The beginning of the Iraq War in 2003

[This article was written in 2004. It was never published, and I have decided, fifteen years later, to post it online here.]

The invasion of Iraq was declared for the purpose of ending the decades-long dictatorship of President Saddam Hussein — which was suspected of producing weapons of mass destruction and sheltering terrorists who threatened the US — and to replace it with a democratic government. The U.S. military’s mission objectives were:

1. End the regime of Saddam Hussein
2. Identify, isolate, and eliminate Iraq’s WMD, systems, and facilities
3. Capture or drive out terrorists sheltered in Iraq
4. Collect intelligence on terrorist networks and on Iraq’s illicit WMD activity
5. Secure Iraq’s oil fields and natural resources for the Iraqi people
6. End sanctions and immediately deliver humanitarian relief and assistance
7. Help the Iraqi people rapidly transition to a representative form of self-government that does not threaten its neighbors and is committed to the territorial integrity of Iraq

The United States and Britain already had combat-ready bases in Kuwait, which borders Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf southeast of Baghdad, and were able to ship soldiers to Iraq without meeting naval opposition (Murray 71). The troops stayed at these bases awaiting their next orders.

On 18 March 2003, President Bush gave Saddam Hussein 48 hours to leave Iraq with his two sons. Saddam showed no intent of doing so. Within hours after the deadline had passed, military intelligence identified a building where Saddam was believed to be hiding and U.S. Tomahawk and F-117 missiles hit the building in a “decapitation strike” on 20 March. Saddam and his sons survived the attack, but this fact was not known to the US for days. Journalists, having been told to expect a “Shock and Awe” opening show of 3,000 cruise missiles on Baghdad, were surprised by the restraint of this attack. (Ryan) Iraq, too, was probably expecting the US to begin the war with bombs as it had done in the first Gulf War in 1991.

“Shock and Awe” did indeed initiate the war on 21 March, with strike aircraft hitting a thousand targets, mostly the evacuated buildings of Baath Party bureaucrats (Murray 75, 169). The opening air campaign lasted several nights while invading ground troops made their way toward Baghdad. The attack plan was for the British, supported by U.S. Marines, to capture the port of Umm Qasr and Basra while the US closed in on the capital city of Baghdad from the west and the east. This did not happen exactly as planned. US Marines captured Umm Qasr on the first day of ground warfare, but the British were tied up in Basra for weeks in a protracted siege.

Baghdad fell, with only 100,000 American forces on the ground defeating 400,000 Iraqi soldiers, defying conventional military wisdom that an invading army needs to outnumber the defense three-to-one. (These 100,000 U.S. troops, though, were part of a total of 250,000 U.S. and Coalition forces that had been committed to the war.) Iraqi military power had been ravaged by 12 years of continuous bombing by the US dating back to the previous Gulf War. The Republican Guard was disorganized and lost its weapons early in the combat, while the Air Force did not even make an attempt at resistance, having only 320 aircraft, less than half of which were in working condition (Cordesman 27). The U.S. Air Force, by contrast, had 863 aircraft at the peak of the war, and that number was doubled by the contributions of other branches of the U.S. military and the Coalition. Foreign fighters arrived from neighboring Arab countries to defend Saddam’s rule and have their chance to shoot at American soldiers, but they were largely untrained and lacked an official alliance with Iraqis who sometimes treated them as an enemy.

A zero-visibility sandstorm that lasted from 24-26 March afforded the Coalition soldiers time to rest during their trek to Baghdad. However, the unexpected pause caused supplies to dwindle and anxieties to rise. During this time, President Bush requested $75 billion from Congress for the war effort, a request which was approved a week later. As soon as the sandstorm ended, reconnaissance forces were sent to determine the location and strength of the Iraqi Republican Guard near Baghdad. (Murray 128)

During the next few days, as ground forces approached the city, Baghdad continued to experience heavy bombing. On 3 April, with U.S. forces less than 10 miles outside the city, Saddam International Airport was captured and renamed Baghdad International Airport. The next day, 2,500 Republican Guard soldiers surrendered. On 7 April, two presidential palaces fell, and there was another attempted decapitation strike on a restaurant where Saddam was believed to be hiding. Baghdad fell on 9 April with the symbolic removal of a huge statue of Saddam, plunging the city into chaos. Iraqis rioted with a mix of jubilant celebration and criminal acts including the looting of historical artifacts from museums.

As of 11 April, according to Cordesman, the US had launched 17,000 precision-guided weapons, 8,500 unguided weapons, and 900 cruise missiles against Iraq. USCENTCOM claimed that most of the precision-guided weapons used GPS technology (Murray 72).

On 1 May 2003, only 42 days after the beginning of the war, President Bush declared major combat operations to be over. This was a symbolic period, as the 1991 war on Iraq fought by President Bush’s father had also been 42 days long.

Saddam Hussein survived the initial combat and was caught in hiding on 13 December 2003. Sovereignty was officially transferred from the U.S. to the new Iraqi government on 28 June 2004, over a year after major combat had ended. U.S. and Coalition troops were never planned to be withdrawn from Iraq, however, and they continued to be attacked with bombs on a weekly and sometimes daily basis.

The U.S.-led Coalition at least partly achieved its own objectives in that the Baath Party was decisively overthrown. However, a significant part of the Coalition’s mission, finding illicit weapons of mass destruction, was never achieved. President Bush finally conceded such weapons may never have existed. And the effort to drive out terrorists achieved the opposite effect, as foreign fighters poured across the border to defend Iraq and have their chance to take shots against Americans. A year and a half after the invasion, suicide car bombs and improvised explosive devices were still detonating daily in Iraq, causing Iraqi civilian and U.S. military casualties. The bipartisan Report of the 9/11 Commission determined that there never had been any connection between Saddam Hussein and the terrorists who perpetrated the attacks of 9/11. As for the objective of democracy for the Iraqi people, the significance of the war for the future of Iraq remains to be seen.

[Note: Again, this article was written in 2004. Readers may also be interested in my essay, There was no good reason for the US to invade Iraq in 2003."]

Sources

Anthony H. Cordesman. The Iraq War: Strategy, Tactics, and Military Lessons. Washington, D.C.: The Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2003.

Williamson Murray and Maj. Gen. Robert H. Scales, Jr. The Iraq War: A Military History. Cambridge and London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2003.

Mike Ryan. Baghdad or Bust: The Inside Story of Gulf War 2. South Yorkshire, England: Leo Looper, 2003.

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Chelsea Manning wrote in her memoir README.txt (2022):

"My friends — fairly liberal people — posted links to op-eds that reflected a deep misunderstanding of what was actually going on. They seemed to believe that simply having a Democratic president instead of a Republican one could solve something. Liberal, Obama-voting Democrats appeared to think our involvement in Iraq was suddenly working out just fine, at least since their guy had taken the oath of office. The drawdown plan that Obama’s administration was following had, in fact, been cooked up by the George W. Bush team, and the Obama team more or less rubber-stamped it."

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My Monday newsletter is going to be a "where are they now?" type piece about the media people who cheered on the invasion of Iraq, and oh boy is it depressing to see how little getting such a massive thing so horribly wrong actually affected their career trajectories.

— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) March 17, 2023

Anyway, sign up here if you want to get that when it goes out on Monday: https://t.co/rmsaGM2Gyp

— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) March 17, 2023

The Costs of War Project said the U.S.-led invasion and occupation "caused massive death, destruction, and political instability," killing hundreds of thousands of people while displacing millions more. https://t.co/sf9Hu66gjX

— Common Dreams (@commondreams) March 15, 2023

CNN's 20-year follow-up

The journalist Muntazer al-Zaidi threw his shoes at U.S. President George W. Bush. Regrets in 2023? No: "Iraqi journalist who threw shoes at George W. Bush says his only regret is he 'only had two shoes.'" Ahmed Shawkat and Haitham Moussa, CBS, March 21, 2023

2023 update

Here's my subscriber gift link so you can read this article unpaywalled: "The heat index reached 152 degrees in the Middle East — nearly at the limit for human survival." Scott Dance. Washington Post. July 18, 2023.

"When the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001 they named the war 'Operation Enduring Freedom.' In 2003, when the U.S. invaded Iraq on false pretenses, they called the whole enterprise 'Operation Iraqi Freedom.' Today we know these wars were utter failures that didn’t bring an ounce of freedom anywhere. Upwards of a million civilians killed, thousands of soldiers on both sides dead, a region massively destabilized and the Taliban back in power.

* * *

Many would have said that we were going after terrorists, but few could have explained how we were addressing the rise of terrorism, the reasons that some people around the world wanted to take up arms against our country. In fact, none of the top brass could’ve explained how the 'war on terror' was getting to the root causes of terrorism, because our plan was never to do that. The plan and the implementation were always war, violence, and the complete refusal to even look at how mass violence from the United States might lead to more people around the world resenting our military and our country."

— The War of Words: Waterboarding, Collateral Damage, and resisting euphemism. Joshua P. Hill. New Means (Substack). November 14, 2023.

The 'quid pro quo' in the Trump/Zelensky call transcript

Transcript of the July 25, 2019 phone call

Caveat within the transcript itself: "The text in this document records the notes and recollections of Situation Room Duty Officers and NSC policy staff assigned to listen and memorialize the conversation in written form as the conversation takes place. A number of factors can affect the accuracy of the record, including poor telecommunications connections and variations in accent and/or interpretation."

Gordon Sondland, testifying publicly on Nov. 20, said:

...members of this committee have frequently framed these complicated issues in the form of a simple question: Was there a 'quid pro quo?' With regard to the requested White House call and White House meeting, the answer is yes.

