Thread by @HoarseWisperer

Watching the testimony of Marie Yovanovitch.

Mute this if you don’t want it cluttering your timeline.

I’m skipping the opening statements because they were all that newsworthy and Devin Nunes is a jackass.

1/

Here we go.

Yovanovitch opening with her bio. Family fled communist Soviet Union and spent time stateless as described facto refugees in Germany.

Professionally, moved 13 times. 5 hardship posts. Time in Mogadishu. Served in an embassy attacked by gunfire. Ltr caught in gunfire

(Note: there will be no proofreading. Typos add flavor. Like paprika or something.)

As a matter of personal style, Yovanovitch presents as a soft-spoken career public servant driven by noble purpose and armed with deep subject matter expertise.

She comes across as a devoted ambassador caught in the midst of a swirling conspiracy enacted for corrupt purposes.

Yovanovitch lays out a damning opening salvo.

Paraphrased: Corrupt parties in Ukraine tried to drag the country backwards... and they found willing partners in the Trump Administration and Giuliani.

As a side note as Yovanovitch walks through the timeline of events we already know and understand, it was politically wise for Democrats to call Ambassador Bill Taylor and State Department staffer George Kent first.

They laid the foundation...

Yovanovitch as both witness and victim personalizes the events and dimensionalizes that Trump's extortion efforts were neither brief nor victimless.

Let's hope counsel hammers these points home.

This was not a phone call. It was a long-running conspiracy.

Wrapping up her remarks, Yovanovitch goes hard at Pompeo without naming him.

Calls out the shameful lack of support from Pompeo and his State Department in the face of false attacks and political machinations despite the great harm done to American foreign interests.

"This is not a time to undermine our diplomats." - Yovanovitch

Our first soundbite of the day. This will resonate with at least some vibration among Republicans who, deep down inside, know backing Trump is the very opposite of patriotic defense of our national interests.

Yovanovitch wraps up her opening remarks by talking about the sacrifices foreign service officers make in the face of danger.

Powerful and moving.

Yovanovitch as a witness whose testimony Jim Jordan will only make more powerful by attacking.

Now we're on to the direct examination by Representatives and counsel.

Adam Schiff opens the questioning.

"Do you agree [...] if you fight corruption, you'll piss off some corrupt people?

Yovanovitch: Yes.

Schiff then leads Yovanovitch through a rapid series of questions that draw a direct line between corrupt parties in the Ukraine and Rudy Giuliani.

This sharp and damning.

The people alleging they were fighting corruption were in bed with the dirtiest birds in the forest.

In the space of five minutes, Adam Schiff succinctly led Yovanovitch through questions which shone a bright light on the orchestrated efforts between known corrupt actors in the Ukraine looking to reinstall themselves to corrupt power and Giuliani, et al, looking to help Trump.

Schiff turns questioning over to Democratic counsel, Dan Goldman.

(side note: you'll be happy or unhappy to know that I am actually on a laptop for a change and can thus better keep up... My thumbs are happy about this.)

Yovanovitch now recalling the 1 am phone call she received from a State staffer telling her she needed to get on a plane immediately due to concerns about her security.

Yovanovitch also shared the story of a brutal murder of a Ukrainian anti-corruption leader, Kateryna Handziuk

In a case that drew international horror and outrage, Hendziuk had been doused with sulfuric acid. She suffered terribly before dying a painful death three months later.

A horrible, horrible reminder of the power of corrupt figures in Ukraine.

thedailybeast.com/hell-on-earth-…

The nexus between the two - the late night phone call and the brutal Hendziuk murder - was a powerful way of demonstrating how terrifying it must have been for Yovanovitch to be suddenly told her "security" was threatened.

I can't imagine how fearful she must have been.

Let this point settle in for a minute.

The State Department of the United States of America, terrified one of its long-serving ambassadors by suggesting they were in danger solely because that person had obstructed a criminal conspiracy led by the president.

This is USSR-like.

Yovanovitch now describing how people around her saw the color drain from her face as she read the "transcript" from the July 25th Trump-Zelensky call where Trump called her "bad news" and said she was "going to go through some things."

Yov: "She's going to go through some things. It didn't sound good. It sounded like a threat."

