President Donald Trump has managed to escape real accountability for wrongdoing in large part because he has surrounded himself with a circle of loyalists sympathetic to his goals.
But as David Graham wrote for The Atlantic, that strategy is failing him in the Ukraine scandal — because his actions are so outrageous that career diplomats and other civil servants are no longer willing to stay silent.
"Earlier this week, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone sent a lengthy rant to House Democrats, announcing that the administration would refuse to cooperate with the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump," wrote Graham. "The letter rested largely on political, rather than legal, arguments, but Cipollone also invoked executive privilege to justify preventing executive-branch employees from testifying. It looked a lot like a declaration of constitutional crisis."
"As the week closes, however, something strange has happened. The White House hasn’t changed its stance, but witnesses employed by the executive branch are coming to testify to House committees anyway. On Friday, Marie Yovanovitch, the former ambassador to Ukraine who was recalled earlier this year, is giving a transcribed interview behind closed doors over State Department objections. Also on Friday, Gordon Sondland, Trump’s ambassador to the European Union, signaled he would testify as well."
All of this, wrote Graham, is a danger sign for Trump that his "conspiracy of silence is cracking."
"Motives aside, testimony from Sondland and Yovanovitch, like that of Volker, could influence future witnesses," wrote Graham. "The House has invited a slew of other current executive-branch employees to testify as well, including William Taylor, now the current top diplomat in Ukraine. In the messages Volker produced, Taylor seemed to be consciously creating a paper record of conversations. 'Are we now saying that security assistance and WH meeting are conditioned on investigations?' he said in one message. Later, Taylor wrote, 'I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.' Whether these officials testify will help determine whether a dam is breaking or some water has merely spilled over the top."
"This doesn’t mean the White House has no means of stonewalling. Trump can still try to withhold documents from Congress, though there are reasons to believe he’d lose in court," wrote Graham. "But the fact that State Department employees are testifying shows that the White House’s total-obstruction strategy doesn’t work as well when the players aren’t sycophants like Lewandowski who are willing to buy the claims of executive shield. It is, after all, a privilege and not a right."
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