In late September, a week after news broke that a whistleblower had reported an inappropriate call President Trump had with Ukraine's President Zelensky, Trump attempted to defend himself by releasing what he referred to as a "transcript" of the call.

The document itself says it is "not a verbatim transcript."

Yet, beginning on Oct. 2, Trump has repeatedly referred to the document as an "exact" transcript of the conversation, Philip Bump explained in the Washington Post.

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who was on the call, subsequently testified that he remembers elements of the call that are not included in the transcript.

There is a quid pro quo in the interaction even if the words "quid pro quo" are not present. Monica Hesse wrote in the Washington Post:

When Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein invited a woman actor to his hotel room, the conversation (according to tape) went like this:

“Don’t ruin your friendship with me for five minutes,” he warned her. He said he was a “famous guy,” and if she left, she should “never call me again.”

One thing he didn’t say was, “This is a quid pro quo in which you’ll sleep with me or lose your career.”

Sentient humans could read between the lines.

She went on:

We have read Trump instructing Zelensky, 'I would like you to do us a favor.' We have read him saying, 'The United States has been very, very good to Ukraine.' We’ve combed through it all.

One thing Trump did not say is, 'This is a quid pro quo in which you’ll give me dirt on Joe Biden; and, in exchange, I’ll stop withholding your aid.' ... He didn’t say, 'Let's move onto the illegal part of the conversation now.' He certainly didn’t say, 'Real quick, let me abuse my power.'

But when we talk about what Trump said on that phone call, we’re really talking about what powerful people never need to say at all.

Similarly, Lt. Col. Vindman also recognized it as a demand.

My Republican colleagues may try to muddy the waters, but this fact is undisputed:

On the July 25 call, Trump asked Zelensky to investigate the Bidens.

There's no ambiguity about it.

And Lt. Col. Vindman understood that ask as a demand. pic.twitter.com/2g4EQ0j91H

— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) November 19, 2019

Trump's refrain, "Read the transcript," as if the transcript exonerates him, "is not an invitation for truth-seeking," Hesse said, but rather "a disingenuous feint provided by a powerful man who, like all people in power, knows that his wishes will be treated as commands, and his subtexts will be treated as boldface type." We need to acknowledge what we see in the interaction. As Hesse put it: "It’s such a bizarre folly to pretend we don’t understand what people are saying. It’s such a maddening exercise, to point at a collection of words and insist that the true meaning is in the white space between them. It makes you feel crazy."

Ukraine knew what Trump wanted (an investigation of the Bidens) as early as May.

AP Exclusive: U.S. State Department officials learned in May that Ukraine's president felt pressure from Trump administration to investigate Joe Biden, long before the July phone call with President Trump that sparked an impeachment inquiry, sources say. https://t.co/DmoDNxrfXL

— AP Politics (@AP_Politics) November 18, 2019

Others have tried to argue that there was no quid pro quo in the request to investigate the Bidens because Ukraine didn't know the money was being withheld. Ukraine would certainly have known that they had not yet received money, however. And, while Ukraine may not have known at the time of the July 25 call that the money was deliberately held back pending their explicit compliance with launching an investigation of the Bidens, they knew later, in August.

Sondland's public testimony on Nov. 20 "disrupts — actually, destroys — the defenses of both the White House and congressional Republicans," Chris Cillizza explained for CNN, "who have insisted that the Ukrainians had no clue that there were any preconditions to getting what they wanted most — a meeting between Zelensky and Trump and then, later, the release of the nearly $400 million in military aid from the US to Ukraine." Sondland testified: "I told President Zelensky in advance that assurances to 'run a fully transparent investigation' and 'turn over every stone' were necessary in his call with President Trump."

Sondland also testified that Zelensky was supposed "to announce the investigations. He didn't actually have to do them, as I understood it." A request from Trump which, as Chris Cillizza pointed out in another article, is more consistent with Trump attempting to generate a PR disaster for his political rival Joe Biden in the 2020 election campaign rather than having a genuine interest in identifying and stopping corruption in Ukraine.

Others have tried to argue that there was no quid pro quo because Ukraine eventually got the money. This is a bad argument. Giving the money was the quid in exchange for which they requested a quo. And even if the entire deal fell apart, attempted crimes are still crimes.

Downplaying an incomplete crime is called the "Sideshow Bob" defense, after a Simpsons character who complained in a 1994 episode, "Convicted of a crime I didn’t even commit. Hah! Attempted murder? Now honestly, what is that? Do they give a Nobel Prize for attempted chemistry? Do they?"

In Trump's case, the crime might even have been completed, since the goal was to temporarily withhold aid to prompt compliance from Ukraine; Trump may not have aspired for the hold to be permanent. Furthermore, releasing the aid may not have been Trump's decision. "It wasn’t Donald Trump who released the promised military aid to Ukraine," Mary Papenfuss wrote; it was federal lawyers who declared it was illegal for the White House Office of Management and Budget to block the aid. Because of this decision, a third of the money was quickly released, and, several days later, Trump claimed he had voluntarily chosen to release it.

Others (notably, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney) have tried to argue that such quid pro quos are done all the time and should not be a basis for impeachment. Ultimately, whether the offense is impeachable is up to Congress to decide (as per Article II, Section IV of the Constitution). A Vox/PerryUndem/Ipsos poll conducted November 5-6, 2019 found a partisan split about whether this quid pro quo is tolerable. A clear majority of Americans from both major political parties believe that “abusing the powers of office for political advantage” or “for personal enrichment” is a “high crime or misdemeanor.” (93% Democrats and 67% of Republicans have this assessment of “political advantage.” 95% of Democrats and 82% of Republicans have this assessment of “personal enrichment.”) However, when the question is narrowed to ask about “a president of the United States pressuring another country to investigate a political rival,” the Republicans drop out. (77% of Democrats believe this is a “high crime or misdemeanor,” but only 22% of Republicans make the same assertion.) Furthermore, Republicans are more likely to excuse this behavior as “something presidents do all the time.” (28% of Democrats say so; 65% of Republicans say so.) In other words, they don't think it's an abuse of presidential powers.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said on Nov. 17 that the quid pro quo situation could have been better "taken care of this behind the scenes," since "most people wanted to support Ukraine. We were trying to convince President Trump." He said it was unfortunate that a whistleblower "exposed things that didn’t need to be exposed." (Apparently, the thing that didn't need to be exposed was the president's ignorant machinations.)

Johnson said he would provide a written statement.

Nope.

Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) is a key witness.

He needs to be questioned under oath.

There is no *possible* explanation for allowing him to "write a letter."

This isn't a summer camp mash-note party, Republicans, this is, whether you like it or not, a g*ddamn impeachment. https://t.co/dXb3JdBCLO

— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) November 17, 2019

Praying with the U.S. president

In 1950, the evangelical preacher Billy Graham, then 31 years old, landed a brief private meeting with President Harry S. Truman at the White House. Graham offered to pray, and Truman consented.

Outside, on the White House lawn, reporters were waiting for Graham. Graham eagerly revealed details of the conversation. Tell us more about the prayer, the reporters asked. And Graham, not realizing the reporters were looking to sensationalize the story, knelt in prayer for the cameras.

Image caption: From left to right, Jerry Beavan, Billy Graham, Clifford Barrows and Grady Wilson. Photo by the Associated Press.

Truman was furious. He thought the preacher's prayer stunt looked ridiculous and made him look ridiculous by association.

---

What changed in the assumptions of proper presidential behavior?

Flash forward nearly 70 years. Today, the President allows people to pray for him — not just one preacher in private, but multiple preachers, touching him, with official cameras in the room.

Image caption: Christians in the Roosevelt Room in the White House, Oct. 29, 2019. Official White House photo by Joyce Boghosian.

Does it not make him look ridiculous? It does indeed. To me, it appears that the president is the center of a cult and that he wants to be seen as such. Do these white evangelicals care that they are making themselves and the president look ridiculous to everyone who doesn't share their religion? Nope.

And do they care that the president secretly mocks them? Also nope. (Michael Cohen's 2020 book Disloyal reports that Trump said "Can you believe that bullshit?" after pastors "laid hands on him" to bless him in 2011.

Today, this is deliberately promoted. A lot has changed.

.@realDonaldTrump receives a blessing he attends a Church Service at the International Church of Las Vegas in Las Vegas, NV. pic.twitter.com/3pIiGLY03P

— Doug Mills (@dougmillsnyt) October 18, 2020

Maybe Graham himself didn't want it this way. Three decades after his interaction with Truman...

"On February 1, 1981, evangelical leader Bill Graham encouraged social conservatives to avoid jumping into a hard association with the Republican Party. 'It would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political right,' he told Parade magazine. 'The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it.' Graham was worried that evangelicals would become corrupted by worldly political power, instead of recognizing that church teachings come first, and politics second.

But it was already too late."

— Matt Stoller, "On Lina Khan Derangement Syndrome," Substack, Feb 18, 2023

A statue of Billy Graham

As of early 2019, sculptors were sought "to design and cast a life like statue of the Rev. Dr. William Franklin 'Billy' Graham, Jr. The statue will become part of the National Statuary Hall Collection in the United States Capitol in Washington D.C."

Rev. Rob Schenck, a white evangelical who acknowledges that he himself once used "street theater" of religious performances (including publicly displaying a Bible, for example), has moved away from those tactics. He reacted to Trump's photo-op in front of St. John's church during the George Floyd protests as a "sacrilege." Schenck says he used to hear his fellow evangelical clergy speak about the transactional nature of their relationship with Trump, but that argument has become uncommon. "That's even more distressing to me," he said, "because what it seems to suggest is that a kind of final conversion has taken place, at least in their thinking, if not in their hearts." In other words, they believe what Trump is saying and doing. They no longer recognize their choice as an unpalatable transaction; it has become less objectionable to them. Schenck worried about their possibility of "reclaiming their moral integrity, regaining a sense of ethics and what is right and wrong — and if they have lost that ability to discern that, then they are indeed in very grave danger, personally. Certainly as a community: I mean, we know what the history of demoralized churches are. They quickly become relics of history, and not good ones. And then, of course, — I'm still a believer in salvation. I believe we have to have a certain standing before God. And if we lose that, we've lost everything."

