Pretrial commotion
On the first day of President Trump’s impeachment trial for a campaign to coerce Ukraine into smearing his enemies, officials in Kyiv finally announced a politically charged investigation involving a U.S. official. But it wasn’t the one Trump and company wanted.
Ukraine’s Interior Ministry announced Thursday that it was looking into possibly illegal spying on a former U.S. ambassador to the country, Marie Yovanovitch, whom Trump disparaged and eventually ousted. The probe is in response to newly disclosed text messages in which a Republican congressional candidate told Lev Parnas, an associate of Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, that people tailing the ambassador were “willing to help” for “a price.”
Parnas, one of two Giuliani henchmen arrested on campaign finance charges just before they boarded a oneway flight to Germany in October, was the source of a trove of revelations in press interviews and documents released by House impeachment investigators this week. They further strengthened the case for a substantive Senate trial with witness testimony.
The third such trial in U.S. history began without a resolution of that question Thursday, when Chief Justice John Roberts swore in the Senate as a jury. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, RKy., has sought to limit further damage to the president by staging a show trial with no witnesses.
Expected to proceed to arguments next week, the trial was triggered when the House voted Wednesday to transfer articles of impeachment for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress to the Senate. Speaker Nancy Pelosi also named seven House managers who will act as the proceeding’s prosecutors, among them fellow Bay Area Rep. Zoe Lofgren, DSan Jose. Lofgren, an attorney whose experience now spans three impeachment inquiries, is well suited to make the case for fair consideration of the charges against Trump.
Pelosi, DSan Francisco, withheld the articles for nearly a month in an effort to wrest concessions from McConnell. While the majority leader managed to keep the witness question open, the delay made room for developments that weakened his position. Former national security adviser John Bolton, a firsthand witness to much of the Ukraine affair, announced his willingness to testify, while recently unearthed emails showed another potential witness crediting Trump himself with blocking the country’s security aid. A report released Thursday by Congress’ nonpartisan Government Accountability Office found the administration’s interference to be illegal.
Now Parnas’ story and documents provide more evidence that Trump orchestrated a push for politically motivated investigations that brandished a variety of potential punishments and rewards. While Parnas’ account and those of other potential witnesses can and should be questioned, the value of hearing from them should not.