Trump’s central argument against impeachment crumbled under the weight of Marie Yovanovitch’s testimony

In the morass of conflicting and often incomprehensible Republican defenses of Donald Trump, there is just one that seemed like it might have legs — especially after Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, spoke during Wednesday’s impeachment hearing. That would be the claim that Trump withheld military aid from Ukraine not to strong-arm that nation’s leaders into boosting his re-election campaign, but because of a generalized opposition to “corruption” in that nation. This was laughable on its face, since Trump’s clear and public stance throughout his political career has been pro-corruption. But sure, it might be enough to bamboozle some Americans who don’t follow politics closely and somehow missed hearing that their president is a grifter.

Friday’s hearing, which featured Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, should be enough to kill the last remaining tendrils of any good-faith claim that Trump was motivated by some — don’t laugh now — deeply felt objection to corruption in Ukraine.

“In her time in Kyiv, Ambassador Yovanovitch was tough on corruption, too tough on corruption for some, and her principled stance made her enemies,” House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff, D.-Calif., said in his opening statement. “And Ambassador Yovanovitch did not just ‘piss off’ corrupt Ukrainians, like the corrupt former prosecutor general Yuri Lutsenko, but also certain Americans like Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump’s personal attorney, and two individuals, now indicted, who worked with him, Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas.”

View the complete November 15 article by Amanda Marcotte from Salon on the AlterNet website here.