The religious cult iconography may just be another version of overall fascist iconography, which I submit as an addition to Sarah Churchwell's observations in the New Statesman on September 2, 2020:

"The first fascists emphasised individual heroism and physical perfection: Trump emphasises it, too, but only in regards to himself. He is his own fascist sublime.

Anyone doubting this needs only to consider the iconography he and his family routinely share, such as the photo of Trump’s face superimposed on to the sculpted body of Rocky Balboa, which Trump himself trumpeted on social media. As historians have pointed out, this is fascist imagery, in its glorification of the physical perfection of a mythologised leader. Meanwhile, on 4 July, Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr, shared a meme of his father’s head Photoshopped on to George Washington’s body, standing in front of the American flag and holding a Minigun and an eagle. Both memes rework images from the entertainment industry, whether it’s Rocky or an image made by the Call of Duty video-game franchise, into neo-fascist propaganda."

Even and perhaps especially following his COVID-19 diagnosis, Peniel E. Joseph argues, he now embodies "a living church whose political insinuations of racial superiority attract unstinting loyalty from his most ardent supporters, no matter how nonsensical and dangerous he becomes; they seem comforted, not horrified, that he is capable of articulating and revising political, medical and personal doctrine on the fly." He "has managed to become a one-person church worshiped by an overwhelmingly, although not exclusively, White congregation that seems to believe he can do no wrong." His "uncanny ability to detect political vulnerabilities allowed him to not just remake the GOP in his own image, but to erect a kind of parallel religious faith — the Church of Trump — where in a crowd of White faces, wearing masks that might save the lives of fellow human beings during a pandemic is never required." If a church is "a gathering place or grouping point for like-minded individuals to learn, express and amplify a set of beliefs that they collectively define and refine over time," then that is what Trumpism is. "While unable to articulate any meaningful religious experience, biblical knowledge or deep belief system, the President has become, for many, the embodiment of a peculiar definition of American exceptionalism."

On June 13, 2023, immediately after his arraignment in the documents case, Trump was blessed by two clergy members. According to this article in Salon, one was "right-wing evangelical Christian pastor named Mario Bramnick," and the other was "Isaac Aretuo (also known as Alex Isaac Aretuo and Alejandro Isaac Aretuo). He is affiliated with Congregation Najamu Ami in Miami," a Messianic Jewish (i.e., Christian) congregation.

In 2023, General Mark Milley said he erred in allowing himself to be in the frame of a photo when President Trump was holding up the Bible in Lafayette Square during the George Floyd protests in 2020. Later in 2023, he gave a speech saying that the military won't pledge loyalty to "a king, or a queen, or a tyrant or a dictator," nor a "wannabe dictator." Instead: "We take an oath to the Constitution and we take an oath to the idea that is America – and we’re willing to die to protect it."

When Bob Woodward interviewed Milley for his 2024 book War, Milley called Trump "a total fascist" and "fascist to the core."

Bills to bring chaplains into public schools

"The bills have been introduced this legislative season in 14 states, inspired by Texas, which passed a law last year allowing school districts to hire chaplains or use them as volunteers for whatever role the local school board sees fit, including replacing trained counselors. Chaplain bills were approved by one legislative chamber in three states — Utah, Indiana and Louisiana — but died in Utah and Indiana. Bills are pending in nine states. One passed both houses of Florida’s legislature and is awaiting the governor’s signature."

— Putting chaplains in public school is the latest battle in culture wars, Michelle Boorstein, Washington Post, March 22, 2024

Trump's spiritual adviser:

"Robert Morris, founding pastor of Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas, which attracts an estimated 100,000 worshipers weekly, has confessed to “inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady” more than 35 years ago while he was a young pastor after a woman accused him of sexually abusing her over multiple years beginning when she was 12."

— Pastor Robert Morris confesses to ‘moral failure’ after woman claims he began molesting her at age 12, Leonardo Blair, Christian Post, June 15, 2024

More prayer

Christians flock to Washington to pray for America to turn to God — by electing Trump: Conservative organizers of the “Million Women” worship rally billed the event — and the November election — as “a last stand moment” to save the nation from satanic forces. Mike Hixenbaugh, NBC, Oct. 12, 2024

On handling negative emotions with purpose

If we dwell on negative emotions too heavily, they can consume us. "At least one must keep one's head out of it so as not to be eaten up entirely by emotional ape-men," C. G. Jung wrote in a personal letter. But, at low levels, they may simply endure as conditions of our being. "Ressentiment is not rash, but sluggish; it is a mood or a low-energy state in opposition to the vehement nature of violent rage, horror, or grief," wrote Thomas Brudholm. "More interestingly, the diminution over time that seems to be an essential feature of the passions contrasts with the excessive duration or endurance of emotions and memories taken into ressentiment."

Intense negative emotions exist for a reason and are not necessarily bad. They may need to be named and released, not cured or erased. The Zen teacher Alan Watts said: "Such words as anger, depression, fear, grief, anxiety, and guilt suggest uniform states which tend to persist if no action is taken to change or release them. As fever was once considered a disease instead of a natural healing process, we still think of negative feelings as disorders of the mind which need to be cured.
" Releasing them lets us move on, said Martin Laird: "If we can name the thought (anger, fear, pride, etc.) instead of spinning a commentary about the thought, which is our usual response, we stand a much better chance of simply letting go of the thought and returning to our practice."

And even for the moment we experience that feeling, the moment before it subsides, may be important. Sam Keen said, "When the elemental emotions are shrouded or repressed, we cease to experience the sublime nature of all life and we begin to respond to our environment in purely utilitarian ways. Our inborn sense of reverence is occluded, and the dignity of being is replaced by the frenzy of doing. We exchange our sacred birthright for a cultural myth because it promises a secure identity, a necessary role, and a sense of belonging to the tribe." When we choose to experience the feeling consciously, we can direct our actions. Daniel Condron advised that "the more you speak your thoughts as they arise, the more control you have over your thoughts and emotions. The emotions are a way to complete the thoughts; they are not the cause of your thoughts." He continued: "The emotions are not a way to re-act to the world but instead are a way to act or take action in the world."


Sources

Thomas Brudholm. Resentment’s Virtue: Jean Améry and the Refusal to Forgive. Philadelphia: Temple, 2008. p. 105.

Letter from C. G. Jung to Jolande Jacobi, 26 August 1943. Printed in C. G. Jung. Aspects of the Masculine. (Collected Works.) Translation by R. F. C. Hull. New York: MJF Books, 1989. p. 126.

Alan Watts. Nature, Man, and Woman. New York: Vintage Books, 1991 (Copyright 1958). p. 92

Sam Keen. In the Absence of God: Dwelling in the Presence of the Sacred. New York: Harmony Books, 2010. p. 79.

Martin Laird, O.S.A. Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. p. 82.

Daniel Condron. Superconscious Meditation: Kundalini and the Understanding of the Whole Mind. Windyville, Missouri: SOM Publishing, 1998. pp. 151-2, 154.

Quotes: On the symbolism of scars

"Most of my body lives,
But the scars are dead like the grooving of a frown,
Cannot be changed, and ceaselessly record
How much of me is already written down."
- William Dickey, Memoranda, Of the Festivity, 1959

"I have heard the [Native American] tradition said in this way: When you die, you meet the Old Hag, and she eats your scars. If you have no scars, she will eat your eyeballs, and you will be blind in the next world."
- Robert Bly. Iron John: A Book About Men. New York: Vintage Books, Random House, 1992 (originally 1990). p 216. Also quoted as "Carved on a bus bench on Hawthorne" from http://devrandom.net/~aidan/sphere.html Accessed August 31, 2003

"Although a man has the scars of healed wounds, when he appears before God they do not deface but ennoble him."
- Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, Long Text, Chap. 39. Trans. E. Spearing (Harmondwsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 1998), p. 96. Quoted in Martin Laird, O.S.A. Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. p. 132.

"Undergoing unnecessary surgical operations—"unnecessary," that is, from the point of view of pathophysiology—often fulfils this function. The patient here plays the illness game and seeks validation of the sick role from the expert. The surgeon who consents to operate in such cases performs a psychologically and socially "useful" function, albeit his usefulness cannot be justified on surgical grounds. His action consists essentially of legitimizing the patient's claim to the sick role. By operating, then, he enables the patient to "win." The surgical scar is official proof of illness. It is the diploma, the trophy, the prize that goes to the winner!"
- Thomas S. Szasz. The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct. New York: Delta, 1961. p. 257.

"So you're on this journey with Jesus. You've hit a moment. What are you going to do with it? How are you going to change? What need to change? And what will you carry with you—maybe even as a scar—as you go forward?"
- Dick Foth. Quoted by David Kuo. Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction. New York: Free Press, 2006. p. 94.

"The universal incidence of puberty rites suggests that they are archetypal — a fundamental requirement of the soul. It is little wonder, then, that adolescents in secular Western society, who are deprived of official rites, unconsciously seek authentic initiation through drink, drugs, sex, rock ’n’ roll. They long to get out of themselves, get out of their heads; they positively need fear and pain and privation to know if they can stand it, to know if they are men and women, know who they are. They want scarification — scars, tattoos, piercings — to show off. Some even commit crimes specifically to incur punishment — the initiation of prison — only to be given ‘counseling’ instead.

