From The Economist, “Testimony from Alexander Vindman, a decorated veteran, is hard to trash as partisan sniping.” And yet Republicans find a way to do just that. The smears against Vindman are shameful, accusing a decorated war veteran (and actual Ukraine expert, not the fake one) of being unable to be loyal to the U.S. because he’s Ukrainian. BTW, he came here when he was 3. When your only defense is to question the loyalty of the witness, you don’t have a good defense.

After the testimony we’ve heard so far, it seems that while hardly anybody actually approved of withholding aid from Ukraine, much less withholding it until they “did us a favor though,” nobody wanted to say anything about it. Nobody wanted to rock the boat and tell Trump it was wrong, and they all thought they could manipulate a way to get the aid released without the quid pro quo (or with it, if they had to). They all had the same goal, which was different from Trump’s, but were afraid to say it to his face.

Here’s what happened on the impeachment front for the week ending November 3…

General Happenings:

1. Can’t keep all the moving pieces in the Ukraine investigation straight? Here’s a helpful and thorough timeline of Ukraine events, starting with the Russia invasion in 2014.

• • And here’s a little more history. Ukraine’s former President Petro Poroshenko tried in January 2017 to meet with Trump, hiring a lobbying firm, BGR Group, to make that happen. On June 7, 2017, Giuliani visited Kyiv and met with Poroshenko and Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko (Viktor Shokin’s successor). Just after that meeting, the investigation into the “black ledger” was shelved. That ledger listed allegedly illicit payments to Manafort. In May of 2018, Ukraine halted cooperation with Mueller’s investigation to “avoid irritating the top American officials.”

2. Not only are U.S. intelligence officials alarmed by Trump’s actions involving Ukraine and counter-investigations, but U.K. intelligence officials are also expressing alarm by Trump’s requests for assistance with Barr’s investigations into the origins of the Russia investigation. They say “it is like nothing we have come across before, they are basically asking, in quite robust terms, for help in doing a hatchet job on their own intelligence services.”
3. National Security Council officials knew as early as May that Rudy Giuliani and Gordon Sondland had Ukraine officials rattled by their pressure campaign to open specific investigations in order to obtain military aid from the U.S.

• • Giuliani was pushing the incoming Ukrainian administration to change the leadership of Naftogaz, a state-owned energy company.
  • Giuliani’s associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman also helped with the pressure campaign, both on Naftogaz and finding dirt on Hunter Biden. Parnas and Fruman were trying to sell natural gas to Naftogaz.
  • At this point, Joe Biden had only been in the presidential primary race for about three weeks.
  • Sondland advised then-new President Zelensky on who to place in influential posts in his administration.
  • Meanwhile, other ambassadors advised Zelensky on how not to get dragged into our domestic politics.
  • <rant>So our National SECURITY Council knew about this for almost five months and did nothing? The only reason this is coming out is because of one lone whistleblower? This is not only a disgrace; it’s alarming that we can’t count on these folks to watch out for our safety.</rant>

4. House committees want to depose John Bolton, but it isn’t likely he’ll appear without a judge’s approval to override Trump’s claim of executive privilege.
5. Matt Gaetz files an ethics complaint against Adam Schiff for what he says are two violations of House rules:

• • Schiff’s recap of Trump’s conversation with Zelensky wasn’t read word for word.
  • Schiff won’t allow Members of Congress who aren’t on the Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, or Oversight Committees to attend the private depositions.

6. Attorneys for the whistleblower have been receiving death threats.
7. The State Department agrees to release documents relevant to Trump’s dealings with Ukraine. The release is the result of a lawsuit brought shortly after Trump dismissed U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.
8. In a case about whether former White House Counsel Don McGahn can be compelled to testify in the impeachment hearings, the judge is incredulous at the argument made by DOJ lawyers. They say former presidential aids can never be compelled to testify by Congress. For that matter, former presidents themselves can’t be compelled to testify. The judge calls it a peculiar argument that threatens the Constitution’s system of checks and balances.

• • At the same time, another federal judge is hearing a case brought by Charles Kupperman, a former top deputy to John Bolton. Kupperman defies his congressional subpoena to appear. Instead, he awaits guidance from the judge about whether he should listen to the executive branch, which invoked constitutional immunity in his case, or if he should heed Congress’s subpoena. Constitutional immunity is essentially a higher level of executive privilege.

9. Now that impeachment proceedings are official, Trump says he’d rather go into the details of the situation than the process of impeachment. In other words, he doesn’t want Republicans out there attacking House Democrats’ process anymore. They aren’t listening to him.
10. In fact, Trump tells a half dozen Senate Republicans to start saying that the summary of the phone call released by the White House exonerates Trump.
11. The whistleblower whose complaint started this whole thing agrees to answer written questions from House Republicans under oath. This comes after Trump urges news organizations to out the identity of the whistleblower. The agreement is conditioned on the questions not being designed to determine the whistleblower’s identity.

