In his regular look at the week in impeachment, EricLevitz writes how the public ImpeachmentHearings were like a crossover episode — a Jetsons Meet the Flintstones for the Hannity and Maddow Cinematic Universes
Pizzazz is a dish best served cold. Photo: Joshua Roberts/Bloomberg via Getty Images Unable to keep up with the dramatic twists and turns of the ongoing Ukraine saga? Losing the thread of the impeachment-hearing process? We’ll be recapping the latest developments in installments on Intelligencer, from here until we get subpoenaed to appear before Congress. This week: Universes collide, Yovanovitch shines, and Trump gets hoisted by his own “pizzazz.
This week’s prompt for feigned surprise: In testimony to the House Intelligence Committee, Acting U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor revealed that one of his staff members had overheard a July 26 call between Trump and European Union Ambassador Gordon Sondland, during which Sondland told the president that Ukraine was ready to move forward with “the investigations.” After Sondland hung up, this staff member asked him what Trump had to say about Ukraine.
Sondland has, lately, decided to make evading prison his sole priority; last week, the ambassador updated his testimony after suddenly remembering that actually, now that you mention it, he had personally told Ukrainian officials that military aid would not flow until they publicly announced an investigation into Joe Biden. Republicans responded to this about-face by casting Sondland as a rogue agent who had concocted a geopolitical extortion scheme without his boss ever catching wise.
Friday’s hearings yielded better theater and a clearer narrative for Democrats — thanks, in large part, to the president’s ill-conceived cameo. Former ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch is a relatively minor player in Ukraine-gate . She was not a witness to the president’s “quid pro quo,” or to the activities of Rudy Giuliani’s “irregular channel.” Which was by design. Giuliani and his Ukrainian-Floridian business partners, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, lobbied to have Yovanovitch fired .
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