For all its admirable compassion and humaneness, modern Western liberalism has a horror of that fear and pain which seem to be essential components of initiation. Still, happily or unhappily, there is always enough fear and pain to go round. Whether we like it or not, we suffer sickness, bereavement, betrayal and anguish enough. The secret is to use these experiences for self-initiation. Instead, we are usually encouraged to seek a cure for them, rather than to take advantage of them for self-transformation. It is, on the whole, a mistake to medicalize suffering and even death because they are primarily matters of soul and only secondarily of the body."
- Patrick Harpur. The Philosopher's Secret Fire: A History of the Imagination (2002). Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2003. pp. 90-91.

"I've learned I can't save myself with the fire

of my own hands. I've scarred my chest, gouged eyes,

scorched my tongue. I've destroyed my life to live it.

If something else now could bow me to

its brutal divinity, I would drop like a beggar.

That's no good bet, either. Like all gods,

we've gotten older, our power's in doubt. The mother's

long banished to apocrypha. We sought mercy

in the cold arms of statues. but how else might we

have worshipped a world we tried so hard to love?"
- 
Gaylord Brewer, from "Moving the Stone," Eclipse, Vol 11, No. 1, Fall 2000

Quotes: On the effort of gender transition

I was aware, during the time of boygirl, that I had been given a rare and precious gift, to see into the worlds of both men and women for a time and to be able to travel almost effortlessly between them. ... It was like being Clark Kent and Superman, in a way.

* * *

I think it is hard for me to be with people that I love for whom my transition is something other than a cause for unbridled celebration. I feel great these days, like somebody who just got out of prison after 40 years for something she didn't do, like I got pardoned by the governor. When dear friends deal with me with mixed emotions, it is a little like being told, 'Well, Jenny, we're glad you got sprung, really, but quite honestly we did kind of like you better when you were in jail.'

Jennifer Finney Boylan. She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders. New York: Broadway Books, 2003. p. 153, 179-80.

...the psychiatric disorder of transsexualism [means that one has]...agreed to go through life with an official diagnosis probably comparable in many people's minds to necrophilia.

Amy Bloom. Normal: Transsexual CEOs, Crossdressing Cops, and Hermaphrodites with Attitude. New York: Random House, 2002. p 28.

I found myself resenting the psychological requirements [for gender transition]. Part of it was distrust; after years of therapy and meditation, not one single person had noticed this truth, and now that I had finally found it, I was supposed to go to them again?

Dhillon Khosla. Both Sides Now: One Man's Journey Through Womanhood. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2006. p 17.

I smiled, grateful for my masculine traits that testosterone now emphasized, but I was trying to forget about that change, too, since at that time I still believed that the mark of success for any transsexual person is when he or she is able magically to make his or her transsexualism disappear.

Jamison Green. Becoming a Visible Man. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2004. p 25.

Lacking the Karhidish “human pronoun” used for persons in somer [the asexual cyclical stage], I must say “he,” for the same reasons as we used the masculine pronoun in referring to a transcendent god: it is less defined, less specific, than the neuter or the feminine. But the very use of the pronoun in my thoughts leads me continually to forget that the Karhider I am with is not a man, but a manwoman.

Ursula K. LeGuin. The Left Hand of Darkness. (1969) New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2004. p. 94.

Ladies are the kind of people who won't let my girlfriend use the public ladies' room, thinking she's not a woman. Oh, but they're not going to let her use the men's room either—they're not going to let her be a man either. If she's not a man, and she's not a woman, then what is she? Once I asked my mother what fire was: a solid, liquid, or gas? And she said it wasn't any one of those things—it was something that happened to things: a force of nature, she called it. Maybe that's what she is: a force of nature. For sure she is something that happened to me.

Holly Hughes, Clit Notes, 1993, quoted by Kate Bornstein, Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us. NY: Vintage Books, 1994. p 102.

Mr. Jeavons asked me whether this made me feel safe, having things always in a nice order, and I said it did.

Then he asked if I didn't like things changing. And I said I wouldn't mind things changing if I became an astronaut, for example, which is one of the biggest changes you can imagine, apart from becoming a girl or dying.

He asked whether I wanted to become an astronaut and I said I did.

Mark Haddon (in the character of Christopher). The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. New York: Vintage Contemporaries, 2004. p 25.

Is Trump's time up? (impeachment 2019)

Trump admits that he brought up the Bidens on a phone call with Ukraine's president. A Trump adviser said, as CNN reported on Sept. 23, "This is a serious problem for us. He admitted doing it." More specifically, the whistleblower's Aug. 12 claims have been corroborated, as shown by the New York Times on Oct. 26. And witnesses have begun to testify against him (see my blog post published yesterday).

Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani is reduced to arguing that Trump referred to the Bidens only briefly on the phone call. Exactly how that is supposed to help, I don't know.

Out of all the days he was president, Nixon only spent a handful orchestrating a burglary and cover-up https://t.co/bAC9NJdzPB

— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) November 13, 2019

Tomorrow (Oct. 31), the House plans to vote on formalizing the inquiry. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said that having procedures will "eliminate any doubt as to whether the Trump administration may withhold documents, prevent witness testimony, disregard duly authorized subpoenas, or continue obstructing the House of Representatives." The procedural document is eight pages long and is expected to pass.

When the impeachment inquiry is completed, the government will decide whether to proceed to an impeachment trial. That outcome looks likely, as a New York Times editorial said on October 18, and "that will force Senate Republicans to choose. Will they commit themselves and their party wholly to Mr. Trump, embracing even his most anti-democratic actions, or will they take the first step toward separating themselves from him and restoring confidence in the rule of law?"

As of late November, Democrats are discussing whether the articles of impeachment should focus on the Ukraine scandal or be expanded to include the arguably criminal allegations in the Mueller report.

Will this end his presidency? Maybe. Here's some reasons why it might not, followed by reasons why it might. Then, I quote some opinions.

"No": Reasons why this scandal won't end his presidency

A certain demographic — historically powerful in the United States, though their dominance has waned somewhat — is nearly unanimously in favor of Trump remaining in office. In an October 2019 column, Michael Gerson wrote that "an extraordinary 99 percent of Republican WEPs [white evangelical Protestants] oppose the impeachment and removal of the president." Robert Jeffress appeared on Fox News citing the 99 percent statistic and claimed that evangelicals see impeachment of Donald Trump as an impeachment of their values. (Which is odd, because Trump's personal values are decidedly not in line with American Christian conservatives' and never have been.)

Elected Republican leaders are mostly not on board.

Rep. Francis Rooney (R-FL), as discussed by Jennifer Victor on Oct. 24,

recently indicated that he might support impeachment, and then announced just one day later that he would not be seeking reelection. So, even though support for Trump is eroding, and support for impeaching is growing, most low-ranking Republicans still don’t feel like they can criticize the president and live to see another election.

One newspaper's inquiry found Republicans largely unwilling to discuss the matter. In late October, Chris Cillizza wrote for CNN, "the conservative Daily Caller website asked the offices of each of the 53 Republican senators whether they opposed the impeachment and removal of President Donald Trump. Just seven of them said yes. ... The seven who did confirm they oppose impeachment to the Caller are: Sens. James Inhofe (Oklahoma), Cindy Hyde-Smith (Mississippi), Thom Tillis (North Carolina), Roger Wicker (Mississippi), Mike Rounds (South Dakota), Rob Portman (Ohio) and Jerry Moran (Kansas). ... Of the 46 Republican senators who didn't expressly reject impeachment, almost half — 22 — simply declined to comment to the Caller."

However, as of Oct. 26, fifty senators (all Republicans) had signed a nonbinding resolution to condemn the House impeachment inquiry. There remain three Senate Republicans who have not signed it: Mitt Romney of Utah, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine. So far, then, exactly half of all Senators have signed this nonbinding resolution. Nonetheless, wrote CNN's Zachary B. Wolf, "the show of Republican cohesion does demonstrate that Trump is in little danger of being removed from office by impeachment, at least right now. It would take 67 senators to remove him." In other words, at the conclusion of the impeachment trial (which has not yet begun — only the inquiry is underway), all 47 Democrats and 20 Republicans would have to vote to remove Trump from office. Regarding the resolution condemning the House's inquiry, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, as of Oct. 29, said he had not decided whether to bring the resolution to the floor for a vote. He said he would wait to see if the House's formalization of the impeachment inquiry would contain "due process protections" for Trump.

Juleanna Glover believes the impeachment vote could be held secretly. Article I, Section 3, of the Constitution says only that two-thirds of the Senate must be present. The Senate can set its own rules for the impeachment, but it will need "a simple majority — 51 of the 53 Senate Republicans — to support any resolution outlining rules governing the trial. That means that if only three Republican senators were to break from the caucus, they could block any rule they didn’t like." Glover said:

...it’s not hard to imagine three senators supporting a secret ballot. Five sitting Republican senators have already announced their retirements; four of those are in their mid-70s or older and will never run for office again. They might well be willing to demand secrecy in order to give cover to their colleagues who would like to convict Trump but are afraid to do so because of politics in their home districts. There are also 10 Republican senators who aren’t up for reelection until 2024 and who might figure Trumpism will be irrelevant by then. Senators Mitt Romney and Lisa Murkowski have been the most vocal Republicans in expressing concerns about Trump’s behavior toward Ukraine. Other GOP senators have recently softened in their defense of him, as well — all before the House has held any public hearings.

