CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin admitted on cable news airwaves Wednesday that Democrats have “a problem” because their two “witnesses” have never had any direct contact with the president and are merely relying on hearsay.
“That’s a problem if you’re going to impeach the president,” Toobin conceded, while speaking with CNN host Jake Tapper following the hearing.
Both witnesses who testified before the House Intelligence Committee, Acting U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian affairs George Kent, have never had any direct contact with President Donald Trump. In other words, neither of the witnesses actually witnessed anything.
As reported by The Daily Wire on Wednesday, Mr. Taylor revealed during the hearing that “he was recently told by one of his aides that President Trump inquired about ‘the investigations’ during a phone call with Ambassador Gordon Sondland. The aide knows this because he/she was meeting with Sondland and ‘could hear President Trump on the phone.'”
“Last Friday, a member of my staff told me of events that occurred on July 26,” Taylor said. “While Ambassador [Kurt] Volker and I visited the front, this member of my staff accompanied Ambassador Sondland. Ambassador Sondland met with Mr. [Andrey] Yermak,” who is a top advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Reacting to Taylor’s information, which Toobin described as an “important new development,” the CNN legal analyst outlined the broader issue for Democrats: A lack of any first-hand testimony.
“[That call is] important, because the one criticism of these two witnesses, which I think is very much legitimate, it’s not really a criticism, it’s just a factual statement i[n] that neither of them had direct contact with the president. Ever, and that’s a problem if you’re going to impeach the president,” Toobin told Tapper, according to The Washington Examiner.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has been leading the charge with the claim that President Trump engaged in a “quid pro quo” or “bribery” with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a July 25th phone call. The impeachment effort centers around a whistleblower complaint about Trump asking Ukraine to “look into” corruption allegations concerning former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.
“There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that,” Trump told Zelensky in the July phone call, as noted by The Daily Wire. “So whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it … It sounds horrible to me.”
Trump has called the impeachment inquiry “the single greatest scam in the history of American politics.”
“It’s all very simple,” the president said in a video released in the midst of the Wednesday hearing, “they’re trying to stop me, because I’m fighting for you. And I’ll never let that happen.”
WATCH:
Related: ‘SCAM’: Trump Posts Reaction Video During Impeachment Inquiry Hearing