As House Democrats’ impeachment probe continues to escalate, one top Trump administration official on the National Security Council has abruptly announced his resignation the day before he’s slated to testify as part of that probe. Tim Morrison is leaving after having served as Trump’s top Russia-related issues adviser on the council since Fiona Hill left. Hill is among those who have already testified, having told Congress of concerns from figures like then-national security adviser John Bolton about President Donald Trump’s scheme to get Ukraine to produce dirt on the Bidens.
A senior administration official commenting on Morrison’s departure to media tried to cast the move as in the cards for some time, but it’s not happening in a vacuum.
Still, they said:
‘After more than a year of service at the National Security Council, Mr. Morrison has decided to pursue other opportunities — and has been considering doing so for some time. We wish him well.’
The idea that he’s at least also feeling pressure from what he knows is not that far-fetched here at all. There’s an added benefit, too — if Morrison no longer works for the Trump administration, they have less sway over what he does and does not tell Congress.
Morrison was mentioned during earlier impeachment inquiry testimony from top Ukraine diplomat Bill Taylor, who said that he had firsthand knowledge of Trump’s Ukraine scheme. Taylor insisted that Morrison “witnessed a conversation between… [E.U. Ambassador] Gordon Sondland… and a senior Ukrainian official in which Sondland said hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine hinged on the country’s willingness to bend to Trump’s demand” for dirt on the Bidens, as POLITICO explains it. According to Taylor, Sondland told Ukraine that “everything” they wanted from the U.S. was dependent on them producing that Biden dirt. Besides the aid, that includes a summit in D.C. with the Trump administration that still has not happened.
Besides the above, Taylor also told Congress that Morrison told him about a conversation with Sondland in which the E.U. Ambassador said that Donald Trump personally had insisted that Ukraine should publicly announce an investigation into the Bidens.
To that end, Sondland, the now former U.S. Special Envoy Kurt Volker, and personal Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani worked to draft a statement for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to release publicly announcing the sought investigations. Morrison is among those to have alerted lawyers to his concerns; his immediate predecessor Fiona Hill did the same.
The best Trump has got is to resort to lengthy Twitter rants. This Wednesday, he posted the brazenly false tirade:
‘Republicans are very unified and energized in our fight on the Impeachment Hoax with the Do Nothing Democrats, and now are starting to go after the Substance even more than the very infair Process because just a casual reading of the Transcript leads EVERYBODY to see that the call with the Ukrainian President was a totally appropriate one.’
No it doesn’t. Typing out proclamations of innocence in all caps on Twitter doesn’t make you actually innocent, Trump.
