The truth will out.

"Well, old man, I will tell you news of
your son: give me your blessing: truth will come
to light; murder cannot be hid long; a man's son
may, but at the length truth will out."  -- Launcelot Gobbo, The Merchant of Venice, Act II, Scene 2, William Shakespeare

Word of the week: Truth. Some in bomb form.

Tuesday morning. The Best of America

I wrote a brief fangirl piece earlier on Lt. Col Vindman. A truly American story, he is the best – the absolute best – that America possesses.


Also testified Tuesday: Jennifer Williams, top Russia advisor to President Pence, also did a professional job in testifying. She said enough to make Mr. Pence blanch a little bit more – if it's even possible to blanch that white, white clay face. Williams had listened in to the July 25 phone call, and thought that the call was "unusual and inappropriate." She noted, as Vindman did, that missing from the call memorandum (which many call "transcript") was the word "Burisma," which was substituted by "the company."

After her private testimony transcript had been released, 45 took to Twitter to disparage her. He has personally shame-tweeted only the women who testified. So typical of this pond scum.


Tuesday afternoon. GOP witnesses

In the afternoon on Tuesday, Tim Morrison and Kurt Volker testified. The Republicans had requested their appearance, and they were considered by many to be the witnesses most likely to be friendly to the GOP point of view. But they told the truth, and the truth is not always friendly to the GOP point of view.

Morrison was the third person to testify that he was listening in on the call. The call concerned him, but for political reasons. He was afraid for the political fallout, which has indeed came to pass. Morrison was one witness who downplayed the inappropriateness of the call. All the other witnesses stated clearly that they were there as fact witnesses, not to decide the impeachability of the offenses. But the fact that he testified to was that Sondland brought up "investigations" during an official meeting with Ukranian officials in the White House. He said that he and others present felt that this was inappropriate.

Volker defended his role in the "three amigos," though he "cringes at" the term. He said his role was in a "regular channel," not an "irregular channel." Volker defended the honor of Ambassador Yovanovitch and also defended Joe Biden, saying, "I think the allegations against Vice President Biden are self-serving and not credible." He testified that it was wrong to hold up the aid, and that he worked hard to get 45 to understand the importance of the aid to Ukraine, and by extension, to U.S. national security.

They both defended Ukraine and acknowledged Ukraine's status as an important ally as well as its vulnerability.

You can watch 5 minutes of highlights here:




Wednesday. Threading the needle

Ambassador Gordon Sondland, I believe, got in over his head quickly in Ukraine. His testimony in front of We the People was pretty admirable for the position he got himself into, but it's a little problematic too. It's not surprising. He had to thread the needle between telling the truth and saving his neck. He was the most Trumpian of the witnesses, having donated $1 million dollars to the Trump inauguration fund and being hand-picked for his job as Ambassador to the European Union. He's a hotelier, and his business acumen undoubtedly appealed to 45, but his lack of experience undoubtedly colored his judgement and got him way out of his league in Ukraine.

Sondland, as you recall, was one of the "three amigos" directed by Rudy Giuliani to perform the president's* mission of getting the Ukrainians to dig up dirt on the Bidens and to further the 2016 election conspiracy theory.

During his testimony, Sondland was rather casual, smiling and joking throughout, in contrast to the other witnesses. Now, that alone was not a bad thing, but makes you go "hmmmm." He seemed credible and genuine overall, and clarified the picture on the whole Ukraine situation.

He provided a couple truth bombs. He stated unequivocally that there was a quid pro quo. And he implicated senior officials all the way to the Square Office (remember, up is down and lies are truth, so it's no longer the Oval Office...).

Sondland outright said that there absolutely was an explicit quid pro quo: a White House meeting between Ukraine president Zelensky and Trump in exchange for Zelensky's announcements of investigations into the Bidens. And, Sondland testified, he communicated this directly to Zelensky! Sondland was careful to state that he didn't have direct knowledge that the aid had been withheld as part of the scheme, but he stated that he came to that conclusion. "Two plus two equals four" has become a defining equation in the impeachment of the 45th president* of the United States.

