Ugh, it’s been quite a week for Watergate personalities pontificating on CNN. First, a few days ago, we had former Nixon White House Counsel John Dean saying that Trump should have been impeached on Day One of his presidency for, among other things, “his terrible attitude.” And now, on Monday, we have formerly-respected journalist Carl Bernstein insisting that the president can and should be impeached for his recent tweets. Like, at least Bernstein actually has a reason, but when the reason is this flimsy, we’re not sure it’s any better.
Bernstein, of course, is taking up the latest nonsensical threadline from House Democrats, who say President Trump was trying to “intimidate” former ambassador Marie Yovanovitch when he tweeted out some inconvenient facts about her tenure in government service.
“Is the President trying to send a clear message to witnesses, Carl?” asked CNN host Brooke Baldwin.
“I don’t want to be inside the president’s head certainly, it’s a dangerous place, but certainly he seems intent on intimidating future witnesses, whether its directly aimed at this witness who is already due to go up there,” Bernstein replied.
“He’s making it clear,” the Watergate journalist continued, “and has made it clear throughout these hearings and even before. He’s dangerously close to being looked at, in the way that criminal charges are often investigated about intimidation of witnesses. Now, we know about the Justice Department opinion, that a sitting president can’t be indicted, but this could be part of an article of impeachment, about intimidation of witnesses particularly what the president did with Ambassador Yovanovitch the other day. That was really chilling, as we can see from her reaction and as I think very, very many senators who are going to look at the impeachment in a trial are really deeply disturbed.”
As a refresher, let’s look at exactly what Trump tweeted about Yovanovitch:
“Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad. She started off in Somalia, how did that go? Then fast forward to Ukraine, where the new Ukrainian President spoke unfavorably about her in my second phone call with him. It is a U.S. President’s absolute right to appoint ambassadors,” he wrote.
Does that sound “intimidating” in any way? How fragile is this woman, if she finds this a frightening tweet? And Bernstein actually believes that Senate Republicans will change their minds on impeachment because of this tweet? Is he dipping into Randi Kaye’s New Years’ Eve stash?
All of these people are going to be flabbergasted next November, and we can’t WAIT for the tears to flow.
