I. Putin’s authorship of the “Russia hoax.” II. Distinguishing a national security foreign policy channel and a channel dedicated to a domestic political errand. III. Closing statements from Ranking Member Nunes and Chairman Schiff. IV. What pushed Schiff to impeachment. V. Will Hurd can’t justify impeachment, as Justin Amash tries to nudge him in that direction.

I. In her opening statement before the committee, Fiona Hill, former Deputy Assistant to the President Senior Director for European and Russian Affairs, noted with dismay that Republicans on the committee, in denying Russian interference in the 2016 election, were fulfilling Vladimir Putin’s stratagem to weaken our country:

“Based on questions and statements I have heard, some of you on this committee appear to believe that Russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country—and that perhaps, somehow, for some reason, Ukraine did. This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves.

The unfortunate truth is that Russia was the foreign power that systematically attacked our democratic institutions in 2016. This is the public conclusion of our intelligence agencies, confirmed in bipartisan Congressional reports. It is beyond dispute, even if some of the underlying details must remain classified.

The impact of the successful 2016 Russian campaign remains evident today. Our nation is being torn apart. Truth is questioned. Our highly professional and expert career foreign service is being undermined.

U.S. support for Ukraine—which continues to face armed Russian aggression—has been politicized.

The Russian government’s goal is to weaken our country—to diminish America’s global role and to neutralize a perceived U.S. threat to Russian interests. President Putin and the Russian security services aim to counter U.S. foreign policy objectives in Europe, including in Ukraine, where Moscow wishes to reassert political and economic dominance.

I say this not as an alarmist, but as a realist. I do not think long-term conflict with Russia is either desirable or inevitable. I continue to believe that we need to seek ways of stabilizing our relationship with Moscow even as we counter their efforts to harm us. Right now, Russia’s security services and their proxies have geared up to repeat their interference in the 2020 election. We are running out of time to stop them. In the course of this investigation, I would ask that you please not promote politically driven falsehoods that so clearly advance Russian interests.

As Republicans and Democrats have agreed for decades, Ukraine is a valued partner of the United States, and it plays an important role in our national security. And as I told this Committee last month, I refuse to be part of an effort to legitimize an alternate narrative that the Ukrainian government is a U.S. adversary, and that Ukraine—not Russia—attacked us in 2016.

These fictions are harmful even if they are deployed for purely domestic political purposes. President Putin and the Russian security services operate like a Super PAC. They deploy millions of dollars to weaponize our own political opposition research and false narratives. When we are consumed by partisan rancor, we cannot combat these external forces as they seek to divide us against each another, degrade our institutions, and destroy the faith of the American people in our democracy.

I respect the work that this Congress does in carrying out its constitutional responsibilities, including in this inquiry, and I am here to help you to the best of my ability. If the President, or anyone else, impedes or subverts the national security of the United States in order to further domestic political or personal interests, that is more than worthy of your attention. But we must not let domestic politics stop us from defending ourselves against the foreign powers who truly wish us harm.”

II. In response to a question from minority counsel Steve Castor, Dr. Hill responded with a succinct delineation of the two policy channels the Trump administration was pursuing. After acknowledging her anger at Ambassador Sondland, she continued:

“And what I was angry about was that he wasn’t coordinating with us. I now actually realize, having listened to his deposition, that he was absolutely right. That he wasn’t coordinating with us because we weren’t doing the same thing that he was doing.

So I was upset with him that he wasn’t fully telling us about all of the meetings that he was having. And he said to me: “But I’m briefing the president. I’m briefing Chief of staff Mulvaney. I’m briefing Secretary Pompeo. And I’ve talked to Ambassador Bolton. Who else do I have to deal with?”

And the point is, we have a robust interagency process that deals with Ukraine. It includes Mr. Holmes. It includes Ambassador Taylor as the chargé in Ukraine. It includes a whole load of other people. But it struck me when—yesterday—when you put up on the screen Ambassador Sondland’s emails, and who was on these emails and he said, “These the people need to know,” that he was absolutely right. Because he was being involved in a domestic political errand. And we were being involved in national security foreign policy. And those two things had just diverged. 

So he was correct.

