Agree, Amelia. In the complaint it states that the whistleblower reported hearing from White House officials that “they were ‘directed’ by White House lawyers to remove the electronic transcript from the computer system in which such transcripts are typically stored for coordination, finalization, and distribution to Cabinet-level officials.”
Totally agree, Amelia. That’s a key question, whether this is stand-in for more.
One thing I’m taking away from two hours of Maguire’s testimony — in which he refuses to weigh in on the veracity or seriousness of the complaints in the whistleblower report — is that I would really like to see the testimony of the whistleblower.
Maguire laying it our clearly: “Right now all we have is an allegation,” and calls on the House Intel committee to do the investigatory work to verify or disprove the whistleblower’s complaint.
Here’s some new polling from SurveyMonkey and Business Insider which suggests that support for impeachment is increasing in the wake of the Ukraine news.
Swalwell asking questions now. Does anyone else miss him on the primary stage? [looking fruitlessly for a torch emoji]
I think it hurts Biden, because as long as the focus is on allegations of Biden’s corruption, it chips away the electability argument the his entire campaign is based upon. And if his poll numbers continue to slip, he will look less and less electable, and those who are right now supporting him might give other candidates a closer look.
Probably, Micah? But again, I think it’s hard to predict in what ways. Honestly, it might take some attention off the race for a while, and it could be interesting to see who that benefits. Might it halt Warren’s momentum and revert back to the mean (Biden)? Although any such movement would be impossible to disentangle from Biden’s involvement in this whole situation.
At the risk of changing the subject, does this whole Ukraine story affect the Democratic presidential primary at all?
Stefanik is one of the sharper members of Congress, and she goes right for one of the whistleblower report’s biggest weaknesses: The whistleblower acknowledged that he or she did not personally witness much of the conduct he or she is whistleblowing on.
That was a weird moment, when the acting director of national intelligence said he didn’t know if Giuliani has a security clearance. (He doesn’t.)
Rep. Stefanik goes after Schiff for not reading the call summary verbatim. Schiff seems to have needlessly caused himself trouble with his opening statement.
OK, Quigley is asking Maguire directly whether the complaint concerns him. Maguire defers to the president’s policy prerogatives and says it’s not for him to judge.
Maguire: “My only knowledge of what Mr. Giuliani does is from the TV and the media.”
We’re about halfway through this hearing. Eleven out of the 22 members of the intelligence committee have questioned Maguire so far; according to our colleagues at ABC, the remaining 11 are all expected to get a chance to speak, and we’re not expected to go to a break at any point. At five minutes per member, that means we have about 55 minutes to go. Though as the members keep mentioning, their clock is broken, so who knows if they’ll stick to their time limits.
Quigley goes for it — asks Maguire what his understanding of Giuliani’s role is, after a lengthy lead-up about the importance of vetting (with the implication being that Giuliani did not have any of this vetting).
Mention of Giuliani gets … a laugh (?) from Maguire.
So, why aren’t Democrats asking Maguire, “If the whistleblower’s report is true, would it constitute a national security risk?” Democrats have to convince the public that Trump’s conduct was a national security risk, and that it was done for personal gain. Yet they are not broaching that with the acting director of national intelligence. Very strange!
We’re about halfway through this hearing. By my count, 10 members of the intelligence committee have questioned Maguire so far, which leaves 12 remaining members on the committee.
The normal gentle decorum of Congress just got a little less gentle! Rep. Steward said that he thinks his colleagues “are nuts” if they think they can convince the American people of stuff by impugning Maguire.
I’d be looking for data on how many Republican elites, especially in the media, are digging in on supporting Trump, and how many are hedging. I think polling will follow the signals that Republican voters get from elites.
Yeah, I’m mostly interested in seeing whether not the public moves on the question of impeachment, because as we saw with Mueller’s investigation, it wasn’t enough for Americans to think Trump had done something wrong to change their mind on impeachment.
Primarily the numbers on impeachment itself, but all of the above, really.
For Nate and everyone, really: What data should people be watching over the next couple weeks to see the effect(s) of this Ukraine scandal? There will obviously be poll questions about the story itself, but what else? Trump’s approval rating? The generic congressional ballot? Something else?
Speier asked Maguire if the president asked him to find out the identity of the whistleblower. He says, “Emphatically, no.”
Interestingly, Laura, former Rep. Marsha Blackburn actually preferred to be called “congressman.”
Worth noting that we still don’t know the gender of the whistleblower. Maguire has also said he doesn’t know the whistleblower’s identity.
