While lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee each got to have their say during Wednesday’s impeachment inquiry hearings, counsel for both the Democrats and Republicans did much of the legal questioning.
After the dust settled, though, lead counsel for the Republicans Stephen Castor was pilloried by Democrats for inconsistent and sometimes bizarre lines of questioning during the first day of impeachment hearings.
As Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) put it in an interview with Cheddar, Castor was tasked with an impossible job.
“I wouldn’t put as much blame or fault on Mr. Castor,” Swalwell said. “You could resurrect Johnnie Cochran and put him on the Republican side, but the facts are the facts.”
“The President’s own words is the most powerful evidence we have,” Swalwell said.
At Wednesday’s widely-publicized hearing, Acting Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor, revealed that he learned from a staffer last Friday that EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland had discussed “investigations” in a phone call with President Trump on July 26th. Taylor said that when he later asked Sondland about Trump’s thoughts on Ukraine, "Ambassador Sondland responded that President Trump cares more about the investigations of Biden, which Giuliani was pressing for."
In her weekly press conference Thursday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters that the testimony from Taylor and State Department official George Kent was “devastating” for the president, adding that it “corroborated evidence of bribery.”
“Is this who we are as a country?” Swalwell asked.
Meanwhile, Sondland is expected to appear before the House Intelligence Committee next Wednesday. Swalwell noted that the ambassador has already updated his closed-door testimony to “reflect what other witnesses had said” and called the “evolution” a “good thing.”
Before Sondland takes the witness stand, former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch will testify publicly Friday. Yovanovitch was reportedly forced from her position earlier this year because she opposed the president’s Ukraine policy.
Following next week’s eight public testimonies, the House Intel Committee will compile a report, which it will send to the House Judiciary Committee. The Judiciary Committee will deliberate on possible Articles of Impeachment. If articles are drawn up and approved by the full House, impeachment proceedings would move to the Senate which would be responsible for holding a, presided over by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.
State and county taxpayers will be asked to commit a record $850 million in public funds toward construction of the Buffalo Bills’ new stadium as part of a 30-year lease agreement.
As the war enters its second month, Russia may be changing course on its strategy in Ukraine. After suffering heavy losses, forces around the capital city of Kyiv appear to have stopped offensive operations and are now shifting their focus to taking over the south and east of the country. Terrell Starr, a foreign affairs reporter at The Atlantic Council, breaks down the latest from Kyiv. "Logistically this war has been a disaster. They have far more troops than [the] Ukrainian army has. What they don't have is good planning. The planning has been incredibly poor," he said.
Catching you up on what you Need to Know on Mar 28, 2022, with peace talks resuming in Ukraine as early as today, Colorado wildfires causing evacuations, Shanghai, China, ramping up restrictions once again, the Oscars debacle between Will Smith and Chris Rock, and more.
Volatility continues to be the name of the game when it comes to crypto. Bitcoin, the most valuable digital token, saw a small jump today - one of several small rallies throughout the month of March. Caitlin Cook, vice president of crypto education company Onramp Academy, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
As of March 2022, almost 200 Anti-LGBT+ bills have been introduced in state governments across the country — especially directed at the transgender community. Human Rights Campaign State Legislative Director and Senior Counsel Cathryn Oakley joined Cheddar News to discuss the deluge of legislation. "Unfortunately we are seeing these bills come at transgender youth from every conceivable direction," she said. "Every support that a trans kid has, whether that's their parents, whether that's their family, whether that's their teachers or their guidance counselors or their coaches, whether it's their teammates or the librarians and the books that they read, whether it's curriculum, whether it's even just the ability to acknowledge that LGBTQ people have existed throughout history and are important in the fabric of modern American society. The bills that we are seeing filed across the country are targeting all of those pieces."
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week seemed to have put out a video that urged Ukrainians to put down their arms and surrender to Russia. It was later revealed that it was a “deepfake,” a computer-generated video to mimic the Ukrainian leader. Cheddar News speaks with security expert Morgan Wright about how the technology is being used in the war in Ukraine.
