Vox - The impeachment of President Trump heads to a Senate trialhttps://cdn.vox-cdn.com/community_logos/52517/voxv.png2020-08-20T20:17:37-04:00http://www.vox.com/rss/stream/206492742020-08-20T20:17:37-04:002020-08-20T20:17:37-04:00Hunter Biden, the black sheep who got Trump impeached, explained
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<figcaption>Hunter Biden, then the chair of the World Food Program USA, speaking at a 2016 event in Washington, DC. | Teresa Kroeger/Getty Images for World Food Program USA</figcaption>
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<p>A troubled guy at the center of the fake scandal that became a real scandal.</p> <p id="f9k0Cv">Hunter is the younger of <a href="http://vox.com/joe-biden">Joe Biden</a>’s two sons. He never showed as much promise as his brother Beau, stumbling through life and often trading on his dad’s name and position for financial gain. He’s more or less operated in the background as something of a black sheep in the family, but he emerged at the forefront of American politics in 2019 over work he did in Ukraine that fueled a bogus conspiracy theory at the heart of <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/9/30/20883584/trump-impeachment-whistleblower-ukraine">Trump’s decision to strong-arm the country’s president</a>. </p>
<p id="I1U2Tj">It’s not unusual for the children of successful politicians to trade on their family’s famous name and connections to get ahead in life. And when that happens, most political parents hope for a trajectory like the one enjoyed by Beau Biden until his life was cut short by cancer in 2015.</p>
<p id="H8IhE3">Beau followed in his father’s footsteps to Syracuse University for law school and then clerked for a US District Court judge. He got a job at the Justice Department and then became a federal prosecutor. He then dipped into the private sector briefly. But when Delaware’s attorney general, Jane Brady, resigned to take up a judicial post, the state’s governor appointed <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Danberg">Carl Danberg</a> to serve as a placeholder attorney general who wouldn’t run for reelection. Beau won the seat in the 2006 midterms, Danberg got appointed to serve as the head of Delaware’s Corrections Department, and all eyes were on Beau to run for governor in 2016 when Jack Markell’s term would be expiring. </p>
<p id="YfFK4H">Only an extremely naive person would see this as a career free of nepotism. But Beau, like a successful politician’s kid, had to actually do his work adequately each step of the way. As a candidate for attorney general, he clearly got a boost from his dad’s name, and it seems like the Delaware political establishment was working to open up an office for him to run for. But as a former federal prosecutor and Army JAG, he was qualified for the job and he won the election fair and square. And there’s nothing unusual at all about a two-term attorney general campaigning to win an open gubernatorial election in his home state. </p>
<p id="0hrvXv">This is more or less how the system is supposed to work for children of privilege — you get a consistent favorable tailwind at your back, but you still need to steer the plane. Hunter, by contrast, has been the guy who even into his 40s keeps needing dad to send the search-and-rescue party. And yet in a strange way, Hunter ended up being one of the most politically accomplished figures of our time since Trump’s efforts to smear Joe Biden over Hunter’s work in Ukraine ended up leading to his impeachment.</p>
<h3 id="4ZIF0I">Hunter Biden’s whole career is being Joe Biden’s son</h3>
<p id="sxYU6E">According to <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/07/08/will-hunter-biden-jeopardize-his-fathers-campaign">Adam Entous’s profile in the New Yorker</a>, “it was clear to family and friends that Beau would follow his father into politics,” while Hunter was initially interested in more artistic pursuits “but, with a baby on the way, he decided to go straight to law school.”</p>
<p id="CBaeLT">The desire to make money is pretty commonplace. Hunter, after a year at Georgetown Law, was able to transfer to Yale and finish out at the country’s most prestigious law school. Yale Law grads don’t normally hurt for opportunities to earn a decent salary, but Hunter interestingly went to work right away for MBNA, a major Delaware-based bank (later purchased by Bank of America) that was also a big contributor to Biden’s campaigns. </p>
<p id="tSmbHM">This was part of a much larger coziness between Biden and the bank that the then-senator took flak for from conservatives like Byron York, who dubbed him “the senator from MBNA” <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2008/08/senator-mbna-byron-york/">in a 1998 American Spectator article</a>. The nickname stuck in years to come as Biden became the <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/5/6/18518381/baccpa-bankruptcy-bill-2005-biden-warren">leading Democratic advocate of a bankruptcy reform bill</a> that most Democrats opposed but that major credit card issuers like MBNA strongly favored. </p>
<p id="XB2T6c">There’s no reason to think that Biden backed MBNA’s position because his son worked there — senators normally line up with their home state’s major employers’ policy priorities — it’s more like Hunter got the job due to his dad’s overall cozy relationship with the company. </p>
<p id="ms9TIc">Hunter’s career, however, never really seems to have quite launched as an independent entity. In 1998, he went to work for the US Department of Commerce and then left after the Clinton administration ended. He formed a lobbying firm with an old associate of his dad’s. By mutual agreement, Hunter avoided lobbying his father but did continue to collect consulting fees from MBNA through the 2005 passage of the bankruptcy bill the bank had long sought. </p>
<p id="NwCd8P">In 2006, President George W. Bush appointed him to the Amtrak board of directors as a gesture of bipartisanship. Here’s how Tom Carper, Delaware’s other senator, described his qualifications for the job (emphasis added):</p>
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<p id="hbZvdh">Hunter Biden is a native Delawarian and I would go on to say that he’s also been nominated to serve on the Amtrak Board of Directors. When Hunter was unable to get into the University of Delaware, he instead went on to Georgetown and then to Yale Law School and managed to get through those OK. He’s ended up being Senior Vice President at MBNA, one of the largest financial institutions in the country. He served as Executive Director of Economy Policy Coordination at the U.S. Department of Commerce. About 5 years ago he went off and formed a law firm here in Washington, D.C., and now they represent over 100 clients including a bunch of non-profit organizations and educational institutions.</p>
<p id="SBLOGk"><strong>More specifically, though, and for our purposes and for the purpose of this nomination, Hunter Biden has spent a lot of time on Amtrak trains</strong>. Like his father, like our Congressman, Mike Castle and myself, Hunter Biden has lived in Delaware while using Amtrak to commute to his job as we commute to our job in Washington almost every day of the week. You know, you learn a lot about what could work and what would work better at Amtrak by riding trains and talking to the passengers, the commuters, the passengers, the folks who work on the trains and make them work every day. You also have a chance to see the huge economic benefit the region receives from having a strong passenger rail corridor, something that should be available in a lot of other parts of our country.</p>
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<p id="OnlEUs">It would obviously be a stretch to attribute any specific shortcoming of passenger rail in the United States to Hunter Biden’s service on the board. But the fact that the job is treated as a kind of patronage position to hand out to random senators’ kids who have no relevant knowledge beyond riding the train a lot helps explain <a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/6/12/8764819/why-american-trains-are-bad">why American passenger rail is low quality</a> and <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/12/4/18123624/amtrak-boarding-rules-union-station-dc">exhibits little understanding of international best practices</a>. </p>
<p id="NY8TQt">When his dad became vice president, Hunter left the Amtrak board and instead got involved with a series of investment companies. As <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/08/02/joe-biden-investigation-hunter-brother-hedge-fund-money-2020-campaign-227407">detailed by Ben Schreckinger in Politico</a>, a lot of this work seems to have hinged on Hunter and his uncle James Biden sort of hinting around that the family connection to the vice president could help get things done and then not delivering. The Obama administration generally regarded Hunter as a kind of embarrassing family black sheep rather than a real scandal. </p>
<h3 id="Hh3fmy">Hunter Biden had a lot of problems in life</h3>
<p id="iFM88d">Stepping back from politics, the Hunter Biden story is basically sympathetic. His mom died in a car accident when he was a little kid, his dad was a loving but busy US senator, and his older brother was accomplished in ways he couldn’t quite match. </p>
<p id="i33b0y">And the history of American presidential politics is littered with similar characters like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Carter">Billy Carter</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Rodham">Tony Rodham</a>, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Bush">Neil Bush</a>, who try to capitalize financially on relatives in the White House and thereby succeed in embracing their family without really accomplishing much of anything. </p>
<p id="mIOXx4">In May 2013, Hunter joined the US Naval Reserve, for which he required two waivers — one because, at 42, he was above the normal age for a military recruit, and the other due to a previous drug use incident. In August, his brother Beau received the initial diagnosis of the brain cancer that would eventually kill him. </p>
<p id="7Ay1aA">By February of 2014, Hunter was discharged from the Navy for testing positive for cocaine. The next spring, Beau died. In October 2015, Hunter separated from his wife Kathleen. <a href="https://pagesix.com/2017/03/02/ex-claims-hunter-biden-blew-money-on-hookers-drugs/">She filed for divorce in 2016</a>, and in paperwork complained that Hunter had been “spending extravagantly on his own interests including drugs, alcohol, prostitutes, strip clubs, and gifts for women with whom he has sexual relations.”</p>
<p id="4J6rRa">Sometime in 2016, <a href="https://people.com/politics/hallie-bidens-father-says-he-supports-her-relationship-with-hunter-biden-her-late-husbands-brother/">Hunter began dating Beau’s widow</a>, which family members claimed to be supportive of, but that relationship unraveled by early 2019. </p>
<p id="rLvc5Z">Hunter’s personal troubles were severe enough that he was for whatever reason unable to attend Joe Biden’s presidential campaign kickoff — an event that featured Hunter’s three daughters, the boyfriend of one of the daughters, Beau’s two kids, Hunter’s half-sister Ashley, and Ashley’s husband Howard Krein, along with an empty seat in the row with a piece of paper on it that said “reserved.” </p>
<p id="WVGkVo">And during the bulk of this troubled period in Hunter’s life, he was fortuitously on the board of a Ukrainian energy company — a stroke of good fortune that’s become the centerpiece of a bogus corruption allegation leveled at his dad. </p>
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<h3 id="gBw4PU">Joe Biden didn’t do anything to help Hunter in Ukraine</h3>
<p id="fRJyGQ">Back in 2014 after a change of regime in Ukraine, Hunter Biden joined the board of a scandal-plagued Ukrainian natural gas company named Burisma. Hunter had no apparent qualifications for the job except that his father was the vice president and involved in the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy. </p>
<p id="FcN72p">He got paid up to $50,000 per month for the job and the situation constituted the kind of conflict of interest that was normally considered inappropriate in Washington until the Trump era. These days, of course, the president of the United States <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/24/20879735/hunter-biden-trump-corruption-outsider">regularly accepts payments from foreign sources</a> to his company while in office, and so do the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/06/ivanka-trump-gets-initial-approval-from-china-for-16-trademarks.html">Trump children</a>. The Obama administration probably should have done something about this at the time, but the White House couldn’t literally force Hunter not to accept the job. And given the larger family context, you can see why Joe might have been reluctant to confront his son about it. </p>
<p id="VLQccn">This would all be a small footnote in history except that by 2016, officials throughout the Obama administration and in Western Europe had come to a consensus that Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin, wasn’t doing enough to crack down on corruption. Biden, as he later <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0_AqpdwqK4">colorfully recounted</a>, delivered the message that the West wanted Shokin gone or else loan guarantees would be held up, and Shokin was, in turn, fired. </p>
<p id="i8zOun">There was nothing remotely controversial about this at the time. No congressional Republicans complained about it, and <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/eu-hails-sacking-of-ukraine-s-prosecutor-viktor-shokin-1.2591190">the European Union hailed the decision to fire Shokin</a>. The reason there is video footage of Biden touting his personal role in this is it was considered a foreign policy triumph that Biden wanted to claim credit for, not anything sordid or embarrassing. </p>
<p id="T2t4f0">But Shokin, of course, didn’t want to go down on the theory that he was corrupt or incompetent. So he started offering another theory: <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/ukrainians-understood-biden-probe-condition-trump-zelenskiy-phone/story?id=65863043">he was fired for going after Burisma</a> by Joe Biden operating on behalf of Hunter Biden. </p>
<p id="qDnR48">The question of whether Shokin was actually investigating Burisma at all is a <a href="https://strana.ua/articles/interview/199721-viktor-shokin-lutsenko-na-kolenjakh-prosil-poroshenko-naznachit-eho-henprokurorom-a-teper-spasaet-sebja.html">matter</a> of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/01/us/politics/biden-son-ukraine.html">dispute</a> (the relevant Ukrainian players have told inconsistent stories), but this is clearly not the reason he was fired. The desire to push him out was fully bipartisan in the United States and reflected a consensus across European governments, not anything idiosyncratic to Biden. </p>
<p id="bnflv2">The notion that firing Shokin was somehow problematic was not in the air until the <a href="https://twitter.com/kenvogel/status/1123750935958904832">New York Times ran a story co-bylined by Ken Vogel and a Ukrainian journalist named Iuliia Mendel</a> (who a few weeks later would become Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s official spokesperson) highlighting Rudy Giuliani’s efforts at muckraking.</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">NEW: The BIDENS are entangled in a Ukrainian corruption scandal:<a href="https://twitter.com/JoeBiden?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@JoeBiden</a> pushed Ukraine to fire a prosecutor seen as corrupt.<br>BUT the prosecutor had opened a case into a company that was paying HUNTER BIDEN.<br>The Bidens say they never discussed it. <a href="https://t.co/tblUPYPJMG">https://t.co/tblUPYPJMG</a></p>— Kenneth P. Vogel (@kenvogel) <a href="https://twitter.com/kenvogel/status/1123750935958904832?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 2, 2019</a>
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<p id="WbBLLf">The worst you can say about any of this, however, was that Hunter’s position on the board was a standing conflict of interest that should have been avoided. There’s no evidence that Joe did anything wrong, specifically. But an examination of the life and times of Hunter Biden does provide a reminder that most Americans thought politics as usual was corrupt long before Trump arrived on the scene to make it more corrupt. </p>
<h3 id="fPBVJm">Hunter Biden is a product of an unloved system</h3>
<p id="XKYsRe">Progressives find Trump’s promises to “drain the swamp” to be galling and hypocritical in light of his family’s massive financial conflicts of interest. But people who identify with Trump’s racial and cultural politics find progressive <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/24/20879735/hunter-biden-trump-corruption-outsider">complaints about corruption to be hypocritical and unpersuasive because the whole system is corrupt</a>.</p>
<p id="bHZx7B">As of 2014, Gallup found that <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/185759/widespread-government-corruption.aspx?utm_source=link_newsv9&utm_campaign=item_188000&utm_medium=copy">75 percent of voters felt corruption was “widespread”</a> in American government. </p>
<p id="McpoFK">And if you think about Biden’s role on the Obama ticket back in 2008, the whole point was that he was the reassuring insider to balance out the fresh-faced outsider reformer who was running for president. That’s a common formula in American politics, with an outsider (often a governor) promising to “fix the mess in Washington” with the assistance of a more seasoned vice president. That’s Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Al Gore, and George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. The other formula — the political veteran balanced by a younger and more energetic vice president — is much rarer (H.W. Bush and Dan Quayle come to mind), even though in theory vice president is the junior job. </p>
<p id="sAfY6e">That’s no coincidence. Some aspects of Hunter Biden’s career and life story are a bit extreme (the Amtrak gig, dating his brother’s widow), but the kid who trades on family connections to make money is much more a case of business as usual than an extraordinary scandal. “Business as usual in Washington,” however, is normally the subject of scorn in American politics. Any focus on Joe Biden’s son is likely to remind people of what they don’t like about it. </p>
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https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/1/20891510/hunter-biden-burisma-ukraine-shokinMatthew Yglesias2020-02-07T19:22:00-05:002020-02-07T19:22:00-05:00Trump just fired Gordon Sondland as EU ambassador
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<figcaption>Gordon Sondland, the now-ousted US ambassador to the European Union, is sworn in before testifying before the House Intelligence Committee at the Longworth House Office Building on Wednesday, November 20, 2019, in Washington, DC. | Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post via Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>This is part of Trump’s post-acquittal purge.</p> <p id="4lNBD7">President Donald Trump is continuing his retribution campaign against administration officials who testified in the impeachment inquiry, this time firing his handpicked ambassador to the European Union, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/us/politics/alexander-vindman-white-house.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage">Gordon Sondland</a>.</p>
<p id="Re1dlz">The dismissal, which came just hours after he pushed out <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/2/7/21127988/vindman-impeachment-trump-white-house">Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman</a> and his brother from the National Security Council, makes it clear that the president feels few restraints after the Senate acquitted him earlier this week.</p>
<p id="BrtXJs">Sondland, who’d been a major Trump donor before getting the ambassador job, played a critical part in the Ukraine scandal. Alongside the president’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Sondland pressured officials in Kyiv to announce an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.</p>
<p id="vAvHpl">That’s precisely why House Democrats wanted to hear from him during the impeachment inquiry last November — and his performance turned him into one of the most dangerous witnesses for the president.</p>
<p id="CoAEmT">“I know that members of this committee have frequently framed these complicated issues in the form of a simple question: Was there a ‘quid pro quo?’” <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/11/20/20973970/impeachment-hearings-gordon-sondland-trump-livestream-timeline">he said in his opening statement</a>. “The answer is yes.”</p>
<p id="WrXayi">Sondland’s testimony also made it clear that the scheme to pressure Ukraine was not some rogue operation masterminded by <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/25/20883309/rudy-giuliani-ukraine-trump">Giuliani</a> alone. The ambassador provided extensive documentation, including emails and text messages, showing that his own personal efforts in service of arranging the quid pro quo were authorized at the highest levels of the administration. On that point, Sondland did not mince his words:</p>
<blockquote><p id="lFhF3z">Mr. Giuliani’s requests were a quid pro quo for arranging a White House visit for President Zelensky. Mr. Giuliani demanded that Ukraine make a public statement announcing investigations of the 2016 election/DNC server and Burisma. Mr. Giuliani was expressing the desires of the President of the United States, and we knew that these investigations were important to the President.</p></blockquote>
<p id="225jvW">Which means that even though Sondland was a Trump ally from the start, the act of telling the truth in front of Congress drew Trump’s ire — and has now resulted in his ouster.</p>
<p id="I2AhM8">He seems to be taking it fairly well, though. “I was advised today that the president intends to recall me effective immediately as United States Ambassador to the European Union,” the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/us/politics/alexander-vindman-white-house.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage">ambassador said</a> in a statement Friday evening, adding that he appreciated Trump “for having given me the opportunity to serve.”</p>
<p id="BsT63w">The question now is whether Trump will continue to clean house, perhaps by pressuring Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to push out <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/11/13/20960221/impeachment-hearings-witnesses-ukraine-gordon-sondland-cooper-hale">George Kent</a> — one of the diplomatic corps’ top Ukraine experts who testified in the House impeachment investigation — or getting Defense Secretary Mark Esper to kick out Laura Cooper, the Defense Department’s deputy assistant secretary for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia, who told investigators the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-impeachment-inquiry/pentagon-official-testifies-trump-directed-freeze-aid-ukraine-n1080256">White House</a> directed the freeze on military aid to Kyiv.</p>
<p id="qStUJX">Some of the key witnesses, like top US diplomats to Ukraine Bill Taylor and Marie Yovanovitch, have already left government. At this rate, anyone speaking truth to power may soon feel they need to leave or be purged. This is the real American carnage of the Trump era.</p>
https://www.vox.com/2020/2/7/21128777/trump-gordon-sondland-alexander-vindman-impeachmentAlex Ward2020-02-07T16:58:56-05:002020-02-07T16:58:56-05:00Alexander Vindman, a key impeachment witness, is dismissed from the White House
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<figcaption>Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, director of European affairs at the National Security Council, testifies on Capitol Hill on November 19, 2019. | Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call Inc. via Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>The NSC staffer ended his tenure Friday as President Trump declares victory for his “total acquittal.”</p> <p id="CCvAaQ">“Do not worry. I will be fine for telling the truth,” Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/11/19/20972352/impeachment-hearings-vindman-opening-statement">testified</a> in November, during the House’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/impeachment-explained-podcast">impeachment inquiry</a> into President Donald Trump’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/11/21/20976014/impeachment-hearing-david-holmes-ukraine-aid">pressure campaign</a> against Ukraine. </p>
<p id="D5Iy3o">But now that the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/2/5/21124038/senate-acquits-trump-impeachment-articles">Senate</a> has delivered the president <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/2/6/21126544/trump-speech-today-transcript-impeachment">“total acquittal”</a> on two articles of impeachment, a triumphant Trump is apparently seeking vengeance. And Vindman appears to be his first target. </p>
