None of us should be surprised to hear that former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch is retiring from the foreign service. I applaud her for sticking it out this long after all she’s been through with an agency head who refused to support her against a months-long smear campaign bolstered by the president. Yovanovitch came into the department 33 years ago during Reagan’s administration and served multiple presidents of both parties in several hardship posts. She’s widely respected among her peers, and is now another casualty of the administration’s conspiracy theories and lies.

Here’s what happened on the impeachment front for the week ending February 2…

Missed From Before:

1. I think I missed this when it was first reported back in December. Olena Zerkal, a former deputy foreign minister for Ukraine, says that she received a cable in July saying that the U.S. had frozen the military aid. The cable came from Ukrainian officials in Washington.

• • This corroborates Laura Cooper’s testimony from the impeachment inquiry that Ukraine knew before the end of August about the hold on aid.
  • Trump’s legal team and supporters argue that Ukraine officials didn’t know until late August.
  • Zerkal also says Zelensky didn’t want the news to become public; he wanted to avoid getting pulled into a political debate.

General Happenings:

1. As Trump’s impeachment trial gets underway, there is pretty much no one who really thinks Trump will be removed from office.
2. According to a draft of John Bolton’s book, Trump told Bolton in August that he’d continue to withhold aid to Ukraine until Ukraine officials agreed to investigations into the Bidens. Trump also asked Bolton to help him with his pressure campaign against Ukraine by calling Zelensky.

• • The book implicates high-level officials who have tried to avoid being pulled into the scandal, including Mike Pompeo, Bill Barr, and Mick Mulvaney (though in fairness, Mulvaney did admit to the quid pro quo in a public press conference).
  • Bolton had concerns about Trump giving favors to autocrats involved in federal investigations.
  • It turns out the White House has had a copy of Bolton’s book since December 30, but failed to let congressional Republicans know about it and about what the book alleges. And here Mitch McConnell thought he was working in “total coordination” with the White House.
  • It’s standard practice for former officials to provide their manuscripts to the White House for review.
  • Former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly says he believes what John Bolton said in his book. Kelly says Bolton always gave Trump the unvarnished truth—probably one of the reasons Trump and Bolton didn’t get along so great.
  • Kelly also says that an impeachment trial without witnesses is only half done.

• • On the day that Bolton’s allegations come out, Lindsey Graham skips a scheduled press conference.
  • GOP senators suggest that senators be allowed to read Bolton’s manuscript in a secret room.
  • The White House issues a formal threat in a letter to Bolton’s lawyer to prevent him from publishing his book. They say the book includes top secret and classified information.
  • Trump’s tweets about Bolton suggest he knows the contents of the manuscript.

3. Representative Eliot Engel (D-NY) says Bolton told him in a private conversation last year that his committee should look into the recall of former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch (Engel is chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee).
4. Trump tweets that Adam Schiff hasn’t paid the price yet [for impeaching him]. Meanwhile, right-wing outlets spread stories that Schiff’s daughter is dating the whistleblower (she’s not) and they spread pictures purporting to be the whistleblower with several prominent Democrats. None of the pictures are of who they think the whistleblower is; instead, they are of George Soros’ son.
5. GOP Senator Joni Ernst suggests that the impeachment proceedings might hurt Joe Biden in the Iowa caucuses, accidentally letting slip that the smears against him by Giuliani, Trump, and other conservatives were actually intended to harm his chances in the 2020 presidential race.
6. Some current GOP senators attended a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing in 2016 about ousting former Ukraine general prosecutor Shokin. These senators knew that Biden was working on removing Shokin, and didn’t bring up any objections to it during the hearing.

• • The GOP senators in attendance who are still in office today include John Barrasso (WY), Cory Gardner (CO), James Risch (ID), and David Perdue (GA).
  • The effort to oust Shokin was also included in testimony at a 2015 hearing of the same committee. What changed between 2015 and now?

7. The DOJ submits a court filing that shows they’re holding back around two dozen emails about Trump’s involvement in withholding aid from Ukraine. It’s the first acknowledgment that this type of evidence exists.

Trump’s Defense Arguments (cont’d from last week):

1. Trump’s legal team continues with its opening arguments. Their biggest arguments seem to be about the process instead of how Trump didn’t do it. They didn’t spend time defending what Trump did.
2. Jay Sekulow shows a video of Nancy Pelosi handing out commemorative pens to signers of the articles of impeachment. This is standard operating procedure for historic legislation.
3. The legal team says that Trump was cut out of the impeachment process, and that the House process was invalid, secret, and rushed. They say it was illegitimate from the beginning.
4. The team falsely claims that the House ignored Trump’s right to due process and executive privilege.
5. They also argue that it was legal for Trump to ignore House subpoenas for the impeachment and to order his staff to do the same.

• • That same day, DOJ lawyer says that the House can use its impeachment powers to enforce its subpoenas, shooting holes in the argument that he can’t be impeached for ignoring subpoenas.

