Thread by @TheViewFromLL2

Castor: It is "baloney" to impeach a president if the bad thing he did only takes up eight lines of a transcript.

Castor is now complaining that the impeachment inquiry didn't bother to fight for the evidence Trump is refusing to produce and witnesses he's refusing to let testify, and it's not right to continue with impeachment without this important info.

There's a simple solution to that.

Castor is now attacking the Democrats for not holding Trump's officials in contempt, because it's important that we get those materials from the Trump administration.

Hey, when he's right, he's right.

Much of Castor's opening has been a complaint about how there's so much important info that we don't have, and that if we had more witnesses and documents we might be able to resolve points of ambiguity.

... I mean, yes?

Castor, pretty much: "The prosecutor has shown that the defendant robbed one bank, but the defendant has records about five other banks that the defendant has refused to hand over. So due process means you can't convict him for robbing that first bank."

Castor lies, and claims that the Ukrainians didn't know about the hold in the security assistance until August 29th, when it was reported in Politico.

The Ukrainians were asking about it on July 25th.

The minority report takes a slightly different approach–it can't deny the hard proof that Ukrainian officials knew as of July 25 about the hold.

So instead GOP claims only the Ukrainian officials in DC knew, and they were "rogue" employees who decided not to tell home about it.

Castor says, "There are legitimate explanations for these actions that are nefarious," but does not elaborate on what those legitimate explanations may be.

Goldman: To the extent there's more info that could've been relevant to impeachment inquiry, it's those witnesses refusal to appear that's responsible for us not having it.

But there's already overwhelming evidence of Trump's abuse of power.

Castor just claimed "NSC leadership" had "no concerns" about the call.

I guess @AmbJohnBolton was beating down the path the NSC legal to document all that Ukraine stuff because he had nothing better to do.

In 2018, Ukraine shut down 4 corruption investigations that implicated Manafort. Ukrainian officials openly said it was so they wouldn't "spoil relations with the administration.”

And GOP still says with a straight face that Trump just really *cares* about anticorruption reform.

Trump knew that the Ukrainians believed their ability to obtain the Javelin missiles depended on them scuttling the Manafort cases and stonewalling Mueller.

And he did nothing to dissuade them of that notion. He was fine with Ukraine shutting down cases for corrupt reasons.

For those of you keeping score at home, GOP says neither "Sondland told the Ukrainian officials the WH visit was contingent on Ukraine doing the investigations" nor "POTUS' personal attorney said the meeting was contingent on investigations" are evidence there was a quid pro quo.

Castor thinks "there's literally no evidence about why the security assistance was halted" is evidence in President Trump's favor.

The GOP's defense of President Trump is that his appointed Ambassador to the EU committed perjury by falsely testifying before the impeachment inquiry that there was a quid pro quo, yet Trump also has no problem with that Ambassador keeping his post.

For the same reasons that Ukraine didn't want to announce the Biden/Clinton investigations, Ukraine also doesn't want to do anything to harm Trump's position in the impeachment inquiry. Only this concern they feel with even more urgency, given who is in office.

So yeah, the Ukrainians are lying their asses off in news stories, to downplay as much as possible what actually happened.

Hence that eye-rolling "our ambassador deliberately sabotaged Ukraine by not informing the government of the security assistance being held up" story.

Okay, did I mishear that, or did Castor just accuse Democrats of "leaving out evidence unhelpful to their case, like Sondland's testimony about the quid pro quo"...?

Castor, like minority report, argues Giuliani “was not speaking on the President’s behalf” in Ukraine.

The minority report also argues that because Trump is the "sole organ" of foreign affairs, he was free to use Giuliani to conduct Ukraine foreign policy if he felt like it.

Castor is denying that Trump asked Zelensky to investigate Biden. Painful.

Goldman pointing out that criminals don't narrate their crimes as they commit them.

If we're going to go over the minority report's selective and misleading quotes, we're gonna be here a while.

'Sir, does the standard of your fact-finding permit these sort of selective and misleading quotations of witnesses?'

Castor is saved from answering by Sensenbrenner yelling BADGERING BADGERING

Castor's defense of Trump: Trump was super concerned about genuine anticorruption reform, but he didn't trust any of his advisors from any U.S. agencies to evaluate whether Zelensky really was interested in reform, so he had to use Giuliani to evaluate Zelensky for him.

Castor: "Giuliani was doing some things out here, and then he became involved in the official channel with Volker, Sondland." Also Castor, like a half hour ago: "Giuliani didn't act on behalf of Trump in Ukraine."

I bet Goldman was a total gunner in law school.

Collins is trying to figure out who gave the order to "cross check" for numbers of Representatives and the press. "Who ordered the match game?"

Uh... You... go through... and identify... all the numbers you can...

Rep. Collins is accusing Goldman of "leaking" information by including it in the Committee's report.

Castor says there were 6 subpoenas for phone records:

1. Giuliani's cell numbers
2. Igor Fruman
3. Sondland
4. "AT&T for a certain number"
5. "AT&T for a certain number"
6. Subscriber info for John Solomon

Someone gonna ask him to elaborate on 4 and 5...?

