A new Trump tape emerged, and the secretary of state lashed out.
Welcome back to the Impeachment Briefing. As the Democratic managers wrapped up their opening arguments, a wild story was developing at the State Department. |
- Democratic managers closed out their opening arguments today, concentrating on the second article of impeachment, which charged President Trump with obstructing the inquiry. They made dramatic pronouncements about Mr. Trump’s blocking of witnesses and documents. “He does not have to respect the Congress. He does not have to respect the representatives of the people. Only his will goes,” Representative Jerry Nadler said. “He is a dictator.”
- Here’s some context for what the managers argued: In addition to ordering key witnesses not to testify, the Trump administration stonewalled 71 requests for documents by House investigators during the inquiry, forcing some witnesses to use personal notes and records to construct their testimony.
- Reams of documents have still not been turned over or made public. The Trump administration was blocking access even as the trial took place: The State Department missed another deadline this afternoon to provide materials requested by Congress. “This evidence will come to light,” Representative Val Demings, a manager, said today. “We shouldn’t have to wait for a book.”
- Two of the managers, Representatives Hakeem Jeffries and Jason Crow, suggested that the stonewalling was part of a broader cover-up that took place before the House had even learned of Mr. Trump’s Ukraine pressure campaign — like when government lawyers stifled reports of White House advisers alarmed by Mr. Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukraine’s president. “They were determined to prevent Congress and the American people from learning anything about the president’s corrupt behavior,” Mr. Jeffries said.
- Democrats also took the time to acknowledge what they view as an unsettling truth: that today may have been one of their last chances to make a sustained argument in the trial. “Since we won’t have an opportunity to respond to the president’s presentation,” Mr. Crow said, “I want to take a minute to respond to some of the arguments that I expect them to make.”
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The trial resumes tomorrow at 10 a.m., and it’s the White House’s turn to make opening arguments. Mr. Trump’s legal team said today that they only planned to use a few hours of their allotted time tomorrow to give a brief overview of its case. |
“I guess I would call it a trailer, coming attractions,” Jay Sekulow, a personal lawyer for Mr. Trump, said, adding that the Senate had asked the president’s lawyers to limit their presentation tomorrow to no more than three hours. “Next week is when you see the full presentation.” |
The president complained this morning that his lawyers would have to open their case in what he said was a ratings dead zone, calling Saturdays “Death Valley” for television. |
Mr. Trump’s team has the same amount of time as the managers — 24 hours over a period of three days — but they aren’t expected to run out the clock the way Democrats have. Once they wrap up, senators will get a chance to ask questions, which they will submit in writing to Chief Justice John Roberts. |
‘Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?’ |
This morning, ABC News broke some remarkable news: that there was a recording of Mr. Trump at one of his hotels in April 2018 ordering associates to get rid of Marie Yovanovitch, then the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. |
“Get her out tomorrow,” Mr. Trump said, according to ABC. “I don’t care. Get her out tomorrow. Take her out. O.K.? Do it.” |
Ms. Yovanovitch, who was removed from her post about a year after the recording was made, has remained key to understanding the events that led to Mr. Trump’s trial. Before her ouster, she had been the subject of unsubstantiated rumors that she was privately insulting the president, tales promoted by Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and his associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman. |
My colleagues Ken Vogel and Ben Protess reported tonight that Mr. Parnas, who has since broken with Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Trump, turned the tape over to congressional Democrats, some of whom said today that the recording bolstered their argument that there may be evidence that has yet to be considered. |
But this evening the story took another turn, when we learned about an interview that Mary Louise Kelly, a host of NPR’s “All Things Considered,” conducted today with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. |
After a series of tough questions about why Mr. Pompeo had not done more to publicly back Ms. Yovanovitch during the impeachment inquiry — a subject the secretary of state has avoided addressing for months — Mr. Pompeo called Ms. Kelly to a private room. |
Once inside, Ms. Kelly said, Mr. Pompeo unleashed an expletive-laden tirade at her. He asked her, “Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?” and told an aide bring in an unmarked map to prove she could locate the country. |
