In the grand scheme of Tuesday’s third day of public hearings, a few things occurred during testimony. No witnesses testified to any orders for bribery, extortion or quid pro quo. Ambassador Kurt Volker encouraged Ukrainians to conduct investigations into corruption up to and including making public declarations. Senior Official Tim Morrison testified to Lt. Col. Vindman being insubordinate, violating the chain of command, attempting to alter official transcripts to include language which no other officials witnessed to present President Trump in a more damning light, and having multiple other State Department Officials warn him of Vindman’s poor judgment.
Furthermore, Lt. Col. Vindman clearly was the witness on the call to tip off the whistleblower who wasn’t a witness and Vindman couldn’t cite examples of Ukrainian officials citing any pressure from the Trump administration to conduct investigations. Moreover, Volker and Morrison confirmed that the impeachment proceedings have hurt both the US standing with Ukraine and the Ukrainian position relative to Russia. Ukraine has been so corrupt that the previous administration attempted to flip Vindman into a senior Ukrainian military asset. Vindman is the kind of guy who when referred to as “Mister” stops a public official to tell him to refer to him by rank.
Now, if that isn’t indicative of this entire charade being a “witch hunt” what is?
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