--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Before we get into the episode, the episode is supported by KiwiCo, and that's important. KiwiCo's got a website for you, kiwico.com slash explained. That's even more important. Most important of all, you get the chance to try them out for free for an entire month when you go to that website, kiwico.com slash explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What a gift to listen to a podcast and while you're doing it, get offers to try free stuff. Just nice to take a moment to realize that. Okay, here's the show. Ukraine. Ukraine explained. It's Ukraine explained. Last week, we had three people testify in the now public impeachment inquiry. This week, we're getting nine. Andrew Prokop, Politics, Vox, who are these nine people?
--:-- Andrew Prokop: On Tuesday, we had Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, NSC staffer, Jennifer Williams, a State Department official detailed to the Vice President's office, Kurt Volker, the former U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine, and Tim Morrison, another National Security Council staffer.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: On Wednesday, we will have in the morning Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union. And in the afternoon, Laura Cooper, Defense Department official, and David Hale, the Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: And then on Thursday, we'll close things out with Fiona Hill, another former NSC staffer, and David Holmes, a Kiev-based State Department official. Okay, so a lot of people, four of them went today in two marathon sessions. We're going to cover them in two episodes today. This is episode one, all about the morning hearings. Let's talk about Williams and Vindman.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So the main theme in the first round of testimony in the morning was that these two people were both on the Trump phone call with President Zelensky on July 25th. But they have very different backgrounds.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Williams joined the government in 2005 as a political appointee under George W. Bush, and then she became a Foreign Service officer and is now has been working with the Vice President's office, detailed there, for the past several months.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It was with great pride and conviction that I swore an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, administered by a personal hero of mine. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Vindman is a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army. When he was very young, his father brought him and his twin brother over to the U.S. fleeing the Soviet Union. And now they both actually work on the NSC. The brother is a lawyer and Vindman as the top staffer with responsibility for Ukraine policy.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And in his opening statement, Vindman actually directly addressed his father saying that, Dad, I'm sitting here today in the U.S. Capitol talking to our elected professionals. Talking to our elected professionals is proof that you made the right decision 40 years ago to leave the Soviet Union, come here to the United States of America in search of a better life for our family.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Do not worry. I will be fine for telling the truth. He seemed particularly nervous He was holding his statement and you could see the paper shaking Did you notice that He was He settled down later in the hearing but at first he was clearly nervous
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He mentioned several times in various ways the idea that I want to take a moment to recognize the courage of my colleagues who have appeared and are scheduled to appear before this committee. I want to say that the character attacks on these distinguished and honorable public servants is reprehensible.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So he's clearly, you know, been feeling the heat from Trump supporters and conservatives who have circulated various attacks on him. And he expressed sympathy for others who have been facing similar attacks.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So, for instance, on Friday, when Marie Yovanovitch, the former ambassador to Ukraine, testified, Trump attacked her with a tweet in the middle of the testimony. Over the weekend, Trump attacked Jennifer Williams, whoever that is, in another tweet, calling her a never-Trumper who I don't know and never even heard of.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So obviously these attacks would be coming from the president. They have also been circulating against Vindman in particular from some of the president's defenders. And some of them have been pretty ugly calling attention to his background and the fact that he's an immigrant from the former Soviet Union.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So, yes, he is an immigrant from the former Soviet Union, but he is also an American military officer and a decorated one at that. Is that part of why the Democrats called him today? I think they really liked the visual of having him there in his uniform. criticizing President Trump's conduct on the call.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And he did criticize it. He said that I was concerned by the call. What I heard was inappropriate. And I reported my concerns to Mr. Eisenberg. It is improper for the president of the United States to demand a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen and a political opponent.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: How did Republicans approach Vindman? So there were a variety of different attack lines they naturally tried. Probably the ugliest part was when the Republican attorney, Steve Castor, pursued a line of questioning that seemed to be suggesting some possible dual loyalty on the part of Vindman to Ukraine.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: When you were, you went to Ukraine for the inauguration? Correct. At any point during that trip, did Mr. Daniluk offer you a position of defense minister with the Ukrainian government? He did. And how many times did he do that? I believe it was three times. And do you have any reason why he asked you to do that? I don't know.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But every single time I dismissed it. And, you know, Vindman said he just found it rather comical. He's an American. He obviously dismissed it. He reported it internally. But then Castor kept asking, you know, when he made this offer, was he speaking in English or Ukrainian? And, you know, it seemed to be planting some seeds of doubt as to where the loyalties of this decorated military officer with some roots tracing back to Ukraine ultimately lie.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Colonel Vindman, what languages do you speak? I speak Russian and Ukrainian and a little bit of English.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: How's it going to look for Republicans? I mean, attacking Vindman, who was awarded the Purple Heart after being wounded in Iraq in 2004. Well, I mean, they have a storied history of this. Trump famously attacked John McCain during the 2016 campaign said he likes people who weren captured and didn seem to hurt him very much So yeah it probably work out fine for them