Before ending the meeting, Ms. Kelly said, Mr. Pompeo told her: “People will hear about this.” |
Mike Pompeo vs. his people |
The timing of Mr. Pompeo’s comments was extraordinary: Just this morning, the State Department announced that he plans to visit Ukraine later this month, when he’ll become the first cabinet official from the Trump administration to meet with Ukraine’s president since the impeachment inquiry began. The idea of the trip, the State Department said, is “to highlight U.S. support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.” |
To get a sense of the circumstances that led to the confrontation, I talked to my colleague David Sanger, who has covered Mr. Pompeo extensively. |
David, what explains the outburst? |
I wasn’t there, but I can tell you that Mary Louise Kelly of NPR is a true professional and an excellent, experienced correspondent. I’m not surprised she pressed him on Ukraine. And I’m not surprised he responded as he did. Mr. Pompeo is known for a bombastic, contentious style. He can be thin-skinned. He’s had a contentious relationship with a number of reporters, pushing back at their questions. |
Other than the tough questions, what do you think really set him off? |
He gets irked whenever he is pressed about Ukraine, and specifically on whether he pushed back when the president wanted to get rid of a respected career ambassador, Marie Yovanovitch, and cut off the aid to the country. In fact, we believe Mr. Pompeo pressed the president over the summer to restore that aid — but he has never said so, presumably because that would reveal a crack in the administration’s unity on the issue. He often says that internal deliberations, and disagreements, are not something he or anyone in the administration should discuss. And he enforces that inside the State Department. |
As the conversation with Ms. Kelly reveals, Mr. Pompeo and others in the administration believe that the American public doesn’t really care about Ukraine. He may be right. But the reason Ukraine is important is that it’s the battleground for the containment of Russian aggression and expansionism. That’s a point that Adam Schiff was making this week at the trial. |
It looked like Mr. Pompeo was going to step down and run for Senate. What’s his status at the State Department? |
He says he’s not running for that Kansas seat, and certainly he is acting like a fully engaged secretary of state. Inside the State Department, he argues — accurately — that he has brought the agency back after the Rex Tillerson years. He’s reversed budget cuts and ended hiring freezes. But the big concern among the many State Department professionals, and particularly the foreign service, is that he didn’t defend a career foreign service officer who was under attack for political reasons by the president — that, basically, he chose his loyalties to Mr. Trump over his loyalties to his most treasured employees. |
This treatment of Ms. Yovanovitch is part of the impeachment story that may have legs well beyond the end of the inquiry. What’s your sense of where people inside the State Department stand on it? |
There’s still huge dissatisfaction inside the State Department with the fact that he never publicly stood up for her. He maintains that he’s defended all his people, at all times. But he’s never explained or talked about her specifically, hiding behind the line, “We don’t discuss personnel matters.” Well, in this case, everyone has discussed the personnel matter, including Ambassador Yovanovitch herself, and other senior State Department officials who testified before the House impeachment inquiry. |
Their frustration continued when Bill Taylor — who stood in as, essentially, acting ambassador when Ms. Yovanovitch was recalled — appeared to be sent back to the private sector in ways that looked a little premature. The thought was that he, too, was basically being punished for having publicly testified. Remember, it was Mr. Pompeo who asked him to take the post. And then there was a sense that, again, no one had his back. |
What else we’re following |
- Where is Ms. Yovanovitch these days? My colleague Michael Crowley wrote today about the whereabouts of the impeachment witnesses. The former ambassador is officially still employed by the State Department, which a Fox News reporter spotted her visiting this month. She’s also teaching a class at Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy.
- Republican leaders have narrowed their focus to one overriding strategic goal: ensuring that the Senate does not vote in favor of calling new witnesses or allowing in new evidence. Here are just some of the ways that they’re explaining their argument.
- Senator Lamar Alexander, one of four Republicans who have signaled an openness to calling witnesses, said today that he wouldn’t make up his mind on the matter until after senators questioned the managers and the president’s team.
- Mr. Giuliani, unable to defend Mr. Trump before the Senate, debuted a new podcast today that delved into why he thought the president was not guilty. But, according to Politico, the launch didn’t go as smoothly as he hoped:
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