Today, Explained - Impeachment TV (Part 1 of 2)

Episode Date: November 19, 2019

The House impeachment inquiry just had its biggest day yet. It was so big we couldn't fit it all into one episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Before we get into the episode, the episode is supported by KiwiCo, and that's important. KiwiCo's got a website for you, kiwico.com slash explained. That's even more important. Most important of all, you get the chance to try them out for free for an entire month when you go to that website, kiwico.com slash explained. What a gift to listen to a podcast and while you're doing it, get offers to try free stuff. Just nice to take a moment to realize that. Okay, here's the show. Ukraine, Ukraine Explained. It's Ukraine Explained. Last week, we had three people testify in the now public impeachment inquiry. This week, we're getting nine. Andrew Prokop, Politics Vox, who are these nine people? On Tuesday, we had Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, NSC staffer. Jennifer Williams, a State Department official detailed to the Vice President's office. Kurt Volker, the former U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine.

And Tim Morrison, another National Security Council staffer. On Wednesday, we will have in the morning, Gordon Sondland, the U.S. Ambassador to the European Union. And in the afternoon, Laura Cooper, Defense Department official, and David Hale, the Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs. And then on Thursday, we'll close things out with Fiona Hill, another former NSC staffer, and David Holmes, a Kiev-based State Department official. Okay, so a lot of people, four of them went today in two marathon sessions.

We're going to cover them in two episodes today. This is episode one, all about the morning hearings. Let's talk about Williams and Vindman. So the main theme in the first round of testimony in the morning was that these two people were both on the Trump phone call with President Zelensky on July 25th, but they have very different backgrounds. Williams joined the government in 2005 as a political appointee under George W. Bush, and then she became a Foreign Service officer and is now has been working with the vice president's office, detailed there for the past several months.

It was with great pride and conviction that I swore an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, administered by a personal hero of mine, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Vindman is a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army. When he was very young, his father brought him and his twin brother over to the U.S. fleeing the Soviet Union. And now they both actually work on the NSC, the brother is a lawyer and Vindman as the top staffer with responsibility for Ukraine policy. And in his opening statement, Vindman actually directly addressed his father saying that, Dad, I'm sitting here today in the U.S. Capitol talking to our elected

professionals, talking to our elected professionals is proof that you made the right decision 40 years ago to leave the Soviet Union and come here to the United States of America in search of a better life for our family. Do not worry. I will be fine for telling the truth. He seemed particularly nervous. He was holding his statement and you could see the paper shaking. Did you notice that? He was. He settled down later in the hearing, but at first he was clearly nervous. He mentioned several times in various ways the idea that...

I want to take a moment to recognize the courage of my colleagues who have appeared and are scheduled to appear before this committee. I want to say that the character attacks on these distinguished and honorable public servants is reprehensible. So he's clearly, you know, been feeling the heat from Trump supporters and conservatives who have circulated various attacks on him and he expressed sympathy for others who have beenated various attacks on him, and he expressed sympathy for others who have been facing similar attacks. So, for instance, on Friday, when Marie Yovanovitch, the former ambassador to Ukraine, testified, Trump attacked her with a tweet in the middle of the testimony. Over the weekend, Trump attacked Jennifer Williams, whoever that is, in another tweet, calling her a never-Trumper who I don't know and never even heard of. So obviously these attacks would be coming from the president. They have also been circulating against Vindman in particular from some of the president's defenders.

And some of them have been pretty ugly calling attention to his background and the fact that he's an immigrant from the former Soviet Union. So yes, he is an immigrant from the former Soviet Union, but he is also an American military officer and a decorated one at that. Is that part of why the Democrats called him today? I think they really liked the visual of having him there in his uniform criticizing President Trump's conduct on the call. And he did criticize it. He said that I was concerned by the call. What I heard was inappropriate.

And I reported my concerns to Mr. Eisenberg. It is improper for the president of the United States to demand a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen and a political opponent. How did Republicans approach Vindman? So there were a variety of different attack lines they naturally tried. Probably the ugliest part was when the Republican attorney, Steve Castor, pursued a line of questioning that seemed to be suggesting some possible dual loyalty on the part of Vindman to Ukraine. When you were, you went to Ukraine for the inauguration? Correct. On the 20th? At any point during that trip, did Mr. Daniluk offer you a position of defense minister

with the Ukrainian government? He did. And how many times did he do that? I believe it was three times. And do you have any reason why he asked you to do that? I don't know, but every single time I dismissed it. And, you know, Vindman said he just found it rather comical. He's an American.

