Assessments of the impeachment case against President Trump based on the so-called “Ukraine affair” rest mainly in the eyes of fiercely partisan beholders. Most evidence amassed thus far is subject to diametrically opposed interpretations. A prime example is Trump’s either “perfect” or virtually criminal July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky. For pro-impeachers, led by House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff, the rough summary of the conversation demonstrates a corrupt “quid pro quo,” even amounting to bribery, whereby Trump conditioned military assistance for Ukraine on Ukrainian investigations of Trump’s political opponents, primarily Joe Biden. In Schiff’s embellished telling, Trump clearly demanded that Zelensky find (or even fabricate) negative information about Biden:
“I hear what you want. I have a favor I want from you, though and I’m gonna say this only seven times, so you better listen good . . . I want you to make up dirt on my political opponent, understand? Lots of it… on this and on that.”
Trump and his anti-impeachment defenders maintain that the summary contains no hint of a quid pro quo.
This dichotomy carries over to the recent public hearings. Pro-impeachers in the House and the media portray the voluminous testimony as a steady stream of “bombshells” producing mountains of evidence against Trump. Anti-impeachers consider the hearings a boring amalgam of nothingburgers. As the New York Times’ Peter Baker observed:
“[L]istening to Republicans and Democrats, or their friendlier media, would give the impression of two radically different sets of hearings, one that presented damning, incontrovertible evidence that the president abused his power or one that revealed that the whole proceeding was a partisan sham.”
An excerpt from the November 20 hearing illustrates how even seemingly minor points are magnified through very different lenses. The excerpt is an exchange between Daniel Goldman, Schiff’s counsel, and witness Gordon Sondland. It involves what Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, allegedly insisted Zelensky must do to gain his meeting with Trump:
Goldman: “Now, for Mr. Giuliani by this point, you understood that in order to get that White House meeting—that you wanted President Zelensky to have and that President Zelensky desperately wanted to have—that Ukraine would have to initiate these two investigations. Is that right?”
Sondland: “Well, they would have to announce that they were going to do it.”
Goldman: “Right. Because Giuliani and President Trump didn’t actually care if they did them, right?”
Sondland: “I never heard, Mr. Goldman, anyone say that the investigations had to start or had to be completed. The only thing I heard from Mr. Giuliani or otherwise was that they had to be announced in some form and that form kept changing.”
Media outlets including the New York Times, the Washington Post and Vox seized upon this exchange as another “bombshell” and a major takeaway from Sondland’s testimony. They said it proved that Trump had no genuine interest in Ukrainian corruption and viewed the mere public announcement of an investigation involving Biden as sufficiently damaging to him. Pro-impeachment pundits joined this echo chamber. For example, the Post’s Eugene Robinson wrote:
“The most devastating part of Sondland’s testimony, for me, was when he said that Trump wasn’t actually interested in having the Ukrainians unearth any new information. He just wanted Biden smeared.”
But Sondland said nothing of the kind. It was Goldman who asserted that Trump didn’t care whether Ukraine actually conducted the investigations, as he tried to put words in Sondland’s mouth. Moreover, this assertion is at odds with a straightforward interpretation of what Giuliani was demanding, according to Sondland.
On the face of it, Giuliani’s message as described by Sondland simply meant that Zelensky’s public commitment to conduct the investigations was sufficient to earn his meeting with Trump–not that it needn’t be followed up by the actual investigations. Indeed, the public announcement was a safeguard to ensure that Zelensky did not renege on his commitment and would in fact conduct the investigations. Sondland confirmed this later in his testimony: “The way it was expressed to me was that the Ukrainians had a long history of committing to things privately and then never following through.”
Finally, Goldman’s assertion not only misrepresents Sondland’s testimony but also contradicts his boss. As noted previously, Schiff’s argues that Trump very much did want the investigations to go forward to produce “dirt” and “lots of it” on Biden.
This example is just one small episode from the impeachment drama. (Future posts will address impeachment more broadly.) However, it shows how readily partisans will run with and even distort anything that superficially appears to support their preconceptions without pausing to engage in the slightest critical analysis.