President Trump’s defenders inside the White House say Democrats will face charges of hypocrisy if they try to impeach him for witness tampering over his Friday tweet denouncing the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.
Trump defenders dispute that Trump sought to intimidate Marie Yovanovitch by tweeting while she testified but say there are examples of Democrats actually targeting witnesses.
One example floated by White House staff involves Sen. Ed Markey, who will vote as a juror in Trump’s trial if he is impeached. As a member of the House, the Massachusetts Democrat allegedly attempted to manipulate a businessman’s testimony and then requested a federal investigation of the businessman’s company when he would not bend.
David Sokol, then chairman of MidAmerican Energy, told the Washington Examiner that Markey called him about a day before he testified in 2009 and told him it would be a bad idea to oppose “cap and trade” legislation intended to curb pollution. Sokol testified the bill would increase customer expenses. As he left the hearing, Sokol said reporters asked him to comment on a letter Markey sent that day requesting a federal agency investigation of MidAmerican.
“It was clear that since it was his and Rep. [Henry] Waxman’s bill, he was offended that anyone would come and speak badly about it,” Sokol said. “What I recall was him saying [on the phone] it would be a bad idea for you to testify at this hearing … the effect certainly was, I will not be happy if you testify.”
A White House official told the Washington Examiner Democrats have a hypocrisy issue as House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff and other Democrats discuss adding a new impeachment count against Trump.
“The long, historic relationship between Democrats and witness intimidation shows just how hypocritical Adam Schiff’s complaints are about the president’s tweet,” the White House official said. “These are the very same guys who have threatened witnesses who simply disagreed with their politics. If that’s not thuggery, I don’t know what is.”
Republicans accused Markey of witness tampering at the time, but there were no penalties. In a statement to the Washington Examiner, Markey’s office denied he engaged in witness intimidation, though without addressing details offered by Sokol.
Markey spokeswoman Giselle Barry said: “The White House is wrong. Senator Markey did not threaten Mr. Sokol and did not engage in witness intimidation. In 2009, Republicans were committed to undermining the Waxman-Markey climate bill, and ten years later, they are using the same partisan tactics to undermine the impeachment inquiry. As a U.S. Senator and a potential juror, Senator Markey takes his job as seriously as any he has ever had in the institution. Senator Markey believes Congress has a constitutional duty to investigate President Trump’s attempts to orchestrate foreign interference in U.S. elections and the usage of his office to support his personal, political goals.”
Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad. She started off in Somalia, how did that go? Then fast forward to Ukraine, where the new Ukrainian President spoke unfavorably about her in my second phone call with him. It is a U.S. President’s absolute right to appoint ambassadors.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 15, 2019
Trump tweeted Friday during Yovanovitch’s testimony that she had a poor track record of diplomacy in Somalia and Ukraine. Yovanovitch said at the hearing that, “It’s very intimidating.”
“Some of us here take witness intimidation very, very seriously,” Schiff said.
