Hunter Biden’s Ukrainian influence-peddling racket wasn’t a secret to the Obama/Biden posse or really to anyone in Washington. When Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was preparing for confirmation hearings, the “Hunter issue” was given particular attention. George Kent, an anti-Trump witness from the State Department, confessed that Burisma’s corruption warranted even more investigation. He had America’s embassy pull out of a joint venture with Burisma over corruption concerns.
Are we really supposed to believe that a corrupt Ukrainian company, under investigation, hired Hunter Biden because of his talent rather than his access? Not even Hunter Biden believes that. In an ABC interview, he candidly said that he probably wouldn’t have gotten the job but for his last name. There are plenty of Americans who benefit from a good surname. I sure have. But we don’t use our good names to bleed cash from bad, corrupt foreign companies while our dad is vice president.
“I did nothing wrong—and I’ll never do it again” would functionally be the confusing response from Biden.
Minority Leader McCarthy chimed in next. “What will the media say? He did mention Biden. That isn’t great.”
“It was a perfect call!” The president’s voice shot out of the speakerphone. The president is always his own best communications director and hype man. He was right. We agreed that the media would look foolish for, as they typically do, exaggerating. Rep. Schiff would likely slither away following the disclosure, humiliated again so soon after Russia. Pelosi would move on to her next attempt to virtue signal. We had overestimated their sense of honor and underestimated their sensitivity to shame. Evidence or not, they decided the impeachment show must go on! There was no other act or agenda from the Democrats.
“Russia” had died with Muller looking more like someone who escaped a nursing home memory ward than the Trump slayer that the Democrats and their allies in the Fake News media had advertised. Ukraine would emerge now as the “go-for-broke” impeachment strategy, evidence be damned. We do stupid things when we are desperate.
October 23, 2019
House Intelligence Committee. Secure Compartmentalized Information Facility (SCIF).
“Mr. Gaetz has returned,” I overheard a staff member whisper to Adam Schiff. Much to my surprise, I had been thrown out of the SCIF days before. I assumed because the Judiciary Committee has principal jurisdiction over impeachment—and since they were impeaching my president—that I’d be able to at least observe. Not so. Well, screw that. This time I brought backup. About fifty House Republicans and I had just held a press conference lambasting the Democrats’ secret impeachment-related proceedings going on within this “Secret Compartmentalized Information Facility.”
At this point, Speaker Pelosi had seen enough of the bumbling, disheveled Rep. Jerry Nadler in Judiciary Committee proceedings. It was like a line change in hockey it was so instantaneous. Judiciary Democrats had been benched, and the Intelligence Committee had subbed in. You only change the lineup if you are losing. After Russia, they were.
During Russia, Democrats always believed they were “one shoe-drop” away from a massive swing in public opinion that never happened. Try as they might, nothing seemed to work. Michael Cohen! Roger Stone indicted! Manafort and Gates! A Russian troll farm! Nobody cared. While President Trump focused on provisions for the American people, the Democrats couldn’t stop spinning fiction about distant lands. To many of my hardworking constituents, it was like, Russia…Ukraine…what’s next? Are they going to accuse Trump of colluding with Narnia?
From Comey’s fake diary leaks to the unmasking of Gen. Flynn, the Russia hoax strategy was to get information out as fast as possible, to feed their narrative. That failed. Now, they were going to take their time, but time is dangerous to fraudsters. In the Ukraine sequel, the goal was to keep information secret, closed, and opaque to all those “smelly Walmart” voters who had the audacity not of hope, but to vote for Trump. No more letting witnesses like Corey Lewandowski roast helpless Democrat congressmen on live TV. No more letting Jim Jordan and Matt Gaetz treat dishonest witnesses as piñatas before tens of millions of viewers.
The Democrats’ procedures for formulating their charges of impeachment in October 2019 proved to be even more secretive than Ukrainian business dealings and far more secretive, apparently, than the contents of the president’s phone calls.
That is not to say that the Schiff playbook to this point was not brilliant and well executed. It was also repugnant to justice. First, Schiff found deep state lifers who really and sincerely believed that they were “the government” and that those of us who won elections were merely the passing fancies of uninformed voters. These people hated Trump and the populist revolution he led. Former ambassadors Bill Taylor and Marie Yovanovitch fit the bill. Department of Defense hack Fiona Hill seemed sent from central casting. She even had the snooty British accent.
Unlike Nadler, Schiff understood the importance of prepared, timed leaks to drive the news cycle. Depositions began at 9:00 AM daily. By 10:00 AM, their carefully crafted opening statement, prepared to put the president in the worst possible light, would be leaked to a media all too willing to play their part in the coup. Stories would be written, narratives furthered, characters developed. They know that stagecraft is statecraft.
By the time Republicans drew blood during a 2:00 PM cross-examination session, the cement of the daily news cycle had already hardened. We had been playing defense, playing catch-up every day, all day. The polls were starting to show it. Days before, I called the president’s 2016 deputy campaign manager and overall “MAGA Yoda,” David Bossie. David is not a peacetime consigliere. “The Schiff Show has been going on eleven days with these closed-door hearings and handcrafted leaks,” I lamented. “Be honest. How many of these days have we won?”
“Zerooo!” Bossie exclaimed. “You people are ineffectively defending an innocent president. Get