6. In the middle of their presentations, we hear about Bolton’s claims that Trump really was conducting a pressure campaign against Ukraine. Trump’s legal team dismisses the new revelations, and Sekulow argues that Bolton’s information is inadmissible.
7. The legal team continues to assert that there isn’t any evidence that ties the security aid hold to the investigations. Dershowitz says that nothing Bolton alleges would rise to abuse of power.
8. Kenneth Starr basically argues against impeachment in general. This is the guy who spent five years Investigating Bill Clinton in order to see him impeached over lying about an extra-marital affair.
9. Michael Purpura argues that Zelensky did get his meeting with Trump. But Zelensky wanted a White House meeting and all he got was a side meeting at a UN gathering.
10. The legal team falsely asserts that the House never subpoenaed Bolton during the impeachment proceedings.
11. Jane Raskin tries to delegitimatize Rudy Giuliani by calling him a colorful distraction.
12. Pam Bondi talks about what she thinks are Hunter and Joe Biden’s corrupt conflicts of interest around Burisma.
13. And then the coup de gras. Eric Herschmann says Obama should’ve been impeached for the same abuse of power charges as Trump. Because what argument would be complete without bringing Obama into it?
14. In the end, the legal team didn’t provide any support for the investigations Trump was looking for, nor did they mention CrowdStrike or the supposed server that’s allegedly being hidden in Ukraine.
15. The legal team even says that Trump did what the House managers said he did, but it wasn’t wrong and it definitely isn’t impeachable.
16. In closing, the legal team doesn’t address the charges against Trump, but does attack a litany of Trump’s perceived enemies, whether they were involved in the impeachment or not (most aren’t). They attack Joe and Hunter Biden, Obama, James Comey, Robert Mueller, Lisa Page, and Peter Strzok, among others.

Senator’s Questions:

1. Following Trump’s legal team’s presentations, senators have two days to ask questions. They write the questions on pieces of paper that a page must go retrieve and bring down to Chief Justice Roberts to read. It makes for a lengthy process with long silences.
2. Mostly senators feed prompts to their own side to give them more space to make their arguments.
3. Rand Paul sends down a question that includes the alleged whistleblower’s name. Roberts refuses to read it on the Senate floor. But that’s OK because then Rand Paul goes out and does a press conference where he names the person that right-wing sources are alleging to be the whistleblower.

• • The alleged whistleblower has, of course, been receiving death threats and threats of violence. Members of Adam Schiff’s staff have received threats as well.

4. In the Q&A period, Trump’s legal team pushes the idea of “mixed motives.” They say that it doesn’t matter if Trump had an ulterior, personal motive behind withholding the aid as long as he also had national security interests in mind. They say there’s a little of that in every political decision.
5. Alan Dershowitz argues that anything the president does to get re-elected is A-OK because every president thinks that getting re-elected is in the public good so therefore it must be constitutional.
6. Patrick Philbin says that the burden of proof for impeachment is “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Even the law professor cited by Trump’s legal team says that’s completely made up.
7. Philbin also says that a president can’t defy his foreign policy because he makes foreign policy.

Witness Debate:

1. The Senate and legal teams debate the need for additional witnesses in the trial.
2. After leaks of Bolton’s book manuscript, some Republicans appear to be leaning toward subpoenaing Bolton.
3. Just when it looks like there are enough votes to force McConnell to allow witnesses, Lamar Alexander pulls the rug out and says he’ll vote against witnesses.
4. Lindsey Graham says Bolton should hold a press conference so senators can hear what he has to say. Except that would always be under question since Bolton wouldn’t be sworn in. You know who could vote to get his testimony under oath? The senate.
5. In the end, the senate votes 51-49 not to bring in new witnesses or evidence. Only two Republicans vote for witnesses.
6. Senators start offering rationalizations for not voting for witnesses, and also for acquitting. I’m saving them all up for next week.
7. After voting against witnesses, the senate passes a resolution defining the rules for ending the trial. Closing arguments will be on Monday, Trump will give the State of the Union on Tuesday, and the Senate will likely vote to acquit on Wednesday.
8. 75% of voters think witnesses should be allowed, yet Republicans voted against it. Republicans also argue that what Trump did was wrong, but the voters should decide whether to remove him from office. But they don’t listen to voters on this one basic thing?
9. This is the first Senate impeachment trial in history to not have witnesses.

More Trouble for Parnas, Fruman, and Giuliani:

1. Chuck Schumer gives tickets to Lev Parnas to attend the Senate impeachment trial, but he can’t go because he has an ankle monitor.
2. Lev Parnas sends a letter to Mitch McConnell discussing the evidence he wants to testify to and naming people like Mike Pence, Bill Barr, Lindsey Graham, Rick Perry, Devin Nunes, Derek Harvey, John Solomon, Rudy Giuliani, Joe diGenova, and Victoria Toensing as being complicit.

Fact-Checking Impeachment Claims:

There’s just too much misinformation out there about impeachment for me to tackle here, so here are a few fact checks. If you’re wondering why they seem so skewed against the defense instead of the House managers, even Republicans agree that Trump did what the House said he did—they just don’t think it rises to an impeachable level. It could also be because House managers presented the evidence they found, while it was up to the defense to cast doubt on that evidence.

• factcheck.org
• Politifact
• AP via US News
• USA Today
• AP via MSN
• NBC
• PBS