• • House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy suggests that written answers aren’t enough.
  • And this is rich. Trump, who refused to be interviewed by Robert Mueller and instead turned in written “answers,” also says written answers aren’t enough.

12. The White House is debating whether to release a transcript of a call between Vice President Mike Pence and Zelensky.
13. Derek Harvey, a top aide to Representative Devin Nunes (R-CA), has been releasing information about the whistleblower to conservative journalists and politicians.

Impeachment Vote:

1. At the beginning of the week, Speaker Nancy Pelosi announces the House will hold a vote on the impeachment process. Just what Republicans wanted, right? Public hearings? Wrong. They all vote against it, but it still passes.
2. To reiterate, after weeks of complaining about how the hearings were being held in private and against the rules, Republicans in the House all vote against holding public hearings.
3. Also, after weeks of saying the inquiry was invalid because the House hadn’t voted on it, Republicans refuse to validate it. (Democrats argue that the House vote isn’t necessary to validate the impeachment inquiries, and a court recently agreed.)
4. The resolution:

• • Establishes procedures for hearings.
  • Opens up hearings to the public (but depositions are still private).
  • Defines how transcripts of the existing depositions will be handled (they’ll be released publicly).
  • Gives Representative Adam Schiff broad authority to call witnesses for testimony, which will be public. Republicans can call their own witnesses, too; but Democrats can vote them down (I’m not sure what the precedent for that is).
  • Allows Trump’s attorneys to participate in Judiciary Committee hearings.
  • Directs House committees to continue their ongoing investigations into Trump.
  • Provides a record of whether each Representative supports this inquiry. This puts Republicans in a bind. They’ve been complaining about the secrecy of the hearings, but if they approve this resolution, it’ll look like they approve of impeachment. On the other hand, if they reject it, they’ll look hypocritical for complaining about private hearings. After it passes, though, I don’t see anyone making a big deal about this.

5. The committees on the impeachment panel will release a report and the transcripts of all the depositions held so far.
6. The hope is that an “official” impeachment process will break through the obstruction from the White House.
7. Pelosi says they’re taking the step to eliminate any doubt as to whether federal employees need to comply with subpoenas and requests to appear.
8. Adam Schiff says they won’t ask federal courts to compel testimony from witnesses who refuse to cooperate or who are ordered not to cooperate by the White House.
9. Both sides whipped up votes earlier this week, with Republicans saying that a solid party vote would show that this is a partisan crusade. I’m not sure how the same couldn’t be said of what they’re doing.
10. Democrats say the rules are similar to those used to impeach Clinton and Nixon. Republicans say the rules are skewed against Trump.

• • The rules allow for very similar protections for the office of president as with Nixon. The presidential protections are much greater than they were for President Clinton.

More Trouble for Parnas, Fruman, and Giuliani:

1. In response to a question about why Giuliani and Trump were so eager to get rid of Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, she says: “Individuals who have been named in the press as contacts of Mr. Giuliani may well have believed that their personal financial ambitions were stymied by our anti-corruption policy in Ukraine.”

• • Could be she was referring to Giuliani’s pals Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas, who were working on a gas deal with Ukraine gas company Naftogaz. Yovanovitch, on the other hand, was working to help Ukraine’s anti-corruption office,

2. Igor Fruman is trying to get his house arrest and electronic GPS monitoring removed, saying the restrictions are onerous. Just a reminder, Fruman was arrested at the airport, about to board a one-way flight to Europe. His lawyer is prepared to argue he’s not a flight risk.

Alexander Vindman Deposition:

1. Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, the senior expert on Ukraine at the National Security Council, appears before the impeachment panel in defiance of a White House order not to cooperate. He says:

• • He listened in on the phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky, so his is firsthand information.
  • Crucial words and phrases were omitted from the transcript of the call, including:
    • Trump claiming that there were tapes of Joe Biden discussing Ukraine corruption.
    • Zelensky explicitly mentioning Business Holdings, where Hunter Biden served on the board.
  • He was so appalled by Trump’s demands that Zelensky investigate the Bidens that he reported it to a National Security Council lawyer. Not just once, but twice.
  • Vindman was worried that if Zelensky complied, he’d risk losing bipartisan support for Ukraine.
  • At a July 10 meeting with Ukrainian officials, Gordon Sondland “started to speak about Ukraine delivering specific investigations in order to secure the meeting with the president.” Bolton cut the meeting short (this is corroborated by previous testimony).
  • When Sondland later “emphasized the importance that Ukraine deliver the investigations into the 2016 election, the Bidens, and Burisma,” Vindman told him that it was inappropriate, had nothing to do with national security, and that the NSC wasn’t going to get involved in something like that.

2. Vindman was born in what is now Ukraine. He’s a decorated veteran with a purple heart. Still, commentators on Fox News suggest he’s a Ukrainian spy. Trump calls him a “Never Trumper.” Liz Cheney finally steps up and blasts those who question his patriotism and dedication to country. Mitt Romney and Roy Blunt defend Vindman as well.