Sondland also admitted that Trump later said "No quid pro quo" in a much later phone call, which you recall he had texted to Bill Taylor. Sondland said that he didn't know if Trump was being truthful, only that he said it. Trump pounced on this last part. In a chopper-side press briefing later that day, Trump referred to his sharpie-scribbled notes and re-enacted the testimony as if that absolved him. (BTW, same day font delivery! Sister Resister Anne pointed me to this free baby-hands sharpie font called Tiny Hands that was designed the day a photographer captured 45's handwritten notes about Sondland's testimony.)

The only trouble is, this later "no quid pro quo" statement happened on the day that Trump was caught. Congress had caught wind of the aid hold-up, the whistleblower had filed his complaint, and the shit was about to hit the fan. Of course Trump would proclaim "no quid pro quo" on September 9.

Another bombshell revealed by Sondland was that he possessed, and he shared with the American public, emails about the scheme. The emails cc'd everyone in Trump's circle: Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, and Vice President Mike Pence. Sondland clearly stated, "Everyone was in the loop."

The problems with Sondland's testimony: He had to amend his testimony multiple times since his first closed-door deposition. He explained it as not having vivid memories, compounded by not having the emails and documents from the State Department that would help him refresh his memory. He did not dispute other people's memory, and his memory lapses seemed honest, rather than a hedge against telling the truth.

His contention that he had no idea that "Burisma" was code for "Bidens" was not credible, though, as other witnesses, including Dr. Fiona Hill, pointed out. He was a shady character. He didn't do good things, and though he characterized his role in Ukraine as a proper one in light of his European Union portfolio, I didn't buy it, and neither did other witnesses who characterized his and his other amigos' actions in the "irregular channel." In any case, I'm thankful he came forward with the truth, as he was in direct contact with 45, and was the one Trumpeter who came forward to do the right thing. Yes, he had to thread the needle, but I think he did a pretty skillful job of it.

Here's a snapshot of his appearance:





Wednesday afternoon, Laura Cooper, from the Pentagon, and David Hale, from the State Department, testified. I admittedly only paid half-attention. Full brain and work duties!

Cooper testified that the Ukrainians were asking about the held-up aid on July 25, earlier than previously thought. It became obvious that they knew that it was being held up by the time 45 spoke with Zelensky, contradicting the GOP line of defense that it couldn't have been a quid pro quo if the Ukrainians didn't even know about it. Know about it they did, certainly by the time of the fateful July 25 telephone call.

The GOP had requested that Hale testify, as they viewed him as a possibly favorable witness. He wasn't. He affirmed that holding up aid to the vulnerable Ukraine was wrong, and he defended Ambassador Yovanovitch and condemned the smear campaign waged against her.


Thursday. Hill and Holmes: Professional Shredders. Specializing in shredding GOP Conspiracy Theories and Repug Bully Tactics.

They are also Warrior Diplomats.

Dr. Fiona Hill and David Holmes gave a one-two punch to conclude the public testimony. I was riveted, as they both made the Ukraine story clearer and clearer.

Oh, how I love Dr. Hill. Another strong woman, coming to Capitol Hill to kick ass and take names.

She's another American patriot, another American story. An immigrant to the United States from Great Britain, Dr. Hill came to study at Harvard in the 90s and became an U.S. citizen in 2002. She was raised in poverty in NW England, the daughter of a coal miner and a midwife. She has worked as a Russian expert at the JFK School of Government, the National Intelligence Council, and Brookings Institution, finally being appointed in 2017 to her White House position as senior director for European and Russian affairs at the National Security Council.

And she showed up to the hearing like. A. Boss.

A true American hero. We are lucky to have her. Smart, capable, and taking no shit. Not one pellet.

Besides confirming the facts that many other witnesses had attested to, that there was a quid pro quo scheme and it was obvious that the White House meeting and the aid were contingent upon Zelensky's announcement of investigations, she also illuminated the problematic "irregular channel" of diplomacy, led by 45's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and implemented by Gordon Sondland.

But more than that: she gave a concise, clear explanation of the whole geopolitical picture in that part of the world. Fiona Hill is a Harvard educated scholar. She is an expert on Russia and particularly Vladimir Putin. She wrote a 500-page book about Putin. She's intelligent and knowledgeable, and she was able to give great illustration about the situation between Ukraine, Russia, and by extension the United States.

And she pushed back hard against Republicans who refuse to acknowledge the truth about Russia. In her opening statement she said,

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. This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves. 

