a Ukrainian counterpart to “watch her back”, after which she was abruptly removed as ambassador by the President Trump.

The second week of public hearings started out with Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the top Ukraine expert on the White House National Security Council, who testified alongside Jennifer Williams, an aide to Vice President Mike Pence. The Iraq War veteran and Purple Heart recipient provided a firsthand account of Trump’s call with Zelensky, testifying that he reported his concerns about Trump’s “improper” demand of an investigation into Biden out of a “sense of duty.”

Later that day, former U.S. Special Envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker and former White House Russia adviser Tim Morrison testified side-by-side. Both men stated that they were previously unaware that the mentioning of investigations into Ukrainian energy company Burisma, where Joe Biden’s son Hunter was a board member, meant investigating Biden. Volker said that he would have “raised [his] own objections” because of his view that a quid pro quo with Ukraine was “unacceptable.”

U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland went before the committee the following day, testifying that there was in fact a “quid pro quo” and telling the committee that he repeatedly tried to get Ukraine to publicly announce an investigation into Biden at President Trump’s “direction.” Sondland was followed up later that day by testimony from Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Laura Cooper and State Department official David Hale. Cooper told the committee that Ukrainian officials had told multiple members of her staff that U.S. military aid had been held up for unknown reasons.

The final day of testimony featured State Department official David Holmes and former White House adviser Fiona Hill, who was the top Russia adviser in the Oval Office. Holmes testified that he personally overheard a phone conversation between Trump and Sondland, in which Trump asked about Ukrainian investigations into Biden. Dr. Hill told the committee that the baseless conspiracy theory that Ukraine and not Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. election was a “fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves.” The first page of the Mueller Report reads, “The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systemic fashion…that favored presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and disparaged presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.”

Many current and former government officials have refused to comply with lawful Congressional subpoenas to testify before the House committee, instead following President Trump’s instructions not to corporate. Chiefly among those who have refused lawful congressional subpoenas are former National Security Adviser John Bolton and Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney. Trump has repeatedly labeled those who comply with House subpoenas as “Never Trumpers.”

Rather than focus on the testimony of the fact witnesses, Republicans on the committee choose to attack the process and portray the testimony as all second or thirdhand hearsay. They argued that the president was simply concerned with corruption in Ukraine. Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., the ranking member and top Republican on the committee, continually labeled the hearings a “witch hunt,” while arguing that the identity of the initial whistleblower who set the proceedings in motion should be outed. The Whistleblower Protection Act is meant to protect federal government employees who lawfully disclose information about potential violations of law, gross mismanagement or waste of funds, and abuses of authority.

Reactions among Santa Monica College students have varied. Freshman Ashley Bennett was not surprised by the two weeks of impeachment hearings, saying, “I’ve always thought he was a crook and a lowlife. Now we all know it for sure.” Sophomore David Rodriguez took a different approach to the stream of revelations coming out of the hearings, stating, “The Democrats have always had it out for him [President Trump] since day one. I don’t pay any attention [to the hearings].”

A plurality of Americans approve of impeaching and removing President Trump from office, according to a combination of polls analyzed by the political website FiveThirtyEight, with 48.8% supporting and 43.5% opposing. According to their website, Trump’s approval rating stands at 41.8%, with a disapproval rating of 53.6%.

The next step in the impeachment process are House Judiciary hearings, which began on Wednesday, Dec. 4. Hearings will resume Monday morning.