<p id="M8KcYL">Vindman, a top Ukraine expert on the National Security Council, listened in on Trump’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyWNFvt9Fck">July 25 call</a> with Ukrainian President <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2019/9/24/20882359/trump-impeachment-ukraine-president-zelensky">Volodymyr Zelensky</a>. He testified that he found the call inappropriate and that he saw it as “improper for the president of the United States to demand a foreign government <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/1/20891510/hunter-biden-burisma-ukraine-shokin">investigate a U.S. citizen and political opponent</a>.”</p>
<p id="SENilh">Now Vindman <a href="https://twitter.com/W7VOA/status/1225884791792336899?s=20">has been removed </a>from his post in the White House as of this Friday, <a href="https://twitter.com/JenniferJJacobs/status/1225884148465795072?s=20">according to his lawyer</a>. His twin brother, a lawyer for the National Security Council, was <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/07/donald-trump-pressure-impeachment-witness-alexander-vindman-111997">also reassigned.</a></p>
<p id="n71T31">“The most powerful man in the world—buoyed by the silent, the pliable, and the complicit—has decided to exact revenge,” Vindman’s lawyer said in a statement, <a href="https://twitter.com/JenniferJJacobs/status/1225886674753916930?s=20">according to Bloomberg News’s Jennifer Jacobs</a>.</p>
<p id="EYyvYq">Vindman will be detailed to the Defense Department. His NSC posting <a href="https://twitter.com/JenniferJJacobs/status/1225757054452871168?s=20">was expected to end this summer</a>, though <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-lambastes-his-critics-as-he-considers-how-else-to-target-his-perceived-enemies-over-impeachment/2020/02/06/571003a0-4924-11ea-9475-535736e48788_story.html">he reportedly told senior council officials</a> that he would end his tenure in the White House earlier than expected. </p>
<p id="oUqiEZ">Even so, the move is symbolic of a president who has made it clear — <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/2/6/21126544/trump-speech-today-transcript-impeachment">including in his statement turned political diatribe on Thursday</a> — that he is not in a forgiving mood. </p>
<p id="rSiEmy">“It was evil, it was corrupt, it was dirty cops, it was leakers and liars, and this should never, ever happen to another president, ever,” <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/2/6/21126544/trump-speech-today-transcript-impeachment">Trump said Thursday of the impeachment inquiry, in his hour-plus speech</a>. </p>
<p id="goTcxl">Bloomberg <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-07/white-house-weighs-ouster-of-aide-who-testified-against-trump">reports</a> that the White House is framing this not as payback against Vindman but as a broader shrinking of the NSC staff. But given the timing after Trump’s acquittal, the move certainly looks like an attempt to close ranks and root out those who might be perceived as being insufficiently loyal to the president. In other words, no more leakers. </p>
<p id="rviW1A">Vindman’s testimony in the House’s impeachment inquiry <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/29/20937527/alexander-vindman-impeachment-inquiry-testimony">was some of the most damning</a> against the president. </p>
<p id="xVYnpK">Though Vindman did not interact with Trump directly, he <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/29/20937527/alexander-vindman-impeachment-inquiry-testimony">attended</a> a meeting on July 10 between Ukrainian and White House officials, where he said European Union Ambassador Gordon Sondland brought up investigations into Joe Biden’s son Hunter and the 2016 election, in exchange for a meeting between Trump and Zelensky. </p>
<p id="pAxvVk">Vindman also listened in on the July 25 call when Trump asked Zelensky to “do us a favor though” and look into the Bidens and mentioned a conspiracy theory that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 election. </p>
<p id="YkaHyk">Vindman’s testimony was also seen as something that could get bipartisan attention, given his exemplary public service. He is an immigrant who fled the former Soviet Union as a child, and he served in the US military, where he earned a Purple Heart after being injured by a roadside bomb in Iraq. Vindman’s twin brother also worked for the NSC, as a lawyer. </p>
<p id="MqJlpe">But Republicans attacked his credibility, implying that Vindman, who speaks fluent Ukrainian and Russian, was somehow displaying <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/republicans-try-smear-alexander-vindman-dual-loyalty-attack-impeachment-hearing-2019-11">“dual loyalties.”</a> Trump defenders also impugned his service on the NSC, suggesting <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/nov/19/jim-jordan-clashes-alexander-vindman-over-job-perf/">his superiors were dissatisfied with his work</a>.</p>
<p id="GbO8jF">And while many career public servants, diplomats, and other White House officials eventually testified against the president, Trump seemed to reserve a particular ire for Vindman — and by extension, his brother.</p>
<p id="Qrm8BC">“Then they said, well, maybe the transcription is not correct. But Lt. Col. Vindman and his twin brother, we had some people that were really amazing, but we did everything. I said, what was wrong with it? They said, ‘They didn’t add this word.’ I said, ‘Add it,” Trump said on Thursday, calling out an impeachment witness by name. </p>
<p id="zZKECt">(Trump also <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/2/6/21126544/trump-speech-today-transcript-impeachment">had plenty to say</a> about the Democrats who prosecuted the impeachment case against him.)</p>
<p id="jF1poe">And as the Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-lambastes-his-critics-as-he-considers-how-else-to-target-his-perceived-enemies-over-impeachment/2020/02/06/571003a0-4924-11ea-9475-535736e48788_story.html">reported</a>, Trump may not stop at Vindman and could oust other officials who testified against him. </p>
<p id="rYiZ21">The danger here, of course, is that officials will be even more fearful to speak out or testify against the president if he acts inappropriately again. </p>
<p id="StvdYL">And if the White House succeeds in uprooting officials it sees as disloyal to Trump, there will be even fewer checks on an emboldened president. </p>
https://www.vox.com/2020/2/7/21127988/vindman-impeachment-trump-white-houseJen Kirby2020-02-06T15:15:00-05:002020-02-06T15:15:00-05:00Threats, misogyny, hypocrisy — Trump’s post-impeachment speech had a little of everything
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<img alt="President Trump Delivers Statement On Senate Impeachment Trial’s Acquittal" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/5W4Q-VcNBvqE8jk64AfaGhaJGaQ=/0x0:4000x3000/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/66267024/1198921332.jpg.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Trump and Ivanka Trump embrace during the president’s speech on Wednesday. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>It’s near impossible to explain the speech Trump just delivered, but here’s our best attempt.</p> <p id="eECFU7">The post-impeachment <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/2/6/21126544/trump-speech-today-transcript-impeachment">victory lap speech President Donald Trump delivered on Thursday</a> from the White House has to be one of the most bonkers official events in presidential history.</p>
<p id="Flmiae">Speaking off the cuff, Trump began remarks by <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1225470358695878657">falsely claiming</a> that the investigations into him predated his presidency, called the Russia investigation “<a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1225471751607459840">bullshit</a>,” and <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1225473278950682632">mocked a Purple Heart recipient</a> who testified during the impeachment trial. He also complained Hillary Clinton was never prosecuted and referred to former leaders of the FBI as “scum.”</p>
<p id="NITGu6">That’s just a sampling of some of the topics Trump touched on during the more than hour-long speech he delivered the day after the Senate voted to acquit him on two articles of impeachment for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.</p>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Trump laments that Hillary Clinton wasn't prosecuted and calls the former leaders of the FBI "scum" <a href="https://t.co/hittsDWoJD">pic.twitter.com/hittsDWoJD</a></p>— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1225485150143877121?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 6, 2020</a>
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<p id="csUzu5">Trump talked about the impeachment process — enshrined in the Constitution — as a tool Democrats used “to try to overthrow the government” and expressed no remorse about his actions that prompted Democrats to begin impeachment proceedings in the first place. </p>
<p id="DXHM9c">“I call it a perfect call, because it was,” he <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1225477285664477186">said</a> of his attempts to strong-arm the Ukrainian government to do political favors for him.</p>
<p id="jzO2MH">Perhaps most significantly, the fact that the president feels emboldened to deliver such a speech is a bad omen for those hoping that this year’s campaign will be less of a mess than 2016 was.</p>
<h3 id="5MFuXQ">Trump’s comments about women were cringeworthy</h3>
<p id="8BGCFM">Trump heaped scorn on Democrats who played leading roles in the impeachment saga, including impeachment manager Adam Schiff (“a vicious, horrible person”), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (“<a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1225476251961483267">I doubt she prays at all</a>”), and former FBI Director James Comey (“that sleazebag”).</p>
<p id="zcrqQH">And even though he was speaking to a room full of Republicans, Trump also repeatedly bashed Mitt Romney, the only Republican in the Senate to vote for his removal from office, describing him as “a guy that can’t stand the fact that he ran one of the worst campaigns in the history of the presidency.”</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Without saying his name, Trump criticizes Mitt Romney for "using religion as a crutch" and describes him as "a failed presidential candidate." <a href="https://t.co/SiUkjFXQov">pic.twitter.com/SiUkjFXQov</a></p>— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1225475362131521537?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 6, 2020</a>
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<p id="l8Z5pM">On the flip side of the coin, Trump singled out dozens of Republicans for praise. But his comments about a number of the women he mentioned objectified them.</p>
<p id="tLxhfT">“I like the name ‘Lesko.’ I liked it. That’s how I picked it. I liked the name. I saw that face, I saw that everything,” Trump <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1225479803047903233">said</a> of Arizona Rep. Debbie Lesko.</p>
<p id="HhDHTr">He made similar remarks about New York Rep. Elise Stefanik. </p>
<p id="6lSeOA">“I thought, ‘she looks good, she looks like good talent,’ but I didn’t realize that when she opens that mouth, she was killing them.”</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Trump on <a href="https://twitter.com/EliseStefanik?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@EliseStefanik</a>: "I thought, 'she looks good, she looks like good talent,' but I didn't realize that when she opens that mouth, she was killing them." <a href="https://t.co/KWxkqi3kGM">pic.twitter.com/KWxkqi3kGM</a></p>— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1225482767267434496?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 6, 2020</a>
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<p id="ZKGKki">Trump also went on a bizarre, tongue-in-cheek rant about how most wives don’t love their husbands and wouldn’t be especially bothered if they were in the hospital — contrasting that state of affairs with the wife of Rep. Steve Scalise, noting she was despondent after her husband was shot during a congressional baseball practice in 2017.</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Trump jokes that most wives wouldn't care if their husbands were shot, but Steve Scalise's wife clearly did <a href="https://t.co/pYCSKR9SVl">pic.twitter.com/pYCSKR9SVl</a></p>— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1225481621039656963?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 6, 2020</a>
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<p id="r5C9xT">But it wasn’t only Republican women whom Trump talked about in this way. He also made a crude reference to former FBI agent Lisa Page’s appearance.</p>
<p id="3vddt5">“He’s probably trying to impress her, for obvious reasons,” Trump said, alluding to the text messages former FBI agent Peter Strzok and Page exchanged that are still at the center of <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/8/8/20797421/andrew-mccabe-peter-strzok-lawsuits-trump-barr">conspiracy theories Trump has pushed about purported FBI bias</a>. </p>
<div id="9ocsCL">
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">"He's probably trying to impress her, for obvious reasons" -- Trump makes a crude reference to Lisa Page's looks <a href="https://t.co/i6iFo3YGj7">pic.twitter.com/i6iFo3YGj7</a></p>— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1225483890149724161?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 6, 2020</a>
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<p id="h7sTXx">(Trump also offered some strange praise for Rep. Jim Jordan, <a href="https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1225478684125122572">saying</a> he’s “obviously very proud of his body” and talking specifically about his ears.)</p>
<p id="JqX9PE">Trump wrapped things up by apologizing to his family — not for anything he did, but for having to endure the impeachment process at all. </p>
<p id="VzdtuK">“I want to apologize to my family for having them have to go through a phony, rotted deal by some very evil and sick people,” he said. “And Ivanka is here, and my sons, and my whole family. And that includes Barron.”</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">TRUMP: "I want to apologize to my family for having them have to go through a phony, rotted deal by some very evil and sick people. And Ivanka is here, and my sons, and my whole family. And that includes Barron." <a href="https://t.co/IfjR5RhBSc">pic.twitter.com/IfjR5RhBSc</a></p>— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1225486404270120960?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 6, 2020</a>
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<p id="v4CpnZ">Trump’s unapologetic attitude about everything was also apparent in an aside he made during his speech about the <em>Access Hollywood</em> tape in which he can be heard bragging about sexually assaulting women. He characterized the day the tape was published by the Washington Post in October 2016 as “<a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1225480416502714369">my worst day</a>” — not because of what he said, but because it jeopardized his chances of being elected the next month.</p>
<h3 id="CVYTXd">Trump seems intent on exacting revenge</h3>
<p id="KUdiyj">One of the two articles of impeachment that Trump was acquitted on was abuse of power. But his White House speech indicated he has little remorse.</p>
<p id="5Yy7Lq">“If this happened to President Obama, a lot of people would’ve been in jail for a long time already,” he <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1225470897336786945">said</a>. </p>
<p id="yW8111">Trump pushed unfounded conspiracy theories about Joe Biden’s alleged corrupt dealings in Ukraine, and — in an especially shameless moment — held his own family up as paragons of virtue when it comes to corruption.</p>
<div id="fJ6R5O">
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Trump gets a gold medal in the Shamelessness Olympics for claiming that Ivanka Trump is a shining example of how not to be corrupt <a href="https://t.co/XNY9bjm077">pic.twitter.com/XNY9bjm077</a></p>— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1225477016327196681?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 6, 2020</a>
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<p id="Z30WlR">At the end, Trump suggested that former law enforcement and intelligence community officials and Democrats who have tried to hold him accountable may be in for some rough days.</p>
<p id="SBmUKN">“Let’s see what happens. It’s in the hands of some very talented people,” he said, alluding to Attorney General William Barr and Republican senators who have <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/02/06/republican-senators-request-hunter-biden-travel-documents-for-probe/">already indicated they plan to investigate the Bidens</a>. “These are the crookedest, most dishonest, dirtiest people I’ve ever seen.”</p>
<div id="ABvotT">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">TRUMP: "They were going to try to overthrow the govt of the US, a duly-elected POTUS. And if I didn't fire Comey we would never have found this stuff out. B/c when I fired that sleazebag, all held broke out...let's see what happens. It's in the hands of some very talented people" <a href="https://t.co/AkkE9YB5B7">pic.twitter.com/AkkE9YB5B7</a></p>— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1225484528992563200?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 6, 2020</a>
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<p id="U8p8rN">So if anyone was holding out hope that going through the impeachment process and receiving a bipartisan vote for his removal from office would chasten Trump, his victory lap speech should resolve any doubt: It did not. In fact, the opposite appears to be the case.</p>
<p id="JhMGuH">Not only is Trump still Trump, but those who look back fondly on the days when presidents felt constrained by the rule of law can’t help but wonder how bad things will get.</p>
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="iWa1Qb">
<p id="iZ6vsh"><em>The news moves fast. To stay updated, follow </em><a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar"><em><strong>Aaron Rupar</strong></em></a><em> on Twitter, and read more of </em><a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics"><em><strong>Vox’s policy and politics coverage</strong></em></a><em>.</em></p>
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https://www.vox.com/2020/2/6/21126669/trump-white-house-impeachment-speechAaron Rupar2020-02-06T14:07:38-05:002020-02-06T14:07:38-05:00With impeachment, America’s epistemic crisis has arrived
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<img alt="IMPEACHMENT HEARING TRUMP REPUBLICAN DEMOCRAT" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/4kvksYGkGWWzDhfOCfRiSklH78Y=/631x0:4272x2731/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/65713873/1182237317.jpg.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>The ultimate spin-machine challenge. | Photo by Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post via Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>Can the right-wing machine hold the base in an alternate reality long enough to get through the next election?</p> <p id="B30AuW"><em>This piece was originally published in November 2019. Since then, the Democratic House </em><a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/12/18/21026026/impeachment-vote-schedule-what-time-what-to-expect"><em>impeached</em></a><em> the president and the Republican Senate </em><a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/2/6/21125403/senate-trump-acquitted-not-democratic-18-million-53-percent-malapportionment"><em>voted to acquit him</em></a><em>, in a “trial” with no witnesses or new evidence. </em><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/nbc-wsj-poll-country-remains-divided-over-trump-s-impeachment-n1128326"><em>Public opinion remains divided</em></a><em> along the exact same lines it was divided before the whole thing started.</em></p>
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="3tfhYD">
<p id="oHp8mt">Back in 2017, I wrote a piece speculating that the <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/7/24/20708718/robert-mueller-testimony-house-judiciary-committee-nadler">Mueller hearings</a> might bring <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/2/16588964/america-epistemic-crisis">America’s epistemic crisis</a> to a head. That crisis involves Americans’ growing inability, not just to cooperate, but even to learn and know the same things, to have a shared understanding of reality. We have <a href="https://www.niskanencenter.org/the-density-divide-urbanization-polarization-and-populist-backlash/">sorted ourselves</a> into polarized factions living in different worlds, not just of values, but of facts. Communication between them is increasingly difficult.</p>
<p id="7zjTqb">I wondered what might happen if Mueller offered clear, incontrovertible evidence of Trump’s guilt. Would Republicans be able to prevent supporters from ever finding out? What if the truth was revealed but it had no power, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/10/7/20898619/trump-impeachment-scenarios-pence-pelosi">no effect at all</a>, because half the country had been walled off from it? What if there is no longer any evidentiary standard that can overcome our polarization?</p>
<p id="cBkO67">As it happened, the hearings didn’t play out that way. Mueller’s report and testimony were oddly oblique and muted, with notable <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-is-mueller-hiding-who-ultimately-directed-roger-stone-to-contact-wikileaks">omissions</a>. It proved relatively easy for the president and his supplicant media to dismiss the whole thing as a dud. </p>
<p id="VZDHY1">Now we may experience the stress test that Mueller never produced: whether the right can shield itself from plain facts in plain sight. </p>
<aside id="njAyZ1"><div data-anthem-component="readmore" data-anthem-component-data='{"stories":[{"title":"Impeachment, explained","url":"https://www.vox.com/2019/11/5/20914280/impeachment-trump-explained"}]}'></div></aside><p id="7sK59T">Unlike Mueller’s report, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/11/5/20914280/impeachment-trump-explained">the story behind the impeachment case</a> is relatively simple: <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/18/20905686/resistance-protest-impeachment-rallies-trump">Congress</a> approved military aid for Ukraine, but Trump withheld it as part of a sustained campaign to pressure Ukraine into launching an investigation of his political rival Joe Biden’s family. There’s a <a href="https://www.vox.com/videos/2019/10/7/20901251/trump-ukraine-impeachment-phone-call-video">record of him doing it</a>. There are multiple credible witnesses to the phone call and larger campaign. Several Trump allies and administration officials have <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/10/21/20924687/mick-mulvaney-fox-news-sunday-ukraine-quid-pro-quo-mike-pompeo-this-week">admitted to it on camera</a>. Trump himself admitted to it on the White House lawn.</p>
<div id="FGTGBN">
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">REPORTER: What exactly did you hope the Ukrainian president would do about the Bidens?<br><br>TRUMP: "I would think that if they were honest about it, they'd start a major investigation" <a href="https://t.co/oMb1cjsx4T">https://t.co/oMb1cjsx4T</a></p>— Jonathan Chait (@jonathanchait) <a href="https://twitter.com/jonathanchait/status/1194686527219142657?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 13, 2019</a>
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<p id="qLbIuM">It’s just very, very obvious that he did it. It’s very obvious he and his associates <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/why-republicans-cant-settle-impeachment-message/601771/">don’t think there’s anything wrong with it</a>. And it’s very obvious there <em>is</em> something wrong with it. Holding US foreign policy hostage to personal political favors is straightforward <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/24/20926891/high-crimes-and-misdemeanors-trump-impeachment-whitaker">abuse of power</a>, precisely <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/sean-wilentz-why-we-must-impeach-donald-trump-897246/">the sort of thing the Founders had in mind</a> when they wrote impeachment into the Constitution.</p>
<p id="OAuCns">It’s a clearly impeachable pattern of action, documented and attested to by multiple witnesses, confessed to multiple times, in violation of longstanding political precedent and a moral consensus that was, until 2016, universal. Compared to Mueller, that is a <em>much</em> more difficult test of the right’s ability to obscure, distract, and polarize. </p>
<p id="GrsVwb">Right now, the right’s messaging machine is <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2019/11/13/republicans-scramble-for-message-public-impeachment-hearings-kick-off/P9tt35KidRV9EvbSOS9UcP/story.html">sputtering</a> a bit, cycling through <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/why-republicans-cant-settle-impeachment-message/601771/">defenses</a> — it didn’t happen, Trump’s not competent enough to do it, it was a failed quid pro quo so it doesn’t count, he did it but it’s not impeachable — that contradict one another from day to day. </p>
