Today, Explained - Bill and Kent's congressional adventure

Episode Date: November 14, 2019

The first public hearing in the impeachment inquiry was held today. Vox’s Andrew Prokop explains the significance of the testimonies given by Ambassador William Taylor and George Kent, deputy assistant secretary at the State Department. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Before we begin this episode of Today Explained, just a reminder that KiwiCo is offering you the chance to try them out for one month for free. To redeem the very kind offer, you can go to KiwiCo.com slash explained. KiwiCo subscriptions deliver delight throughout the year. Need I say more? Here's how the committee will proceed for this hearing. I will make an opening statement, and then Ranking Member Nunes will have the opportunity to make a statement. Andrew Prokop, Politics Vox. On September 24th, Nancy Pelosi announced a formal impeachment inquiry of President Trump, and today it hit live TV.

How did things kick off? So this was the first public hearing in the Democrats impeachment inquiry, and it was held before the House Intelligence Committee. That means that that committee's chairman, Adam Schiff, Democrat from California, kicked things off. With that, I now recognize myself to give an opening statement in the impeachment inquiry into Donald J. Trump, the 45th president of the United States. Schiff recapped what we already know about this scandal

from the previous closed-door testimony. He laid out a timeline of events. Schiff said, if we find that the president of the United States abused his power and invited foreign interference into our elections... Or if he sought to condition, Schiff said, of dollars of needed military aid, must we simply get over it? Quoting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney there, he said, is this what Americans should now expect from their president? If this is not impeachable conduct,

what is? Benjamin Franklin was asked what kind of a country America was to become. A republic, he answered, if you can keep it. The fundamental issue raised by the impeachment inquiry into Donald J. Trump is, can we keep it? How does that contrast with the opening remarks from his Republican counterpart, Devin Nunes? Nunes offered a hodgepodge of conspiracy theories, distractions distractions and misleading remarks. But anyone familiar with the Democrats scorched earth war against President Trump would not be surprised tour of all of the scattered and varied points that the president's defenders have made here. What we will witness today is a televised theatrical performance staged by the Democrats. Ambassador Taylor and Mr. Kent, I'd like to welcome you here.

I'd like to congratulate you for passing the Democrat Star Chamber auditions held for the last weeks in the basement of the Capitol. So there were two people here to testify today. Who were they? So the Democrats called as their first witnesses, William Taylor, who is the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, the charge d'affaires at the U.S. embassy. I'm neither a career member of the Foreign Service nor of the Civil Service. I am nonpartisan and have been appointed to my positions by every president from President Reagan to President Trump. And also George Kent, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs. I have served proudly as a nonpartisan career Foreign Service officer for more than 27 years under five presidents, three Republican and two Democrat. Why these two guys first? I think the Democrats picked them first because, one, they're both very eloquent. Two, they are friendly witnesses, not to say that they're political, but they are happy to be there and testifying about what they saw and heard unfolding over the course of the summer involving this scandal.

Taylor specifically had a front row seat to a lot of the pressure that was being placed on the Ukrainians. He was involved in text messages with key figures in the inquiry like Ambassador Gordon Sondland. And he also expressed his concerns in real time, famously writing to Sondland in a text message. I think it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with the political campaign. Now, George Kent, he had some knowledge of some of what was going down this summer, but what he really brought was more of a broader interpretive narrative for what was going on in Ukraine and also a bit of a defense of Vice President Joe Biden. Kent said that contrary to what the Republicans were alleging, as far as he knew, there was nothing improper about what Vice President Biden did involving Ukraine policy back during the Obama administration. I suppose these testimonies today presented an opportunity to take this impeachment inquiry to new places to reveal any new information.

Did either of them take the opportunity to do that? I didn't actually expect much new information to be revealed just because these two men have both testified behind closed doors extensively and we've seen their transcripts. However, Bill Taylor gave me a bit of a surprise in his own opening statement. He revealed new information he had been given just last week. So this took place on the day after Trump's now infamous phone call with the Ukrainian president, which would make it July 26th. While Ambassador Volker and I visited the front, this member of my staff accompanied Ambassador Sondland. Ambassador Sondland met with Mr. Yermak. Following that meeting, in the presence of my staff, at a restaurant, Ambassador Sondland called President Trump

