Yesterday as I sat watching the impeachment inquiry testimonies of Bill Taylor and George Kent I was very interested in how House Republicans would choose to defend Trump given the onslaught of the damning testimony from two totally non-partisan career diplomats with impeccable credentials.  Surely the Republicans would know better than to attack the messengers because that could easily boomerang on them.  So I was interested as to what else they could come up with.

Well they weren’t that stupid, but they did come up with a list of pretty inane defenses, the first being that the Democrats didn’t allow them to call all of the witnesses that they requested, the first being Hunter Biden.  Of course, they made that request because if the Democrats were dumb enough to comply, they would have used Biden’s time before the committee as a circus to distract from the guilt of accused and to try their best  to hurt the campaign Joe Biden who Trump views as his strongest potential opponent.

They also knew that the Democrats refused to let them call a witness that had nothing to do with the matter at hand, so they claim that the process “is so unfair”.  They also knew that the Democrats would see through their request to require the testimony of the whistleblower as an attempt to out that individual and would refuse.  That would again allow them to make the same complaint about fairness.

Another weak defense they used was “President has the power to conduct the affairs of the country in anyway he sees fit, especially in the area of foreign affairs” and “the American people elected Trump to conduct foreign power as he sees fit”.  That is for the most part true with one caveat. The framers of the Constitution were very concerned that a president would abuse his power and took steps to try to ensure against such abuse.  One very clear reason for impeachment is the abuse of presidential power and that is what we have here.

Of course they also trotted out Trump’s “witch hunt” defense.  “The Democrats have been looking for a reason to impeach Trump since he was elected.  All of this is simply a partisan attempt to take down a president in defiance of the votes of the people;”  While there is a clearly a partisan element to this inquiry with every Republican in the House voting against it, the Republicans have to guard against the real possibility that this argument could be turned against them.  Here lately it seems that they are the ones approaching this inquiry in a partisan fashion. Adam Schiff and other Democratic members on his committee have shown a lot of discipline and have been behaving and asking their questions in a very professional manner. They have been going out of their way to demonstrate that their purpose is not to “get Trump”, but rather to carry out their constitutional responsibility to protect our democracy.

However, the Republican tactic that galls me the most is the “hearsay” defense.  This involves the claim that the only testimony which diplomats Bill Taylor and George Kent could offer yesterday was information they had obtained from others.  They point out that such evidence is not permitted in court and should therefore not be given any credence in the impeachment inquiry.  Republican Jim Jordan pounded this point home time and time again.  In fact what Taylor and Kent related was what they experienced; they were never in the position to correlate their experiences  directly to Trump.  What they offered was circumstantial evidence, but it was overwhelming circumstantial evidence which was damming to Trump’s claim of innocence.

Now I have heard Democrats and reporters and analysts on CNN discussing a number of reasons why the hearsay defense is flawed.  For one thing the impeachment inquiry is not a judicial proceeding and court rules do not apply.  In addition, even in judicial proceedings there are numerous exceptions to the hearsay rule and there is many criminals sitting in jail cells today who were convicted because of overwhelming circumstantial evidence.  I have also heard it argued today that while the evidence presented by Taylor and Kent could be considered hearsay, they testimonies will be supported by future witness who do have a firsthand knowledge of what Trump said and did.  That remains to be seen. However, what I didn’t here discussed much at all is the elephant in the room.

When the Republican’s hearsay argument was discussed on CNN after the hearing what I was didn’t hear near often enough was the most obvious retort.  We shouldn’t have to rely on hearsay evidence except to make clear what damage was done when Trump abused his power to hold up military aid to the Ukraine for his selfish reasons.  It is the accused who is keeping us from hearing direct evidence of what he said and did.  It is Donald J. Trump himself that has ordered those with personal knowledge of his orders and intentions such as acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, former National Security Advisor John Bolton and several others not to testify.  How can we allow Republicans like Jim Jordan to complain about hearsay evidence without reminding him time and time again that it is the person he is trying to defend that obstructing justice by keeping those from have direct evidence from testifying?!!!

Cajun     11/14/2019