And I had not put my finger on that at the moment, but I was irritated with him and angry with him that he wasn’t fully coordinating. And I did say to him, Ambassador Sondland—Gordon, I think this is all going to blow up. And here we are.

And after I left to my next meeting, our director for the European Union talked to him much further for a full half-hour or more later, trying to ask him about how we could coordinate better or how others could coordinate better after I had left the office. And his feeling was that the National Security Council was always trying to block him.

What we were trying to do was block us from straying into domestic or personal politics. And that was precisely what I was trying to do.

But Ambassador Sondland is not wrong that he had been given a different remit than we had been.

And it was at that moment that I started to realize how those things have diverged. And I realized, in fact, that I wasn’t really being fair to Ambassador Sondland because he was carrying out what he thought he had been instructed to carry out. And we were doing something that we thought was just as or perhaps even more important, but it wasn’t in the same channel.”

III. Mr. Nunes, in his closing statement, offered a timeline that made no reference to any testimony from the public hearings over the past two weeks. Replete with references to the Steele dossier, a coup, “the Russia hoax,” “the so-called whistleblower,” “secret depositions and mid-hearing press conferences,” and “a show trial,” the gentleman from California condemned Democrats, the media, executive branch officials, James Comey, and the FBI, and complained that tyranny of the majority had led to “a process that was grossly unfair.”

Throughout the hearings, as Adam Schiff noted, Republicans attempted to smear and demean witnesses, while failing to raise substantive questions about their testimony. Witness after witness offered accounts without any refutation. In the words of the chairman, “So much of this is really undisputed.”

Mr. Schiff then reviewed and knocked down the various ‘defenses’ Republicans have offered for Trump, and finally lands on the I’m-not-a-crook defense (which comes to the fore because Donald Trump spoke the words, “No quid pro quo”):

“You said it and, I guess, that’s the end of it.

Well, the only thing we can say is that it’s not so much that this situation is different in terms of Nixon’s conduct and Trump’s conduct. What we have seen here is far more serious than a third-rate burglary of the Democratic headquarters. What we’re talking about here is the withholding of recognition in that White House meeting. The withholding of military aid to an ally at war. That is beyond anything that Nixon did.

The difference between then and now is not the difference between Nixon and Trump. It’s the difference between that Congress and this one.

And so, we are asking, where is Howard Baker? Where is Howard Baker? Where are the people who willing to go beyond their party? To look to their duty? I was struck by Colonel Vindman’s testimony because he said that he acted out of duty. What is our duty here? That’s what we need to be asking.”

IV. Mr. Schiff concluded his statement with words about why he could “resist no more” the calls for an impeachment inquiry:

“It came down to the fact that the day after Bob Mueller testified. The day after Bob Mueller testified that Donald Trump invited Russian interference: Hey, Russia, if you’re listening, come get Hillary’s emails. And later that day, they tried to hack her server.

The day after he testified that not only did Trump invite that interference, but that he welcomed the help in the campaign. They made full use of it. They lied about it. They obstructed the investigation into it. And all this is in his testimony and his report.

The day after that Donald Trump is back on the phone asking another nation to involve itself in another U.S. election.

That says to me, this President believes he is above the law. Beyond accountability. And in my view there is nothing more dangerous than an unethical president who believes they are above the law. And I would just say to people watching here at home and around the world, in the words of my great colleague, ‘We are better than that.’ “

By the time he reaches the last four sentences of his remarks (finally concluding by quoting the late Elijah Cummings), and gavels the hearing to a close, Mr. Schiff is visibly angry.

V. Will Hurd, who is leaving the House without seeking reelection and is the lone Republican on the panel who was regarded as a possible vote to send Articles of Impeachment to the Senate, rejected that course of action on Friday:

“An impeachable offense should be compelling, overwhelmingly clear, and unambiguous. And it’s not something to be rushed or taken lightly. I’ve not heard evidence proving the President committed bribery or extortion.”

His colleague Justin Amash, who has left the Republican Party, offered a reply that is highly unlikely to resonate with any current Republican Members of Congress:

“With respect, my friend @HurdOnTheHill applies the wrong standard. House impeachment is an indictment, not a conviction. The question in the House is whether there is probable cause to charge President Trump with an impeachable offense. The answer to that question is clearly yes. “