Army Officer Who Heard Trump’s Ukraine Call Testifies
Erin Schaff/The New York Times
We ran the numbers: There are 1238 news articles covering this topic. 59% (732) are left leaning, 32% (398) center, 9% (108) right leaning.
On Tuesday, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander S. Vindman testified before the House Intelligence Committee, saying that he listened to President Trump’s July 25 call with the president of Ukraine and was so concerned by the discussion that he alerted his superiors. Left-leaning articles tend to focus on the implications of Vindman’s testimony for the impeachment investigation, while right-leaning articles consider the reactions to the testimony and centrist articles concentrate on the characterization of the testimony.
A left-leaning New York Times article emphasizes Vindman’s decorated military background and self-professed patriotism which, they say, may make his testimony more difficult to dismiss than those that came before: “The colonel, a Ukrainian-American immigrant who received a Purple Heart after being wounded in Iraq by a roadside bomb and whose statement is full of references to duty and patriotism, could be a more difficult witness to dismiss than his civilian counterparts.” The article states that while Vindman is not the whistleblower whose complaint launched the impeachment investigation, his testimony does corroborate and flesh out the claims in that complaint.
A right-leaning article from the Washington Examiner focuses on a Fox News appearance by John Yoo, a top Justice Department lawyer during the George W. Bush administration, in which he suggested that Vindman was participating in espionage. In an interview with the paper, Yoo said that he did not intend to accuse Vindman of espionage and that his comments were misconstrued.
A centrist article from a local Nevada NPR affiliate focuses on comments from top House Repubican Kevin McCarthy about Vindman’s testimony. McCarthy called Vindman’s testimony wrong and said that nothing in Trump’s phone call with Ukraine is impeachable. However, the article reports, “By a 68% to 28% margin, though, Americans said it is not acceptable for a president to ask a foreign country's leader to help investigate a potential political opponent, according to the latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll.”
From the right
Misconception': John Yoo denies he accused White House Ukraine official of espionage
Washington Examiner