I consider myself an optimistic person, but what I know is that I feel disheartened. Now that the political middle has been hollowed out, I guess it doesn’t get you anywhere with your constituents if you have an open mind.
And the testimony as filtered through the Democratic and Republican committee members’ perspectives was so different that even cliches about colliding universes seem to me to be inadequate.
What are people in Trump country reading about the impeachment hearings?
In the two small towns I’m most familiar with, the only national news is by The Associated Press. And there’s not much impeachment coverage this morning. By the way, national news is, as always, not that easy to find on these papers’ websites.
Are they running this article because some readers might wish to discount the testimony of immigrants over concerns of “dual loyalty?”
The New Castle News also is running an AP article titled "Former Trump adviser undercuts GOP impeachment defenses,” referring to Fiona Hill. And two other impeachment articles from AP.
The Herald and News is running only the AP article about immigrants.
Let’s you and I turn to AP’s analysis this morning, as the public hearings end:
There's a mountain of evidence that now is beyond dispute, says Julie Pace, AP’s Washington bureau chief.
Trump explicitly ordered U.S. government officials to work with his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani on matters related to Ukraine, a country dependent on Washington’s help to fend off Russian aggression. The president pushed Ukraine to launch investigations into his political rivals, leaning on a discredited conspiracy theory his own advisers disputed. And both U.S. and Ukrainian officials feared that Trump froze a much-needed package of military aid until Kyiv announced it was launching those probes.
"Yet the witness accounts left one prominent hole that offered a lifeline for Trump and his GOP allies,” Pace says. None of the witnesses could personally attest that Trump directly conditioned the release of the $400 million in military aid on a Ukrainian announcement of investigations into former Vice President Biden and the Democratic National Committee.
Some Republicans suggest that even if that link could be made, it wouldn't be enough for them to support impeaching Trump and removing him from office.
"And without that link, Trump’s wall of support among GOP lawmakers seems formidable,” Pace says.
With the public hearings finished, Democrats have to decide whether to start drafting articles of impeachment based on what's been revealed to this point or to launch a long-shot effort for testimony from additional witnesses who could provide more direct evidence of Trump’s actions.
There are officials who likely would be able to fill in some of the blanks. Democrats have requested testimony from acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and former National Security Adviser John Bolton, who spent hours alongside Trump in the West Wing and whose names popped up repeatedly in the recollections of other officials.
Yet it appears unlikely that Bolton and Mulvaney will testify, says Pace. Citing executive privilege, both men have filed court cases to determine if they have to appear. And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said on Thursday that she didn’t want the next steps in the inquiry to be “at the mercy of a court.”
"The case Democrats plan to make in coming days as they try to sway both Republicans and the American people is that the impeachment inquiry isn’t just about Trump’s future," says Pace. "It’s about what Americans should expect from their president."