There’s already been some public speculation that, should the Senate choose to proceed with a secret ballot, Trump would be found guilty. GOP strategist Mike Murphy said recently that a sitting Republican senator had told him 30 of his colleagues would vote to convict Trump if the ballot were secret. Former Senator Jeff Flake topped that, saying he thought 35 Republican senators would vote that way.

Sen. Lindsey Graham has enabled Trump up to this point. He may continue to do so. He was quoted in the Washington Post as having said on Oct. 15:

“Sure. I mean ... show me something that ... is a crime,” said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) to Axios on HBO in an interview on Tuesday. “If you could show me that, you know, Trump actually was engaging in a quid pro quo, outside the phone call, that would be very disturbing.” * * * [Sen. Lindsey] Graham’s comments could signal an inflection point in this impeachment debate. He has in the past twisted and omitted facts to protect Trump, and he’s warning that at some point, he won’t anymore.

Are we at that point? One month later, apparently not yet, and it's unclear what will bring us to that point.

"Yes": Reasons why this scandal will end his presidency

First of all, Americans agree that this type of behavior &mash; seeking foreign help in a presidential election — is bad. There is bipartisan agreement on this. In mid-October, a poll found that over 80 percent of Republicans, evangelicals and people living in rural areas disapprove of a president asking for election assistance from a foreign government.

While theoretical disapproval of the crime does not always translate into specific support for impeaching Trump, a majority of Americans do support the impeachment inquiry. A poll in early October 2019 of the American public found that 1 in 5 Republicans support at least an impeachment inquiry (if they have not already personally reached the conclusion that Trump should be removed from office). Across both parties, then, more than half of Americans support at least an impeachment inquiry. Nearly 2/3 of Americans said that Trump should cooperate with the impeachment inquiry; that is to say, some Americans who do not support the inquiry nevertheless believe that Trump ought to cooperate with it. At the end of the month, another poll had similar results, finding that 49 percent of Americans (including 18 percent of Republicans) want Trump removed from office.

Similar findings come from Fox News, NBC News/Wall Street Journal, the University of Texas and the Texas Tribune, and Washington Post/ABC News.

On November 3, Trump told reporters that he rejected these numbers. "I have the real polls," he claimed. He said they reveal that "people don’t want anything to do with impeachment." He did not, of course, say what these polls were. They probably do not exist.

During an Oct. 30 lunch meeting, Senate Republicans discussed changing their talking points: that Trump's request was obviously a quid pro quo, but that quid pro quos are common in foreign aid. During that meeting, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) said that a quid pro quo is only illegal if there is "corrupt intent," that is, if Trump had "a culpable state of mind." Since crimes do not usually depend on the criminal's state of mind (which is difficult to determine), this argument may not fly.

On Nov. 4, a Huffington Post reporter categorized all 53 Republican Senators' public statements. Only a slim majority (28) say there's nothing to see here, while the rest (25) have some reservations or have chosen not to publicly comment yet. Their positions are:

"The Call Was Totally Fine" (28 senators)
"The Call Was Bad But Not Impeachable" (7 senators)
"The Call Was Wrong" (4 senators: Thune, Murkowski, Sasse, Romney)
"I’m A Potential Juror And Shouldn’t Speak" (4 senators: Collins, Isakson, Young, Enzi)
"Criticized Impeachment But Have Not Weighed In On Call" (10 senators)

On Nov. 7, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) said that, in an impeachment trial, he will "look at all the evidence like a juror, which is what the Senate serves as, and then I am going to make a decision and what’s based on the best interest of the country given the facts," rather than reacting to "what’s being leaked in the press or what’s being reported or what politicians are saying.”

Nikki Haley, who served as U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. during the first two years of Trump's term, claimed that there was no quid pro quo because Trump was ultimately unsuccessful in his attempt to withhold aid from Ukraine. (He did, however, delay it for months.)

In excerpt of a @CBSSunday interview to air tonight on @CBSEveningNews, former UN Amb @NikkiHaley ridicules notion of impeaching Pres Trump. "On what? You're going to impeach a president for asking for a favor that didn’t happen and – and giving money and it wasn’t withheld?" pic.twitter.com/N3CW2lrEBt

— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) November 8, 2019

Nikki Haley on NBC just now insisting Trump is a “truthful” president and tougher on Russia than any previous president. She appears to be all in.

— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) November 12, 2019

One indication that the Trump administration is panicking is that they are asking foreign governments to discredit U.S. intelligence findings on this scandal and related scandals, including the Mueller Report. The Independent:

Trump and Barr have also been asking other foreign governments for help in investigating the FBI, CIA and Mueller investigators. The US president has called on the Australian prime minister Scott Morrison for assistance, while the attorney general has been on similar missions to the UK and Italy.

And the information being requested has left allies astonished. One British official with knowledge of Barr’s wish list presented to London commented that “it is like nothing we have come across before, they are basically asking, in quite robust terms, for help in doing a hatchet job on their own intelligence services”.

Trump also, according to the Washington Post on Nov. 6, asked Barr to hold a news conference stating that the Trump/Zelensky phone call was not illegal, though Barr refused.

Republican leaders have to make a decision. Either they ally themselves with Trump at all costs, without qualifying their statements, whatever the evidence against him, or they forgo Trump's good will. A middle-of-the-road, wait-and-see position, such as that attempted by Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) — who said that Trump's attempted quid pro quo was "not appropriate" yet isn't "impeachable" — is both "gutless" and "ultimately foolhardy, since Trump will view it as an attack," as Michelangelo Signorile wrote on Oct. 30. Signorile said: "There’s no one left in the White House with good instincts who has any influence on him. He’s making all of the decisions now — decisions that even Republicans admit are terrible," and he "no longer has anyone competent to speak for him either, and the GOP knows this too."

Indeed — supporting Signorile's point — Lindsey Graham says that Trump is too incompetent to do anything corrupt and therefore cannot be impeached.

"It was incoherent," Sen @LindseyGrahamSC
says of Trump's Ukraine policy.

"They seem to be *incapable* of forming a quid pro quo." pic.twitter.com/rdZxyIazNj

— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) November 6, 2019

Sen. Lindsey Graham, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, is determined to cultivate his own incompetence by referring to the impeachment inquiry as "B.S." while admitting not having read the materials.

Reporter asks @LindseyGrahamSC if he plans on reading the released testimony transcripts.

Graham: No.

On the impeachment investigation, Graham says: I've written the whole process off. I've written him [Schiff] off, I think this is a bunch of B.S.”

— @alizaslav

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) November 5, 2019

"I'm not going to read these transcripts," @LindseyGrahamSC says of transcripts of depositions from House impeachment inquiry.

Refusing to even look at the evidence is a disgrace.

pic.twitter.com/PoZiZs1Epu

— Holly Lee (@LeeHolly81) November 7, 2019

Future juror says he won’t pay attention to evidence https://t.co/vf1aa6GTFs

— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) November 13, 2019

Graham also insists that the impeachment inquiry is invalid unless the original whistleblower's identity is outed and the whistleblower testifies before Congress. "It's impossible to bring this case forward in my view fairly," he said, "without us knowing who the whistleblower is and having a chance to cross examine them about any biases they may have. So if they don't call the whistleblower in the House, this thing is dead on arrival in the Senate." To the contrary, however, there are laws to protect the identity of whistleblowers.

This is just the stupidest, most vapid argument imaginable—and if you believe it, I’m sorry to say that you are an idiot. It’s like saying “you have to release the criminal until we get to the bottom of who called 911!” The crime matters, not the person who alerted us to it. https://t.co/2CKWNXQ7AW

— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) November 11, 2019

It is not necessary to cross-examine the person who reported the crime. And it is a little strange that the defendant would want another one of his accusers to testify, when so many of them have already spoken against him. Outing the whistleblower would simply place the whistleblower at personal risk. It is to Trump's media advantage to paint the idea that he has an anonymous enemy in the government and that this enemy is untrustworthy and can be discredited simply because he or she is anonymous. Accordingly, Trump refused the whistleblower's offer of written testimony. He doesn't want to know what the whistleblower has to say; he wants the whistleblower to reveal his or her face.

Also, while a criminal defendant has a Sixth Amendment right to question their accuser at trial, it is also the generally held legal opinion that a sitting president cannot be indicted, which is to say that Trump is not a criminal defendant and it isn't clear that the Sixth Amendment right applies to him. Trump will go on trial by Senate on the question of whether he abused the power of his office and the consequence is that he may lose his job. That is not a criminal trial, and it isn't clear he has the right to cross-examine anyone.

He sows confusion with this line of argument. Demanding the whistleblower's identity (which legally can't be released) is a tactic to delay the process and divert the focus from other people's testimony. It also intimidates anyone else from reporting crimes in the future, anonymously or otherwise, about Trump or about anyone else.

Similarly, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) denies that Trump asked Ukraine to investigate the Bidens, which is fascinating, since going back to September, Trump himself has admitted doing that. He made a televised request apparently to Ukraine on Sept. 20 and to China on Oct. 3. From the time of the whistleblower's initial report in late September through early November, Trump tweeted about the Bidens over 50 times, generally alleging that they did something corrupt related to Ukraine. Trump is clearly asking Ukraine to investigate the Bidens. This is not in dispute.

Asked Thom Tillis earlier if it was OK for Trump to ask Ukraine to investigate the Bidens, and the GOP senator said: “I think that if you are going back to the discussions they had, I disagree on the characterization.” Then the elevator doors closed.

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) November 5, 2019

Sen. John Kennedy, standing next to Trump at a rally, had this disingenuously apologetic ad hominem for Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi for her attempt to impeach Trump: "I don’t mean any disrespect, but it must suck to be that dumb."