Castor: Morrison had no concerns at all about the July 25th call, he just thought the contents of the call were potentially scandalous and could damage U.S.-Ukrainians relations, and wanted to make sure it stayed a secret.

Castor: It's normal for the president to decide he doesn't wanna deal with presidential tasks, so instructs officials to go let his personal attorney decide what to do.

Callen calls the "people with 1st-hand knowledge" of events are Sondland, Volker, Perry. Asks, and Castor, affirms that they're working in U.S.'s best interest and are of highest integrity.

Wait, isn't the party line that Sondland is lying about the existence of a quid pro quo?

Castor is lying. When the hold was ordered by Trump, there was no explanation given, and it took weeks and weeks of searching for a reason before Sandy got an email saying it was because of "burden sharing" with Europe.

This whole questioning between Callen and Castor is weird and awkward.

It's like two bad actors in a courtroom drama that was written by someone who has never seen an actual witness questioned under oath.

Castor keeps jumping in to interrupt Callen's questions so that he can finish them for her.

Castor: 'Taylor keeps contemporaneous notes, when he says something happened at a certain time, he's able to back that up.'

... And yet for some reason he is absolutely certain Sondland is correct about the call being on September 9th.

Literally ten minutes ago we were talking about Sondland's "integrity" and how he was working to serve U.S. interests, and how Democrats are being gross and unfair for suggesting his irregular policy channel was "nefarious."

Now they are body slamming Sondland under the bus.

Seriously, the GOP's best defense of Trump is that, even though Trump's own ambassador falsely accused him under oath of committing an impeachable offense, the President still wants to keep him on as his ambassador.

Rep Collins is accusing Goldman/Schiff of "smearing" Solomon and Nunes with their "drive by" inclusion of them in the report. Says they should've been anonymous, i.e. "Congressman-1", if they had to be included.

Says Democrats included Nunes "not because they thought he was a part of this" but because they wanted to smear him.

Oh no I am pretty sure they think he is a part of "this."

Rep. Gohmert was right. Treason *is* in the House Intel report:

Rep. Meadows is just astounded that Democrats think the guy who said "there was a quid pro quo and I told that to the Ukrainians" is an important witness.

Meadows always rants about Para. 2 of Sondland's amendment, which sets up why Sondland (allegedly) realized he needed to amend his testimony on the Sept. 1 conversation in Warsaw. But Meadows never cites Para. 5, where Sondland actually gives his version of the conversation:

Rep. Buck is talking about how Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election is real. Even reads part of the July 25th call where Trump talks about his interest in proving Russia, not Ukraine, hacked the DNC.

But then pivots and pretends Trump wasn't talking about that at all.

Oh please. If the whistleblower had committed perjury and IG Atkinson had confirmed it, we would not be finding this out from Ratcliffe during his round of questioning.

Collins prompts Castor to give the litany of "four things that never change":

1 - Transcript shows no conditionality
2 - Trump and Zelensky both deny any pressure
3 - Zelensky did not know about hold at time of the call
4 - Aid was released without any announcement.

Rep. Gaetz says Congress has a 9% approval rating, and "Gaddafi had a 13% approval rating and his people killed him and dragged him through the streets."

Uh....

Swalwell has been a consistent stand out in the 5 minute rounds. He uses his time to actually ask questions, get statements of substance from witnesses, and use it as a part of whatever point he's using his time to make.

This discussion of hearsay and "direct evidence" between Castor and Rep. Biggs has about the same level of understanding of the rules of evidence as a Law & Order episode.

It is incredibly dangerous and demoralizing that the GOP is all in on defending the President's "right" to request foreign states to launch investigations into his political rivals.

I guess it's a small relief that the GOP hasn't (yet) defended Trump's right to use foreign assistance funds as leverage to get those investigations. The GOP just pretends that didn't happen.

But a "request" from the U.S. President always carries the leverage of the office.

You know some GOP senators have quietly talked to Trump, told him to lay off the Ukraine stuff, not dig in deeper.

And how did Trump respond? By okaying Rudy galavanting off back to Kyiv to continue the scheme that's getting Trump impeached. It's a big old FU to those senators.

Castor, on opposition to Trump's foreign policy: The witnesses were "very sad" that the President doesn't "revere" their foreign policy apparatus.

Literally not a single known official in the entirety of the U.S. government, aside from Trump himself, supported the hold.

Rep. Garcia wants to go through the evidence with Goldman and decide which evidence is "direct evidence" and "not direct evidence" and help my soul is dying

Goldman saves me by redirecting his answer to address something more relevant: the falseness of three of the Republican's "four facts that will never change."

Nevertheless Garcia persists.

Rep. Steube is now revealing shocking information that the Democrats' staff counsel is, in fact, a lawyer.

Worse yet. He's not just a lawyer -- he's a *New York lawyer*

Nadler is right that this wasn't a point of order, but I'm glad someone said this in the hearing. What Steube said was gross, at best.

https://twitter.com/lrozen/status/1204174135091453955

Castor says, because Ukrainians were so uncomfortable with Burisma/2016 announcement Volker & Sondland were originally pushing, it's possible Zelensky would've been too uncomfortable to go through with CNN interview.

So... He acknowledges Ukraine wasn't doing this voluntarily.