The impeachment hearing took a bad turn for Trump today at Trumpâs own hand.
While Marie Yovanovitch was testifying, Trump slammed her on TwitterâŚ
….They call it âserving at the pleasure of the President.â The U.S. now has a very strong and powerful foreign policy, much different than proceeding administrations. It is called, quite simply, America First! With all of that, however, I have done FAR more for Ukraine than O.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 15, 2019
The tweet had no sooner gone live when Rep. Adam Schiff stopped the hearing to read the tweet to YovanovitchâŚ
Witness intimidation is a crime. pic.twitter.com/d7Ave23Dat
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) November 15, 2019
The Sympathetic Witness
Everyone knew Yovanovitch was going to be a sympathetic witness both to the defense and for the public.
Democrats set this up by talking about her previous posts, including hardship posts, which actually have nothing at all to do with this hearing.
It was just their way of evoking emotion to try to make her testimony more meaningful than it actually is.
When Trump sent out his tweet, it not only boosted that perception, but it is also changed the entire narrative of the day in terms of strategy for Republicans.
That was a turning point in this hearing so far. She was already a sympathetic witness & the Presidentâs tweet ripping her allowed Schiff to point it out real time characterizing it as witness tampering or intimidation -adding an article of impeachment real-time. https://t.co/HSCkGMIqmH
— Bret Baier (@BretBaier) November 15, 2019
The point made by Baier in his tweet has already been tapped into by Democrats.
Schiff has already asked that the tweets be entered into the record and has spoken to the media about possibly adding witness intimidation to the impeachment.
Now, this is not a court of law, so witness intimidation is not technically on the menu, but Democrats donât exactly follow the rules.
The real problem with the tweet is that nothing she was going to say today was new.
Americans were hearing it themselves for the first time, but Republicans were ready for all of that and could have blown just about everything she said out of the water when they crossed.
Now, all the media is talking about is Trumpâs tweet and it is going to hurt him.
Personally, I donât think it was intimidation, he was defending himself against what was being said in real-time, but that is not how it is being perceived by the media.
And, we all know, once the media gets a narrative rolling, it will blow it up 20 times worse than it really is.
This was just a bad move by Trump and someone needs to take his phone away from while the hearings are goings-on.
Just let Republicans do the job they are obviously dedicated to carrying out IF Trump does not cut their legs out from underneath them.