Senator John Kennedy on Nancy Pelosi: I don’t mean any disrespect but it must suck to be that dumb pic.twitter.com/Z9A9hTjrnC

— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) November 7, 2019

Rand Paul, who once promoted whistleblower protections...

2014 Rand Paul: thinking about ways to "expand the whistleblower statute to government contractors."

“We’ve got so many millions of government contractors that when they see something wrong, they should be able to report it without repercussions,” https://t.co/pbqQ69lpyI

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) November 5, 2019

...now wants to out the whistleblower.

This is shocking. It would be one of the most shameful breaches a legislator could commit. It's the sort of thing you'd expect to see only in the world's most corrupt countries. Even suggesting he'll do it is a dangerous form of intimidation that will have lasting repercussions. https://t.co/UMsWduOkuI

— Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) November 6, 2019

Ultimately, Trump may be unable to stop people from testifying. As explained in a Huffington Post article on Nov. 15:

Someone who refuses to honor a congressional subpoena risks being held in contempt of Congress, which results in, at the very least, hefty legal bills. Someone who honors the subpoena risks being fired. The latter choice, though, can make the subpoenaed witness seem more sympathetic to the public while making the White House appear both vindictive and secretive.

'Aside from firing them or revoking their clearance, the president has no power to unilaterally do anything against these individuals,' [national security lawyer Bradley] Moss said.

The @StateDept documents recently released to American Oversight further confirms Ambassador Sondland's testimony that "everybody knew what we were doing and why."

Giuliani was not freelancing. Sondland was not freelancing. They were executing what @realDonaldTrump wanted. https://t.co/pzrIQLUnBf

— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) November 23, 2019

Opinions

"Anyone who followed the president’s directive to 'read the transcript'...knows that even this sanitized version of the President's call exposes the scheme to public view," Joyce White Vance wrote for Time. "Far from a perfect call, it was a scheme to have a foreign country intervene in our election. It was so far off the mark that when White House officials learned about it, they stashed the record of it on a highly classified server, apparently in hopes it wouldn’t come to light."

James Carville had said Trump appears to be "done." Premature, perhaps, but let's see.

How lovely, this dose of @JamesCarville is tonight, after Giuliani’s buffoonery and @SenCoryGardner ‘s ridiculous non-answer.

James’ laughter is the reaction ALL sane Americans should be having 😂

“That poor guy. I don’t think he’s vulnerable, I think he’s done.” 🔥#copolitics pic.twitter.com/kewoYjggqk

— Accountist 📣🗽🇺🇸🌎🎨⚜️ (@AccountistLisa) October 11, 2019

Nancy Gibbs suggested in October 2019 that Trump wants to be impeached because it lets him project an image that he is a victim.

"The polls are moving for a reason: Republicans and independents, even those serving in Congress, may not agree where the line is, but they know there’s one somewhere, and it does not involve a shooting on Fifth Avenue.

Consciously or not, might he conclude that impeachment and removal is his least bad option for escaping the 'great white jail'? Resigning is out; that’s for quitters. Defeat in 2020 is worse; losing is for losers. But being impeached and removed from office is the one outcome that preserves at least some ability to denounce the deep state and the quislings in the Senate who stabbed him in the back, maintain his bond with his tribe, depart the capital and launch a media business to compete with the ever more flaccid Fox News. (This all presumes that President Pence pardons him, for which there’s some precedent.) Impeachment lets him go down fighting, and he will call it rigged and unfair and illegitimate and a coup, all of which would be harder if the verdict was rendered next November by millions of voters."

Is he making maximal use of the messaging opportunity? No — he can't. He lacks "message discipline," meaning he changes his story every time he opens his mouth. Even Sen. Lindsey Graham cannot deny that the president is suffering from this critical personality flaw. At least when Bill Clinton was impeached, Graham pointed out, he had a team that was "on message every day."

Stephen Collinson's analysis for CNN on Oct. 25: "The President's wild attacks on witnesses — he blasted 'Never Trump Republicans' this week who criticize him as 'human scum' — may also be counterproductive and alienate undecided Americans."

"Trump has been behaving nearly hysterically in public, his language increasingly reckless and vulgar," Elizabeth Drew wrote on October 15. "And he’s made major foreign-policy errors that have enraged members of his own party." She added: "Trump’s defiance of Congress virtually guarantees that he will be impeached for obstruction, among other possible charges." Impeached, yes; but whether he will be convicted, or otherwise rejected by his own party, is another matter.

Former Republican Congressman Charlie Dent said on television: "People have to stand up and say...this is wrong.”

“People ask me why I push back against this administration and the president. Because my nose is not a heat-seeking missile for the president's backside. People have to stand up and say… this is wrong.” - Fmr GOP Congressman Charlie Dent on @NewDay pic.twitter.com/SmhOZriC2u

— Alli Hedges (@AllisonLHedges) October 23, 2019

Just before the first televised impeachment hearings began on Nov. 13, Stephen Collinson wrote of the president: "His fate will have sweeping consequences for the future understanding of powers vested within the presidency itself. The hearings will test whether the ancient machinery of US governance can effectively investigate a President who ignores the charges against him and fogs fact in defining a new post-truth political era."

The accusations

could hardly be more grave. He is effectively accused of committing a crime against the nation itself and the political system that guards its freedoms.

Specifically, Democrats charge Trump with conspiring with a foreign power to influence a US election, an offense many observers believe satisfies the impeachable standard of "Treason, Bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors."

The eventual case may encompass campaign finance offenses, the flouting of his presidential oath to uphold the law and the Constitution and allege obstruction over his withholding of witnesses and evidence. In more symbolic terms, it would validate the fears of America's founders of one of the greatest threats to their democratic experiment.

Stop w the observation that GOP Senators won’t convict and remove. It lets them off the hook. It absolves them of their constitutional and moral duty.

It doesn’t make you look knowing. It makes you complicit.

— Daniel Torday (@DanielTorday) November 22, 2019

Former Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.), who left Congress in 2018, told CNN on Nov. 29 that he'd spoken to many Republican members of Congress, and "they’re absolutely disgusted and exhausted by the president’s behavior...They resent being put in this position all the time." He said they believe they have to make a choice between winning the next election or looking good in the eyes of history.

---

July 17, 2023: Nope. His time was not up, and now he's seeking a second term. Philip Bump in The Washington Post:

"The idea is uncomplicated: Make the bureaucracy fully accountable to the president. The downsides to this should be obvious, from eliminating enormous institutional knowledge to reinventing key systems of government every four to eight years. But it’s also easy to see the appeal to Trump, whose autocratic instincts are unsubtle. It would turn him from a president — one who presides over government — into the CEO of a private organization once again, with all that entails."

Hear his lawyer say, on January 9, 2024, that he could order the military to assassinate a political rival and he wouldn't even be subject to prosecution unless the Senate impeached and convicted him first.

Who will testify about Trump's quid pro quo?

Dozens of witnesses have already testified in closed hearings. Official transcripts have been made of this testimony. As of Nov. 9, 2,677 pages of transcripts had been released. Public hearings begin Nov. 13.

As of Nov. 13, "Mick Mulvaney, Rick Perry, Mike Pompeo and Rudy Giuliani all are missing in the evidence of the case against the President, by their choosing or that of the White House."But other people are testifying. (White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said the president was "not watching" the first day of testimony on the television because he was busy "working," but the president was not so busy that he did not find time to retweet over 20 comments about the impeachment process on that same day.)

Who is providing, or might provide, damning testimony in the impeachment of President Trump?

Bill Taylor

Bill Taylor is the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine. On Oct. 22, he said there was a quid pro quo. This is expected to accelerate the impeachment inquiry. On Oct. 24, CNN reported: "Republican sources claim diplomat Bill Taylor's testimony was a game changer and is 'reverberating' up on Capitol Hill. And according to one GOP source, Taylor's testimony 'points to quid pro quo.'"

!!! Bill Taylor’s opening statement:

“During that phone call Ambassador Sondland told me that President Trump had told him that he wants President Zelensky to state publicly that Ukraine will investigate Burisma and alleged Urkainian interference in the 2016 US election.”

— Shimon Prokupecz (@ShimonPro) October 22, 2019

Bill Taylor is willing to return to Capitol Hill to testify publicly, source tells CNN https://t.co/6meJCTyRBG

— Catherine Rampell (@crampell) October 30, 2019

He will testify publicly on Nov. 13.

Tim Morrison

Taylor identified Tim Morrison, a National Security Council official, is a witness to the quid pro quo. Taylor testified that Morrison had told him about two conversations he'd witnessed between Trump's E.U. ambassador Gordon Sondland and a Ukrainian government official. It is also believed that Morrison was on the July 25 phone call between Trump and Zelensky. Morrison testified Oct. 31. He "corroborated a key part of US diplomat Bill Taylor's testimony" but said nothing about the phone call seemed illegal to him.

Gordon Sondland

Gordon Sondland "is a Trump donor and a Trump loyalist," explained Ari Melber on MSNBC's "The Beat." "He was handpicked by Donald Trump to be the U.S. ambassador to the European Union. He is also not a longtime Washington insider, or someone who could be accused of having agency or State Department loyalty. Nothing like that. He is a basically successful businessman up to this point with a lucrative hotel chain in the Pacific Northwest, and he's also, as mentioned — and this is how he got the job, according to many — a major Republican donor."

Trump once called Sondland "a really good man and great American" who is "highly respected." In addition to giving Sondland the ambassadorship to the EU, he gave Sondland special assignments, including with Ukraine. On Nov. 8, Trump said, "I hardly know the gentleman."