• • Cheney says we need to show that we’re better than that. I couldn’t agree more.

3. Of note, people who are accustomed to reading call transcripts have questioned the use of ellipses in the readout and have also questioned the lack of [inaudible] notations. These all led people to believe words were omitted.
4. White House lawyer John Eisenberg is the guy who placed the summary of the call in the top-secret server after Vindman went to Eisenberg with his concerns. To be clear, the White House lawyer’s first reaction upon hearing that Trump did something wrong was to try to hide it so deep no one would find it.

• • Fun fact: That top-secret server is called N.I.C.E. (N.S.C. Intelligence Collaboration Environment).

5. National security officials say this is a new thing, to store presidential conversations on the N.I.C.E. system; and this isn’t the first time they’ve done it for Trump.
6. Vindman and Fiona Hill had already gone to Eisenberg after a meeting where Sondland pushed Ukrainian officials to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden.
7. Vindman’s identical twin is also on the National Security Council as an ethics lawyer. He might be called in as a witness.
8. Vindman’s testimony contradicts Gordon Sondland’s testimony. Sondland said no one raised any concerns about Trump’s actions. It also contradicts Rick Perry’s denials that he heard anything about the Bidens in relation to Ukraine.
9. Remember that Trump didn’t know who the NSC’s Ukraine expert was (it was Vindman), and was instead getting his info on Ukraine from one of Devine Nunes’s former staffers (Kashyap Patel) who misrepresented himself to Trump as the Ukraine expert. Vindman was told not to attend a meeting because that would just confuse Trump. Patel has no Ukraine experience or expertise.

Tim Morrison Deposition:

1. The Top Russia official on the National Security Council, Tim Morrison, resigns the day before his testimony is to begin. He’ll be replaced by Andrew Peek, currently a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Mideast.

• • Kurt Volker and Mike McKinley also resigned before giving their testimonies.

2. Morrison was appointed to the NSC in 2018, but just took over Fiona Hill’s position this past July.
3. Morrison is another official who alerted NSC lawyers about pressure from the Trump administration on Ukraine officials to open an investigation into Burisma Holdings.
4. Like Bolton, Morrison is (by all accounts) a Republican hawk who sticks to the rules.
5. Here are a few highlights of his testimony:

• • Morrison confirms parts of Bill Taylor’s testimony from the previous week, and says that the substance of conversations recalled by Taylor was accurate.
  • He says he was told explicitly that hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Ukraine were conditioned upon whether the Ukraine government agreed to investigate the 2016 election and the Bidens, corroborating previous testimony.
  • He believes Trump’s actions were legal but problematic.
  • According to his recollection, the summary of the call released by the White House is correct.
  • He asked the NSC legal advisor to review the summary of the call.
  • He was concerned about the call becoming public because it could affect Ukraine’s perception of our relationship with them.
  • He warned Taylor about Trump’s attempts to block aid to Ukraine and to stop Zelensky from visiting the White House.
  • His recollection of a meeting differed from Taylor’s in that he thought Sondland told a Ukrainian official that aid was contingent upon the new Ukrainian prosecutor general committing to opening the investigations instead of Zelensky doing it.
  • However, he does verify that Gordon Sondland told a Ukrainian official that the military aid to Ukraine would be released if Ukraine opened an investigation into Burisma Holdings, where Biden Hunter served on the board. This again negates Sondland’s testimony.

Christopher Anderson Deposition:

1. Long-time Foreign Service Officer Christopher Anderson gives his deposition to the impeachment panel. Anderson has worked in Ukraine for five years, but has spent nearly 15 years working near there. He says:

• • Trump had agreed to a meeting with Zelensky in May and wrote Zelensky a letter to that effect. But the letter didn’t mention a date.
  • John Bolton warned him that Giuliani would be an obstacle to the State Department’s mission in Ukraine, and that could be an obstacle to White House engagement with Ukraine.
  • The State Department had an optimistic view of Ukraine and the new government headed by Zelensky. That wasn’t mirrored by Trump, who was getting his information from Giuliani.
  • The State Department’s efforts to demonstrate support for Ukraine were batted down by the White House.

Catherine Croft Deposition:

1. Catherine Croft worked on Ukraine issues at both the White House and State Department, eventually taking Christopher Anderson’s position when he left this summer. She testifies before the impeachment panel in defiance of the White House and the State Department, and she says:

• • Just like Christopher Anderson said, Trump and the State Department have differing views on Ukraine.
  • Trump constantly calls Ukraine corrupt.
  • Washington lobbyist (and former Republican Member of Congress) Robert Livingston called Croft several times to tell her Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch should be fired. Livingston told her that Yovanovitch was an “Obama holdover” and was associated with George Soros. Oh. The. Horror. Also, what do you suppose his interest in this is?
  • Bolton was concerned about our stance on Ukraine.