There’s a palpable difference between the two factions of the movement to impeach President Trump. House Democrats are determined to reduce his chances of reelection by playing up the nuggets of evidence that hurt him politically. Many in the media are focusing on details that portray Trump’s personal character in a bad light. (There is some overlap.)
We saw the difference as the impeachment hearings began on Nov. 13. Democrats made an effort to be orderly and focused on spelling out their case against Trump. The media was looking for tales to bolster the narrative of Trump as a uniquely bad person and corrupt president.
Democrats were stern and calm, starting with Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff. This is why House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made Schiff the master of impeachment and took it away from Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, a somewhat comic figure she feared wouldn’t be able to keep the hearings in order. It was a wise decision.
The press seized on an anecdote disclosed by William Taylor, the acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. An aide had told him of overhearing a phone conversation between Trump and Gordon Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union. It occurred on July 27, the day after the president had spoken by phone to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Trump asked Sondland about “investigations” of former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter that he asked Zelensky to pursue. Sondland said the Ukrainians were “ready to move forward,” though they apparently never followed through. And according to Taylor, Sondland told the aide that Trump “cares more about the investigations” of the Bidens than about Ukraine.
This was a “bombshell,” some claimed. But was it? The Washington Post and New York Times featured it across the top of their front pages as if it was. Republicans said it was a secondhand story, thus hearsay. Trump said he had no recollection of the call. “I know nothing about that,” he said.
Sondland, whose lawyer said he would discuss the matter when he testifies before the impeachment committee on Nov. 20, is now a crucial witness. The question is whether he emerges as a John Dean figure. Dean, President Richard Nixon’s White House counsel, testified against him in impeachment hearings in 1974, and his revelations were an important factor in causing Nixon to resign.
Democrats and the media no doubt relish a Dean-like performance. But even if Sondland’s testimony is harmful to Trump, he isn’t nearly as close to the president as Dean was to Nixon. Still, if he confirms the phone call, the gist of the conversation, and his comment to Taylor’s aide, it could be a blow to Trump’s reelection prospects.
The fact that it was Taylor, a West Point graduate and Vietnam veteran, who repeated his aide’s story was significant. He was a strong and seemingly earnest witness. He gave it an air of believability.
The story was fresh, which made it newsworthy. Taylor said he heard of it only five days earlier. The media jumped on it as further evidence of Trump’s pressuring Ukraine to investigate the role the Bidens may, or may not, have played in the country. Military aid to Ukraine was also delayed, at least temporarily.
In giving the slim, uncorroborated story such spectacular billing, the media appears not to have learned any lessons from its overplaying of the Russian collusion issue. They stuck with the narrative that the case for collusion between Trump and Russians in the 2016 election was tightening. But it wasn’t. Special counsel Robert Muller’s investigation found no collusion.
In rebutting the Democratic case for impeachment on Trump’s interference with Ukraine, Republicans emphasize two points. The first is that any threat to halt military aid to Ukraine unless the Bidens were investigated fell apart when the aid was renewed — and they hadn’t investigated the Bidens.
The second point, stressed by GOP House member Jim Jordan, is that Trump did nothing wrong at all in the Ukrainian matter. The delay in approving the aid, which the Ukrainians initially failed to notice, was designed to allow time to assess whether Zelensky is a legitimate reformer, according to Jordan. And the aid was released when he passed that test.
It is the fondest wish of both Democrats and the media that the impeachment hearings cause maximum harm, even if they don’t follow the same strategy.
Fred Barnes is a Washington Examiner senior columnist.