Of course, the guy that donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration and was subsequently handpicked by Trump to be ambassador to the largest economic bloc in the world...is dismissed as yet another coffee boy he barely knows. https://t.co/v40Tsn3tZ9

— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) November 8, 2019

After initially denying that there was a quid pro quo, Sondland backtracked and said that Trump had asked him to deny it.

! “Gordon Sondland, intends to tell Congress this week that the content of a text message he wrote denying a quid pro quo with Ukraine was relayed to him directly by President Trump in a phone call.” https://t.co/a8qo2i7bw7

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) October 13, 2019

Trump boasted of having instructed Sondland to defend him.

“The Ambassador to the European Union has already testified, he said there was no quid pro quo. He said the President had told him that.” @kilmeade @foxandfriends

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 22, 2019

Sondland provided his testimony to Congress: yes, there was a quid pro quo, and Trump's pressure grew "more insidious."

EU Amb. Gordon Sondland now tells Congress that there was a quid pro quo involved with Ukraine after previously denying it, Wall Street Journal reports. https://t.co/S8js2Zww25

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) October 29, 2019

On Nov. 5, the transcript of his testimony was released. The new story is that Sondland "told a top Ukrainian official that the country likely would not receive American military aid unless," as the New York Times reported, "it publicly committed to investigations President Trump wanted."

Sondland testified that he had a “brief pull-aside conversation” with President Zelensky’s aide Andriy Yermak in Warsaw on Sept. 1, 2019, following a meeting “in which President Zelensky had raised the issue of suspension of U.S. aid to Ukraine directly with Vice President Pence...I said [to Yermak] that resumption of U.S. aid would likely not occur until Ukraine provided the public anti-corruption statement that we had been discussing for many weeks."

What was this "public anti-corruption statement" that Zelensky was asked to recite? It was related to the manufactured scandal regarding the Bidens. Yermak had drafted a statement on Aug. 12 and sent it to Kurt Volker, the U.S. special envoy to Ukraine. "Trump administration officials in the field, like Volker and Sondland, continued to understand that the Burisma and hacking mentions were essential to the president," David A. Graham wrote for The Atlantic. (Furthermore, according to Sondland's testimony, Sondland realized in September that Trump wanted the statement "to come directly from President Zelensky himself.") This statement would have been nonsense, Graham continued, because,

even in Trump’s conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden, there’s been no allegation that his role on the Burisma board was tied to Ukrainian interference in U.S. elections.

On Nov. 24, Chris Wallace, the host of "Fox News Sunday," asked Republican Sen. John Kennedy whether "Russia or Ukraine...was responsible for hacking the DNC and Clinton campaign computers, their emails," in 2016. Sen. Kennedy said, "I don't know. Nor do you. Nor do any of us." The next day, he corrected himself to Chris Cuomo on "Cuomo Prime Time" on CNN. "I was wrong. It was Russia who tried to hack the (Democratic National Committee) computer. I've seen no indication that Ukraine tried to do it."

Moreover, the statement that Trump was trying to extract from Ukraine is steeped in Orwellian irony. Trump wanted Ukraine to pursue these investigation in order to further his chances at reelection in 2020. The Ukrainian government was having its arm twisted into giving a statement swearing to stop interference in U.S. elections — even as the statement was itself coerced interference in U.S. elections. (Sondland testified that a demand to investigate Hunter Biden would be improper.)

Sondland testified publicly, as scheduled, on Nov. 20. And here it is:

There it is. 9:40 am "We followed the President's orders."

— Susan Glasser (@sbg1) November 20, 2019

BREAKING: Ken Starr just suggested on Fox News that Sondland’s testimony could prompt GOP to “make a trip to the White House” and ask Trump to resign.

— Scott Dworkin (@funder) November 20, 2019

Boarding a flight back to Brussels later that day, Sondland said he had no intention of resigning his ambassadorship.

While Sondland had also testified that he spoke to Trump by telephone on Sept. 9 and that Trump had told him that he wanted nothing from Ukraine and simply wanted Ukraine to do the right thing. While this testimony "has emerged as a centerpiece of Trump's defense," no one can corroborate what Sondland heard, and the White House doesn't even have a switchboard record that the call took place.

David Hale

Ambassador Hale is the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. He is the most senior career official at the Department of State. He is a Trump appointee. He testified on Nov. 6. The transcript was released on Nov. 18.

David Holmes

David Holmes, the official who heard that Trump-Sondland call, received an award from the State Dept. in 2014 for speaking up internally against the Obama admin's Afghanistan policy, potentially complicating GOP plans to paint him as a liberal partisan.https://t.co/Eab5ZGhfnn

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 14, 2019

He testified on Nov. 15. The transcript was released on Nov. 18.

On the “don’t give a s—t about Ukraine” exchange, Holmes volunteers he’s “not proud” of his language, which he characterized as a function of “two guys talking about stuff” — pic.twitter.com/5tuIbyLCTi

— Olivia Gazis (@Olivia_Gazis) November 19, 2019

Kurt Volker

Volker is the former special envoy for Ukraine. His testimony, released Nov. 5, says, in CNN's words, that "the Ukrainians didn’t know about the holdup of military assistance until after the Trump administration stopped pressing them to announce an investigation into the Bidens." This "bolsters a key tenet of Trump’s defense – that there was no 'quid pro quo' with Ukraine because the new government in Kiev was not aware that military aid was being withheld."

Mick Mulvaney

On Oct. 17, White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney acknowledged that, as CNN put it, "President Donald Trump froze nearly $400 million in US security aid to Ukraine in part to pressure that country into investigating Democrats." Indeed: "After weeks during which Trump denied the existence of any political quid pro quo in his withholding of security aid to Ukraine, Mulvaney confirmed the existence of a quid pro quo and offered this retort: 'Get over it...We do that all the time with foreign policy.'"

Later in the day, Mulvaney tried to backpedal. He essentially "attempted," as Michelangelo Signorile wrote, "to walk back something that can’t be walked back. He now appears to have been sidelined completely [from the Trump administration]...there’s talk that Mulvaney may soon be booted."

Mulvaney was subpoenaed to compel his testimony. He was scheduled to testify on Nov. 8, but was expected to defy the subpoena, following instructions from the White House. Indeed, moments before he was supposed to begin his testimony, his lawyer appeared and said that he would not testify because the President has "absolute immunity" from being investigated, let alone prosecuted. (This is false. No one except the Trump administration has ever argued that a president cannot be investigated.) That day, Trump said he'd asked Mulvaney not to testify because "I don't want to give credibility to a corrupt witch hunt," even though "I think he'd do great" on the witness stand. "What I don't like," Trump complained, "is when they put all these people [on the witness stand] that I never met before."

Mulvaney had intended to seek a judge's ruling on whether he needed to comply with the subpoena. On Nov. 12, his lawyer made a court filing to say he was no longer seeking the judge's ruling, as he had decided to simply obey Trump's order and defy the subpoena. This saga bewildered everyone.

Alexander Vindman

Meanwhile, Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman, the White House's top Ukraine expert, a man who serves on the National Security Council, was scheduled to testify and did so on Oct. 29. He was on the call and had concerns about it. He also testified that the transcript of the call is incomplete; he said Trump had mentioned the existence of audiorecording of Joe Biden and that he named Burisma (Hunter Biden's employer), neither of which appear in the transcript.

According to a Huffington Post story, Vindman testified that "Ambassador Gordon Sondland made it clear in a July 10 meeting at the White House that the investigations of the Bidens and Ukrainian gas company Burisma would have to be opened for Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to get an Oval Office meeting with Trump." In his testimony, Vindman said he felt at the time that the quid pro quo "was explicit. There was no ambiguity."

Vindman was born in Ukraine and speaks Ukrainian and Russian. His family immigrated to the United States when he was three years old. He received a Purple Heart after being wounded in the Iraq War.

On Oct. 28, the evening before Vindman's testimony, former Justice Department official John Yoo appeared on the Fox News show "The Ingraham Angle" and said that if Ukrainian officials had asked Vindman for advice on how to handle Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani, "some people might call that espionage." Michael McFaul, former U.S. ambassador to Russia, said that Yoo's remark would be considered libelous in other countries. Two days later, in a CNN interview, Yoo backtracked on the "espionage" comment and said "I really regret the choice of words," and he also admitted that the transcript of Trump's phone call shows a quid pro quo.

By the way, on Yoo:

NEW: Beginning in 2017, the NYT started rehabilitating Bush torture memo author John Yoo into a Trump legal critic. The ed board in 2010 called him a "torture lawyer," but by with Trump's rise the paper memory-holed his history. Here's how:

Me at @mmfa https://t.co/h6otn8vgDg

— johnknefel (@johnknefel) April 13, 2023

The next morning, as Vindman began his testimony, the idea that he sympathized with Ukraine over the United States was aired on Fox & Friends (by co-host Brian Kilmeade) and on CNN (by former U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy, a Republican who had been hired as a pro-Trump political commentator by CNN just a week earlier).

Duffy said on the air about Vindman: "It seems very clear that he is incredibly concerned about Ukrainian defense. I don't know if he is concerned about American policy, but his main mission was to make sure that the Ukraine got those weapons. I understand it. We all have an affinity to our homeland where we came from. Like me, I'm sure that Vindman has the same affinity."

The CNN host, John Berman, challenged Rep. Duffy: "Are you suggesting that you would put Irish defense over U.S. defense?"

Duffy changed the topic slightly, responding to the question with another question: "Are we saying that by giving this money to the Ukraine, that absolutely is the money that's going to secure American national defense against Russia? I mean, I don't believe that." With this comment, Duffy was suggesting that the hundreds of millions of dollars that Congress had allocated for arms to Ukraine was not actually necessary to support U.S. security needs, and was, perhaps, rather some kind of favor to Ukraine, which Vindman was championing simply because he had a personal "affinity" for Ukraine (and not because he was a U.S. government official who was supporting American foreign policy with a specific budget already approved by Congress).