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Let's talk about Jennifer Williams. So many of the questions that she was asked pertain to Vice President Pence. Did his role in this whole mess become clearer through her testimony?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: She didn't actually have, it seemed, a very close relationship with Pence when it comes to frequent conversations with him or anything like that. What she did shed some more light on was an event that happened near the beginning of this saga.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Shortly after Zelensky was elected the president of Ukraine, Trump had an initial phone call with him to congratulate him and said that maybe Pence would come to the inauguration. Williams explained that on May 13th, she was told that Trump had decided that Pence would not go to Ukraine for the inauguration of Zelensky after all.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And did you have any knowledge of the reasoning for stopping the trip? I asked my colleague why we should stop trip planning, why the vice president would not be attending. And I was informed that the president had decided the vice president would not attend the inauguration. But do you know why the president decided? No, she did not have that information.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: In the days before this, there was a bit of a controversy in the press with Rudy Giuliani saying he'd go to Ukraine and then calling off a trip and complaining about President Zelensky's advisers. So the subtext was basically Trump may have canceled Pence's trip to Ukraine to punish Zelensky for not playing ball with Rudy Giuliani.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The vice president has sort of distanced himself from Williams. Were there any attacks on her credibility or is she a sort of trustworthy source in the eyes of the Republicans here?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Certainly, her testimony raises questions about why Trump canceled that trip for Pence, but she didn't really have any sort of smoking gun or any devastating evidence like that. They mainly focused on Vindman. And of course, they also focused on the whistleblower.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So Devin Nunes, in his questioning of Vindman, tried to press him again and again to name a member of the intelligence community who he spoke with about Trump's phone call with the Ukrainian president.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Lieutenant Colonel Vindman, you testified in the deposition that you did not know who the whistleblower was. I do not know who the whistleblower is. How is it possible for you to name these people and then out the whistleblower? Per the advice of my counsel, I've been advised not to answer specific questions about members of the intelligence community.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And Vindman's lawyer said under the rules of the committee, we shouldn't do this. Schiff said that this is all about just trying to out the whistleblower. And, you know, Nunes really tried to get it out there. But Vindman did not answer. He said he technically doesn't know who the whistleblower is.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It seems that he strongly suspects the whistleblower is this intelligence community official he talked to about the call. But the Democrats are trying to avoid any outing of the whistleblower as they call it
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So these testimonies from Williams and Vindman kicked off a very big week for this impeachment inquiry What did we learn from the testimonies Did they push this story any further Both of these witnesses testified behind closed doors previously, so we didn't get new bombshells from them.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But the point of this hearing in Democrats' eyes was to bring two people who were both on that July 25th phone call between Trump and President Zelensky and who both were concerned about it. They both agreed that they thought it was inappropriate. They thought it was political. And that something smelled bad here.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So then we proceeded later in the afternoon to two witnesses who the Republicans had actually requested in the hopes that they would be a bit more favorable to President Trump. Andrew Prokop, thank you. We'll be back in a few hours with another episode on the afternoon hearings. Keep an eye on your feeds. I'm Sean Rameswaram. This is Today Explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: hello hello is this michael yes hey can you hear me it's sean from today explained yeah i can hear you michael where are you right now i'm just sitting in the living room watching two dogs in like in canada somewhere yeah in toronto in toronto my home and native town oh there you go michael i'm not sure if you're a listener of our daily news podcast but i think your your daughter jillian might be is that right yeah my daughter jillian listens to it all the time and I guess that's where she came across these wonderful little machines and things.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And they figured the old man needed to keep his mind busy. So they signed me up for a three-month subscription as my birthday present, apparently. And I think you're talking about the machines that you can find at KiwiCo.com slash Explained, where listeners can get a chance to try these crates, these projects, these artistic endeavors out for free.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Did you realize that you were getting roped into a subscription service when your daughter presented you with a KiwiCo project? Well, actually, I didn't. No one told me about it. The first thing I heard about it, I got an email saying there was a parcel being shipped to me, and I wasn't sure if it's an email I should open because not all that tech savvy, and there wasn't anything I had ordered.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So when I inquired, I was told, no, it's legit, and the first thing to arrive was a pinball machine. What was their reaction to that? It was great. You know, I like building things. They know that and putting things together. And I looked at it and thought, well, we've got two grandkids. We'll put it together and see if they enjoy playing with it along with me. And they certainly did.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That's great. You know, I think when we talk about KiwiCo on the show, So I'm often asked to stress the fact that like, it's great for kids of all ages. Do you mind, Michael, if I ask how old you are? No, not at all. I'm, I'm 79. So you are, you are a great test case for this theory that it's great for kids of all ages. Damn right.