Goldman: Did you feel threatened?

Yov: I did.

This is probably our second sound bite of the day.

It summarizes the prior points and gives the media a succinct jumping off point for delving into the shameful way she was made to feel in danger.

Interjecting, today's testimony is likely to be seen as more gripping than Wednesday's.

Impeachment trials should not require pizzazz like a goddamned musical but even if they did, Yovanovitch's story has plenty of it.

Deeply personal. Yovanovitch is a powerful witness.

Dem counsel Goldman succinctly lays out a series of tweets by Trump and others with false allegations of Ukrainian wrongdoing.

Punchline: Trump was spreading false conspiracy theories long before using some of them as a basis for removing Yovanovitch.

Goldman: You were one of the most senior diplomats in the State Dept. You had been there 33 yrs. Won numerous awards. And the State Dept would not issue a statement of support because they were worried the president might undermine it with a tweet?

Yov: That is my understanding.

Schiff then interjects to read defamatory tweets Trump has sent during Yovanovitch's live testimony today.

However Trump thought those tweets would play, he was just made to look like the tremendous pile of shit that he is.

Yov: I can't speak to what the president is trying to do but the effect is to be intimidating.

Schiff: We take witness intimidation very, very seriously.

Trump is such an idiot of incalculable enormity. A petty, fragile little man desperate to be imposing. A vast failure at it.

Paraphrasing... and this is important...

Goldman: Are you aware that Putin himself promoted the conspiracy theory that Ukraine was the country that interfered in the 2016 election? How would that be helpful to Putin?

Goldman and Yovanovitch collectively talk through how Putin would be well served by the false narrative that Ukraine meddled in 2016 taking hold.

Would absolve Russia of their known meddling. Implication: would clear way for removing Russian sanctions.

Goldman moving on to drilling down on the July 25th call.

Goldman: Was Trump's request to investigate Biden part of official US policy as you knew it?

Yov: I had left two months earlier. It certainly wasn't part of the policy when I left.

We are now on a brief recess as the House breaks for a vote.

I shall now avail myself of a trip to the bathroom. Coffee is a zero-sum game. I have consumed much of it.

Back momentarily. Smoke 'em if you've got 'em.

While listening with one here to MSNBC's panel, allow me to add a quick set of impressions from the first hour of this hearing.

This hour was crisp, compelling and profoundly damaging.

This was the hour when most would be listening most closely and it was a five-run home run.

While I hate to reduce incredibly matters to discussions of style and manner, sadly, those things matter in how the content is heard and digested.

Schiff has slowed and sharpened his delivery somewhat since Wednesday and that's important.

Less is more.

Goldman has done the same. Short, succinct questions with the barest minimum of setup before awaiting answers.

Yovanovitch, by her nature, comes across as a serious, devoted public servant with the human emotions of someone truly dedicated to the higher ideal of service.

She speaks softly... and while that appears to be her style, it is an incredibly powerful tool in human conversation.

It forces the listener to lean in - literally and figuratively - to hear her. It focuses listener effort.

If you have kids, try that one. Works like a charm.

MSNBC, to their credit, has tasked @NicolleDWallace with leading the panel opining on the session.

Chris Matthews is a contributor rather than an emcee - and thus the panel is getting a word in edgewise.

Wallace > Matthews. All day, every day.

@NicolleDWallace Since we are still on a break, allow me to interject that when this testimony is over, I'm going to be in desperate need of a $4 happy hour pint of some kind.

If that's a beverage you're up for funding via the link in my bio, I'll toast to your generosity. Oh, how I'll toast.

@NicolleDWallace Back to the doings, while en route to a vote, Adam Schiff stopped to speak with reporters very briefly and used the moment to lambaste Trump for his efforts at witness intimidation as Yovanovitch testifies live.

Some R's are going to cringe over what Trump is doing today. Some.

@NicolleDWallace Since I have at least another minute or two to editorialize, some in the media were absurdly fixated on the idea that Wednesday's hearings were supposed to deliver spectacular drama with the explosive watchability of an episode of Law & Order.

That's a ridiculous ask.

@NicolleDWallace These hearings are important both for their specific content and overall impression.

The Benghazi hearings were a total sham which Minority Leader McCarthy freely confessed were for no other purpose than to harm Hillary Clinton. Yet, they succeeded.