Maguire keeps calling Rep. Speier, who’s a woman, “Congressman.” Obviously not the most important aspect of this, but … not a great look.
Nathaniel, looking at that list of GOP retirees, I’d look to Sensenbrenner as a bellwether. For now, he’s been accusing Democrats of partisan witch-huntery. But he’s a veteran lawmaker with lots of credibility.
Rep. Speier getting to the substance now, rather than the process. First, asks Maguire whether he threatened to resign if he couldn’t speak freely to Congress, as The Washington Post has reported. Maguire denies that report.
Yeah, Lee, 12 Republican congresspeople so far are retiring and not running for another office. Do any of them support impeachment? Will be a fascinating question.
Following on Nathaniel’s highlighting of Rep. Hurd’s tweet, the fact that so many Republicans are retiring this year may wind up being quite significant in how this all plays out. There may be enough retiring Republicans to spur doubt on the right.
Dr. Wenstrup asking questions now — do many members of Congress retain honorifics other than “Rep.” and “Sen.”? Or is this not important?
Rep. Wenstrup is taking Schiff to task for paraphrasing the call summary rather than reading verbatim. A fair critique at a time when the facts matter, as Democrats are sure to remind us in the coming weeks.
To Nathaniel’s point about the relative dearth of recent polling on impeachment, how soon is too soon to ask about it in a meaningful way with regard to Ukraine? The Russia stuff played out literally over years. The Ukraine story basically turns one week old today.
Maguire is repeating, over and over again, that in his view he was just following the law. The crux seems to be, essentially, that the inspector general of the intelligence committee thought the complaint was an “urgent concern.” There was debate about this, and DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel disagreed. But Maguire says he wasn’t directed to withhold the complaint by White House and DOJ. A lot of pressure continues to be put on the legal interpretation of the word “urgent.”
Maguire is basically saying that a complaint like this has never concerned the president before, right? Or anyone high ranking in the executive branch? (This is per Schiff’s hammering again on Maguire’s decision to break longstanding precedent and submit any such report to Congress.)
Will Hurd has been one of the few Republicans willing to break with Trump. Of course, he is also not seeking reelection in 2020.
Micah, it’s been so much about the process of getting the information into the public realm, though. Very little about the substance of the extraordinary revelations.
Micah, going back to what you said about the media covering the substance of the complaint (freeing Democrats up to zoom in on process with the DNI) — I’m sure the complaint will receive extensive coverage. I just think this is a very new scandal in the eyes of the public, and it’s important for Democrats to convey that newness and freshness and urgency instead of the “bunch of old people yelling at one another about stuff I don’t understand” thing that people usually associate with congressional hearings.
Rick, as a matter of strategy, the articles of impeachment should go small so they are clear to the public and put maximum pressure on Republicans. But they should also stand in as the top of a much larger pile of 💩 that will make them more convincing.
There was reporting earlier this week that Democrats agreed that a specific focus on Ukraine was the way to go re: impeachment.
While we’re talking about journalism norms, here’s something to keep in mind about the whistleblower complaint. As Republicans have pointed out repeatedly, the whistleblower obtained his information second hand, and is an anonymous source himself (for now, though he seems willing to talk to Congress). If a reporter came to us at FiveThirtyEight with an anonymous source who had second hand knowledge of Trump administration misdeeds, I’d tell her to go and get more information. It wouldn’t be reliable enough as is.
However, now part of this complaint has been born out. The release of the transcript/call summary yesterday showed that the concern about the Trump campaign asking Ukraine to do him personal political favors was true. That’s the equivalent of us hearing something second hand, going to report it out, and having it confirmed by a principal. That raises the reliability of the rest of the anonymous source’s second hand knowledge, though that too would still need to be reported out before I’d feel comfortable publishing it.
Oof. You’d think Democrats would want to zoom in on Ukraine, though. We’ve been talking about that a lot this week — how a simple, focused narrative could work to their advantage, but folding in stuff like emoluments could weigh down this latest investigation.
Rick, haven’t they gone big but focused? Most of the questions have still been on Ukraine.
One big question still on the table for Democrats is whether they go big (six committees’ worth of investigations) or small (Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine) on impeachment. Today, while not technically about impeachment, suggests a “big” approach- – with the suggestion that the whole Trump administration has been in on corrupt actions, cover-ups and the like.
This is a smart line of questioning by Carson. Focusing on the “unprecedented” nature of this.
Nate and Chad, the whistleblower complaint just became public today — won’t the media take care of covering the substance of it regardless of what happens in this hearing?