Trump blows up effort to blunt impeachment damage

The White House on Friday set out to cast President Donald Trump as above the fray of the impeachment proceedings on the second day of televised hearings.

By 11 a.m., that effort had run into Trump's Twitter feed.

To start the day, the White House insisted Trump was too busy working to track Friday's hearing, which featured testimony from Marie Yovanovitch, the ousted ambassador to Ukraine. And it released a document summarizing Trump's first phone call with newly elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in April of this year, seeking to bolster its claim that Trump did nothing wrong in his dealings with the Eastern European leader, the subject of the House's impeachment inquiry.

Trump even tweeted out screenshots of the readout, which included no mention of the politically advantageous investigations Trump asked Zelensky about several months later during his much scrutinized July 25 phone call. One senior administration official said the president had long wanted to release the call to help clear his name.

Then the game plan fell apart.

Shortly after Yovanovitch gave her opening remarks, Trump took to Twitter to attack the former ambassador, saying that everywhere she “went turned bad,” including her prior postings in Somalia.

Minutes later, the tweet was read aloud to Yovanovitch on Capitol Hill.

"It's very intimidating," she said.

Trump pushed back a few hours later, after House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff characterized the missive as "witness intimidation."

"You know what? I have the right to speak," Trump told reporters. "I have freedom of speech just as other people do, but they’ve taken away the Republicans’ rights."

When asked if he believed his statements can be intimidating, Trump replied simply: "I don't think so at all."

The daylong exchange pulled attention away from the release of the initial call between Trump and Zelensky.

The tone of that April 21 call, which was blasted out moments before ousted ambassador Yovanovitch began testifying, was much more congratulatory, taking place hours after Zelensky's historic landslide election.

It was also significantly shorter than the July 25 call, during which Trump asked the Ukrainian leader to investigate Joe Biden, his political rival. That second call is now at the center of the House impeachment inquiry.

Notably, the document released Friday does not include a mention of Ukrainian corruption, even though a readout of the the White House issued in April said the two leaders discussed implementing “reforms that strengthen democracy, increase prosperity, and root out corruption.”

Later on Friday, Hogan Gidley, a White House spokesperson, explained that the April readout was produced through "standard operating procedure for the National Security Council." He added that the description of the call "was prepared by the NSC’s Ukraine expert, likely a reference to Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the NSC official who oversees Ukraine policy and has testified that he listened to the April call.

According to the more expansive summary of the call released on Friday, Trump began the April 21 call by congratulating Zelensky on a "fantastic election," agreeing that Zelensky's unlikely victory was similar to his own in 2016 after Zelensky told the president he used Trump as "a great example" for his campaign.

"I have no doubt you will be a fantastic president," Trump said, according to the rough transcript, prompting Zelensky to invite Trump to his inauguration and telling him he needs to experience Ukraine himself.

Trump then responded by recalling his time running the Miss Universe pageant, remarking that Ukraine "always had great people" at the event.

Shortly after the White House document was released, Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence committee, read it live during his opening statement of the impeachment inquiry. Chairman Adam Schiff quickly rebutted that while he was glad Trump released the memo, he also would like the administration to release the slew of documents the panel had subpoenaed for the investigation.

Friday's summary of the April call makes no mention of investigations Trump eventually sought into the Biden family and events surrounding the 2016 election, a focal point of the impeachment inquiry. Although at that point, former Vice President Joe Biden had not yet officially announced his candidacy for president.

Several administration officials have testified in closed-door depositions with House impeachment investigators that they eventually came to see mentions of investigating “corruption” in Ukraine as code for the Biden and 2016 election investigations.

Though the revelation of what occurred during the July 25 call was the catalyst for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to initiate impeachment proceedings, the conversation has only been one facet of the investigation. The probe has also uncovered a shadow diplomacy effort and pressure campaign directed toward Ukraine.

At the beginning of the April call, Zelensky emphasized that "we in Ukraine are an independent country," a theme that underscores much of the discomfort with the shadow campaign.

Trump has hailed the July 25 call as “perfect,” claiming that it alone exonerates him and demanding on Twitter on a near-daily basis that his critics “READ THE TRANSCRIPT!” But in a tweet teasing the release of the first call, Trump asserted the April conversation, being the first between the two leaders, was the “most important.”

“I am sure you will find it tantalizing!” he added.

Shortly after the July 25 call, White House officials, having been alerted to concerns about Trump’s request for political investigations, reportedly took the highly unusual step of placing its summary of the conversation in a server meant for classified information. There is no indication it took the same step with the April call.

But according to testimony from Vindman, who listened to both calls, the first exchange was well-received.

Vindman told House investigators that the tone of the April 21 call was “significantly different” than that of the July call, according to a transcript of the deposition released last week. Whereas Vindman described the April call as “very positive” and “very good,” prompting high fives among those that listened, he characterized Trump’s tone in the July call as “dour.”