and told him of his meetings in Kiev. The member of my staff could hear President Trump on the phone asking Ambassador Sondland about the investigations. Ambassador Sondland told President Trump the Ukrainians were ready to move forward. Following the call with President Trump, the member of my staff asked Ambassador Sondland what President Trump thought about Ukraine. Ambassador Sondland responded that President Trump cares more about the investigations of Biden,

which Giuliani was pressing for. Was that a big deal? This is a really big deal. And I think it's significant because it suggests that Trump was very personally involved in what Sondland was telling the Ukrainians. Now, we had that whole quasi-transcript of Trump's call with the Ukrainian president. So we knew Trump was demanding these investigations. But, you know, there's been a lot of testimony about what Gordon Sondland was saying and doing to the Ukrainians, that Sondland was telling them, if you want your White House meeting, you have to commit to these investigations. If you want to get your military aid, you have to commit to these investigations. And there was some ambiguity about just, you know, was Sondland freelancing or was he acting

at Trump's behest? And this would certainly suggest that he was in close contact with Trump and he was carrying out Trump's wishes in doing all this. And all of this happened before anyone even started asking questions from these two witnesses. Yes, Taylor dropped that bombshell toward the very end of his lengthy opening statement. OK, well, after the break, the Republicans fight back. I just got back to D.C. from doing our Today Explained live show in Toronto, Canada. And it reminded me that someone had reached out to me from Ottawa, Canada, to say that her dad had become a huge KiwiCo fan, and he had gotten into their adult KiwiCo crates.

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Try and get to know the possibilities because evidently they are endless. Andrew, before any representatives ask questions, it felt very courtroomy in there. It seemed like two lawyers were leading the inquiry. Who were those guys? So these were staff attorneys for each side, Daniel Goldman for the Democrats and Steve Castor for the Republicans. Goldman was pretty disciplined in making Taylor and Kent to get their concerns on the record for everything they saw transpire. Have you ever seen another example of foreign aid conditioned on the personal or political interests of the president of the United States?

No, Mr. Goldman, I've not. Castor was a bit more muddled. He it often wasn't really clear what he was trying to get at. And the information published by Sergei Leschenko, former Ukrainian investigative journalist, and then he was a member of the parliament, about the Manafort black ledgers in August of 2016. I mean, the very day that was published,

Mr. Manafort resigned from the campaign, correct? I don't know, Mr. Caster. And after these two staffers, things sort I don't know, Mr. Castor. And after these two staffers, things sort of fell into a familiar pattern. Who was leading the questioning from the Republicans? So Republicans clearly believed their most qualified questioner was Jim Jordan, representative from Ohio,

who attempted to really attack and aggressively try to debunk what the witnesses were saying. One point Jordan kept trying to make is that Bill Taylor testified that he came to believe that hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine was being held up because they wouldn't agree to these investigations Trump wanted. And Jordan kept saying, well, weren't you wrong about this? Because the Trump administration did release the aid without Ukraine making any public announcement about the investigations. The whole point was you had a clear understanding that aid will not get released unless there's a

commitment. Not maybe, not I think the aid might happen. It's my hunch it aid will not get released unless there's a commitment, not maybe, not I think the aid might happen, and it's my hunch it's going to get released. You use clear language, clear understanding, and commitment, and those two things didn't happen, so you had to be wrong. Mr. I was not wrong about what I told you, which is what I heard. That's all I've said. I've told you what I heard. And that's the point. What you heard did not happen. It didn't happen. Didn't that aid only get released once the whistleblower filed his complaint? Yeah, it's still a little murky about why the aid was released, but there were a number of things going on in the days before it was released. The inspector general for the intelligence committee had written a letter to Capitol Hill saying there had been this whistleblower complaint that was being withheld from them. Adam Schiff had announced an investigation into Rudy Giuliani's influence on

Ukraine policy. And also John Bolton, the national security advisor, resigned. So it may have been released because the heat was on, because it was threatening to get out and break into the public what Trump had been trying to do to the Ukrainians. What other arguments were the Republicans making? So they kept harping on the idea that Taylor and Kent didn't have any firsthand contact with President Trump over this. You have not had any contact with the president of the United States. Is that correct? That's correct, sir. Ms. Taylor, Mr. Kent, have you had any contact with the president of the United States?

I have not. So not only no conversation with the president of the United States about Ukraine, you've not had any contact with the president of the United States, correct? That's correct. Okay. So you both know that this impeachment inquiry is about the president of the United States, correct? That's correct. Okay. So you both know that this impeachment inquiry is about the president of the United States, don't you? I mean, the man that neither one of you have had any contact with, you're the first up witnesses.

