This week, House Democrats kicked off their second round of public impeachment hearings, featuring witnesses like National Security Council (NSC) official Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and Trump donor turned E.U. Ambassador Gordon Sondland. Before those hearings got underway, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) posted a video message on Twitter outlining some of the most condemning details that emerged from the previous week’s testimony, no matter how many Republicans lie and say that the witnesses didn’t have any substantive information. In fact, each one of them confirmed President Donald Trump’s brazen abuse of executive power.
As Pelosi put it:
‘Last week’s witnesses confirmed: President Trump traded away our national interests for his personal political interests. This is why we must #DefendOurDemocracy.’
The video message adds:
‘Witnesses confirm President Trump traded away America’s interests for his own political interests.’
Last week’s witnesses confirmed: President Trump traded away our national interests for his personal political interests. This is why we must #DefendOurDemocracy. pic.twitter.com/MPaR6S5KpA
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) November 18, 2019
Pelosi has consistently insisted that the impeachment inquiry has nothing to do with settling political scores, no matter how many angry tweets that Trump and his allies post. As she noted in a letter to her Democratic colleagues this week, members of Congress have an initial commitment embedded in their oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and the system of government it establishes. According to that logic — and the ample evidence of the president’s plotting — one might expect that Republicans would at least be a little concerned, but en masse, they’ve refused to oblige.
The witness testimony lined up for this week will no doubt prove high-profile and reverberate widely. Vindman already revealed details to Congress in private session like that he tried to correct the record of a July phone conversation between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, but politically minded officials blocked him from adding the details of the president’s plotting to get Ukraine to produce dirt on the Bidens. Multiple officials, including Vindman, who actually listened to that call are testifying. Others include Pence aide Jennifer Williams — who Trump denounced as a supposed Never Trumper although she works for his own second-in-command — and Trump aide Tim Morrison.
Check out Twitter’s response to Pelosi…
