The last scheduled day of impeachment hearings featured the testimony of Fiona Hill, former senior director for Europe and Russia on the National Security Council, and David Holmes, a top staff member at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine.
As he has all week, Rep. Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, got the last word. His closing statements on Tuesday and Wednesday were stirring and unsettling, and Thursday’s was the same. A former assistant U.S. Attorney, he speaks without notes and weaves what comes off as a well-organized essay.
On Wednesday and Thursday, I ran his closing statements in their entirety. Thursday’s, however, lasted 20 minutes, and I’m limiting my transcription to the last seven minutes.
We pick up with Schiff after he finishes talking about the Republican complaint that most of the incriminating witnesses’ testimony has been “hearsay.”
He goes on to say…
The other defense…The other defense is, “The President denies it.”
Well, I guess that’s case closed, right? The President says, really quite spontaneously, not as if he was asked in this way: “No quid pro quo!” What do you want from Ukraine? “No quid pro quo!”
This is the “I’m not a crook” defense. You say it, and, I guess, that’s the end of it.”
Well, the only thing we can say is not so much that the situation is different in terms of Nixon’s conduct and Trump’s conduct. What we see here is far more serious than a third-rate burglary of the Democratic headquarters. What we’re talking about here is the withholding of recognition — in that White House meeting — the withholding of military aid to an ally at war. That is beyond anything that Nixon did.
The difference between then and now is not the difference between Nixon and Trump. It’s the difference between that Congress and this one. And so we are asking where is Howard Baker (the ranking minority member of the Senate Watergate Committee)? Where is Howard Baker? Where are the people who are willing to go beyond their party to look to their duty?
I was struck by Col. (Alexander) Vindman’s testimony because he said he acted out of duty. What is our duty here? That’s what we need to be asking. Not using metaphors about balls and strikes or our team and your team. I’ve heard my colleagues use those metaphors. It should be about duty. What is our duty?
We are the indispensable nation; we still are. People look to us from all over the world — journalists from their jail cells in Turkey; victims of mass ex-judicial killings in the Phillipines; people gathered in Tahrir Square (in Cairo) wanting a representative government; people in China who are Uighers; people in Ukraine who want a better future, who look to us. They’re not going to look to the Russians, they’re not going to look to the Chinese; they can’t look to Europe with all its problems. They still look to us and, increasingly, they don’t recognize what they see. Because what they see is Americans saying, “Don’t engage in political prosecutions.” And what they say back, is, “Oh, you mean like the Bidens and the Clintons that you want us to investigate?” What they see they don’t recognize. And that is a terrible tragedy for us, but it’s a greater tragedy for the rest of the world.
Now, I happen to think that when the founders provided the mechanism for impeachment in the Constitution, they were worried about what might happen if someone unethical took the highest office in the land and used it for their personal gain and not because of deep care about the big things that should matter, like our national security and our defense and our allies and what the country stands for. I happen to think that’s why they put that remedy in the Constitution. And I think we need to consult our conscience and our constituents and decide whether that remedy is appropriate here, whether that remedy is necessary here.
And as you know, notwithstanding what my colleagues said, I resisted going down this path for a long time, but I’ll tell you why I could resist no more. And it came down to this; it came down to…actually, it came down to timing. It came down to the fact that the day after Bob Mueller testified…the day after Bob Mueller testified…Donald Trump invited Russian interference in the election: “If you’re listening, come get Hillary’s emails.” And later that day they tried to hack her server. The day after he testified that not only did Trump invite that interference but that he welcomed the help in the campaign; they made full use of it; they lied about it; they obstructed the investigation into it. And all this is in his (Mueller’s) testimony and his report…The day after that, Donald Trump is back on the phone asking another nation to involve itself in another U.S. election!
That says to me this President believes he is above the law, beyond accountability. And in my view there is nothing more dangerous than an unethical President who believes they are above the law. And I would just say to people watching here at home and around the world, in the words of my great colleague (the late Rep. Elijah Cummings), we are better than that. (Gavel slams down.)
We are adjourned.