Rep. Ron Kind, a Democrat, was quoted that morning as saying: "If that’s all they’ve got, is to question the patriotism of a lieutenant colonel who took a bullet for us and has a Purple Heart on the battlefield, well, good look to them. My goodness."

Today we take the measure of what's happened to the Republican Party. An immigrant wounded serving his country, risking his career to uphold US law, is being accused of being a spy. Courage & duty are un-American say Republicans. The only virtue is blind loyalty to the leader.

— Edward Luce (@EdwardGLuce) October 29, 2019

In authoritarian regimes, despots use cults of personality as a loyalty test. But it also serves another purpose: once you debase yourself to defend the indefensible or absurd, you're all in. Your fates are tied. Trump has done the same with those who are now attacking a war hero

— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) October 29, 2019

NEW: Vindman told House investigators that a WH meeting AND nearly $400 million in security and military aid was “contingent” on Ukrainian officials carrying out multiple investigations, including into Burisma, the Bidens, the 2016 election and Crowd Strike. w/ @GeoffRBennett

— Leigh Ann Caldwell (@LACaldwellDC) October 30, 2019

On Nov. 19, Rep. Devin Nunes referred to him as "Mr. Vindman," and Vindman corrected him: "It's Lt. Col. Vindman, please." Rep. Chris Stewart objected to Vindman making this correction.

Stewart is chiding a military officer for asking to be referred to by his rank. That is remarkable.

— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) November 19, 2019

Donald J. Trump Jr. elevated a crude objection.

Here's the president's son sharing a tweet calling an active-duty servicemember a "douche bag" for demanding basic respect from a member of Congress who questioned his allegiance to the country he fought and bled for pic.twitter.com/1HJ6CWS1L6

— Robert Maguire (@RobertMaguire_) November 20, 2019

Consequences of this kind of harassment:

The Army is prepared to move Col. Vindman and his family onto a military base in the area to ensure their security if it is determined that they are in physical danger, according to U.S. officials. https://t.co/0t073OQESc

— Dustin Volz (@dnvolz) November 19, 2019

“Oh nothing, just a person deeply integrated into the incoming administration’s center of power calling for the execution of one of his critics" - Guess who? www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a...

[image or embed]

— Robin Whitlock 🇺🇦🇮🇱🇵🇸 (@robinwhitlock66.bsky.social) November 28, 2024 at 9:42 AM

Mitch McConnell

On Oct. 22, Mitch McConnell said he did not recall having spoken with Trump about his phone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky. (Trump had claimed three weeks previously not only that he had spoken with McConnell about the phone call but that McConnell had characterized Trump's words as unproblematic.)

TRUMP on Oct 3rd: "I spoke to (McConnell)...he said, 'That was the most innocent phone call that I've read.'"

MCCONNELL today: "I don't recall any conversations with the President about that phone call."

— Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) October 22, 2019

John Bolton

Former national security advisor John Bolton may be asked to testify — update, will be asked to testify — update, is supposed to testify on Nov. 7 but may not — update, did not show up. Like Mulvaney's lawyer, Bolton's lawyer cites the Trump administration's claim that the president has "absolute immunity" from being investigated, and therefore, Bolton's lawyer maintains, he does not have to comply with a subpoena to compel his testimony.

NBC News confirms Fmr Nat'l Security Adv. John Bolton will report to House for deposition next week

— Jesse Rodriguez (@JesseRodriguez) October 30, 2019

In the middle of this, Bolton landed a book deal with Simon & Schuster.

Christopher Anderson

Christopher Anderson was a top aide to Kurt Volker, the former U.S. special representative for Ukraine negotiations. A transcript of his testimony was released. According to Politico:

...he described an early-2019 conversation in which then-national security adviser John Bolton revealed Trump had called him at his home to complain about a CNN story that made it appear the Navy was pushing back against Russian aggression in the Black Sea.

“Ambassador Bolton relayed that he was called at home by the president, who complained about this news report,” Anderson told lawmakers.

Anderson described a sense of “Ukraine fatigue” emerging inside the administration that was evident when the Navy launched a routine “freedom-of-navigation” operation in the Black Sea. Anderson said officials notified the Turkish government, and when CNN reported on the move — portraying it as a response to Russia — the White House asked the Navy to cancel the maneuver.

Rick Perry

Energy secretary Rick Perry has been subpoenaed for documents. A week later, he announced that he would resign his position by the end of the year, and the Energy Department said it would not comply with the subpoena. Perry was asked to testify on Nov. 6 but has said he will not do so in a closed hearing; he may do so if the hearing is public and if Energy Department legal counsel is allowed.

Lev Parnas

On Nov. 4, Ukrainian-American businessman Lev Parnas said he would testify and comply with requests for records related to the impeachment inquiry.

In October, Parnas pleaded not guilty in Manhattan federal court to issues unrelated to the impeachment inquiry. The charges include illegally funneling money to a Trump election committee and to a former congressman. In these cases, the ultimate political aim (allegedly) was for Trump to remove the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. Parnas has ties to Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.

Michael McKinley

The former State Department adviser testified on Oct. 16.

Jennifer Williams

Williams, an aide to Vice President Mike Pence, was on the Trump/Zelensky phone call. The White House told her not to testify in the impeachment inquiry, so the House Intelligence Committee subpoenaed her. She showed up as scheduled on Nov. 7 and testified for about five hours. She said that she thought the Trump/Zelensky phone call was unusually political in its tone; that it was possible (but she did not know for certain) that the withholding of military aid to Ukraine was tied to the request for Ukraine to investigate the Bidens; and that she never heard Pence mention anything related to the matter. In a transcript released on Nov. 16, she said the call "struck me as unusual and inappropriate.”

George Kent

He will testify publicly on Nov. 13.

Marie Yovanovitch

She will testify publicly on Nov. 15.

Fiona Hill

She is a former National Security Council staffer, the author of a book on Putin, and was responsible for Russia and Ukraine. She testified that Trump wanted Zelensky to investigate Trump's political rivals in exchange for Zelensky being invited to Washington, and that this was clear as early as July 10. She said that this agreement was made with Mulvaney, and that she heard about it from Sondland.

Hill said that, in the administration's first year, people including former Homeland Security advisor Tom Bossert and former National Security Council advisor H.R. McMaster tried unsuccessfully to convince Trump that Ukraine did not interfere with the 2016 election. She also said she was "shocked" by Trump's comments about Yovanovitch and by the "pretty blatant" quid pro quo in the rough transcript of the July 25 call.

She gave a deposition on Nov. 14 and testified publicly on Nov. 21. Stephen Collinson wrote for CNN that Hill

effectively warned that the Republican defense of the President — by peddling Ukraine conspiracy theories — was in danger, in itself, of becoming an extension of the 2016 Russian election scheme that is tearing American politics apart and draining public confidence in its democracy.

* * *

...Hill said she only really began to understand the scandal herself while watching testimony from Trump's ad hoc messenger to the new government in Kiev Gordon Sondland.

"He was being involved in a domestic political errand. And we were being involved in national security foreign policy. And those two things had just diverged."

To hear her "domestic political errand" comment, skip to about 2 minutes into this video clip.

Hearings are closed

Republicans have been demanding transcripts. The committee released the first two transcripts on Nov. 4: the interviews with former US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch (transcript) and Michael McKinley, a former State Department adviser (transcript). It turns out that Yovanovitch had told the investigators that Sondland had advised her to praise Trump in tweets to save her own job.

One ambassador, who bought his way into his post by donating $1 million to the president’s inauguration, telling another ambassador she might save her job if she tweets praise of the president to stroke his ego. This is some real banana republic stuff.

— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) November 4, 2019

On Nov. 5, it released transcripts of interviews with former special envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker (transcript) and US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland (transcript).

Bill Taylor's transcript was released on Nov. 6.

On Nov. 8, they released Fiona Hill (transcript) and Alexander Vindman (transcript).

...they are closed, or are they?

This is just days after we learned Jordan has been secretly leaking deposition testimony to Trump and offering legal advice to Trump following each deposition—suggesting this move to put Jordan on HPSCI is an effort to get a Trump lawyer in the room while sensitive data is shared https://t.co/RGWa4KyINM

— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) November 5, 2019

On Nov. 8, Rep. Matt Gaetz tried to enter the hearing room. He is on the Judiciary Committee, but not on any of the three committees conducting the hearing (Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight). He was asked to leave. (Rep. Jim Jordan, who is on the Oversight Committee, tried to intercede for Gaetz by saying, "Really?")

Don McGahn*

On Nov. 25, federal judge Ketanji Brown Jackson ordered Don McGahn to testify regarding Mueller's findings in the Russia investigation. The judge also rebuked the White House: "Presidents are not kings." *McGahn was requested to testify in April, so this is not directly related to the Ukraine "quid pro quo" scandal that began over the summer, but some of Mueller's findings may eventually be included in the articles of impeachment.

Hearings will be public

Public hearings will begin in the second week of November. Unlike the closed hearings which were conducted by three committees (Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight), the public hearings will be conducted only by the Intelligence Committee.

On Nov. 8, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy temporarily changed who is serving on the House Intelligence Committee. He replaced Rep. Rick Crawford with Rep. Jim Jordan.

On Nov. 8, Trump said the hearings in the impeachment inquiry should not be public.

“Why aren’t they letting the public see the inquiry? What do they have to hide?”

Has now transformed to:

“It’s so unfair! They’re letting the public see evidence of my crimes!” https://t.co/tg1A0vC504

— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) November 13, 2019