Donald Trump may still be ripping up national monuments to build his uglified fence along the border, but there’s one big wall that has already come crashing down—the wall Trump tried to erect between the White House and congressional testimony. Despite Trump’s loud statement that he will not cooperate with the impeachment inquiry, and despite past successes in preventing both witnesses and documents from appearing before the Russia investigation, there’s one obvious fact about the schedule of the House effort to date: Its dance card is full.
Multiple members of the State Department have responded to subpoenas and appeared before House committees to give their information on Trump’s and Rudy Giuliani’s Ukraine scheme, even after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sent Congress a letter telling the inquiry to stop “bullying” his people by asking them to talk. When Pompeo threatened to shut down an appearance by former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, the House and Yovanovitch’s attorneys arranged to produce and agree to a subpoena in a matter of hours. And the appearances have not been limited to the State Department. Former White House adviser Fiona Hill was also prompt in making her scheduled date.
Everyone involved with or sidelined by the execution of Trump’s extortion scheme in Kyiv seems to realize that they are going to be sorted into either witnesses or accomplices. And the line to get in the first group is only getting longer.
As The New York Times reports, Trump declared there would be no more witnesses or documents for a “totally compromised kangaroo court.” But witnesses just keep coming. That includes Ambassador Gordon Sondland on Thursday and charge d’affaires William Taylor next week to explain the whole sequence of events surrounding Trump’s arm-twisting call to the Ukrainian president.
So far, documents have been harder to come by. Since several of those who have appeared, including Hill and recently resigned senior State Department official Michael McKinley, left their official positions, they were unable to bring any paperwork with them. And Trump has had more luck getting some of those holding the keys to the document vaults, such as Department of Defense attorney Robert Hood, to do his dirty work in obstructing the investigation.
However, it seems unlikely that even the documents will remain long out of the possession of an investigation that is moving quickly and forcefully toward an impeachment that is supported by the public.
Three weeks after the impeachment inquiry was first announced, support for it shows no sign of slacking. In fact, multiple national polls now show majority support not only for an impeachment inquiry, but for removing Trump from office. Those are the kinds of numbers that make it clear to potential witnesses that their best move may not be clinging to USS Trump-tanic now that the iceberg is in the rearview and the dance band is cranking up its closing song. Officials who might have sent a letter of “sincere regrets” to Congress a month ago are now simply appearing as requested.
In the case of the State Department, it helps that experienced diplomats are simply pissed off. After their department was first gutted, then twisted, then left for dead under Rex Tillerson, a brief “revival” under Pompeo turned into a horror show as Trump sidelined genuine experts and turned over foreign policy to his team of conspiracy-minded political appointees. If there really is a deep state, it’s the deep disdain felt for Trump’s actions at the State Department.
Making it even easier to listen to Congress is Trump’s other unwinding collection of failings, including his third-grade embarrassment of a letter to Turkish autocrat Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his abandonment of the Kurds. For once, his Gish gallop/Trump Trot of one scandal after another isn’t serving as a distraction, but only reinforcing the idea that his foreign policy is a genuine threat to the nation and the world.
Meanwhile, in the Senate, Republicans are all too aware that this train is going to come screaming into their station Real Soon Now, packing not just the momentum of public opinion but also the force of compelling evidence. Mitch McConnell is already holding briefings on just how brief he can make such a trial—but he shouldn’t be surprised if another wall starts to come down: the one he’s built between Senate Republicans and any criticism of Trump.