@NicolleDWallace Human beings, by our nature, accept the attachment of some taint to a person by mere repetition of accusations.

On some subconscious level, even when we disbelieve the accusations, the accused is often "dirtied up" in our minds. They do not walk away unscathed.

@NicolleDWallace The most critical measures won't be polling on support for impeachment today, tomorrow or even next week.

No, the most critical measures will be on the internals of public opinion about Trump himself. His trustworthiness and honesty, etc.

Those precede a fall.

@NicolleDWallace So, be patient as these hearings play out, are digested and manifest themselves in the public's minds.

The teetering edifice of our corrupt president is made of sandstone and these hearings are howling winds eroding him further.

Observe that storm with some patience.

@NicolleDWallace Completely off topic, my neighbor's landscapers have arrived to clear his yard of a volume of leaves so insignificant as to not even be pile-worthy.

They appear to be using an Apache helicopter to perform that service. If that's a leaf blower, it is powered by uranium.

@NicolleDWallace If this continues past when the hearing resumes, I am going to go full Rand Paul's Neighbor.

I assume I can count on you goodhearted people to crowdsource adequate bail money.

@NicolleDWallace I swear to god, these leaf blowers are louder than the twin-engine Soviet-era Laotian Airlines plane I ignored severe warnings to take on a flight once.

True story. Upon descent, landing gear goes down. Huge severed cable dangling between the wheels. Welp, that seemed ungood.

@NicolleDWallace Laotian Airlines, you see, has a troubling history of flying into "stone clouds" - also known as mountains.

Plane rocks and sways on the way down. I sat there assuming we'd soon be a fireball skidding sideways down a remote runway.

Alas, we landed in one piece. People clapped.

@NicolleDWallace Other than that, the flight was lovely.

@NicolleDWallace Not sure when we will be resuming but guessing we are still far enough away for you to refresh your beverages and make a nice sandwich.

I'm going to eat a fistful of frosted mini wheats and reflect on my failure, yet again, to plan adequate hearing day food.

@NicolleDWallace Wow! Exciting side note... The Roger Stone jury is re-entering the courtroom.

It appears we are about to receive a verdict in the Roger Stone case.

Wow... Come on!

@NicolleDWallace ROGER STONE FOUND GUILTY!

@NicolleDWallace Stone found guilty on all seven counts.

Oh. My. God.

This is like my birthday.

That ludicrous popinjay is going to prison.

Halle-freaking-lujah!

https://twitter.com/hardball/status/1195383640554901510?s=20

@NicolleDWallace To people saying "Trump is just going to pardon him..."...

I don't think so. Narcissists don't pay their dinner tab after they've eaten.

There are hardwired reasons. Chief among them: it brings another's shame closer to them when they could just as easily distance themselves...

@NicolleDWallace The only people Trump has pardoned, if you look, are people whose crimes in no way relate to Trump.

People like Dinesh D'Souza and Joe Arpaio.

Those pardons meet Trump's narcissistic needs. They make his allies seem like victims and make Trump seem benevolent for helping them.

@NicolleDWallace According to @glennkirschner2, Roger Stone is facing a maximum sentence of 50 years in prison.

However, the federal sentencing guidelines will result in a far shorter sentence.

We will get some guidance on the guidelines before he appears for sentencing.

@NicolleDWallace @glennkirschner2 One of the BIGGEST impacts of Roger Stone being convicted on five counts of lying to Congress, one count of obstructing an official proceeding and one count of witness tampering:

Sondland now has a whole lot to think about ahead of his testimony.

Lie for Trump; go to prison.

@NicolleDWallace @glennkirschner2 Live shot of me digesting the news of Roger Stone's conviction...

@NicolleDWallace @glennkirschner2 Side note: Sorry, @NicolleDWallace for forgetting to untag you up until now. Sorry to pollute your notifications.

@NicolleDWallace @glennkirschner2 Since I can't figure out how to untag Nicolle Wallace and Glenn Kirschner, I am going to shut down this thread here and start a new one for the afternoon session.

Profuse thanks to the kind people who hit up my Patreon and/or Ko-Fi to fund my bar tab and/or phone bill.