What Went Down On Day 3 Of The Trump Impeachment Hearings

“I speak Russian and Ukrainian. And a little bit of English.” Vindman cracks a joke, in answer to a question about what languages he speaks.

When the Ukrainians became aware of the hold on the security assistance has become a key detail — one Republican defense was that there couldn’t have been a quid pro quo over the aid because the Ukrainians didn’t know it had been frozen. Vindman is underscoring that the Ukrainians were aware the aid was being held up before that fact became public knowledge, undermining that GOP’s defense (which other witnesses’ testimony has also done).

Williams seems to have said things fairly directly in the closed-door testimony that she seems to not want to say bluntly on national television. That makes sense. I think she wants to have a further career in Republican politics, being a senior staffer in future GOP administrations. But to do that, she probably has to hope that a Nikki Haley type (a more traditional Republican) becomes the next GOP president, since she has not shown loyalty in the way Trump and his allies like.