<p id="19x3Pc">Can the machine successfully hold the right-wing base in an alternate reality and throw up enough fog to keep the general public at bay for long enough to get through the next election? It seems challenging, given the facts on record, but this is just the sort of challenge the machine was built for. </p>
<p id="0i6Lox">Let’s quickly review how we got here.</p>
<h3 id="yGeur4">The rise of tribal epistemology</h3>
<p id="kNwFuK">Earlier in 2017, I told the story of <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/3/22/14762030/donald-trump-tribal-epistemology">Donald Trump and the rise of tribal epistemology</a>. Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that has to do with knowing and coming to know things — what counts as true, what counts as evidence, how we accumulate knowledge, and the like. It’s where you find schools of thought like skepticism (we can’t truly know anything) and realism (the universe contains observer-independent facts we can come to know). </p>
<p id="KpDaB2">Tribal epistemology, as I see it, is when tribalism comes to systematically subordinate epistemological principles.</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="tribal epistemology" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/71GgNXP53hfCJF1_JuEOioes4S0=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/8202055/trump_unbalance.jpg">
<cite>Javier Zarracina for Vox</cite>
<figcaption>Tribal epistemology, basically.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p id="0Bt4Dj">Perhaps the easiest way to explain is by way of analogy with tribal morality, which people are more familiar with. Tribal morality is what happens when tribal interests come to subordinate <em>moral</em> principles. </p>
<p id="pufROJ">Moral principles are generally, by their nature, cosmopolitan. They are meant to apply across tribal lines, to be “transpartisan.” Take, for instance, the principle “it is wrong to torture.” Interpreted as a principle, it is meant to apply to everyone. Anyone, from any group or nation, who tortures anyone else, from any group or nation, is doing something wrong. </p>
<p id="tQz2zj">But under tribal morality, principles are subsumed under tribal membership. It becomes, “it is wrong for them to torture us.” It is okay for us to torture them, because our tribe is Good and thus whatever actions we take to prosecute the interests of the tribe are Good. They, however, are Bad, so they are subject to the rules. (Readers of a certain age may recall the US having just this debate in the mid-2000s.)</p>
<p id="cchpPE">Tribal epistemology happens when tribal interests subsume transpartisan epistemological principles, like standards of evidence, internal coherence, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defeasibility">defeasibility</a>. “Good for our tribe” becomes the primary determinant of what is true; “part of our tribe” becomes the primary determinant of who to trust. </p>
<p id="O6my2I">A circular logic, which has become quite familiar in the impeachment affair, emerges: Anyone who says anything contrary to the tribe <a href="https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/impeachment-inquiry-10-25-2019/h_002869843a1f00d94284723f86dda7c8">marks themselves as an enemy of the tribe</a> (cough *deep state* cough); enemies of the tribe cannot be trusted, so their testimony or evidence can be ignored. Thus, by definition, nothing that questions the tribal narrative can be trusted. </p>
<p id="kvLnGz">A <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/3/22/14762030/donald-trump-tribal-epistemology">decades-long effort</a> on the right has resulted in a parallel set of institutions meant to encourage tribal epistemology. They mimic the form of mainstream media, think tanks, and the academy, but without the restraint of transpartisan principles. They are designed to advance the interests of the right, to tell stories and produce facts that support the tribe. That is the ultimate goal; the rhetoric and formalisms of critical thinking are retrofit around it.</p>
<aside id="OMbR1W"><div data-anthem-component="readmore" data-anthem-component-data="{"stories":[{"title":"David Roberts explains how America's information crisis has impacted conservatism","url":"https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/assessing-america-s-information-crisis-david-roberts-podcast-transcript-ncna943701"}]}"></div></aside><p id="gLkkEH">Talk radio and the birth of Fox News in the 1990s were turning points. They eventually expanded to create an entire, complete-unto-itself conservative information universe. It was capable of cranking out stories and facts (or “facts”) in support of the conservative cause 24 hours a day, steadily shaping the worldview of their white suburban audience around a forever war with The Libs, who are always just on the verge of destroying America. </p>
<p id="lvkctb">As I covered in more detail in <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/2/16588964/america-epistemic-crisis">this post</a> (and <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/11/1/18041710/migrant-caravan-america-trump-epistemic-crisis-democracy">this one</a>), over time this led to a steady deterioration in fealty to norms, epistemological and otherwise, to the point that something like 30 percent of the country is now awash in a fantasia of conspiracy theories and just-so stories. </p>
<p id="RoX5xE">As journalist Alex Pareene wrote in a <a href="https://splinternews.com/the-long-lucrative-right-wing-grift-is-blowing-up-in-t-1793944216">scathing 2017 piece</a>, the propaganda machine that the right built to keep its base outraged grew out of control and swallowed the GOP. “They’re screwed,” Pareene wrote of conservatives, “because they and their predecessors engineered a perpetual misinformation machine, and then a bunch of people addicted to their product took over the government.”</p>
<div id="x4VFTp">
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Sen. John Kennedy is speaking. He says he is a "proud deplorable" and unlike the "cultured, cosmopolitan, goat's milk latte-drinkin', avocado toast-eating, insiders elite."</p>— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) <a href="https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1195164308709265409?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 15, 2019</a>
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<p id="9KqAgS">Now everyone with any power on the right is deep in the bubble, right up to the president himself, who spends a considerable portion of his time watching and tweeting about Fox News. There are no more moderates or responsible Republicans behind the curtain, keeping an eye on the difference between tribal tall tales and reality. Fox natives are running the show, including the federal government. </p>
<p id="10BrtZ">And Trump, the ultimate tribalist, has made it clear that he doesn’t want to hear any of these half-ass stories about how he did something wrong but it’s not that bad. He demands ultimate loyalty, and to him loyalty means insisting that he did nothing wrong at all. </p>
<div id="JhtFkP">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">The call to the Ukrainian President was PERFECT. Read the Transcript! There was NOTHING said that was in any way wrong. Republicans, don’t be led into the fools trap of saying it was not perfect, but is not impeachable. No, it is much stronger than that. NOTHING WAS DONE WRONG!</p>— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1193615188311912449?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 10, 2019</a>
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<p id="wZlUaV">Following Trump down that path requires ignoring or wishing away mountains of evidence and decades of precedent, opting instead to believe him when <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-44959340/donald-trump-what-you-re-seeing-and-what-you-re-reading-is-not-what-s-happening">he says</a>, “What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.” This is tribal epistemology in its rawest form: It’s us or them, our story or theirs. If you are one of us, you believe our story.</p>
<h3 id="bWO4Io">Republicans need to maintain doubt and prevent consensus</h3>
<p id="eZOpCH">As a recent <a href="https://crooked.com/articles/november-impeachment-poll/">Crooked Media/Change Research poll</a> showed, voter opinions on impeachment are as inflamed and polarized as they are on everything else. Some 91 percent of those polled have strong feelings on impeachment: 94 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents oppose it; 94 percent of Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents support it. Meanwhile, “50% of independents and 57% of swing voters support removing Trump from office.”</p>
<p id="EhW2jR">This is the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/8/27/9214015/tech-nerds-politics">story of American politics</a>: a narrowly divided nation, with raw numbers on the side of the rising demographics in the left coalition but intensity and outsized political power on the side of the right coalition. Put in more practical terms, the right still has the votes and the cohesion to prevent a Senate impeachment conviction.</p>
<p id="pSt8EJ">On the downslope of a fading, unpopular coalition is not a great place for Republicans to be. It <a href="https://crooked.com/articles/pollercoaster-fox-impeachment/">doesn’t augur well</a> for their post-2020 health as a party. But it is enough to get them through the next election, which is about as far ahead as they look these days. </p>
<p id="jRra1K">All they need to do is to keep that close partisan split frozen in place. Above all, they need to ensure that nothing breaks through to the masses in the mushy middle, who are mostly disengaged from politics. They need to make sure no clear consensus forms, nothing that might find its way into pop culture, the way the entire nation eventually focused its attention on Nixon’s impeachment. </p>
<p id="O6o3Ht">It’s a kind of magic trick they’re going to try to pull off in full view.</p>
<div id="kSFYQK">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Lindsey Graham, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, says he won't read any of the transcripts, and dismissed Sondland's reversal. <br><br>"I've written the whole process off ... I think this is a bunch of B.S." <br><br>Per <a href="https://twitter.com/alanhe?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@alanhe</a></p>— Kathryn Watson (@kathrynw5) <a href="https://twitter.com/kathrynw5/status/1191824848978358274?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 5, 2019</a>
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<h3 id="RO2Bu7">The right has hacked the cognitive biases of voters and reporters</h3>
<p id="KsD7Np">They are working with a few key tools and advantages. The first is a strong tendency, especially among low-information, relatively disengaged voters (and political reporters), to view consensus as a signal of legitimacy. It’s an easy and appealing heuristic: If something is a good idea, it would have at least a few people from both sides supporting it. That’s why “bipartisan” has been such a magic word in US politics this century, even as the reality of bipartisanship has faded. </p>
<p id="ZjO9hi">Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell has been very canny in recognizing this tendency and <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2010/10/the-gops-no-compromise-pledge-044311">working it ruthlessly to his advantage</a>. He realized before Obama ever set foot in office that if he could keep Republicans unified in opposition, refusing any cooperation on anything, he could make Obama appear “polarizing.” His great insight, as ruthlessly effective as it was morally bankrupt, was that he could unilaterally deny Obama the ability to be a uniter, a leader, or a deal maker. Through nothing but sheer obstinance, he could make politics into an endless, frustrating, fruitless shitshow, diminishing both parties in voters’ eyes.</p>
<p id="YUsvFH">This is what Republicans need more than anything on impeachment: for the general public to see it as just another round of partisan squabbling, another illustration of how “Washington” is broken. They need to prevent any hint of bipartisan consensus from emerging.</p>
<div id="MgwBgB">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Fox guest says George Soros controls the State Department, FBI agents, and wants to control Ukraine using the US government <a href="https://t.co/U5vTX3db6M">pic.twitter.com/U5vTX3db6M</a></p>— Jason Campbell (@JasonSCampbell) <a href="https://twitter.com/JasonSCampbell/status/1194774142790381573?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 14, 2019</a>
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<p id="hL46sm">Tribal epistemology is key to this. Republicans must render partisan not only judgments of right and wrong but judgments of what is and isn’t true or real. They must render facts themselves a matter of controversy that the media reports as a food fight and the public tunes out.</p>
<p id="TvmCju">That’s the main reason they are <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/10/republicans-process-questions-trump-impeachment/600646/">focusing their attacks so intently on process complaints</a>. The investigation itself, the hearings, the whole process must come to be seen as partisan, which will serve as permission for the engaged on the right to attack it, the engaged on the left to embrace it, and the broader public to dismiss it.</p>
<p id="KIljr7">Aiding in the effort is the propaganda machine. One of the more notable findings from the aforementioned poll: “89% of Republicans who get most of their impeachment news from Fox oppose the inquiry because they think the allegations aren’t true; 59% of other Republicans say the same.” As I have <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/4/22/18510518/green-new-deal-fox-news-poll">written before</a> about AOC and the Green New Deal, the right has an ability to convey a partisan message to its base that the left utterly lacks. </p>
<p id="d1Gm4b">As a <a href="https://cyber.harvard.edu/publications/2017/08/mediacloud">massive post-election study of online media</a> from Harvard showed, media is not symmetrical any more than broader polarization is. “Prominent media on the left are well distributed across the center, center-left, and left,” the researchers found. “On the right, prominent media are highly partisan.”</p>
<p id="6QJE2D">Democrats are still dependent on the mainstream press to convey their messages to the broad public. Many of their consultants and press officers still view their role as managing relationships with mainstream reporters. But the mainstream media, catering to low-information voters and reinforcing their worst prejudices in the process, persists in covering politics precisely through the most cynical lens, as a team sport, competing performances to be narrated like an announcer calling a game.</p>
<div id="WwlwvB">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Analysis: The first two witnesses called Wednesday testified to President Trump's scheme, but lacked the pizzazz necessary to capture public attention. <a href="https://t.co/1UfkaeZ3I4">https://t.co/1UfkaeZ3I4</a></p>— NBC News (@NBCNews) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1194830580896145408?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 14, 2019</a>
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<p id="KhusSb">Meanwhile, the right not only commands the highest rated cable news network and an army of supportive online media outlets, it is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/20/us/elections/trump-campaign-ads-democrats.html">spending millions on Facebook</a>, Tik-Tok, 4chan, 8chan, and God knows what other online swamps, targeting messages where their audiences are rather than futilely attempting to reach them through the <em>Washington Post</em>. </p>
<h3 id="mP7Pwb">Impeachment is make or break time for America’s epistemic health</h3>
<p id="CNgLfx">As Putin and other modern autocrats have <a href="https://jods.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/0y02faqe">realized</a>, in the modern media environment — a chaotic Wild West where traditional gatekeepers are in decline — it is not necessary for a repressive regime to construct its own coherent account of events. There are no broadly respected, nonpartisan referees left to hold it to account for consistency or accuracy. All it needs, to get away with whatever it wants, is for the information environment to be so polluted that no one can figure out what’s true and what isn’t, or what’s really going on. </p>
<p id="G0Coib">The recipe is always the same: attack independent media outlets as partisan enemies of the regime and, by proxy, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/07/donald-trump-war-on-the-media-oppo-research">enemies of the people</a>. At the same time, use the media under state control, along with an army of bots, trolls, and shitposters, to inject accusations, lies, and conspiracy theories into the public dialogue.</p>
<p id="xl7xGz">In an information fog filled with vexed uncertainty, people will either tune out, revert to their tribal affiliations, or both. They will seek a strong leader who offers simple certainties and a clear account of who is to blame for the chaos. Confusion and fear, not deception, are the ultimate goal.</p>
<p id="6QutYC">That is precisely the kind of machine the US conservative movement has built: one designed to produce confusion and fear. Trump is its natural leader, the first Republican president to reflect the party’s contemporary core and character, and his impeachment is its ultimate test. </p>
<p id="Xl3pCY">Meanwhile, Democrats are attempting to do something that arguably nothing since the 9/11 attacks has done: unite Americans in a clear understanding of a threat and a clear will to action, in a way that reaches across conventional partisan lines, at least to some extent.</p>
<p id="Eut6kh">On their side, they have the products of America’s tattered remaining institutional processes and norms: clear evidence, painstakingly laid out in a Constitutionally prescribed process, communicated through mainstream news outlets. The facts are clearer than ever, but those institutions are weaker and social trust, which the right has been concertedly attacking for decades, is at a <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/01/trust-trump-america-world/550964/">low ebb</a>. </p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Protesters call for the impeachment of President Trump during a demonstration. One holds a sign that reads, “Save democracy. Impeach 45.” Another reads, “Nobody is above the law.”" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/vPUyHZUzcksblvLitmt1Df70bCE=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/19231890/GettyImages_1150166530.jpg">
<cite>David Dee Delgado/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>Protesters call for the impeachment of President Trump during a demonstration in June in New York City.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p id="c20Y8Q">In opposition is a large but stable minority united by unquestioned loyalty to a tribal leader, dedicated to guerrilla information warfare unconstrained by conventional norms of accuracy or consistency, and motivated by an almost eschatological will to power. </p>
<p id="mZEber">If the latter triumphs, if it is able to muddy and distract enough to make impeachment just another Mueller, just more partisan white noise, we will cross a kind of <a href="https://crooked.com/podcast-series/rubicon/">rubicon</a>. It will demonstrate that, to a first approximation, <a href="http://www.newcriticals.com/_img/_article-uploads/apocalyptic_gif_lol_nothing_matters_test_file.gif">lol nothing matters</a>. </p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="lol nothing matters" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/FL172mDpGAHbwsALL6BbQIM2Kn4=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/19381842/lol_nothing_matters.gif">
<cite>Giphy</cite>
</figure>
<p id="LbOCgB">Moral consensus will have become impossible. Epistemological consensus will have become impossible. It will show that no amount of evidence is capable of bridging the partisan gap. The epistemic crisis, and its attendant political crisis, will be fully upon us. </p>
<p id="qj9KJK">Ultimately, communication, and with it survival as a polity, depends on a shared body of facts and assumptions about the world. For decades, the right has been sawing away at the threads that still connect it to mainstream institutions, procedures, and norms of conduct, to the point that it has created a hermetically sealed and impenetrable world of its own. </p>
<p id="5HAKsx">As congressional scholars <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/lets-just-say-it-the-republicans-are-the-problem/2012/04/27/gIQAxCVUlT_story.html">Thomas Mann and Norm Ornstein</a> warned in 2012, the GOP as become “an insurgent outlier: ideologically extreme; contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime; scornful of compromise; un-persuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence, and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.”</p>
<p id="8ky2qo">The machine was primed and waiting for someone like Trump. Now, with his erratic and indefensible conduct, he is accelerating the breach, pushing the right into ever-more cult-like behavior, principles laid aside one after another in service of power. </p>
<p id="kSPpnF">That is what a tribalist like Trump wants: for communication and compromise across tribal lines to become impossible, so that loyalty becomes the only measure and everything is reduced to pure struggle for dominance. If he makes it through impeachment unscathed, he and the right will have learned once and for all that facts and evidence have no hold on them. Both “sides” have free rein to choose the facts and evidence that suit them. Only power matters.</p>
<p id="rLhedi">If the right’s epistemic break becomes final and irreparable, as impeachment threatens, then no matter what happens in the next election, American democracy is in for a long spell of trouble. </p>
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/11/16/20964281/impeachment-hearings-trump-america-epistemic-crisisDavid Roberts2020-02-06T13:40:00-05:002020-02-06T13:40:00-05:00Read Trump’s bananas, post-impeachment victory lap speech
<figure>
<img alt="President Trump Delivers Statement On Senate Impeachment Trial’s Acquittal" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Yw5dZJrRLBDVUbgWNjrKeKRROi4=/81x0:2382x1726/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/66265216/1198919974.jpg.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>President Donald Trump holds up a newspaper at the White House on February 6, 2020, one day after the Senate acquitted him on two articles of impeachment. | Mark Wilson/Getty Images</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What was that?</p> <p id="gcl0od">President Donald Trump was always going to take a victory lap following his triumphant <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/2/4/21123394/state-of-the-union-full-transcript-trump">State of the Union</a> and his <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/2/5/21124038/senate-acquits-trump-impeachment-articles">acquittal in the Senate</a>.</p>
<p id="lxoHCQ">But his White House speech on Thursday — <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1225179058000089090?s=20">billed</a> as a public statement to “discuss our Country’s VICTORY on the Impeachment Hoax!” — was, well, who even knows. </p>
<p id="fEbasX">The rambling, stream-of-consciousness, more-than-hourlong “speech” touched on the usual grievances: Russia, Mueller, witch hunts, impeachment. “It was all bullshit,” the president said in the East Room of the White House.</p>
<p id="4pImwA">But if that were the end of it, that would have been, well, kind of normal.</p>
<p id="yIZjbB">Instead, Trump leapt from topic to topic, calling out random members of the Senate, House, and Cabinet with weird biographical details, including a Chuck Grassley impression.</p>
<p id="taEXZf">At one point, he referenced the NCAA and Rep. Jim Jordan’s lack of a sport jacket. At another, he talked about Rep. Devin Nunes going into dungeons to get documents. The transcript is below, if you want to even attempt to make sense of this.</p>
<p id="1Ds1qk">This is the State of the Union that Trump probably wanted to give — a slam-poetry session of weeks’ worth of frustration and complaints. “But now we have that gorgeous word,” Trump said. “I never thought that word would ever sound so good. It’s called total acquittal.”</p>
<p id="280PVT">“Total acquittal” is two words, of course, which might give you a sense of how this thing went. The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman <a href="https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/1225473241407541248">reported</a> that the president had a draft of his remarks, but it was quite clear from the moment he began talking that he wasn’t going to stick to any script.</p>
<p id="wDH0uZ"><strong>Below is a rush transcript of Trump’s post-impeachment speech:</strong></p>
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="D43TXi">
