White House Fires Back After Taylor Delivers Testimony
Tom Williams / Congressional Quarterly via ZUMA
We ran the numbers: There are 1453 news articles covering this topic. 49% (715) are left leaning, 41% (590) center, 10% (148) right leaning.
Earlier this week Bill Taylor -- a former top U.S. diplomat to Ukraine -- delivered his testimony before three congressional committees conducting an investigation into impeachment. Taylor’s 15-page testimony details behavior from President Trump that is “absolutely” impeachable, according to a former speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan.
Many say the Taylor testimony is the most compelling evidence of an impeachable act so far in the investigation. However, Trump and his supporters continue to dismiss the investigation and its findings.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) -- a strong ally of the president -- said that the closed-door testimonies held by the investigation are "un-American and, quite frankly, dangerous."
Graham also suggested that the anonymity of the whistleblower -- whose actions sparked the current impeachment investigation -- makes the entire process invalid.
A left-leaning Washington Post article highlights the details of Taylor’s testimony. According to the Post, the texts, emails, and phone conversations turned over to lawmakers by Taylor provided “the most detailed account to date of an alleged quid pro quo between Trump and the Ukrainian government.” Additionally, the article reports that Taylor’s testimony “exposed contradictions” in the testimonies of other U.S. officials who denied knowledge of an alleged quid pro quo. Taylor testified that, in the summer of 2019, multiple U.S. diplomats were pushing the Ukrainian government to open investigations aimed at benefiting President Trump in the 2020 presidential election.
NPR published a centrist article focuses on both the elements of Taylor’s testimony as well as the response issued by the White House. Similar to the Washington Post, this article reports that President Trump pressed the Ukrainian president to publicly announce an investigation into the 2016 election and a Ukrainian gas company tied to Hunter Biden -- the son of former Vice President Joe Biden. Additionally, NPR reports that Stephanie Grisham, the White House press secretary, stated that the president has done nothing wrong and that the impeachment investigation is nothing more than a “coordinated smear campaign from far-left lawmakers and radical unelected bureaucrats waging war on the Constitution.”
The Washington Examiner, a political magazine, published a right-leaning article that discusses both the comments in Taylor’s testimony and the background of the U.S. diplomat. The article reports that Taylor’s distinguished career adds credibility to the testimony he delivered before Congress earlier this week. Taylor graduated from West Point at the top of his class and has spent the past 25 years serving various diplomatic roles for both Democratic and Republican administrations. On Tuesday, Trump called taylor a “Never Trumper” via Twitter and lobbed various insults at the former ambassador. However, considering that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was the one who appointed Taylor to the position of ambassador to Ukraine, The Washington Examiner said that if Trump “considers Taylor a Never Trumper unfit for his administration, he can take it up with Pompeo instead of Twitter.”