The biggest moment in former Ukraine ambassador Marie Yovanovitch’s impeachment-hearing testimony on Friday was when House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff, D-Calif., told her that President Trump was attacking her on Twitter as she was speaking.Trump’s defenders came out in force, offering various explanations for his mob-like behavior. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, has been arguing that Trump was just testing the Ukrainians to see if they would fall into his trap and prove they were corrupt. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., using the abusive-husband excuse, insisted that it’s Trump’s political opponents who make him behave the way he does — they are “tormenting” him and should have just covered up his crimes for the good of the country. It’s clear that the only thing they can settle on is the inane story that Trump prefers: He did absolutely nothing wrong and anyone who says otherwise is a partisan hack acting in bad faith.
Trump himself was defiant when asked about his Twitter assault on Yovanovitch, saying he has the right of free speech, and simply refusing to acknowledge that intimidating and threatening people is illegal. His views on all this are clear, and he’s said it many times: “Article II means I have the right to do whatever I want.”
We know that Trump has never read the Constitution. His lack of basic civics knowledge is legendary and he wouldn’t sit still for a serious lecture on what it means. So where do you suppose he got this lie about Article II, which he bandies about as if it’s some obscure text that nobody’s ever heard of? (It’s rather similar to the way he constantly claims that few people realize Abraham Lincoln was a Republican.)