<p id="cCuDSE">Thank you very much, everybody. We’ve all been through a lot together, and we probably deserve that hand for all of us because it’s been a very unfair situation. I invited some of our very good friends, and we have limited room, but everybody wanted to come. We kept it down to a minimum, and believe it or not, this is a minimum. </p>
<p id="WpWfFu">But a tremendous thing was done over the last number of months, but really, if you go back to it, over the last number of years. We had the witch hunt. It started from the day we came down the elevator, myself and our future first lady, who is with us right now. Thank you, Melania. [Cheers and applause] </p>
<p id="V4u2wl">And it never really stopped. We’ve been going through this now for over three years. It was evil, it was corrupt, it was dirty cops, it was leakers and liars, and this should never, ever happen to another president, ever. I don’t know that other presidents would have been able to take it. Some people said, no, they wouldn’t have. </p>
<p id="xYwWFF">But I can tell you, at a minimum, you have to focus on this because it can get away very quickly no matter who you have with you. It can get away very quickly. It was a disgrace. Had I not fired James Comey, who was a disaster, by the way, it’s possible I wouldn’t even be standing here right now. We caught him in the act. Dirty cops. Bad people. If this happened to President Obama, a lot of people would have been in jail for a long time already. Many, many years. </p>
<p id="PdPtHm">I want to start by thanking — I call them friends because, you know, you develop friendships and relationships when you’re in battle and war much more so than in a normal situation. </p>
<p id="HX0TNO">We’ve gone through more than any president or administration, and really, I say for the most part, Republican congressmen, congresswomen and Republican senators, we’ve done more than any administration in the first few years. You look at all of the things we’ve done. I watched this morning as they tried to take credit for the stock market from — let me tell you, if we didn’t win, the stock market would have crashed. </p>
<p id="2J1DmG">The market was going up a lot before the election because it looked like we had a good chance to win. Then it went up tremendously from the time we won the election to the time we took office, which was November 8 to January 20, and that’s all our credit. And leading up to that point was our credit because there was hope, and one of the reasons the stock market has gone up so much in the last few days is people think we’re doing so well, they liked the State of the Union speech. </p>
<p id="ehjxeZ">It really is, it’s a true honor given, and making the State of the Union speech, I was with some people that have been around, they’ve been all over the world. A highly sophisticated person said, you know, no matter where you go in the world, it doesn’t make any difference. There was nothing like what I witnessed tonight, the beauty, the majesty of the chamber, the power of the United States, the power of the people in this room. </p>
<p id="pdIsSc">Really an amazing evening. I don’t think there was anything like that anywhere in the world. You can go to any other country, any other location, any other place. It’s the beauty of everything. It’s what it represents and how it represents our country. I want to start by introducing some of the people that are here. I know some are going to be left out, but they worked so hard. </p>
<p id="1CArRX">And this is really not a news conference, it’s not a speech, it’s not anything, it’s just we’re sort of — it’s a celebration because we have something that just worked out. It worked out. We went through hell unfairly. Did nothing wrong. Did nothing wrong. I’ve done things wrong in my life, I will admit. Not purposely, but I’ve done things wrong. But this is what the end result is. [Cheers and applause] </p>
<p id="inuMKJ">We can take that home, honey, maybe we’ll frame it. It’s the only good headline I’ve had in the Washington Post. Every paper is the same, does anybody have them, because they’re all like that and I appreciate that. Some of the people here have been incredible warriors, they’re warriors. And there’s nothing from a legal standpoint. This is a political thing, and every time I say this is unfair, let’s go to court, they say, sir, you can’t go to court, this is politics. And we were treated unbelievably unfairly, and you have to understand we first went through Russia, Russia, Russia. It was all bullshit. </p>
<p id="K4GUzB">We then went through the Mueller report, and they should have come back one day later. They didn’t, they came back two years later after lives were ruined, after people went bankrupt, after people lost all their money. People came to Washington to help other people. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I’d say. They came, one or two or three people in particular, but many people. </p>
<p id="EFDCKd">We had a rough campaign. It was nasty. It was one of the nastiest, they say. Andrew Jackson was the nastiest campaign but we topped it. It was nasty in both the primaries and the election. We thought after the election, it would stop, but it didn’t stop. It just started. Tremendous corruption. Tremendous corruption. So we had a campaign. Little did we know we were running against some very, very bad and evil people with fake dossiers, with all of these horrible, dirty cops that took these dossiers and did bad things. They knew all about it. The FISA courts should be ashamed of themselves. It’s a very tough thing. </p>
<p id="CHARG9">And then we ended up winning on Russia, Russia, Russia. It should have taken the one day, as they said, and it took years. Bob Mueller testified. That didn’t work out so well for the other side. But they should have said that first week, because it came out — is that right, Jim Jordan? They knew in the first two days, actually — Devin [Nunes], is that right? Two days they knew we were totally innocent. But they kept it going. Mark [Meadows]? They kept it going forever because they wanted to inflict political pain on somebody that had just won an election that, to a lot of people, was a surprise. </p>
<p id="CxhTkA">We had polls that said we were going to win, we had the Los Angeles Times and a few papers, actually, said we were going to win, but it was going to be close. We did win. It was one of the greatest wins of all time, and they said, okay, he won. And, you know, I wrote this down because that was where a thing called the insurance policy to me. When I saw the insurance policy, and that was done long before the election, that was done when they thought that Hillary Clinton was going to win. </p>
<p id="2D1mf1">And by the way, Hillary Clinton and the DNC paid for millions of dollars for a fake dossier, and now Christopher Steele admits that it’s a fake because he got sued by rich people. I should have sued him, too, but when you’re president, people don’t like suing. I want to thank my legal team, by the way, not for that advice, but for other advice. [Cheers and applause] </p>
<p id="fnJX4V">Pat [Cipollone], Jay [Sekilow], Pat. You guys stand up. </p>
<p id="ZMOpKq">Great job. Right at the beginning, they said, sir, you have nothing to worry about. All of the facts are on your side. I said, you don’t understand. That doesn’t matter. That doesn’t matter. And that was really true. They made up facts. A corrupt politician named Adam Schiff made up my statement to the Ukrainian president. He brought it out of thin air. Just made it up. They say, he’s a screenwriter, a failed screenwriter. Unfortunately he went into politics after that. He said, don’t call me, I’ll call you. Fortunately for all of us here in our country, we had transcribers, professional transcribers. </p>
<p id="ekdKdi">Then they said, well, maybe the transcription is not correct. But Lieutenant Colonel [Alexander] Vindman and his twin brother, we had some people that were really amazing, but we did everything. I said, what was wrong with it? They said, they didn’t add this word. I said, add it. They’re probably wrong, but add it. So not everybody believes they’re completely accurate. When you read those transcripts, Tim Scott, I don’t know if Tim is here, but he was the first one to call me. He said, sir, I read the transcript. You did nothing wrong. </p>
<p id="U63NDx">And, Mitch, he stayed there right from the very beginning. He never changed. And Mitch McConnell, I want to tell you, you did a fantastic job. [Cheers and applause] </p>
<p id="FeeAqs">Somebody said, you know, Mitch is quiet. I said, he’s not quiet. He’s not quiet. He doesn’t want people to know him. And they said, is Mitch smart? I said, well, let’s put it this way. For many, many years, a lot of very smart, bad in many cases, sometimes good people have been trying to take his place, and to the best of my knowledge, I’ve never even heard the subject come up, because they’ve been wiped out so fast. This guy is great, and I appreciate it, Mitch. And he’s also given us 191 federal judges, two supreme court judges. We’re up to 191. Great guy. He’s a tough guy to read. I’m good at reading people. Tough guy to read. </p>
<p id="vaHsYn">I call ‘em. They said, how did you do with Mitch? I don’t know. That’s what makes him good, when you can read somebody. Fantastic job. And he understood right from the beginning this was crooked politics. This was crooked politics. How about all these people? They’re running for office, they’re saying the worst things about me, like eight senators on the Democrat side. </p>
<p id="XNIicQ">Most of them got wiped out. They got their 1 percent or less. Most of them got less. Decided to go home. Let’s go back to California. Let’s go back to wherever they came from. Let’s go back to New York. How about that one? Our New York senator, [Kirsten] Gillibrand. Then they take an oath that they will be fair on everything they sign. They’re not fair. But here’s the beauty. We have four left. They’re saying the most horrendous things. </p>
<p id="lKxFQY">It’s okay, it’s politics. Then they’re supposed to vote on me. They tried to replace me and then they’re supposed to be voting. So I think — I mean, I think it’s incredible. So, Mitch, I wanted to thank you very much. Incredible. You have some of your folks here and they’re incredible people. They’ve been there right from the beginning, and again, you’re out of session. I only told these folks let’s do this today. </p>
<p id="rfjPR3">We did a prayer breakfast this morning, and I thought that was really good. In fact, that was so good it might wipe this out. But by the time we finish this, we’ll wipe that one out, those statements. I had Nancy Pelosi sitting four seats away, and I’m saying things that a lot of people wouldn’t have said, but I meant every word, okay? But we have some of the folks that are going to be leaving right after this, and they work hard, and they did work hard. Bill Cassidy, senator. Stand up, Bill. What a guy. </p>
<p id="b1R5yD">Great man. When I need to know about health insurance and preexisting conditions and individual mandates, I call Bill or I call [John] Barrasso. Those two guys know more than anybody. A man who just became a senator — he’s a little bit like me. We have a couple of them. Very successful guy in business and he said, what the hell? I’ll run for the senate from Indiana. </p>
<p id="xcs2mx">And he ran, and I saw him on television destroying his opponent in a debate. I said, this guy could win, and I got behind him. Mark Braun, you have done some great job. Thank you very much. A man who got James Comey to choke, and he was just talking in his regular voice. He’s the roughest man — he’s actually an unbelievable — and I appreciate the letter you sent me today. I just got it. </p>
<p id="cRAoJu">But he’s got this voice that scares people. You know, people from Iowa can be very tough. We’re doing very well in Iowa, but I tell you, Chuck Grassley, he’s looking to tell me, now, you tell me, what did you say? He’s not being rough, that’s just the way he talks. I think that’s when Comey announced he was leaking, lying and everything else, right? He choked because he never heard I — anybody talk like that. He could have given up. Chuck Grassley is an incredible guy. [Cheers and applause] </p>
<p id="Vr7kjR">And a man who is running against a tough, smart campaign. We learned how good she was, right? A great campaigner. At the end of the campaign, I thought she was more for me than you were, Josh. She was saying the greatest things about me. You know who I’m talking about. And I went to a great place, Missouri, and I said, who do you have to beat her? And they said, well, we have four people. I said, let me see them. Can you imagine I’m interviewing people for the United States senate. This is what I do. Where have I gone? But I love it. I love it because we’re getting great people. The first one I met was Josh Hawley. </p>
<p id="Ms2cxD">He was the attorney general, did a phenomenal job in the state, highly respected. And Claire McCaskill. The theory was you couldn’t beat her. Great campaigner, remember the last campaign she was going to be taken out, and she wins and people say, how did that happen? It didn’t happen with him. But she got so friendly toward me. </p>
<p id="kkFjuS">In fact, one of the ads I still have, I’m putting it in the archives as one of the best ads I’ve ever made, and she tried to convince people that we were best friends, but Josh ended up winning by five or six points. You were unbelievable, you were tough and one of the greatest supporters on the impeachment hooks was Josh Hawley. He was incensed at what they were doing and what they were saying. I had some who said, well, I wish you didn’t make the call. That’s okay if they need that. It’s incorrect, it’s totally incorrect. </p>
<p id="p3v4ZY">Then you have some who used religion as a crutch. They never used it before. An article written today. Never heard him use it before. But today, you know, it’s one of those things. It’s a failed presidential candidate, so things can happen when you fail so badly running for president. But Josh Hawley, I want to thank you. You were right from the beginning. Man, did I make a good choice. Thank you, Josh. Tremendous future. </p>
<p id="J8EFd5">A man who is brilliant and who actually was deceived to an extent, comes from a great state, Utah, where my poll numbers have gone through the roof, and one of the senators’ poll numbers, not this one, went down big. You saw that, Mike? But Mike is a brilliant guy. He’s difficult. Whenever I sign those — we do sign a lot of legislation, and it’s big and powerful, but everybody has to approve it. I see 99 to 1. 99 to 1. I say, don’t tell me who is the one. Is it Mike? </p>
<p id="cP116W">Yes. And he always has a good reason for it, too, by the way. But he is, he’s incredible. And right at the beginning, he knew we were right, Mike, and I appreciate it very much. You’re just fantastic. Say hello to the people of Utah and tell them I’m sorry about Mitt Romney. I’m sorry. Okay? [Cheers and applause] </p>
<p id="3ftueO">We can say Mike Lee by far is the most popular senator from the state. You’ve done a great job in many ways. A young woman who I didn’t know at all but she’s been so supportive, and I’ve had great support from other people in that state, and she’s been so supportive, and she’s been downright nasty and mean about the unfairness to the president. And Kelly Loeffler, I appreciate it very much. Thank you. </p>
<p id="Nn3lsp">She saw it very early on. I don’t know if we have other senators here, we have other congressmen, I’ll go over them quickly. It helped when we won 197 to 0. That’s got to be a first, Kevin, right? Is that like a first? The Republicans have this image — see, I say Democrats are lousy politicians because they have lousy policy. Open borders, sanctuary cities, they have horrible policy. </p>
<p id="fKwuuM">Who the hell — oh, the new policy is raise taxes. They want to raise taxes. All my life I wasn’t in politics, but I would say, if you’re a politician, you want to say we’re going to lower taxes. They want to raise taxes. So they have open borders, sanctuary cities, raise everybody’s taxes. Get rid of everybody’s health care, 180 million people in the United States and they’re really happy, and we’re going to give you health care that’s going to cost more money than the country can make in 30 years if it really does well. </p>
<p id="1dbVW8">So I always say they’re lousy politicians, but they do two things. They’re vicious and mean. Vicious. Adam Schiff is a vicious, horrible person. Nancy Pelosi is a horrible person. And she wanted to impeach a long time ago when she said, I pray for the president. She doesn’t pray. She may pray but she prays for the opposite. But I doubt she prays at all. These are vicious people. </p>
<p id="MUyw3R">But they do two things. They stick together. Historically, I’m not talking now. They stick together like glue. That’s how they impeached, because they had whatever the number is, 220 people, so they don’t lose anybody, they’ll be able to impeach anybody. You could be George Washington. You could have just won the war and they say, “Let’s get him out of office.” And they stuck together and they’re vicious as hell. </p>
<p id="vxngvU">And they’ll probably come back for more but maybe not, because the Republican party’s poll numbers, Mitch, have now gone up more than any time, I think, since 2004-2005, and you know what happened then. But in normal times, decades, you would call it, that was a little unusual time. It was for a very short period. The Republicans’ party poll numbers and Donald Trump’s poll numbers are the highest I’ve ever had. [Applause] </p>
<p id="hajiFT">It’s no way to get your poll numbers up because it’s been very unfair for my family, it’s been very unfair to the country. Think of it. A phone call. A very good phone call. I know bad phone calls. This is a phone call where many people — I think Mike Pompeo was probably on the call, many people were on the call. </p>
<p id="aGW9b8">I know that many people. They have an apprentii. In the case of Ukraine, he’s a new president. He seems like a very nice person, by the way. His whole thing was he was going to stop corruption. We even have a treaty, 2001, 1999, a signed treaty to say we will work together to remove corruption in Ukraine. I probably have an obligation, Mr. Attorney, to report corruption. </p>
<p id="wZaCr0">But they don’t think it’s corrupt when a son that made no military, that had no money at all, is working for $300 million up and it goes to Romania and other countries. Is ivanka in the audience? My kids could make a fortune. It’s corrupt. But it’s not even that, it’s just general corruption. </p>
<p id="H22X64">And the other thing is mentioned in the call, and something I’ve told Mike Pence, our great vice president, I would tell him all the time and I told him when we were on the trip. Because he was over there. He never mentioned anything about this when you had your meeting. It’s a terrible thing, but and you’re always torn about that. We have our countries to build on. But tell me, why isn’t Belgium paying? Why isn’t France? </p>
<p id="NbP9X1">Tell me what’s going on. I told that to all my people, OMB [the Office of Management and Budget]. I asked that question, how come Germany isn’t paying? Why isn’t Germany paying? Why is the United States always the sucker. Because we’re a bunch of suckers. But that’s turning around fast. But it makes it harder when stuff like this happens, because you want to focus perfectly. </p>
<p id="o3wcyk">Imagine what we could have done. Drug prices. Think of what we could have done if we had the same genius — because it’s genius. I will say it’s genius on the other side, maybe even more so, they took nothing and voted me for impeachment. They took a phone call, which was a totally appropriate call, and they brought me to the final stages of impeachment. </p>
<p id="ZXU1Di">But now we have that gorgeous word. I never thought that word would ever sound so good. It’s called total acquittal. So I want to, if I could real fast, just introduce a few other people. I have to start with Kevin. Man, did you do a job. Lucky you’re there. Lucky you’re there. Because it wouldn’t have worked out. If you don’t have the right people, I tell you, Kevin McCarthy has done an incredible job. [Applause] </p>
<p id="yAwPGz">And he loves his job and he loves his country. Mitch and Kevin, they love what they do. Mitch wouldn’t even tell you he liked it. I could say, Mitch, do you like it? I don’t know. He’s the greatest poker player, right? Kevin would say, I love it, right? I’m going to say you’ll be speaker of the house because of this impeachment hoax. I really believe it. I really believe it. </p>
<p id="iniY9s">And I’m going to work hard on it. I’m going to try and get out to those trump areas that we won by a lot — and you know, in ‘18, we didn’t win. We just won two seats in North Carolina, two wonderful seats in North Carolina that were not supposed to be won, but I went and I made speeches, and we had rallies and we did a great job and we won — we took two seats. Nobody writes about that. If we lost them, it would have been the biggest story of the year. We’re going to go and do a job and we’re going to win a lot of seats. We’re going to win a lot of seats. </p>
<p id="sINRso">People are very angry that Nancy Pelosi and all these guys — I mean, [Jerry] Nadler, I’ve known him much of my life. He’s fought me in New York for 25 years. I always beat him, and I had to beat him another time, and I’ll probably have to beat him again, because if they find that I happened to walk across the street and maybe go against the light or something, let’s impeach him. So I’ll probably have to do it again because these people have gone stone cold crazy. I’ve beat them all my life and I’ll beat them again if I have to. So Kevin McCarthy has been great. A few names, right? We’re going to do the best we can. I have my cabinet, but my Cabinet is different, I appoint them. </p>
<p id="nREnK3">I didn’t see all of them helping so much. You know, they were running their various bureaucracies, right? My cabinet is great and they’re all here, but today is the day to celebrate these great warriors, right? These are great warriors. They really fought hard for us. I’ll start with Kelly Armstrong, North Dakota. Kelly, thank you. Great job. Great job. </p>
<p id="VUakxm">Jim Banks of Indiana. Jim. Andy Biggs, where is Andy? Boy, oh boy, Andy. There’s a guy. He’s tough. I hear we’re doing well in Arizona, huh? It’s going good, yeah? I saw a poll that was very good for me. I think we have to make sure Martha [McSally] is going to do — we have some states that are going to be not easy. But Arizona has been great and we’re stopping illegal aliens from coming in. We’re putting up walls. </p>
<p id="iG3qEu">New Mexico, too, a state that’s never been in play for Republicans. Nevada is looking good. We’re doing well. There is more spirit now for the Republican party by far than the Democrats. </p>
<p id="jQ0A1a">You know, Mike Pence just got back from a place, a beautiful place, that Chuck Grassley knows well. Iowa. And he was talking about the fiasco. The Democrats can’t count some simple votes yet they want to take over your health care system. Think of that. </p>
<p id="4qtEEG">But we also had an election out there and we got 98 percent of the vote. We have two people running, you know. I guess they consider them non-people. One is a governor, but they’re running. They said, who is that crowd over there? It was Trump, right, Mark Meadows? It was Trump. This was a Trump crowd. And actually a lot of my guys went to Iowa, and a lot of friends went there, and we had tremendous — they say the spirit for the Republican party right now is stronger, I think, than it’s ever been in the history of our country. I think it’s stronger than it’s ever been. That includes honest Abe Lincoln. A lot of people forget Abe Lincoln. I wish he were here. I would give him one hell of an introduction. He was a Republican. Abe Lincoln. Honest Abe. </p>
<p id="BZbHmG">Bradley Burn, Alabama. What a great place. A man who has been an unbelievable friend of mine and spokesman and somebody that I really like, and I know, Kelly, you’re going to end up liking him a lot. Something is going to happen that’s going to be very good, I don’t know. I haven’t figured it out yet, but Doug Collins, where is he? You have been so great. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Really amazing job. A young man who was born with a great gene, because I know how great a politician his father was. He’s from Georgia. He’s solid as a rock and he’s a friend of mine, Matt Gaetz. Thank you, Matt. Great job. This guy. So he’s the NCAA, a couple years ago in college, wrestling champ. </p>
<p id="E1USP3">That means you’re the best. His record was ridiculous. Nobody could beat him. And I see it. Every time I see it — when I first got to know Jim Jordan, I said, huh? He never wears a jacket. What the hell is going on? He’s obviously very proud of his body. And where the congressmen and senators work out, they said he works out, and it’s a different kind of workout than ours, isn’t it? Look at that guy. One day I’m looking, and he looks tough, and I’m looking at those ears, and I say, those ears have something going on there. Did you ever wrestle? Yeah, I did. He doesn’t talk but I checked. </p>
