If the Republicans were hoping two of their witnesses – Kurt Volker and Tim Morrison – would save their crumbling impeachment defense, they likely left Tuesday’s hearing feeling quite discouraged.
As MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow pointed out on her program on Tuesday night, not only did Volker and Morrison confirm some of the damning facts we already knew, but they outlined just how corrupt that Trump’s own officials think he is.
The MSNBC host referred to Morrison’s testimony in which he recalled multiple instances in which he was instructed to talk to lawyers following various conversations with Trump.
Maddow said, “Day three of the Trump impeachment hearings have provided us with yet another set of words to live by … words to watch out for in testimony about how the president’s own appointees talk to each other when they learned what the president had been cooking up behind closed doors.”
Video:
‘Talk to the lawyers’: Maddow points out the one phrase that defined Tuesday’s impeachment hearings into Trump’s Ukraine shakedown scheme. #ctl #p2 #maddow pic.twitter.com/gVFOheCBRO
— PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) November 20, 2019
Maddow said:
He said, once again, when I called him the second time for something like this, once again he told me, tell the lawyers. Do we need a theme song for today? How about tell the lawyers? I mean, fire up the embroidery hoops, right? Day three of the Trump impeachment hearings have provided us with yet another set of words to live by, words to stitch onto a pillow. At least words to watch out for in testimony about how the president’s own appointees talk to each other when they learned what the president had been cooking up behind closed doors. ‘Dude, don’t even tell me, talk to the lawyers. Dude, are you calling me about number one of these? I said talk to the lawyers. Do you have the lawyer’s phone number? Can you get to the lawyer’s office? Talk to the lawyers.’
Trump officials knew he was up to no good
Morrison was probably the most favorable witness to the president, but even he acknowledged that after hearing Trump’s infamous phone call with Ukraine, he took it directly to a White House lawyer.
In other words, Morrison’s actions indicate that he was concerned about the phone call, whether or not he said it out loud.
As Maddow pointed out, the rest of Morrison’s testimony indicates that this seems to be a standard practice in the Trump administration after participating in or learning of a troubling discussion with the president: Talk to the lawyers.
Tuesday’s testimony from Republican-called witnesses made it clear that those around Trump during the Ukraine shakedown knew he was up to no good and expressed their concerns to White House lawyers on multiple occasions.
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