President Donald Trump sounded off on the impeachment inquiry during his very lengthy call to “Fox and Friends” Friday morning, sharing some personal commentary about former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch and diplomat David Holmes.
In between proclamations of “no quid pro quo” and “shifty Schiff,” Trump accused Holmes of inventing a phone call between him and Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland, which Sondland confirmed during his testimony.
Holmes was at a restaurant in Kyiv with Sondland, and said he could overhear parts of the call Sondland had with Trump because the President was speaking so loudly. He said Sondland told him, after the call, that Trump was most interested in “big stuff” like the bogus investigations into the Bidens and 2016 election.
On Fox, Trump accused Holmes — and by extension, Sondland — of fabricating the call. He said that he has been watching people make calls for “40 years” and has never been able to hear the other side of a conversation from a phone not on speaker mode.
Trump says he “guarantees” call with Sondland — that both Sondland and Holmes testified to — “never happened” pic.twitter.com/fU1Qt3OHPU
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) November 22, 2019
He moved on to Yovanovitch, saying that aides told him he “had to be nice” to her at first, since she’s a woman, but that he’s since realized she’s “no angel.” He continued the smear campaign his lackeys cooked up about her, saying that she’s an “Obama person” who refused to hang his portrait in the embassy.
The portrait complaint may be a reference to the delay in getting Trump’s official picture disseminated, as reported by the Washington Post back in September 2017.
Trump tweeted during Yovanovitch’s testimony, saying that “everywhere she went turned bad.” His mid-hearing attacks riled up widespread outcry and accusations of witness intimidation.
Trump also said that he wanted to have a trial in the Senate because Republicans have “never been so unified.”