<p id="0RiUb6">This guy was a top, top wrestler, and when I had the top, I had all the teams. By the way, your Super Bowl champions are coming, I think, next week or soon, very soon, and every one of them want to be here, and the coach loves us. The coach is great, Andy Reid, and every one of them want to be here. People love it. But we had all the NCAA championship teams here. They had the golf, the basketball, they had every team here. And one of the teams was wrestling, the wrestling team. Was that Penn State? Penn State won the title. They have a great team. I walked up with Jim and it’s like I didn’t exist. Those wrestlers, they grabbed him, they love Jim Jordan, and we love you, too, because you’re some warrior. </p>
<p id="SK5sZr">A woman who became — we have a couple women that became stars, you two, and I like the name Lesko. I liked it. That’s why I picked it, I liked the name. I saw the face, I saw the name. She had like seven opponents, right? You have no idea how much the public appreciates how smart, how sharp you are. This I can’t tell. I can’t tell. They just said, you know, she’s really good, she’s really talented. I said, let’s go. We worked with her, she won her race — tough race. It’s no longer tough, because what she does out there is incredible. Arizona loves her. But you were so incredible representing — I don’t see me representing our country and getting out of this impeachment hoax. What you did was incredible. Debbie, please stand up, Debbie Lesko. </p>
<p id="MPSn3M">A man I became very friendly with, I don’t know why. Certain people call, you take their calls. Other people call, if they don’t have information, they won’t take anybody’s call. But other people call, and you duck. This is a guy, he’s just a very special guy. His wife I actually like better than him, to be honest. Because he doesn’t know that I know that he didn’t actually support me right from the beginning, but she did. And on my worst day, right? On my worst day, my worst — I won’t tell you why it was my worst but it was not one of those good days — she went on a bus, got many other buses, and women all over North Carolina and they toured North Carolina semi-supporting another candidate which he ended up because of your wife. </p>
<p id="Xb0BFK">But thank her, and Mark Meadows is an extraordinary guy. The only problem, I guess — he would only win by 40 points, but he was announcing he won’t be running this time. Will someone win your district by at least 20 points, please? He’s an incredibly talented man, not just as a politician but as a human being, he’s incredible. The way he worked, and Jim and all of you guys, the way they worked, it was like their life was at steak. Ron DeSantis is another one. He worked so hard. He called me and said, “Sir, I’d like to run for governor.” “Governor? I like you staying here.” “No, I want to run for governor.” “Well, if you have to, I’d like your support.” </p>
<p id="Ej4Wwi">He’s been another great warrior, and by the way, I endorsed him. His numbers went through the roof. The man we expected to win easily called me after the race. He said, you endorsed him and it was like a nuclear bomb went off. He never even spent his money, he saved it. Ron DeSantis is another one and now he’s the governor of Florida. He’s a great governor, he’s a very I want to thank you very much. Many. </p>
<p id="PEa2ns">And Mike Johnson of Louisiana. You can represent me at any time. What a job you’ve done. Thank you, Mike. And another man we’ve not heard of on the other side. This guy is a nightmare. He goes down into dungeons and basements. He’ll find any document. He took tremendous abuse — the media and the other side and the bad ones, the leakers, the liars, the dirty cops, they want to destroy him. They tried. They got close but he wouldn’t let it happen. And, honestly, in a certain way he was the first one, wouldn’t you say, Jim and mark and everybody? This was the first guy. He came out of nowhere. He’s saying, these people are corrupt. He’s still saying it. He was unbelievable. </p>
<p id="1f481b">Devin Nunes. Unbelievable. [Cheers and applause] </p>
<p id="sVUiqK">That’s so true, Devin. He would come in and say — I didn’t even know him. I just heard there was this congressman who kept going into a basement, into files. He knew something was wrong. You felt it, right? Now we know a lot more than we knew then, right? You never thought it was as bad as it is, and hopefully we’re going to take care of things, because we can never, ever allow this to happen again. </p>
<p id="57t1m4">Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, thank you. You’re really great. You’re doing a really good job over there, by the way. I just saw your numbers. If I’m going to pick “Perry Mason,” I’m going to do a remake of “Perry Mason.” I picked Barr first, John Ratcliffe. If we’re doing a remake of “Perry Mason,” a man I get, there is no other man in Hollywood like this. John Ratcliffe. Right? Stand up, John. </p>
<p id="VHBWyY">Such a great lawyer. Incredible guy, incredible talent, but just a great lawyer and we appreciate it. He gets on that screen and everyone says, I agree. The other side folds up so fast. We’ll probably be using a lot of you in the next year. But you have been fantastic, John, we appreciate it. Thank you very much. A man who is braver than me and braver than all of us in this room, he got whacked. He got whacked. My Steve, right? I went to the hospital with our great first lady that night and we saw a man that was not going to make it. </p>
<p id="fgwVwD">He was not going to make it. I said, she loves you. Why? Because she was devastated. A lot of wives wouldn’t give a damn. I would say, how is he doing? She couldn’t even talk, she was inconsolable. Most wives would say, not good, I’m going home now. The doctor came in and the wife was a total mess. She was really devastated. It really looked like he had a 20, 25 percent chance. I think you set a record for blood loss. And Steve Scalise, I actually — honestly, I think you’re better-looking there. You’re more handsome there. You weren’t that good-looking. You look good now. He looks better now, can you believe it? I don’t know what the hell that is. Better now. </p>
<p id="Ip3DoA">What a guy. He was practicing for the baseball game against — I guess the Democrats, right? And this whack job started shooting, hurt Rogers. I don’t know if Rogers is here, but hurt a number of people. But really hurt Steve. He was the second baseman, and he went down and it was terrible. I saw the whole thing and it was terrible. Fortunately, you had two brave policemen with you because of your high position in Congress. You had two policemen and they were amazing. The man and the woman and they came — they didn’t have rifles. They were supposedly a pretty good sharpshooter with equipment, and all they had was a gun. They started coming in from the outfield, shooting. They were so far away that a handgun is not preferred. </p>
<p id="b5tAEx">This guy has the rifle and he’s hitting people. He was going to move up and there was no out. The entrance was a single entrance way on the other side from where he was. So everyone ran into the dugout. But Steve was hit really bad in the stomach with a bullet that rips you apart. It rips you apart. And these two people came charging forward, and one of them — you know who? Him? Got the shooter. Hit him. And then got him. Killed him. From a long distance. It was amazing. If you didn’t have those two people, you could imagine, right? You could imagine what would happen. </p>
<p id="PcTtjt">So Melania and I went to the hospital that night, and he was in such bad shape and he’s been working ever since so hard. Six months ago they had a baseball game at the Nationals’ Park. I was watching on television. It’s a game, you want to win it, right? And Steve is at second base. The poor guy can’t even walk. </p>
<p id="qPNHNF">Remember Bob Richardson of the New York Yankees? He was known for range. Bobby Richardson is the second player. This was not Steve Scalise. This was not Steve Scalise. This was not Steve Scalise. He had no range. I don’t know who put you on the field. This is a true story. </p>
<p id="5gZG2M">So the game starts, and the first pitch, Steve is standing at second base and the guy is really in bad shape, and I said, this is terrible. A shot, ground ball shot, is hit to 2nd. I didn’t have time to think too much, but I said, this is not good. That ball is going toward him. And this guy stopped that ball, caught the ball. He’s now laying down. He throws the ball to first base, he gets him out. I said it’s the most incredible thing. I’ve never seen anything like it. Right? [Applause] </p>
<p id="iFK5S1">And he gets him out and they then took him out of the game, which was a very wise thing because you could never do that again in a hundred years. But you weren’t going to let that ball go through. I don’t care if it was hit by the greatest of all time, that ball wasn’t going through because you’re a warrior. Steve, you are fantastic. You and Liz and Kevin, what a group. I got lucky. I got lucky, because you need the right people. If I had the wrong people there, it may be a different story. </p>
<p id="M87Rry">Maybe we would be celebrating something else. But I really want to thank you. Steve Scalise. And, Elise [Stefanik], I just read this story. It’s most incredible what’s going on with you, Elise. I was up campaigning for helping her and I thought, she looks good, she looks like good talent. But I did not realize when she opens that mouth, you were killing them, Elise. You were killing them. There’s a big story in the new York post. I love the New York Post because they treat me well. There’s not too many that do, but today you’re treating me well. </p>
<p id="WhZ9Hr">I even had a great headline in the New York Times, the Washington Post, I had all these great headlines. Maybe we should end it right there. You had a great story yesterday in the post. People from all over the country are contributing to their campaign. I’ll always be your friend. I think it’s really an amazing story. What a great future you have. What a great future. </p>
<p id="YlW2Av">Thank you. First Lady agrees, by the way. First Lady agrees. And Michael Turner, you can represent me any time. Where is Michael? Where is he? You can represent me. How good were you? There’s another “Perry Mason” type, I think, right? What do you think, John? Michael, you were fantastic and we appreciate it. Brad Wenstrup. Where is Brad? </p>
<p id="UpBfz1">Notice all the lawyers stayed behind. Lee Zeldin, how good are you? And Lou [Gohmert], your name isn’t down. They didn’t give me your name. I didn’t announce louie. Whoever the hell made this list, I got to get rid of them, because if I wouldn’t have announced louie, it might have been the end of the presidency. Louie, you have been so great, so tough, and so smart. I got it. But Louie has been amazing. He’s a tough guy, he’s a smart guy, we love Texas and we’re with you all the way, Louie. Thank you very much. [Applause] </p>
<p id="SpC5hD">So that’s the story. We have a great group of warriors, and there are others left, and I guess probably I’m sure I didn’t mention a few. I apologize if that’s the case. How you doing? Stand up, will you? He’s the one who said, you should run. Right? Matt said five years ago, six years ago. And made a speech and then they did some kind of straw poll, who made the best speech? They said I made the best speech. With all these professional politicians, they voted by far the best speech was trump and he said, you should run in politics. I said, what do I know about politics? But you know, we learn quickly and our country has never done better than it’s doing now. Thank you, Matt. </p>
<p id="VSId0t">So that’s the story. We’ve been treated very unfairly. Fortunately we had great men and women who came to our defense. If we didn’t, this would have been a horrific incident for our country. When you have Lisa [Page] and Peter [Strzok], the FBI lovers. I want to believe the path you threw out for Deputy Director Andrew McCabe — that’s the office — there’s no way he gets elected, meaning me. There’s no way he gets elected. This is Peter to Lisa. He’s probably trying to impress her for obvious reasons. There’s no way he gets elected. But I’m afraid we can’t take the risk. Now, think of this. In other words, if I get elected, they can’t — two lowlifes, they can’t take the risk. </p>
<p id="2oQnlc">Think of it. That’s where it came up, the greatest word of all insurance policy. When he says, I’m afraid we can’t take the risk, she may lose. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlike many, they would try to overthrow the government of the United States, a duly elected president. If I didn’t fire James Comey, we would have never found this out, because when I fired that sleazebag, they were running for the hills. We can see what happens. </p>
<p id="BKNe8A">But I can tell you in my opinion, these are the crookedest. They said, “God, Hillary should win. 100 million to 1.” This is about me. This is an agent from the FBI. Look how they left her off. Deleted. Nothing happens to her. Nothing happens. It’s unbelievable. </p>
<p id="AvaDKt">But people should investigate Hillary. Then they go to Hillary, and he let him go. But they deleted all their emails and text messages, so when we got the phone, they were all deleted. Can you imagine the treasure trove? They illegally deleted. </p>
<p id="md8mdY">They left Bob Mueller. He had the look but not a lot of other things. Always had the look, Mr. G-man. I love the FBI and the FBI loves me, 99 percent. It was the top scum. At the FBI, people don’t like the top scum. So think of that, 100 million to 1 and he’s investigating me. And then, ‘God, Trump is a loathsome human being.’ I’m really not a bad person. </p>
<p id="YOQKwT">And he says, ‘Yes, he’s awful.’ This is the good stuff. This stuff 100 times worse than that. They see are all dirty people and now I just heard that they’re suing the United States of America because they were interfered with. Not going to let this happen. We cannot let this happen to our country. [Applause] </p>
<p id="mFqLHe">So I’m going to leave now, and I don’t know if any of you have anything to say. You could say it but this is sort of a day of celebration because we went through hell. And I’m sure that Pelosi and crying Chuck [Schumer] — the only time I ever saw him cry was when it was appropriate. I’ve known him for a long time, crying Chuck. </p>
<p id="saFjcU">I imagine they’ll try to cook up other things. They’ll go through the state of New York, they’ll go other places, they’ll go wherever they can. Because instead of trying to heal our country and fix our country, all they want to do — in my opinion, it’s almost like they want to destroy our country. We can’t let it happen. Jim Jordan, did you want to say something? Go ahead. Mark? </p>
<p id="y9CcpZ">MARK MEADOWS: I just wanted to say that this reflection today is a small reflection of the kind of support you have all across the country. We’ve got your back. [Applause] </p>
<p id="XjfrOG">TRUMP: Thank you. This was a highly partisan situation. Pelosi said — I copied it down exactly — before the impeachment — she wanted to impeach from day one, by the way, don’t let it fool you. She said, “No, the impeachment is a very serious thing.” I said, “She wants to impeach, watch.” </p>
<p id="xQlXaT">Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there is something so compelling and so overwhelming and bipartisan — bipartisan? It was 197 to nothing. Then one failed presidential candidate, and I call that half a vote because he actually voted for us on the other one. But we had one failed presidential candidate. That’s the only half a vote we lost. So we had almost 53 to nothing. We had 197 to nothing. </p>
<p id="a42zJu">And the only one that voted against was a guy that can’t stand the fact that he ran one of the worst campaigns in the history of the presidency. But she said, there’s something that has to be so compelling and so overwhelming and bipartisan. I don’t think we should go down that path because it divides the country — she was right about that. And it’s just not worth it. </p>
<p id="t6noDC">That was Nancy Pelosi a year ago. Right? And I think it’s a shame. I think it’s a shame. But as I said, if we can put this genius to work on roads and highways and bridges and all of the things we can do, prescription drugs. You know, we had — Secretary [Alex] Azar is here, and I want to thank him for this, but we had for the first time in 51 years where drug prices actually came down last year. First time in 51 years. But something we can do is work with both parties in Congress. It would be unbelievable. I know Chuck Grassley is working on it and Mitch McConnell, but everything we can do is incredible. </p>
<p id="WEydKD">We’ve redone our military. We’ve cut regulations at a level that no one thought possible, we’ll always protect our second amendment, we know that. I just want to tell you it’s an honor to be with you all. I want to apologize to my family for having them have to go through a phony, rotten deal by some very evil and sick people, and Ivanka is here and my sons and my whole family. And that includes Barron who is up there as a young boy. Stand up, honey. Ivanka, thank you, honey. Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there is something so compelling and so overwhelming and bipartisan — bipartisan? It was 197 to nothing. </p>
<p id="j5n2q9">Then one failed presidential candidate, and I call that half a vote because he actually voted for us on the other one. But we had one failed presidential candidate. That’s the only half a vote we lost. So we had almost 53 to nothing. We had 197 to nothing. And the only one that voted against was a guy that can’t stand the fact that he ran one of the worst campaigns in the history of the presidency. But she said, there’s something that has to be so compelling and so overwhelming and bipartisan. I don’t think we should go down that path because it divides the country — she was right about that. And it’s just not worth it. </p>
<p id="6OQc8h">That was Nancy Pelosi a year ago. Right? And I think it’s a shame. I think it’s a shame. But as I said, if we can put this genius to work on roads and highways and bridges and all of the things we can do, prescription drugs. You know, we had — Secretary Azar is here, and I want to thank him for this, but we had for the first time in 51 years where drug prices actually came down last year. First time in 51 years. </p>
<p id="vVmVme">But something we can do is work with both parties in Congress. It would be unbelievable. I know Chuck Grassley is working on it and Mitch McConnell, but what we can do is incredible. We’ve redone our military. We’ve cut regulations at a level that no one thought possible, we’ll always protect our second amendment, we know that. I just want to tell you it’s an honor to be with you all. </p>
<p id="U7EIBw">I want to apologize to my family for having them have to go through a phony, rotten deal by some very evil and sick people, and Ivanka is here and my sons and my whole family. And that includes Barron who is up there as a young boy. Stand up, honey. Ivanka, thank you, honey. [Applause] </p>
<p id="kTKsAe">I just want to thank my family for sticking through it. This was not part of the deal. I was going to run for president, and if I won, I was going to do a great job. I didn’t know I was going to run, and then when I got in I was going to have to run again and again and again, every week I had to run again. That wasn’t the deal, but they stuck with me, and I’m so glad I did it, because we are making progress and doing things for our great people that everybody said couldn’t be done. </p>
<p id="5Akwn8">Our country is thriving, our country is just respected again, and it’s an honor to be with the people in this room.</p>
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https://www.vox.com/2020/2/6/21126544/trump-speech-today-transcript-impeachmentJen Kirby2020-02-06T11:31:17-05:002020-02-06T11:31:17-05:00Impeachment, explained
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<p id="xYJ0lZ"><strong>n.b.</strong> The custom property of “norender” attached to this object should not be removed. This object can be safely wholly removed. I’ll likely be moving this into a google doc before launch.</p>
<h1 id="BF0lRU">Documentation / Runbook</h1>
<h2 id="SWCJsC">How to update the story after it’s been published</h2>
<ul>
<li id="bcloi5">Click “Rebuild needed” button at top right.</li>
<li id="vuap8n">Wait until it says “Build ok” in green with a checkmark icon.</li>
<li id="aEQqk2">Click “Preview” to open story preview and verify changes look correct</li>
<li id="BRLCAi">On the “Finalize” screen, click the Publish button.</li>
</ul>
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="YZ6vBk">
<h2 id="521AiD">Where’s the hed/dek/lede art?</h2>
<ul><li id="fttRhN">Compose screen; top right has an “Edit page” button. That opens a sidebar. Make sure you hit the blue confirmation button at the very bottom of that sidebar to save changes; changes made in sidebars typically do not autosave.</li></ul>
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="BPbDqG">
<h2 id="3uAeAW">How do I link to a question / section / the cast of characters?</h2>
<ul>
<li id="EQ8TU1">You’ll need to assemble the url with a unique id associated with each section.</li>
<li id="lMKVoc">the format is [storyurl][#id] — for instance, <a href="http://www.vox.com/not-the-real-slug#not-a-real-id">www.vox.com/not-the-real-slug#not-a-real-id</a>. </li>
<li id="N8AVas">You can find the id in one of two ways:</li>
</ul>
<ol>
<li id="FyyQeX">While looking at the story, right click on what you want to link to, hit “inspect element”, and look in the HTML for a <section> element that has an `id` that looks something like the question name.</li>
<li id="BDciPK">Or, in the editor table view, look for the object you want to link to, open up the custom properties sidebar, and find the value for “question”, “answer”, or “section”, depending on what you are looking for.</li>
</ol>
<p id="3tReF0">That value/id will be appended directly to the URL without a space in between — <a href="http://www.vox.com/not-the-real-slug#not-a-real-id">http://www.vox.com/not-the-real-slug#not-a-real-id</a>, NOT <a href="http://www.vox.com/not-the-real-slug#not-a-real-id">http://www.vox.com/not-the-real-slug/#not-a-real-id</a>.</p>
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<h2 id="MqlbBZ">Adding a new question/answer</h2>
<ul>
<li id="IZB1M3">Insert a text object for the question text (<strong>must be</strong> <strong>H3</strong>).</li>
<li id="qpcsR2">This text object must have a custom property named <strong>question </strong>with a value that is a sluggified version of that question name (e.g. <strong>will-trump-really-drink-blood-for-fun</strong>). This sluggified version will be used to link to this question (e.g. www.vox.com/story#will-trump-really-drink-blood-for-fun).</li>
<li id="gDRkK0">Insert a new text object for the answer text.</li>
<li id="PvTPZD"> This text object must have a custom property named <strong>answer</strong> with the value being <strong>the same as the question’s value</strong>, in this example <strong>will-trump-really-drink-blood-for-fun.</strong> </li>
<li id="7IiGUO">Drag and drop (or use the number input for order) to put them in the position you want them to appear in the story. Make sure they are inside of objects labelled SECTION and SECTION END.</li>
</ul>
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="PPz5Gs">
<h2 id="r8nZ12">Adding a new section</h2>
<ul>
<li id="raMfPa">Create two text objects. These will serve as the bookends for that section.</li>
<li id="fDol2M">The first text object should have a custom property of <strong>section</strong> with the value being <strong>some-hyphentated-value. </strong>The section value will be used for linking to this section and will be visible in URLs / the address bar.</li>
<li id="qdyRo4">The second text object should have a custom property of <strong>end_section</strong>.</li>
</ul>
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="GIiAep">
<h2 id="gr1Ta6">Add an image with multiple crops/sizes</h2>
<ul>
<li id="FFtS4F">If the image will be placed in between existing text in a text object, you will need to split the text object into two, following the instructions for adding answers under “Adding a new question/answer” — the new answer text object should have the same shared key for the <strong>answer</strong> property as every other object in that Q/A set.</li>
<li id="m6QFYd">Upload the two images as new objects into the table by clicking the “Image” button at the very top of the table. Both image objects should have the following properties:</li>
<li id="iipvAI"> <strong>answer </strong>/ <strong>whatever-the-shared-key-is</strong>
</li>
<li id="GC0MLV"><strong> image / some-value-shared-by-both-images</strong></li>
<li id="vEUlT7">
<strong> size </strong>/ <strong>large </strong>or <strong>small </strong>
</li>
<li id="5gA30P">The images must have alt text.</li>
<li id="e1fG5S">Place the image objects in the position you want them to appear in the table.</li>
</ul>
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="nbLYDM">
<h2 id="s2glk4">Add a new character to the cast of characters</h2>
<ul><li id="DIb1iB">A character for the cast of character needs two different objects, <em>in this order</em>: </li></ul>
<ol>
<li id="4rFepi">A text object with the name of the person <strong>as an h4</strong>, followed by the description of that person.</li>
<li id="aoVgEE">An image object with alt text.</li>
</ol>
<ul><li id="Da5Awu">Both characters need a single custom property, <strong>character</strong>, with the value being blank.</li></ul>
