Last updated on September 25th, 2023 at 02:32 pm
Former National Security Council official Dr. Fiona Hill delivered an explosive testimony on Thursday, capping two weeks of damning public hearings that have shredded whatever was left of the Republican Party’s impeachment defense.
On her program on Thursday night, Rachel Maddow pointed out the moment of Dr. Hill’s testimony when Rep. Devin Nunes – Trump’s favorite defender on the committee – realized that GOP attorney Steve Castor completely lost control of the narrative his party was trying to push.
During his questioning, Castor got Dr. Hill to lay out how the president was having “all of his folks” run a “domestic political errand” that put America’s national security at risk – hardly a response the Republicans wanted to hear during their question time.
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
At that point in Hill’s testimony, Rep. Nunes immediately took over for the GOP committee counsel.
Maddow said, “If you are the Republican committee counsel who keeps eliciting testimony like that about the president and the people who are working for him and the scheme that he was running for which he’s now getting impeached, that’s probably not the kind of testimony they hired you to elicit from witnesses.”
Video:
Rachel Maddow highlights a key moment during Fiona Hill’s testimony where the Republican committee counsel slipped up. #ctl #p2 #maddow pic.twitter.com/bwKHr7gMth
— PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) November 22, 2019
Maddow said:
The Republican committee counsel, the gentleman there on the right with Devin Nunes who’s supposed to be doing all the hard questioning for the Republicans, at this point Devin Nunes took over, kind of took the Republican committee counsel off the job, and he started asking his own questions instead. Immediately because, you know, if you are the Republican committee counsel who keeps eliciting testimony like that about the president and the people who are working for him and the scheme that he was running for which he’s now getting impeached, that’s probably not the kind of testimony they hired you to elicit from witnesses. I mean, what did he think he was going to get from Fiona Hill when he questioned her about why Gordon Sondland said that she was a crying, shaking little lady who was so out of control and he had to comfort her and give her a shoulder to cry on? She’d already expressed through her counsel objection to that characterization. So when he asks her what really happened there, did he not know what she was going to say? Because what she just laid out is that what the president was having all of his folks do was a domestic political errand that was getting in the way of national security and foreign policy. Would you like more?
Republicans have no interest in uncovering the truth
It’s been clear over the last two weeks of explosive impeachment testimony that Republicans on the committee – particularly leaders of the crazy caucus, Reps. Devin Nunes and Jim Jordan – had no interest in uncovering the truth.
When they had a moment to question witnesses during the hearings, they chose to use their time to throw tantrums and spew fact-free Trump-Russia talking points.
On Thursday, during what is likely the final set of public hearings for this phase of the impeachment inquiry, the Republican committee counsel accidentally asked a question that elicited a damning response from Fiona Hill.
Devin Nunes quickly jumped in and tried to right the ship, but by then it was too late.
Follow Sean Colarossi on Facebook and Twitter
Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