The unfortunate truth is that Russia was the foreign power that systematically attacked our democratic institutions in 2016. This is the public conclusion of our intelligence agencies, confirmed in bipartisan Congressional reports. It is beyond dispute, even if some of the underlying details must remain classified.

The impact of the successful 2016 Russian campaign remains evident today. Our nation is being torn apart. Truth is questioned. Our highly professional and expert career foreign service is being undermined. 

U.S. support for Ukraine—which continues to face armed Russian aggression—has been politicized.  

The Russian government’s goal is to weaken our country—to diminish America’s global role and to neutralize a perceived U.S. threat to Russian interests. President Putin and the Russian security services aim to counter U.S. foreign policy objectives in Europe, including in Ukraine, where Moscow wishes to reassert political and economic dominance.  

I say this not as an alarmist, but as a realist. I do not think long-term conflict with Russia is either desirable or inevitable. I continue to believe that we need to seek ways of stabilizing our relationship with Moscow even as we counter their efforts to harm us. Right now, Russia’s security services and their proxies have geared up to repeat their interference in the 2020 election. We are running out of time to stop them. In the course of this investigation, I would ask that you please not promote politically driven falsehoods that so clearly advance Russian interests. 

As Republicans and Democrats have agreed for decades, Ukraine is a valued partner of the United States, and it plays an important role in our national security. And as I told this Committee last month, I refuse to be part of an effort to legitimize an alternate narrative that the Ukrainian government is a U.S. adversary, and that Ukraine—not Russia—attacked us in 2016. 

Read her entire opening statement here, or better yet, watch her 8-minute statement:

During questioning, she stood her ground against loud, obnoxious "questioners" and she pointedly made the record show that two GOP members left the room after their filibustering 5-minute diatribes, prompting her to again make the case that these are vitally important matters.

Here's more from her remarkable testimony. She's worth the time to view.



Dr. Hill's steely testimony will reverberate in our nation's history. We are indebted to this Truth Warrior.


David Holmes described the portion of the July 26 phone call that he overheard and gave a lengthy opening statement. His statement didn't stick with just the material part, the phone call he witnessed, but he continued to educate Americans about the vulnerability of a nascent democracy in Ukraine. Ukrainians depend on the support of the U.S. – the most powerful nation in the world – not only for increasing its cachet in Europe, but in fighting the real-life hot war against Russia.

Mr. Holmes stated he and another of Ambassador Taylor's staff overheard the initial part of the call between Gordon Sondland and the president* of the United States on July 26. Holmes's memory of the conversation on a Kyiv restaurant terrace was vivid, and Sondland didn't dispute it.

Grasping at defense, SCROTUS tweeted this:

I have been watching people making phone calls my entire life. My hearing is, and has been, great. Never have I been watching a person making a call, which was not on speakerphone, and been able to hear or understand a conversation. I’ve even tried, but to no avail. Try it live!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 21, 2019

Seriously. This is the president* defending himself in an impeachment inquiry. WTF?


David Holmes had a very testy back-and-forth with Rep. Jim Jordan, who was trying to filibuster the time with loud, bellicose hypotheticals, but Mr. Holmes would have none of it, and Chairman Schiff shut Jordan down. Watch.




Watching Jordan makes me want to go take a shower.


Here's a little more from their day of testimony:




The dirty underbelly of revealing the truth: Backlash

Unfortunately, the other side of the coin, the witnesses' brave appearance and truth-telling gave rise to America's worst. Smear campaigns and threats abound.

Lt. Col. Vindman and his family were relocated to an Army base for their protection.

Right-wing media have worked to attack witnesses.

Repug lawmakers have done the dirty work themselves to attack and besmirch witnesses.

Trump has expressed an interest in firing Vindman and Taylor. Of course he has.

Trump has also publicly disparaged Ambassador Yovonovitch  (potentially setting himself up for an article of impeachment for witness tampering) and Jennifer Williams on Twitter.

The witnesses can expect abuse and threats for years to come.

I wish there was some way to directly support all the witnesses who put themselves in peril for their testimony. As it stands, they are pretty much on their own, to find ways to take shelter from the storm with friends and family. 

The worst of America: Jordan and Nunes

These two men are despicable.