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<p id="kU6gFF"><strong>Editor’s note</strong>: On February 13, 2021, the Senate acquitted Donald Trump of impeachment for a second time, after he was <a href="https://www.vox.com/22223972/trump-impeached-house-senate-trial-former-president">accused of inciting a riot at the US Capitol</a>. Below, a guide to Trump’s first impeachment in 2019 and Senate trial in early 2020.</p>
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<p id="jIuLcJ">The story of President Donald Trump and his first impeachment reached its end on February 5: The Senate voted to acquit him. </p>
<p id="UVymXI">Senators voted 52-48 to acquit the president on abuse of power, and 53-47 to acquit him of obstruction of Congress. Sen. Mitt Romney was the only Republican to break ranks and vote to convict on abuse of power. </p>
<p id="suHNYa">Looking back on the impeachment saga, it can feel complicated. There was incremental news of the day, many players, and obscure congressional processes. </p>
<p id="AkvU1F">The facts never changed. The politics never did, either.</p>
<p id="bnRPGY">Dramatic <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/1/27/21083195/john-bolton-book-manuscript-leak-impeachment">revelations leaked from former National Security Adviser John Bolton’s book</a> in the final weeks made it briefly seem like a handful of Senate Republicans might vote to subpoena witnesses and hold a real trial. But the original politics reasserted themselves. Republicans were fundamentally committed to protecting Trump. </p>
<p id="AGpYg9">This explainer is meant to serve as a guide to the important story, from beginning to end. </p>
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<h2 id="ISY4Qy">How it all started: the Ukraine affair</h2>
<h3 id="5YRApe">Why was Trump impeached? </h3>
<p id="7CFuVG">The <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/9/30/20883584/trump-impeachment-whistleblower-ukraine">Trump-Ukraine scandal</a> began in September 2019 with the revelation that an intelligence officer had filed a <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/26/20885060/whistleblower-complaint-ukraine-trump-impeachment">whistleblower complaint</a> to the intelligence community inspector general alleging wrongdoing on the part of Trump.</p>
<p id="Bd5XHp">The whistleblower, who we now know was a member of the CIA and detailed to the National Security Council, claimed that a phone call in July 2019 between Trump and <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2019/9/24/20882359/trump-impeachment-ukraine-president-zelensky">Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky</a> set off alarm bells in the intelligence community. He writes in <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/9/26/20884022/whistleblower-complaint-trump-ukraine-read">the complaint</a>: “The White House officials who told me this information were deeply disturbed by what had transpired in the phone call.” </p>
<p id="vVuzzE">Specifically, he alleges: </p>
<blockquote><p id="5dlImH">In the course of my official duties, I have received information from multiple U.S. Government officials that the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election. This interference includes, among other things, pressuring a foreign country to investigate one of the President’s main domestic political rivals. The President’s personal lawyer, Mr. Rudolph Giuliani, is a central figure in this effort. Attorney General Barr appears to be involved as well.</p></blockquote>
<p id="crUKW9">The whistleblower also wrote of a possible cover-up by the White House:</p>
<blockquote><p id="UE6rJa">In the days following the phone call, I learned from multiple U.S. officials that senior White House officials had intervened to “lock down” all records of the phone call, especially the official word-for-word transcript of the call that was produced — as is customary — by the White House Situation Room. This set of actions underscored to me that White House officials understood the gravity of what had transpired in the call.</p></blockquote>
<p id="cIoyhk">The whistleblower had followed the procedure laid out in law for intelligence professionals who believe wrongdoing is taking place. Rather than leaking to the press, intelligence professionals are supposed to file a report with the inspector general. Under the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act, if the inspector general deems the complaint to be credible and the matter to be of “urgent concern,” he or she is supposed to forward it to the director of national intelligence, who then is required to forward the complaint to Congress within seven days. </p>
<p id="zw4jI0">But when Director of National Intelligence <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/26/20885334/intelligence-whistleblower-hearing-key-takeaways">Joseph Maguire</a> got the complaint, he didn’t forward it to Congress. Instead, he asked the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel what he should do. The office concluded that it was not a matter of urgent concern and that Maguire should therefore sit on the report. The statute does not give the director nor the Office of Legal Counsel discretion over the question of “urgent concern.” The inspector general is given this responsibility and, in this case, that assessment had already been made. Nonetheless, Maguire followed the Office of Legal Counsel’s instructions and did not forward the report. </p>
<p id="a9bvFV">The existence of the report and the hold-up at the Justice Department came to light in mid-September. By September 19, we <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/whistleblower-complaint-about-president-trump-involves-ukraine-according-to-two-people-familiar-with-the-matter/2019/09/19/07e33f0a-daf6-11e9-bfb1-849887369476_story.html">learned</a> that the subject of the whistleblower’s report was Trump’s effort to get the government of <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2019/9/25/20883526/trump-transcript-ukraine-russia-manafort-crowdstrike">Ukraine</a> to gin up an investigation into Hunter Biden, the son of <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/4/25/18185060/joe-biden-2020-presidential-election-campaign-policies">Joe Biden</a>, the former vice president and Democratic presidential candidate. </p>
<p id="5wEVwe">Controversy about this raged for several days, until the White House made an abrupt about-face and allowed both the whistleblower’s report and the official White House record of Trump’s phone call with Zelensky to become public on September 25 and 26. </p>
<p id="tSsZTk">Trump and his allies waged an on-again, off-again campaign to discredit the whistleblower — arguing both that he is biased against Trump and also that he didn’t have first-hand knowledge of the situation he was writing about. Trump threw in vague calls to unmask him. </p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">....the Whistleblower, and also the person who gave all of the false information to him. This is simply about a phone conversation that could not have been nicer, warmer, or better. No pressure at all (as confirmed by Ukrainian Pres.). It is just another Democrat Hoax!</p>— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1179023004241727489?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 1, 2019</a>
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<blockquote><p id="EnDFR4"><strong>The memo itself, however, was almost entirely overtaken by subsequent events and corroborated by other sources. The call record showed exactly what the memo said it showed (see below). </strong><a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/22/20927561/bill-taylor-ukraine-impeachment-statement-full-text"><strong>Testimony</strong></a><strong> by senior officials made it clear that Rudy Giuliani was deeply involved in Ukraine policy despite not holding any government position. And Trump himself in </strong><a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/3/20896926/trump-china-biden-ukraine-impeachment-pool-october"><strong>extemporaneous remarks</strong></a><strong> essentially admitted that he wanted Ukraine to investigate Biden. </strong>I would think that if they were honest about it, they’d start a major investigation into the Bidens. It’s a very simple answer. They should investigate the Bidens ... and by the way, likewise, China should start an investigation into the Bidens. Because what happened to China is just about as bad as what happened with Ukraine.</p></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">President Trump: "China should start an investigation into the Bidens because what happened in China is just about as bad as what happened with Ukraine. So, I would say that President Zelensky, if it were me, I would recommend that they start an investigation into the Bidens." <a href="https://t.co/Xia8vLUVT2">pic.twitter.com/Xia8vLUVT2</a></p>— CSPAN (@cspan) <a href="https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1179769217534582784?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 3, 2019</a>
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<p id="98fvHI"></p>
<h3 id="5hGy91">What did Trump actually say on this call with the president of Ukraine?</h3>
<p id="MbAHZr">Beset by complaints that they were covering up a potentially explosive whistleblower report, the Trump White House chose to voluntarily release <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/25/20883420/full-transcript-trump-ukraine-zelensky-white-house">an official record of the phone call with Zelensky</a>. One can only assume that key decision makers thought this would reflect well on Trump and help them move beyond the controversy. In fact, it achieved the reverse.</p>
<p id="6JtBgC"></p>
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<img alt="President Trump with Ukraine President Zelensky." data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/SEbn2Ee5YyT_2tgNivCkleVmDxk=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/19336620/trump_zelenski_1600.png">
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<img alt="President Trump with Ukraine President Zelensky." data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/svteicG4ufBDc4fWu6_ZfAdXgLI=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/19336637/trump_zelenski_800.png">
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<p id="a8WLHm">In a nutshell, the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/9/25/20883325/transcript-trump-ukraine-president-impeachment">official White House record</a> of the call shows Trump linking American foreign aid to his desire for Ukraine to investigate <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/1/20891510/hunter-biden-burisma-ukraine-shokin">Hunter Biden</a> and a conspiracy about the 2016 election.<strong> </strong>When the president of Ukraine expressed a desire to follow up, Trump confirmed that his personal attorney <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/25/20883309/rudy-giuliani-ukraine-trump">Rudy Giuliani</a>, rather than any of the relevant diplomats, was the right person to talk to. (A national security aide on the call later testified that the record left out details that were <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/10/30/20939822/trump-ukraine-transcript-ellipses-vindman-impeachment-inquiry">even worse for Trump</a>.) </p>
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<h4 id="URk1Dl">
<strong>According to the summary, here’s how it went down.</strong> </h4>
<p id="jVp8HE"><a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2019/9/24/20882359/trump-impeachment-ukraine-president-zelensky">Zelensky</a> asked Trump for an increase in military aid — specifically, to purchase more Javelin anti-tank missiles, useful in <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2019/9/25/20883526/trump-transcript-ukraine-russia-manafort-crowdstrike">Ukraine</a>’s ongoing conflict with Russian-backed separatists in its east. </p>
<p id="5hVEEK">Trump responded by saying, “I would like you to do us a favor though.” </p>
<p id="HZoQ1L">The favor turned out to be about two investigations Trump would like Ukraine to conduct: one involving a bizarre and unfounded theory about Ukrainian possession of a Democratic email server, the other an effort to smear the Biden family’s dealings with a Ukrainian prosecutor as corrupt.</p>
<p id="qsiKxJ">After a few pleasantries early in the call, Trump brings up the military aid unprompted. He goes out of his way to compare US assistance to EU aid to Ukraine. “I will say that we do a lot for Ukraine. We spend a lot of effort and a lot of time,” he tells Zelensky. “Much more than the European countries are doing and they should be helping you more than they are.”</p>
<p id="P2aEV9">Zelensky responds by asking specifically for the Javelin missiles, which Trump links to his desire for an investigation into <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/9/25/20883373/trump-crowdstrike-ukraine-call-explained">Crowdstrike</a> (which he wrongly believes to be owned by a wealthy Ukrainian) and “the server” he thinks Ukraine has:</p>
<blockquote>
<p id="hEYixc">ZELENSKY: I would also like to thank you for your great support in the area of defense. We are ready to continue to cooperate for the next steps specifically, we are almost ready to buy more Javelins from the United States for defense purposes.</p>
<p id="sWEIQV">TRUMP: I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it. </p>
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<p id="KiQ4vL">Zelensky tries to be polite about this request, which he can’t quite agree to since neither Crowdstrike nor “the server” has anything to do with Ukraine. Then he mentions that his assistant has been speaking to Rudy Giuliani and he hopes Giuliani will come to Kyiv for a meeting.</p>
<p id="Js60ja">Trump then encourages Zelensky to talk to Giuliani, bad-mouths the US ambassador to Ukraine who Giuliani got fired, and specifically asks Zelensky to work with Giuliani and Attorney General Bill Barr to gin up an investigation into Hunter Biden.</p>
<blockquote>
<p id="K6sIkk">TRUMP: Good because I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that’s really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved. Mr. Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor of New York City, a great mayor, and I would like him to call you. I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney General. Rudy very much knows what’s happening and he is a very capable guy. </p>
<p id="Ilxc3G">If you could speak to him that would be great. The former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news and the people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news so I just want to let you know that. The other thing, there’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it… It sounds horrible to me. </p>
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<p id="K1eR14"></p>
<h3 id="QxMF14">What did the House investigate in the impeachment inquiry?</h3>
<p id="jFW0zb">Democrats executed a narrow <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/5/12/15615066/impeachment-trump-process-history">impeachment inquiry</a>. Rather than tackle the full range of potential Trump misconduct, the inquiry focused on events in the summer of 2019 relating specifically to Ukraine. </p>
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<p id="iPBrlb">Adam Schiff, the House Intelligence Committee chair who led the impeachment inquiry, named <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1prjiqfIaE">four questions</a> he wanted to investigate: </p>
<p id="7lgnqv"><strong>1.</strong> Did Trump once again solicit foreign help in an election?</p>
<p id="JoYBxI"><strong>2.</strong> Did the Trump White House agree to a meeting with Ukraine on the condition that Ukraine launch investigations on behalf of Trump? </p>
<p id="DP5Ukv"><strong>3. </strong>Did Ukraine have reason to believe military aid was being withheld on condition of launching Trump’s investigations?</p>
<p id="pJMb4F"><strong>4. </strong>Has there been a cover-up of the basic facts of Trump’s conduct?</p>
<p id="oJIRBg"></p>
<p id="UDTaCK"></p>
<h3 id="O9JXjo">What’s Trump’s defense?</h3>
<p id="aCkjW8">Trump’s public response to all this was animated, even for him. He denied any involvement in the Ukraine plan and <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/10/18/20920715/trump-dallas-rally-impeachment-pushback-schiff">accused his political opponents</a> — primarily Schiff — of <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/30/20891355/treason-trump-felony-definition-schiff-judicial-review">treason</a>. He and his administration maintain he’s done nothing wrong. They made two arguments: </p>
<p id="NmvzNO"><strong>1. “No quid pro quo”: </strong>Trump first asserted that nothing inappropriate happened on the phone call with Zelensky (he calls it “perfect” repeatedly). The official White House line is that there was no quid pro quo offered on the call. Republican allies latched onto the same line. </p>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">....Does anybody think this is fair? Even though there was no quid pro quo, I’m sure they would like to try. Worse than the Dems!</p>— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1187080935373713408?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 23, 2019</a>
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<p id="3zf4w8">The White House then claimed that this was essentially all mischief ginned up by biased “deep state” operatives in the government who simply dislike Trump. That argument was made by White House senior adviser Stephen Miller on Fox News in late September: </p>
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<p id="3NWzZE">On October 17, acting White House Chief of Staff <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/17/20919430/mulvaney-trump-ukraine-quid-pro-quo-conspiracies">Mick Mulvaney</a> told reporters that it’s normal in US foreign policy for America to incentivize another country to give it what Washington wants. His comment came in response to a question about whether or not the White House withheld aid to Ukraine in exchange for Kyiv’s agreement to look into the DNC server.</p>
<p id="7yfoMh">He told those gathered in the White House briefing room that day to stop making such a big deal over withholding the aid. “I have news for everybody: Get over it,” he said. “There’s going to be political influence in foreign policy.”</p>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">.<a href="https://twitter.com/jonkarl?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@JonKarl</a>: "Let's be clear what you described is a quid pro quo…" <br><br>Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney responds saying "We do that all the time with foreign policy." <a href="https://t.co/jzKw1A7i31">pic.twitter.com/jzKw1A7i31</a></p>— CSPAN (@cspan) <a href="https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1184921714142171141?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 17, 2019</a>
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<p id="xalbSs">This was really the moment that the “no quid pro quo” defense died. Mulvaney, one of the most powerful people in the White House, made it crystal clear that the administration held on to the aid until Ukraine gave Washington what it wanted.</p>
<p id="pRWFE3">“Did he [Trump] also mention to me the corruption related to the DNC server? Absolutely, no question about that,” Mulvaney <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/press-briefing-acting-chief-staff-mick-mulvaney/">responded</a> to a question from ABC News’s Jon Karl. “That’s it, and that’s why we held up the money,” which amounted to nearly $400 million in training, weapons, and financial support.</p>
<p id="liJzcL">To be clear, though, Mulvaney’s admission was just about the DNC server. He did not fess up to withholding aid in order to reopen a probe into the Bidens. (He also sent out a <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/10/21/20924687/mick-mulvaney-fox-news-sunday-ukraine-quid-pro-quo-mike-pompeo-this-week">press release</a> an hour later denying he said what he just said.) </p>
<p id="lpRahW">Both of these defenses start with the false premise that Joe Biden engaged in a corrupt effort to fire Ukraine’s prosecutor to protect his son Hunter from investigation. There’s nothing wrong with asking Ukraine to crack down on corruption. Making the Bidens a focal point of that anti-corruption effort, though, is the problem, as it turns the question of Ukrainian corruption into an effort to hurt a chief Trump political rival in the 2020 election. </p>
<p id="tDQ85C">What’s interesting is that Trump <em>isn’t</em> making the defense that a lot of Republicans would clearly be more comfortable with — that the phone call reflected an error of judgment but not a crime, that aid to Ukraine is now flowing, and that essentially Democrats are making too big a deal out of this. (The only exception is <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/10/5/20900313/trump-romney-ukraine-china-impeachment-tweets">Sen. Mitt Romney</a> (R-UT), who voted to convict on one count.)</p>
<p id="LOrm6W">Instead, Trump insists that there was genuinely nothing wrong with anything he did. </p>
<p id="Up8pV1"></p>
<h3 id="LQoGW7"> What does Joe Biden have to do with Ukraine, and is it corrupt? </h3>
<p id="hhSgk4">Back when Joe Biden was vice president, the Obama administration was trying to support Ukraine in an ongoing conflict with Russia. The administration and its European allies decided that corruption among Ukrainian officials was a major impediment to strengthening Ukraine, and that the prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin, who’d been a controversial figure in Ukraine for some time, was a big part of the problem.</p>
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<p id="3FIYzK">The Obama administration and its European allies, with <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/23/20879611/joe-biden-hunter-biden-ukraine-corruption-prosecutor-burisma-donald-trump-whistleblower-complaint">Biden playing a significant role as an emissary on behalf of the United States</a>, pressured Ukraine to reform. That pressure escalated to the point where the United States was holding up $1 billion in loan guarantees until the Ukrainians fired Shokin. Biden was quite open about his role in this, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/08/joe-biden-interview/497633/">portraying it in an August 2016 interview</a> as if he just unilaterally made the call on suspending aid:</p>
<blockquote>
<p id="0hJIq7">Well in a bizarre sense, every successful foreign-policy person from [Henry] Kissinger on, that’s what they’ve been. I don’t go in and make demands. For example, [Ukraine President] Poroshenko, I pushed him on getting rid of a corrupt [prosecutor] general. We had committed a billion dollars, I said, “Petro, you’re not getting your billion dollars. It’s OK, you can keep the [prosecutor] general. Just understand — we’re not paying if you do.” </p>
<p id="IfFv2h">I suspended it on the spot, to the point where our ambassador looked at me like, “Whoa, what’d you just do? Do you have the authority?” “Yeah, I got the authority. It’s not going to happen, Petro.” But I really mean it. It wasn’t a threat. I said, “Look, Petro, I understand. We’re not gonna play. It’ll hurt us the following way, so make your own call here.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p id="sYgd5R">As <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/miriamelder/joe-biden-ukraine-hunter">Miriam Elder has reported for BuzzFeed</a>, this is by most accounts an exaggeration of Biden’s role. Many officials, foreign governments, and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/03/politics/gop-senators-echoed-biden-on-ukraine-reforms-kfile/index.html">even Senate Republicans</a> were involved in the push to oust Shokin.</p>
<p id="5WPvcw">That, however, only serves to underscore that at the time there was nothing remotely controversial about trying to get Shokin fired, and nobody in the West thought it had anything to do with <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/1/20891510/hunter-biden-burisma-ukraine-shokin">Hunter Biden</a>.</p>
<p id="zCdEQm">But after getting fired, Shokin started to level a very specific allegation against the Bidens — namely that Joe had him sacked to protect Hunter’s sweetheart deal with <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/1/20891510/hunter-biden-burisma-ukraine-shokin">Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company</a> he was allegedly investigating. It’s not clear whether or not Shokin was ever investigating Burisma at all. But even if he was, anti-Shokin sentiment was widespread in the West. Joe Biden wasn’t acting on some idiosyncratic impulse, he was reflecting the broad consensus among European governments. The handful of congressional Republicans who mentioned anything about this at the time were against Shokin.</p>
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<h3 id="Mw6onq">What does this have to do with Hunter Biden?</h3>
<p id="9Suvcg"><a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/1/20891510/hunter-biden-burisma-ukraine-shokin">Hunter has spent much of his life</a> vaguely trading on his father’s name by working as a lobbyist, working as an executive at a bank that was also a major Biden donor, getting a gig on the Amtrak board he didn’t seem qualified for in any way, and eventually scoring a well-compensated gig on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma. </p>
