An extremely Donald Trump thing to do would be to, as House lawmakers were hearing from the former Ukraine ambassador who was subjected to a smear campaign by his goons, slander that very person via tweet. Another patently Trump thing to do would be to subsequently insist that he has every right to intimidate witnesses, and that he’ll continue to do so because, really, he’s the victim in all of this. And wouldn’t you know it, the president hit both spaces on the “Shit Trump Will Pull During the Impeachment Inquiry” bingo card on Friday.
As Marie Yovanovitch testified that she was “devastated” to learn that Trump had trashed her to Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky, calling her “bad news” and saying, ominously, that she was “going to go through some things,” the president tweeted:
After reading the statement aloud to Yovanovitch, committee chairman Adam Schiff asked her to respond, to which she expressed worry that Trump’s cyberbullying, whether intentionally or not, would scare off potential witnesses who might come forward. “It’s very intimidating,” she said. Schiff obviously agreed, commenting that “some of us here take witness intimidation very, very seriously,” which some interpreted as a reference to another article of impeachment. Speaking to reporters during a break in the hearing, Rep. Jackie Speier said, “The president in real time is engaging in witness intimidation and witness tampering. I don’t know how much more egregious it has to get before the American people are going to recognize we have someone in the White House who conducts himself in a criminal manner on a day-to-day basis.”
The president, who perpetually views himself as a victim, of course disagreed, insisting he did nothing wrong and effectively proclaiming his right to intimidate any witness he pleases.
“I’ll tell you about what tampering is,” he told reporters at the White House. “Tampering is when a guy like Shifty Schiff doesn’t let us have lawyers.” (In fact, Republican counsel Steve Castor asked dozens of questions throughout the hearing.) “Tampering is when Schiff doesn’t let us have witnesses, doesn’t let us speak. I’ve been watching today, for the first time I started watching, and it’s really sad when you see people not allowed to ask questions.” (In fact, Republican members of Congress were allowed to ask many questions! But we digress.)