He obviously dismissed it. He reported it internally. But then Castor kept asking, you know, when he made this offer, was he speaking in English or Ukrainian? And, you know, it seemed to be planting some seeds of doubt as to where the loyalties of this decorated military officer with some roots tracing back to Ukraine ultimately lie. Colonel Vindman, what languages do you speak? I speak Russian and Ukrainian and a little bit of English. How's it going to look for Republicans? I mean, attacking Vindman, who was awarded the Purple Heart

after being wounded in Iraq in 2004. Well, I mean, they have a storied history of this. Trump famously attacked John McCain during the 2016 campaign, said he likes people who weren't captured and didn't seem to hurt him very much. So, yeah, it'll probably work out fine for them. Let's talk about Jennifer Williams. So many of the questions that she was asked pertain to Vice President Pence. Did his role in this whole mess become clearer through her testimony? She didn't actually have, it seemed, a very close relationship with Pence when it comes to,

you know, frequent conversations with him or anything like that. What she did shed some more light on was an event that happened near the beginning of this saga. Shortly after Zelensky was elected the president of Ukraine, Trump had an initial phone call with him to congratulate him and said that maybe Pence would come to the inauguration. Williams explained that on May 13th, she was told that Trump had decided that Pence would not go to Ukraine for the inauguration of Zelensky after all. And did you have any knowledge of the reasoning for stopping

the trip? I asked my colleague why we should stop trip planning and why the vice president would not be attending. And I was informed that the president had decided the vice president would not be attending. And I was informed that the president had decided the vice president would not attend the inauguration. OK. And but do you know why the president decided? No, she did not have that information. In the days before this, there was a bit of a controversy in the press with Rudy Giuliani saying he'd go to Ukraine and then calling off a trip and complaining about President Zelensky's advisers. So the subtext was basically Trump may have canceled Pence's trip to Ukraine to punish Zelensky for not playing ball with Rudy Giuliani. The vice president has sort of distanced himself from Williams. Were there any attacks on her

credibility or is she a sort of trustworthy source in the eyes of the Republicans here. Certainly, her testimony raises questions about why Trump canceled that trip for Pence, but she didn't really have any sort of smoking gun or any devastating evidence like that. They mainly focused on Vindman. Of course, they also focused on the whistleblower. So Devin Nunes, in his questioning of Vindman, tried to press him again and again to name a member of the intelligence community who he spoke with about Trump's phone call with the Ukrainian president. Lieutenant Colonel Vindman, you testified in the deposition that you did not know who the whistleblower was. I do not know who the whistleblower was? I do not know who the whistleblower is. How is it possible for you to name these people and then out the whistleblower?

Per the advice of my counsel, I've been advised not to answer specific questions about members of the intelligence community. And Vindman's lawyer said, under the rules of the committee, we shouldn't do this. Schiff said that this is all about just trying to out the whistleblower. And, you know, Nunes really tried to get it out there, but Vindman did not answer. He said he technically doesn't know who the whistleblower is. It seems that he strongly suspects the whistleblower is this intelligence community official he talked to about the call. But the Democrats are trying to avoid any outing of the whistleblower, as they call it. So these testimonies from Williams and Vindman kicked off a very big week for this impeachment inquiry. What did we learn from the testimonies?

Did they push this story any further? Both of these witnesses testified behind closed doors previously, so we didn't get new bombshells from them. But the point of this hearing in Democrats' eyes was to bring two people who were both on that July 25th phone call between Trump and President Zelensky and who both were concerned about it. They both agreed that they thought it was inappropriate. They thought it was political. And that's something smelled bad here. So then we proceeded later in the afternoon to two witnesses who the Republicans had actually requested in the hopes that they would be a bit more favorable to President Trump. Andrew Prokop, thank you. We'll be back in a few hours with another episode on the afternoon hearings.

Keep an eye on your feeds. I'm Sean Ramos-Furham. This is Today Explained. Hello? Hello, is this Michael? Yes. Hey, can you hear me? It's Sean from Today Explained. Yeah, I can hear you.

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