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<p id="F2nRt6">Hunter’s work was widely known in Democratic politics. In a <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/07/08/will-hunter-biden-jeopardize-his-fathers-campaign">New Yorker profile</a>, Adam Entous writes that Hunter met with a private equity manager in China while on an official trip to Beijing with his father. “A senior White House aide told me that Hunter’s behavior invited questions about whether he ‘was leveraging access for his benefit,’ which just wasn’t done in that White House.” </p>
<p id="708Klx">Hunter knew that his conduct was seen as a problem years before during the campaign. As Entous writes: </p>
<blockquote>
<p id="S5PyXs">Hunter had heard that, during the primaries, some of Obama’s advisers had criticized him to reporters for his earmarking work. Hunter said that he wasn’t told by members of the Obama campaign to end his lobbying activities, but that he knew “the writing was on the wall.” </p>
<p id="cnzdF8">Hunter told his lobbying clients that he would no longer represent them, and resigned from an unpaid seat on the board of Amtrak, a role for which, Hunter said, the Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid had tapped him. “I wanted my father to have a clean slate,” Hunter told me. “I didn’t want to limit him in any way.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p id="8jNBrM">Given his history, <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/1/20891510/hunter-biden-burisma-ukraine-shokin">Hunter’s seat on a Ukrainian energy board</a> certainly looks like trading on his father’s name. </p>
<p id="Bk1E3h"></p>
<h3 id="12gKrv">What’s Crowdstrike and “the server”? And what is its role in the Ukraine scandal?</h3>
<p id="hHTR4F">A subplot to both Trump’s call with Zelensky and his broader approach to Ukraine is his apparent belief that a company called Crowdstrike has ties to Ukraine and that it possibly stashed a Democratic National Committee server that was hacked during the 2016 elections. Trump would like the Ukrainians to hand this over to the US government. </p>
<p id="GiOXSK">This is a reference to a conspiracy theory that rolls together a couple of misperceptions. </p>
<p id="aDeoEn">That starts with the fact that <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2019/9/25/20883526/trump-transcript-ukraine-russia-manafort-crowdstrike">Crowdstrike has nothing to do with Ukraine</a>. It’s an American company whose co-founder was born in Russia but emigrated to the US as a kid. Crowdstrike was hired by the Democratic National Committee to help investigate the hacking of their email during the 2016 campaign, and Trump is disturbed by the fact that the DNC did not turn a physical server over to the FBI or anyone else. Critically, <em>there is no server</em> that could be hidden in Ukraine (nor would there be any reason to hide an old server there) because the DNC used a modern cloud-based distributed email setup. </p>
<p id="bto5Fj">But the notion Trump is alluding to is the idea that the DNC was not really hacked by Russian actors at all. Instead, that attribution was faked by the allegedly Ukraine-linked Crowdstrike, which then hid the evidence as part of a larger plot to frame both Trump and the Russian government. Trump has time and again sought to exonerate Russia of culpability for computer crimes in 2016, and his interest in Crowdstrike seems to be part of that larger agenda.</p>
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<p id="mvd8wG"><strong>Did you know?</strong></p>
<p id="Fb7LP4">Donald Trump joins just two presidents in being impeached — Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton. Like Trump, they were acquitted in the Senate.</p>
<h2 id="HwHXDi">The process of impeachment</h2>
<h3 id="W8XMMC">What is impeachment? </h3>
<p id="P5xFxP">The House of Representatives voted on December 18th to impeach the president. </p>
<p id="yeXsBD"><a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/9/25/20882860/house-democrats-impeachment-inquiry-donald-trump-nancy-pelosi">Impeachment</a> is the House accusing the president of the United States of <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/24/20926891/high-crimes-and-misdemeanors-trump-impeachment-whitaker">high crimes or misdemeanors</a> — and the first step toward potentially <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/5/12/15615066/impeachment-trump-process-history">removing the president from office</a>. In this case, the House considered and voted in favor of two articles on impeachment: one accusing Trump of abuse of power and another accusing him of obstructing Congress.</p>
<p id="rxOY7o">It’s a grave, and historically quite rare, declaration by the House that members believe the president has abused his office. And though impeachment is a political and not a legal process, it’s akin to a decision to “charge” the president — kicking the matter over to the Senate, which then holds a trial to determine whether to actually remove him.</p>
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<h3 id="ngELK7">What are “high crimes and misdemeanors”?</h3>
<p id="bqItsW"><a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/24/20926891/high-crimes-and-misdemeanors-trump-impeachment-whitaker">Article II, Section 4 of the US Constitution</a> details the impeachment power: “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”</p>
<p id="yJIWU3">The more vague category of “<a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/24/20926891/high-crimes-and-misdemeanors-trump-impeachment-whitaker">high crimes and misdemeanors</a>” has been treated as a sort of catch-all for either <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/27/20885557/criminal-laws-trump-barr-giuliani-ukraine">criminal activity</a> or what Congress considers egregious abuse of office.</p>
<p id="cCal9Z">In 1868, Andrew Johnson was impeached for firing one of his Cabinet secretaries in violation of a law passed by Congress — and also for insulting Congress. In 1974, Richard Nixon was headed toward being impeached for obstruction of justice and abuse of power related to the Watergate burglary cover-up, but he resigned before it could happen. And in 1998, Bill Clinton was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice for his effort to cover up his affair with Monica Lewinsky.</p>
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<p id="SQrhdo"></p>
<p id="GA6v3N">In 1868, Andrew Johnson was impeached for firing one of his Cabinet Secretaries in violation of a law passed by Congress — and also for insulting Congress. In 1974, Richard Nixon was headed toward being impeached for obstruction of justice and abuse of power related to the Watergate burglary cover-up, but he resigned before it could happen. And in 1998, Bill Clinton was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice for his effort to cover up his affair with Monica Lewinsky.</p>
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<img alt="In 1868, Andrew Johnson was impeached for firing one of his Cabinet Secretaries in violation of a law passed by Congress — and also for insulting Congress." data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ddsP8T-n2tANv_KpeilOQ0BoelQ=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/19330063/president_johnson800.png">
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<img alt="In 1868, Andrew Johnson was impeached for firing one of his Cabinet Secretaries in violation of a law passed by Congress — and also for insulting Congress." data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/KW9yXH_LqkKlnhl1_cK9-VCqRjY=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/19330070/president_johnson1600.png">
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<img alt="In 1974, Richard Nixon was headed toward being impeached for obstruction of justice and abuse of power related to the Watergate burglary cover-up, but he resigned before it could happen." data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/_tgIOzYLqtPduTEuVT3a4MbfrkA=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/19330064/president_nixon800.png">
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<img alt="In 1974, Richard Nixon was headed toward being impeached for obstruction of justice and abuse of power related to the Watergate burglary cover-up, but he resigned before it could happen." data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ts_iqVC0rbEurGgtLduylW8I3XA=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/19330071/president_nixon1600.png">
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<img alt="And in 1998, Bill Clinton was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice for his effort to cover up his affair with Monica Lewinsky." data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/P40K9OMFv94Fne-Mwr08PMHgEew=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/19330062/president_clinton800.png">
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<img alt="And in 1998, Bill Clinton was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice for his effort to cover up his affair with Monica Lewinsky." data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/1iWs8OYD_RkStUqvaIYkGfYePL8=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/19330068/president_clinton1600.png">
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<p id="RM0Qmg">A violation of the criminal code by the president isn’t technically necessary for impeachment. Historically, though, impeachment efforts that are wholly grounded in politics, without even a thin pretext of an actual crime, haven’t gotten very far.</p>
<h3 id="vrOhRS">How does the impeachment process work?</h3>
<p id="1ZoJpm">For the most recent precedents (<a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/5/12/15615066/impeachment-trump-process-history">the Nixon and Clinton impeachment efforts</a>), the House Judiciary Committee took the leading role, holding <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/28/20895054/successful-impeachment-hearing-trump-ukraine">hearings</a> and gathering witness testimony, and eventually drafting their formal accusations against the president as “articles of impeachment.” The Judiciary Committee then voted to approve those articles and send them on to the full chamber. The Trump impeachment inquiry featured a hybrid process in which the Intelligence Committee did primary fact-finding, wrote a report, and then kicked the report to the Judiciary Committee, which drafted the actual articles of impeachment.</p>
<p id="v2R5AX">But the endpoint<strong> </strong>in the House is a vote of the full chamber on each article of impeachment. If even one article is approved by a majority, the president has been (dun dun dun ...) impeached.</p>
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<h3 id="Jr7T33">What does it mean that Trump’s been impeached? </h3>
<p id="nWPSBg">For the president, nothing happens (beyond a symbolic reprimand) if he or she is impeached. Impeachment by the House alone does not remove a president from office or do anything in particular to him. All a House impeachment vote does is turn the matter over to the people who will really decide what happens — the members of the United States Senate. </p>
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<h3 id="F97V2K">What’s the Senate’s role in the impeachment process?</h3>
<p id="CTDvbe">The Senate holds a trial to assess the House’s charges — aimed at deciding whether to remove an impeached president from office.</p>
<p id="6aBw24">In this trial, the House of Representatives acts as a prosecutor, and chooses certain “impeachment managers” to argue their case in the Senate. Then, the president’s lawyers are the defense team — the president does not have to appear in person and historically has not. The chief justice of the Supreme Court presides and is responsible for making procedural rulings during the trial — but the Senate can vote to overrule his decisions.</p>
<p id="PR92mD">Now, though this is referred to as a trial, it is, again, a political and not legal process, so it doesn’t have to follow the ordinary rules and practices of a criminal trial. Again, it’s up the Senate to decide how to structure it — for instance, they can call witnesses to give live testimony (as they did for Andrew Johnson), or decide not to (as they did for Bill Clinton).</p>
<p id="oOXvf7">At the end, though, this trial ends in a vote on each article of impeachment — to either convict or acquit the president. A vote to convict on even one article will remove the president from office.</p>
<p id="ShnS6B">Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell showed no interest before the trial in subpoenaing witnesses who did not testify before the House. Ultimately, the Senate voted not to call any witnesses.</p>
<h3 id="NAc5DK">What would it have taken to convict Trump?</h3>
<p id="U3hFpc">It takes a two-thirds vote of the chamber (67 out of 100 senators) to convict an impeached president. That’s a far higher threshold than an ordinary vote, and even the typical supermajority requirement in the Senate. <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/5/12/15615066/impeachment-trump-process-history">And it has never happened in US history</a> (though it likely would have for Nixon, if he hadn’t resigned first).</p>
<p id="8DjL0k">There are currently 53 Republican senators, so removing Trump would have taken 20 of them to defect. In the end, only Romney voted to convict (on one count). </p>
<p id="y4pRpH"><a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/8/20904953/impeachment-poll-today-civiqs-post-schar-trump-impeachment-inquiry">Impeachment has polled moderately well</a>, and Trump is moderately unpopular. But to inspire mass <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/10/14/20908684/senate-republicans-trump-impeachment-mitt-romney-susan-collins">defections from Senate Republicans</a>, the landscape would need to have been overwhelmingly in favor of impeachment.</p>
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<h3 id="coBsvX">What would the line of succession have been? </h3>
<p id="thwqJ1">If Trump had been removed from office — or if he, like Nixon, had resigned under pressure — the presidency would have fallen to <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/8/20903433/pence-trump-impeachment-conservatives">Vice President Mike Pence</a>. Next in line would have been House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, then Senate President Pro Tempore Chuck Grassley, then <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/10/2/20895103/ukraine-pompeo-trump-call-zelensky">Secretary of State Mike Pompeo</a>, and then <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/23/20879639/steve-mnuchin-trump-ukraine-biden-sunday-shows">Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin</a>. </p>
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<p id="kDQ2rR">This all gets fairly fanciful, but there are basically <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/10/7/20898619/trump-impeachment-scenarios-pence-pelosi">four constitutionally plausible scenarios</a>. </p>
<p id="XqgAJX">One happy coincidence of the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2014/8/7/5970967/what-was-watergate-scandal-nixon">Watergate era</a> is that Nixon’s original vice president, Spiro Agnew, had been forced from office earlier due to an unrelated scandal. Consequently, as the Watergate investigation heated up, there was a new vice president, Gerald Ford, who hadn’t even been a member of the administration at the time the misconduct occurred. Pence, by contrast, is an important member of the Trump administration and has been a <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/10/4/20898714/mike-pence-hypocrisy-foreign-election-interference-trump-ukraine">vocal defender of Trump’s conduct</a>. <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/10/4/20899289/mike-pence-impeachment-house-schiff-letter">Pence has also made his own phone calls to Zelensky</a>, and while he says he’s working to get those transcripts released, that hasn’t happened yet, so we don’t know what they say. It’s at least conceivable that he will also end up implicated in the scandal. </p>
<p id="UcLXG7">The <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/10/7/20898619/trump-impeachment-scenarios-pence-pelosi">Presidential Succession Act</a> says that if the president and vice president both go down simultaneously, the speaker of the House is next in line. Senate Republicans wouldn’t vote for convictions that give the White House to Nancy Pelosi, so this is, again, a bit theoretical. But it’s worth noting that many scholars believe it was unconstitutional for Congress to write itself into the order of succession. In that case, the baton falls to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo — but <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/10/2/20894957/pompeo-ukraine-call-trump-impeachment-state-department">Pompeo was actually on the call with Zelensky</a> that is at the heart of all this, and is otherwise deeply involved in the Ukraine issue. </p>
<p id="bAcOb6">Next in line after him is Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who seems essentially free and clear of any involvement with the scandal.</p>
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<p id="lEcFoq"><strong>Did you know?</strong></p>
<p id="LrRilS">At least 20 Republicans would have had to defect for the Senate to convict Trump on impeachment charges.</p>
<h2 id="aWUT6e">The politics of impeachment</h2>
<h3 id="ChJaCG">What’s going on in the polls? Is any of this hurting Trump?</h3>
<p id="pOBrPJ">The impeachment of Donald Trump has been a hot topic of political discussion for a long time, and for a long time it was very unpopular. According to FiveThirtyEight’s <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/do-americans-support-impeaching-president-trump/?ex_cid=rrpromo">comprehensive tracker of impeachment polls</a>, in the period between the release of special counsel <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/4/18/18485602/mueller-report-findings-obstruction-russia-collusion">Robert Mueller’s report</a> and the storm of <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2019/9/25/20883526/trump-transcript-ukraine-russia-manafort-crowdstrike">Ukraine news</a>, support for impeaching Trump ranged between 35 and 40 percent, with opposition consistently above 50 percent. </p>
<p id="6uE7Y3">That has changed since the Ukraine story became public knowledge, with support for impeaching Trump now generally a bit above opposition. Note, however, that while impeachment has gotten more popular, it lags behind overall approval of Trump’s job performance. A <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/?ex_cid=rrpromo">larger share</a> of the public say they disapprove of Trump than those who say they want to see him impeached. </p>
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<h3 id="sHoLYl">Why did <em>this</em> lead to impeachment, and not the Mueller investigation?</h3>
<p id="19gRRg"><a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/12/6/18118466/trump-mueller-russia-investigation">Robert Mueller</a> found behavior that appears to meet the <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/4/18/18484947/mueller-report-obstruction-of-justice-summary">factual criteria for obstruction of justice</a> in his investigation of Trump and Russian election interference. But Mueller himself said that as a matter of policy, <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/5/31/18645173/mueller-report-barr-trump-obstruction">he wouldn’t say whether or not Trump committed a crime</a> — and he wouldn’t make a formal recommendation on impeachment one way or another. And despite the hype around Mueller from both sides, the reality is that he was a lifelong Republican appointed to the special counsel gig by Trump’s Republican deputy attorney general — so in retrospect, it’s perhaps not so surprising that he wanted to write a thorough report and go back home rather than wage political warfare on behalf of congressional Democrats. </p>
<p id="jDxjLy">Nonetheless, from the Democrats’ perspective, what this left them with was a situation in which impeachment polled poorly and the guy who’d led the investigation was unwilling to state that crimes had been committed and that the president ought to face consequences. Consequently, frontline members in tough districts <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/4/23/18510850/democrats-impeachment-pelosi-mueller-trump">became concerned that the impeachment issue could cost them their seats</a>, and party leadership was obsessed with protecting them by keeping impeachment off the table.</p>
<p id="r94iRR">Critics charged that the reason impeachment polled so poorly is that Democratic leaders wouldn’t squarely make the case that Trump had broken the law. And despite impeachment’s poor polling, the pressure did get a steadily increasing number of safe-seat Democrats to come out in favor of impeachment. </p>
<p id="jzIejX">Then the Ukraine story broke, <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/24/20881521/moderate-house-democrats-impeachment-investigation">a block of members changed their tune</a>, and <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/9/24/20881830/formal-impeachment-inquiry-nancy-pelosi-house-democrats-donald-trump">party leadership hopped on the bandwagon</a>. </p>
<p id="B97X2V">Several factors made a difference, starting with the fact that by the time the Ukraine story broke, a large faction of House Democrats had already committed to impeachment, and all of them were under pressure from the base to do so. And the Ukraine story had several elements that Mueller’s report lacked. </p>
<ul>
<li id="ew6ynB">First, because Trump rather quickly agreed to release <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/25/20883420/full-transcript-trump-ukraine-zelensky-white-house">the write-up of his call with President Zelensky</a> to the public, the argument became primarily about his actual conduct rather than about a “process crime” like obstruction of justice. </li>
<li id="rTNewW">Second, the misconduct related to the <em>future</em> 2020 presidential campaign so directly that saying it should be left for the campaign to resolve was untenable. </li>
<li id="XTfcnh">Third, going back to before <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/26/20885060/whistleblower-complaint-ukraine-trump-impeachment">the whistleblower’s memo</a> came to public attention, there had been significant Republican pushback against Trump’s failure to release aid money to Ukraine. </li>
<li id="d2rT0f">Fourth, a Russia-focused impeachment would have ended up focused on obstruction of justice without an underlying offense. Federal prosecutors do bring cases like this (if you obstruct justice successfully, they won’t be able to prove the underlying offense), but it’s a harder sell both politically and substantively than a case that doesn’t focus on process crimes.</li>
</ul>
<p id="KwECyG">Democratic leaders in Congress also say <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/9/30/20883584/trump-impeachment-whistleblower-ukraine">the Ukraine story</a> is in some sense simpler and easier to explain, as well as substantively worse. Long-time impeachment advocates say the real difference is simply that Democratic elected officials united behind a pro-impeachment message. Either way, the polling on impeachment did start to shift soon after the Ukraine issue became a focus of attention, and that further solidified Democrats’ determination to move forward with an inquiry. </p>
<p id="dA5Xw6">Beyond Mueller, there is plenty of progressive sentiment that Trump deserves to be impeached over last year’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/6/11/17443198/children-immigrant-families-separated-parents">inhumane child separation policies</a> or his egregious use of emergency powers to poach money to finance his <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/9/4/20848968/trump-border-wall-mexico-military">border wall-building project</a>. To House members facing tough races, however, letting Trump turn the question of impeachment into a bigger ideological question about immigration policy would be handing him a win. </p>
<p id="RdnHwV">The <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/9/30/20883584/trump-impeachment-whistleblower-ukraine">Ukraine story</a> involves a form of egregious misconduct that these House members see as politically safe to stand against, even if it’s a little distant from the core ideological concerns of progressive activists. In the impeachment context, though, that distance is a virtue — the concept of “high crimes and misdemeanors” is traditionally understood as referring to abuses of power or unfitness for office, rather than regular policy disputes. </p>
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<h3 id="e4Xc3W">Is what Trump did illegal?</h3>
<p id="msG3G2">“<a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/24/20926891/high-crimes-and-misdemeanors-trump-impeachment-whitaker">High crimes and misdemeanors</a>” is not strictly a legal concept. The general thrust of the impeachment inquiry is that Trump was using his office in an inappropriate way, rather than he violated specific provisions of the US code. </p>