Jim Jordan was not a member of the House Intelligence Committee until a week before the televised hearings began, added to the roster for the express purpose of using him as a bully and a bulldog. He is an odious human being. His voice, demeanor and body language all scream "tormentor!" He is sarcastic, demeaning, and mocking. He relished his performance for his pimp, DJT.

If you look up irony in the dictionary, there will be a picture of Devin Moo-nes. He droned on and on, characterizing the impeachment inquiry as a "drama." He demeaned witnesses by calling them characters from Democrat central casting in "secret auditions." But in truth, he is clearly play-acting himself for an audience of one, that of Donald Drumpf.

Nunes recited the same litany of conspiracy theories at every opening and closing statement. Whistleblower; "storytime;" "landslide electoral college;" 2016 victory; but Obama!; but Hillary!; whistleblower; Steele dossier; secret basement dungeon hearings; whistleblower; Hunter Biden; Ukraine meddling; whistleblower, and more than once: nude photos of Donald Trump. Ewww to be in his mind! By the end, Nunes seemed as tired of his recitations as we were hearing it. All of this to appease the Mango Mussolini. Glad you sold your soul to the Devil, Mr. Poo-nes. Heaven don't want your kind.

The irony was rich when, addressing Mr. Sondland, presumably a friendly witness, Nunes warned him, "You are here today to be smeared." Huh. Wonder why he decided to give away the GOP playbook.

And then, during Sondland's opening statement, Nunes gave a list of proven true charges. "Trump had a diabolical plan to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. (True) Trump changed the Republican National Committee platform to hurt Ukraine and benefit Russia. (True) Trump's son-in-law lied about his Russian contacts while obtaining his security clearance. (True)" They are all demonstrably true! Sir, simply reciting them in a sarcastic tone doesn't make them untrue. Idiot.

David Horsey

I'm ashamed Nunes is from California. I am ashamed that any American feels that he is an honorable man. Forget irony. He's the very definition of sycophant.

(Late-breaking news: Nunes himself may be implicated in a Ukraine scandal of his own. Seems like one of Giuliani's henchmen is willing to tell Congress that Nunes himself met Ukrainian officials about dirt on the Bidens.)

Other observations:

• Who else will find it a challenge to now order "Chicken Keev" instead of "Chicken Key-ev"?

• Of the dozen witnesses, four were women, four were immigrants or children of immigrants, and two served in the military. All were intelligent, credible, truthful citizens. Again, truly, the best of America.

• Rudy Giuliani rose from the road flattened, with bus tire marks deeply embedded. Just about every witness excoriated Giuliani for his role. Those tire marks rightly belong to his client, 45 himself. Remember, Giuliani is Trump's personal attorney. He was acting at the direction of the president* of the United States! 

• One more time about the whistleblower: the whistleblower's testimony is not needed at this time. The whistleblower complaint has been corroborated by many witnesses. His or her anonymity is legally protected. The only reason to out the whistleblower is to retaliate against the individual. Law enforcement agencies from coast to coast have anonymous crime tip lines. Perhaps we should have a line devoted to White House activities. 1-800-45-CRIMES

Pulling back the lens.

The last two weeks of testimony was a short-course in Ukraine-Russia relations and U.S. national security interests. I'll explore that in a post coming soon. But a couple quick takeaways. Ukraine is an important ally. They are vital to the United States' and the world's national security. But more than that, we are their ally. They are an adversary of the world's adversary, Russia. It is important that we support them. Our hulking power in the world gives our support great weight. 45 either doesn't understand this gravity, or doesn't care. But his little dalliance to get a personal political favor from this nascent democracy hurt them, hurt us, and has the potential to hurt the world. Our position in the world is still esteemed and important, in huge part due to the people who make up our country, including the 12 brave witnesses brought that to light this week. And that is the biggest truth of all.


....And finally, Randy Rainbow elegantly gets to the meat of the matter.








Other reading.

NBC News: Trump's Republican Party is an embarrassment. Here's why Democrats can't give up on it.

Esquire: Will Hurd is the Biggest Disappointment of All

AP News: Lots of impeachment evidence but one thing missing

NY Daily News: The truth in front of our noses: Donald Trump’s behavior is disgustingly corrupt and impeachable, whatever his defenders do or say