That is also a bit of a distraction because a lot of the witnesses who did have firsthand contact with Trump on this topic, Mick Mulvaney, Mike Pompeo, they have refused to show up and testify. And Republicans don't seem particularly eager to have them show up and testify. I would say the exception here has been Ambassador Gordon Sondland, who did have a lot of firsthand contact with Trump on this topic. He did testify, but he is facing problems. He's already had to go in and update his testimony once. Now, the new information Taylor presented today from his staff member raises further questions about the honesty of Sondland's testimony. And Sondland's lawyer said that, you know, this is something that Sondland

will address when he shows up for his own public testimony next week. So this was a big moment for the Republicans. These testimonies have been happening behind closed doors, and that's been a recurring complaint. And today, for the first time ever, they were happening on live TV in front of the whole world. And the best arguments they were making were, there's no quid pro quo. Well, they threw in all sorts of points that Trump's defenders have been making. Another one is that the president of Ukraine, Zelensky, said that he didn't feel pressured. The Democrats claim this call demonstrates extortion, bribery, and a host of other monstrous crimes being committed against President Zelensky. Yet President Zelensky himself insists there was nothing improper whatsoever about the conversation.

And that's true. Zelensky did say that. Whether he was being totally forthcoming on that is not so clear. The U.S. is a very powerful country and Zelensky, it's true, is not going out in front of the cameras and saying, oh my God, I feel like Donald Trump tried to shake me down this summer. But he has his own diplomatic reasons for doing that. You mentioned earlier that William Taylor and George Kent are these sort of effective speakers who are willing to talk. Were Republicans able to rattle them at all with their lines of questioning? Taylor was definitely a little befuddled when some Republicans would throw various conspiracy theories that had been circulating in right-wing media at him and

asked him basically, when did you know about this? Why didn't you know about this months ago? So at one point, the Republican attorney, Steve Castor, he was talking about how Taylor had discussed an irregular channel of U.S. diplomacy toward Ukraine that involved Gordon Sondland and involved Rudy Giuliani. And Castor said, In fairness, this irregular channel of diplomacy, it's not as outlandish as it could be. Is that correct?

It's not as outlandish as it could be. Yeah, I agree. He seemed to be suggesting, well, yes, it's possible things could have been more outlandish. It's not as outlandish as it could be. But it really goes to the point of how difficult it was for Republicans to make their arguments here. Now, there is one witness, one witness that they won't bring in front of us. They won't bring in front of the American people. And that's the guy who started it all,

the whistleblower. So at one point, in response to various Republican questions about where's the whistleblower? Why isn't the whistleblower testifying? Representative Peter Welsh of Vermont said, Thank you. I say to my colleague, I'd be glad to have the person who started it all come in and testify. President Trump is welcome to take a seat right there. Any word from the president? Is he willing to come testify? He doesn't seem particularly eager to participate in the sham witch hunt hoax, whatever he's calling it these days. What was he up to today? Do we have any idea if he was watching the proceedings? Trump said he was too busy to watch the House impeachment hearing.

He was meeting with the president of Turkey, President Erdogan, at the White House. And toward the end of the day, he did hold a press conference where he was asked about this. You're talking about the witch hunt? Is that what you mean? Is that what you're talking about? I hear it's a joke. You know, he repeated his longtime arguments that he did nothing wrong

and the whole thing is a sham. So the tone's been set for these televised hearings. Republicans will defend the president and say he did nothing wrong. Democrats are convinced something very bad happened here. Is attempted murder a crime? Attempted murder is a crime. Is attempted robbery a crime?

Neither of us is a lawyer. I think anybody in this room could answer that question. I think that's right. I'll go out on a limb and say yes, it is. Is attempted extortion and bribery a crime? I don't know, sir. I think Democrats are pretty clear. They're not specifically tipping their hand that they are ready to impeach Trump necessarily. But I think the support is there at this point on the Democratic side.

Once these hearings are over, Schiff and his staff are going to write a report about what they learned. It's going to go to the House Judiciary Committee, and they will probably draw up articles of impeachment. It's very hard to read Schiff's opening remarks in any other way than saying that, you know, this is a massively important issue. We think Trump did something very, very wrong. And if this is not impeachable conduct, what is? Thanks to KiwiCo for supporting the show today. KiwiCo has this website. It is KiwiCo.com.

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