<p id="9IzAVu">That said, there are <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/27/20885557/criminal-laws-trump-barr-giuliani-ukraine">several possible areas of criminal violation</a>. </p>
<ul>
<li id="F8AZKl">Federal campaign finance law makes it illegal to “solicit, accept, or receive a contribution or donation” from a foreign national. The question of whether or not the president ran afoul of that law certainly seems relevant in light of what we saw in the transcript. Legality would likely end up hinging on whether or not an investigation into Hunter Biden constitutes a <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/10/4/20898491/trump-foreign-solicitation-ukraine-china-fec-ellen-weintraub">“thing of value”</a> within the meaning of the statute.</li>
<li id="YMrwdj">There is also federal bribery law, which may cause problems for any public official who “corruptly demands, seeks, receives, accepts, or agrees to receive or accept anything of value personally … in return for … being influenced in the performance of any official act.” This raises the same “thing of value” question as the campaign finance charge. What’s more, the <a href="https://casetext.com/case/mcdonnell-v-united-states-9">Supreme Court’s 2016 decision in <em>McDonnell v. United States</em></a> adopted an extremely narrow view of what constitutes an “official act.” A prosecutor would likely need to show a very direct and explicit linkage of military aid for Ukraine to Trump’s demands, while his defense could always note that the aid did eventually flow even without a Biden investigation.</li>
<li id="ncwFI1">What Trump was doing on the call seems to fit the ordinary language description of extortion pretty well, but the relevant federal statute here is the Hobbs Act. This specifically references “obtaining of property from another, with his consent, induced by wrongful use of actual or threatened force, violence, or fear, or under color of official right.” Making the case that a Biden investigation would be a form of “property” seems harder than the “thing of value” requirement for the first two options.</li>
<li id="DC8L55">Last, but by no means least, there is always the old standby of <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/4/26/18514290/mueller-report-findings-trump-obstruction-justice">obstruction of justice</a>. Trump has engaged in an array of counter-investigative techniques — from <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/9/26/20885149/trump-transcript-ukraine-watergate-tapes">storing the transcript of the call on a codeword-classified server</a> to initially blocking the release of the whistleblower complaint to threatening the whistleblower to refusing to cooperate with the impeachment inquiry — that could potentially be construed as efforts to obstruct justice. </li>
</ul>
<p id="XLRrIG">All of these seem somewhat tenuous as legal cases. An <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/9/25/20882860/house-democrats-impeachment-inquiry-donald-trump-nancy-pelosi">impeachment proceeding</a>, however, is not a legal case. Congress is under no particular obligation to stick to the Supreme Court’s narrow view of official acts, be fussy about the meaning of “thing of value,” or take the view that property is the only thing that can be extorted. </p>
<p id="Y4FtEn">House Democrats ultimately settled on an obstruction charge plus a catch-all claim of “abuse of power,” arguing not that Trump’s conduct violated a specific provision of the criminal code but rather his overall constitutional responsibilities. </p>
<p id="vseIb6"> </p>
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<h3 id="OC9Jmq">Will this hurt Trump in 2020? </h3>
<p id="AwKwqq">On one level, this whole caper has blown up in Trump’s face, unified a formerly divided Democratic Party into launching a formal impeachment inquiry, divided Republicans, and cost him in the polls. </p>
<p id="PUMZ7G">On another level, you need to squint pretty hard at the polling data thus far to see the impact. His poll numbers sunk a point or two when the Ukraine news initially broke but seem to have rebounded back as the impeachment process went on. Looking at Trump’s approval as a whole, his two worst moments were the unpopular 2018 tax law and the government shutdown in early 2019. Nothing that’s come out about Ukraine has been nearly that bad for his approval numbers.</p>
<p id="EjsjDF">And in a larger sense, to the extent that Trump’s goal was to hurt <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/4/25/18185060/joe-biden-2020-presidential-election-campaign-policies">Joe Biden’s presidential prospects</a>, his strategy is arguably working. Biden’s approval ratings, after all, have declined over the past several months more clearly than Trump’s have. Then again, <em>all</em> the main Democratic presidential candidates have suffered from declining approval numbers during the course of the campaign, so Trump’s actions may have nothing to do with that.</p>
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<h3 id="OC9Jmq">The most important players in the scandal</h3>
<h3 id="kO6ToP"></h3>
<h4 id="azNS8o">President Donald Trump</h4>
<p id="eZcqdn">President Donald Trump was acquitted in the Senate after the House impeached him over allegations of pressuring the Ukrainian government to investigate his possible 2020 rival, Joe Biden.<strong> </strong></p>
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<h4 id="S9oJiW">Rudy Giuliani</h4>
<p id="65y6cF"><a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/25/20883309/rudy-giuliani-ukraine-trump">Trump’s personal lawyer</a> holds no government job but has been at the center of Trump’s effort to pressure Ukrainian officials to launch those investigations.</p>
<p id="FuGk2T"></p>
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<h4 id="fP5vjt">George Kent</h4>
<p id="wnlJzS"><a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/11/13/20960221/impeachment-hearings-witnesses-ukraine-who-is-taylor-kent-yovanovitch">George Kent</a> is the State Department’s deputy assistant secretary in the European and Eurasian affairs bureau. He oversees the Trump administration’s policy toward <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2019/9/25/20883526/trump-transcript-ukraine-russia-manafort-crowdstrike">Ukraine</a> as well as several other countries in the region. He was also the senior anti-corruption coordinator in the State Department’s European bureau from 2014 to 2015, making him one of the government’s top experts on corruption in nations like Ukraine. He participated in the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/11/13/20961074/impeachment-hearings-testimony-live-stream-taylor-kent">first public impeachment hearing</a> on November 13.</p>
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<h4 id="mmCcgj">Marie Yovanovitch </h4>
<p id="A926N9"><a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/11/4/20948280/impeachment-transcripts-marie-yovanovitch">Marie “Masha” Yovanovitch</a> served as the US ambassador to <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2019/9/25/20883526/trump-transcript-ukraine-russia-manafort-crowdstrike">Ukraine</a> from August 2016 to May 2019. The State Department’s highest-ranked female ambassador, Yovanovitch received attacks from <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/25/20883309/rudy-giuliani-ukraine-trump">Rudy Giuliani</a> and his allies over a false belief that she aimed to counter President Trump’s Ukraine policy and was close to Ukraine’s former president, Petro Poroshenko. That smear campaign is what led to her removal from her post months before she was scheduled to leave.</p>
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<h4 id="sKg4Cd">Vice President Mike Pence</h4>
<p id="LGqwSv"><a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/10/4/20899289/mike-pence-impeachment-house-schiff-letter">Vice President Mike Pence</a> met with the Ukrainian president in September as this was unfolding. Also, he’d become president if Trump were removed from office.</p>
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<h4 id="B7fVKJ">Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff</h4>
<p id="kzzHu7"><a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/17/20919430/mulvaney-trump-ukraine-quid-pro-quo-conspiracies">Mick Mulvaney</a> carried out an instruction from Trump to freeze military aid to Ukraine — which Congress is investigating as a potential quid pro quo.</p>
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<img alt="Mick Mulvaney" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Y-lABV2CzN5sloIWuQNNNLge0ns=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/19329006/mulvaney_head.png">
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<h4 id="Bnu5Fe">Mike Pompeo, the Secretary of State</h4>
<p id="SZtrqe"><a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/10/2/20894957/pompeo-ukraine-call-trump-impeachment-state-department">Mike Pompeo</a>, the Secretary of State: His State Department was heavily involved in discussions with Ukraine over all these matters, though Pompeo’s personal role remains opaque.</p>
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<img alt="Mike Pompeo" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/-0rx8FBceQTThxRO3Pxv5xX42Ls=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/19329013/pompeo_head.png">
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<h4 id="2GOyOz">Bill Barr, the Attorney General</h4>
<p id="p0z3jt"><a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/9/25/20883610/attorney-general-william-barr-trump-phone-call-volodymyr-zelensky-whistleblower-ukraine-scandal">Bill Barr</a>: Trump told the Ukrainian president during a July phone call to get in touch with Barr to discuss investigations into Biden and the 2016 elections. Barr has denied any knowledge of this.</p>
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<img alt="Bill Barr" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/7eipU8UBo18bMU027BDe0j_TCdc=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/19329018/barr_head.png">
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<h4 id="1W1bjQ">Bill Taylor, the current top diplomat in the US embassy in Ukraine</h4>
<p id="dFUX8H"><a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/10/22/20927322/taylor-impeachment-testimony-ukraine-quid-trump">Bill Taylor</a> has had a lengthy diplomatic career and, in text messages, strongly expresses concerns about pushing the Ukrainians to launch investigations that would help Trump politically.</p>
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<img alt="Bill Taylor" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/0bY2mGxsHq74hCLACOK_N5FKXQg=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/19329019/taylor_head.png">
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<h4 id="Rlexnm">Rick Perry, the Secretary of Energy</h4>
<p id="d5PXwA"><a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/10/6/20901569/rick-perry-ukraine-impeachment-trump">Rick Perry,</a> former Texas governor, has taken a surprisingly large role in Ukraine policy this year, and Trump<a href="https://www.axios.com/trump-blamed-rick-perry-call-ukraine-zelensky-8178447a-0374-4ac6-b321-a9454b0565d4.html"> recently attempte</a>d to blame him for setting up the controversial call with the Ukrainian president. But Perry’s role in the pressure campaign remains unclear.</p>
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<img alt="Rick Perry" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/uBY8k-vUg1f61WQKzbP_9hQ8F6I=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/19329025/perry_head.png">
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<h4 id="RYbwwp">Gordon Sondland, the Ambassador to the EU</h4>
<p id="vBwkAR"><a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/10/10/20904504/gordon-sondland-impeachment-inquiry-testimony">Gordon Sondland</a>, a donor to Trump’s inauguration, was centrally involved in Trump’s effort to get Ukraine to launch those investigations, as text<a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/4/20898215/trump-text-messages-ukraine-impeachment"> messages show</a>. When the topic of Trump blocking military aid to Ukraine comes up, Sondland tells a colleague to talk on the phone rather than text about it.</p>
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<img alt="Gordon Sondland" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Bp07PxFEeeoxi4m60eUyf4MZZAI=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/19329031/sondland_head.png">
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<h4 id="sHBwXk">Kurt Volker</h4>
<p id="goLyWd"><a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/27/20887899/volker-resigns-ukraine-whistleblower">Kurt Volker</a> is the former US special representative to Ukraine.</p>
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<img alt="Kurt Volker" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/s6bYcU23lvXyd8QOce7HNM8k834=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/19329041/volker_head.png">
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<h4 id="WBTOzI">Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman</h4>
<p id="6wcFEa"><a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/10/10/20907972/lev-parnas-igor-fruman-rudy-giuliani-arrested">Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman</a>: These two Soviet-born, Florida-based men have been Giuliani’s “fixers” in his efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate Trump’s rivals. Amid the scandal, they <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/10/10/20907972/lev-parnas-igor-fruman-rudy-giuliani-arrested">were arrested</a> in October while trying to flee the country and charged for a separate matter — violating campaign finance law with false disclosures about their donations to Republican politicians and groups.</p>
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<img alt="Lev Parnas" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/_uV0s5Yu-8FRcHTfA-HDrZkdglo=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/19329060/parnas_head.png">
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<h4 id="WcXXMO">Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president</h4>
<p id="g3LNQQ"><a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2019/9/24/20882359/trump-impeachment-ukraine-president-zelensky">Volodymyr Zelensky</a> was a television sitcom star who became an unlikely candidate for the Ukrainian presidency and won the office in a landslide in April 2019. He ran as an outsider and on an anti-corruption platform — but he quickly came under pressure by President Trump to launch politicized investigations that Trump wanted.</p>
<p id="vbYzhV"></p>
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<img alt="Volodymyr Zelensky" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/CvonHAD3tLNh1bCtWf4IhuxvmBk=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/19329066/zelenski_head.png">
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<h4 id="etXuFZ">Former Vice President Joe Biden</h4>
<p id="aTCZl6"><a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/4/25/18185060/joe-biden-2020-presidential-election-campaign-policies">Former Vice President Joe Biden</a> took a large role in Ukraine policy during the Obama administration — and pressed the country to get rid of a prosecutor general who was widely viewed as corrupt and ineffective. Now, he’s the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination to face Trump in 2020, and Trump’s allies have attempted to twist his Ukraine work into something scandalous. </p>
<p id="b12XFX"></p>
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<img alt="Joe Biden" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/HRsJQYQOG4kd0RGSgxFM8Qe1PjI=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/19335427/j_biden_head.png">
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<h4 id="AetQSi">Hunter Biden </h4>
<p id="UYPcW8"><a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/1/20891510/hunter-biden-burisma-ukraine-shokin">Hunter Biden</a> is the ne’er-do-well son of the former vice president, whose questionable ethical choices have been the subject of media scrutiny for decades. Hunter has accepted large payments from several foreign sources, and he was well compensated for serving on the board of a scandal-plagued Ukrainian natural gas company called Burisma, despite having no evident qualifications for the post. Trump has claimed that Joe Biden intervened in Ukraine policy to help his son, but there’s no evidence that that’s true.</p>
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<img alt="Hunter Biden" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/j35oni1oIsCsK5fI117aUGETnBo=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/19329090/h_biden_head.png">
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<h4 id="fP5vjt">Adam Schiff</h4>
<p id="L6RAK0"><a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/30/20891096/impeachment-inquiry-ukraine-whistleblower-arrest-treason-adam-schiff-donald-trump">Adam Schiff</a> is the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, unofficial leader of the multi-committee impeachment inquiry, and over the years, a frequent anti-Trump talking head on television. Trump is obsessed with pushing the idea that Schiff deserves some kind of penalty for the alleged sin of opening his first hearing on the subject with a loose paraphrase of Trump’s call with Zelensky, rather than a literal rendition of the text.</p>
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https://www.vox.com/c/2020/2/6/20914280/impeachment-trump-explainedMatthew YglesiasAndrew Prokop2020-02-06T10:55:00-05:002020-02-06T10:55:00-05:00Trump strikes a bitterly vindictive tone during National Prayer Breakfast speech
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<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ds_mdFYnv9OGU6vJx2paYhXqpi0=/44x0:5657x4210/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/66262137/GettyImages_1198914114.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Trump arrived at the National Prayer Breakfast waving around newspapers. | Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>He showed up waving around a newspaper that read “ACQUITTED” — and things didn’t get more prayerful from there.</p> <p id="0hvLNj">President Donald Trump’s speech at the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday in Washington, DC — an annual tradition for presidents — made clear he blames Democrats and even Republican Mitt Romney for the impeachment process that <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/2/5/21115704/trump-impeachment-trial-acquittal">ended with him being acquitted by Republican senators</a> the day before.</p>
<p id="xzpPJ7">Trump, who <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1225414218696085504">waved around a newspaper</a> with the headline “ACQUITTED” when he arrived at the event, spoke immediately after Washington Post columnist Arthur Brooks. The contrast between Trump and Brooks was stark: Brooks addressed traditional Christian themes during his remarks, urging attendees to “love your enemies” and transcend “contempt.” Trump, however, began his speech by saying, “Arthur, I don’t know if I agree with you.”</p>
<p id="Xio0vi">“As everybody knows, my family, our great country, and your president have been put through a terrible ordeal by some very dishonest and corrupt people,” Trump lamented. “They have done everything possible to destroy us, and by so doing, very badly hurt our nation.”</p>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Trump to the prayer breakfast: "As everybody knows, my family, our great country, & your president have been put through a terrible ordeal by some very dishonest & corrupt people. They have done everything possible to destroy us & by so doing, very badly hurt our nation." <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/WWJD?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#WWJD</a> <a href="https://t.co/NZS8QqXbc6">pic.twitter.com/NZS8QqXbc6</a></p>— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1225423651853553664?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 6, 2020</a>
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<p id="xJWEG2">The president then took thinly veiled shots at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who offered a prayer at the event before his speech, and Romney, who on Wednesday was <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/2/5/21125118/mitt-romney-impeachment-vote-history">the only Republican senator to vote for Trump’s removal from office</a>.</p>
<p id="bc1S5U">“I don’t like people who use their faith as justification for doing what they know is wrong,” Trump said, apparently alluding to Romney’s comments about how <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/invoking-faith-emotional-mitt-romney-announces-hell-vote/story?id=68779768">his faith influenced his decision</a> to vote for Trump’s removal. </p>
<p id="HkNe2v">“Nor do I like people who say, ‘I pray for you,’ when they know that that’s not so,” Trump continued, in reference to Pelosi’s <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/466167-pelosi-fires-back-after-trump-meltdown-we-have-to-pray-for-his-health">comments about how she prayed for the president</a> throughout the impeachment process.</p>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Trump drags Pelosi: "Nor do I like people who say, 'I pray for you,' when they know that that's not so." <a href="https://t.co/4QnG8ADBdQ">pic.twitter.com/4QnG8ADBdQ</a></p>— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1225423873602134016?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 6, 2020</a>
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<p id="FHDTiF">He then pivoted back to his typical stump speech, focusing on the stock market and bragging about his accomplishments rather than on spirituality.</p>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Trump wasted no time reducing his speech to the prayer breakfast to boasts about the stock market and materialism <a href="https://t.co/d4NqmCQGqm">pic.twitter.com/d4NqmCQGqm</a></p>— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1225424392928288768?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 6, 2020</a>
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<p id="MxwS54">But before stepping away from the lectern, Trump came back to impeachment one more time, saying that “when they impeach you for nothing [and] then you’re supposed to like them, it’s not easy, folks. I do my best.”</p>
<p id="W6XwsD">If you think Trump’s comments were a bit off-key for a prayer event, you’re not alone. Historian Kevin Kruse <a href="https://twitter.com/KevinMKruse/status/1225423925582188545">tweeted</a> that “I’ve studied the National Prayer Breakfast a good bit, and I can’t say how bizarre it is for a president to use the moment — traditionally one devoted to bipartisanship and unity — to strike such a petty, vindictive tone at the event.”</p>
<p id="U3p4hs">Then again, this is very on-brand for Trump. As I detailed on Wednesday, Trump’s initial response to the acquittal was to <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/2/5/21125401/trump-impeachment-acquittal-response-president-4eva">post authoritarian memes and make a mockery of the entire process</a> — thus undermining the talking points used by <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/2/5/21123977/susan-collins-trump-impeachment-acquittal">numerous Republican senators</a> who expressed hope in the days leading up to Wednesday’s vote that Trump would be chastened by impeachment.</p>
<aside id="9LjyGN"><div data-anthem-component="readmore" data-anthem-component-data='{"stories":[{"title":"Trump’s prayer event began with an inaccurate 2016 election map and ended with a rage-tweet","url":"https://www.vox.com/2020/1/17/21070218/trump-prayer-event-impeachment"}]}'></div></aside><p id="Z1GnvM">Later Thursday, Trump is scheduled to address the nation on the topic of the just-completed impeachment trial. Press secretary Stephanie Grisham’s comments to Fox News previewed that the vindictive tone he struck at the prayer breakfast will likely carry over into his speech.</p>
<p id="vdup4J">“I think he’s gonna also talk about how just horribly he was treated and that maybe people should pay for that,” <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1225436583324790784">she said</a>. </p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Stephanie Grisham previews Trump's post-impeachment trial speech: "I think he's gonna also talk about how just horribly he was treated and that maybe people should pay for that." <a href="https://t.co/DL6LWD4KdY">pic.twitter.com/DL6LWD4KdY</a></p>— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1225436583324790784?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 6, 2020</a>
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<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="soN54Z">
<p id="0JgZMt"><em>The news moves fast. To stay updated, follow </em><a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar"><em><strong>Aaron Rupar</strong></em></a><em> on Twitter, and read more of </em><a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics"><em><strong>Vox’s policy and politics coverage</strong></em></a><em>.</em></p>
https://www.vox.com/2020/2/6/21126252/trump-national-prayer-breakfast-speech-impeachmentAaron Rupar