What Went Down In Maguire’s Whistleblower Testimony

Lee, I think there are some Maguire quotes will be pulled out and re-used about the whistleblower’s credibility and about the unprecedented nature of all this, but I don’t think will do much to change public opinion.

Instead, and it seems almost weird to say this, I think the facts as they come out will matter most. So far, the facts have been relatively damaging to Trump, and we’ve seen early polls show support for impeachment increasing. Certainly if evidence of an explicit quid pro quo comes out, I would expect that to continue.

There has been a lot about process today — Democrats in the House seem peeved that they didn’t get the whistleblower sooner, and see some of this as a challenge to their status as a coequal branch of government, but I agree with Chad, the fact that we have the whistleblower’s testimony will be the driving news of the day.

I know we’ve been critical of Democrats’ approach here, and the relatively unilluminating hearing. But the real fireworks happened before the hearing, when the whistleblower’s complaint and IC IG report was released by the House Intelligence committee. I think in, oh, two hours this hearing will be relatively forgotten and those two documents will be what the day is remembered for. And that’s a lot of grist for Democrats to mill. Also, if Rudy Giuliani testifies before this committee, it is going to be as much of a blockbuster as the Michael Cohen hearings from earlier this year.