Trump Claims Expertise in ‘Watching People Making Phone Calls’ in Most Desperate Impeachment Defense Yet
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In perhaps his most desperate impeachment defense yet, President Donald Trump insisted on Thursday that he is an expert in “watching people make phone calls” but still has never been able to effectively overhear calls not on speakerphone — an apparent push back to a story by David Holmes, the counselor for political affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, who recounted overhearing Trump’s bizarre July 26 phone call with U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland.
Holmes described the call that took place at Kyiv restaurant as unlike anything he had ever heard before while speaking with impeachment investigators last week, but the president called into question the diplomat’s ability to understand the conversation, given that he was not directly on the call. However, during Sondland’s testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, the call’s recipient never contested the overheard description of Trump’s comments.
“I have been watching people making phone calls my entire life,” the president wrote. “My hearing is, and has been, great. Never have I been watching a person making a call, which was not on speakerphone, and been able to hear or understand a conversation.”
“I’ve even tried, but to no avail. Try it live!” he added.
I have been watching people making phone calls my entire life. My hearing is, and has been, great. Never have I been watching a person making a call, which was not on speakerphone, and been able to hear or understand a conversation. I’ve even tried, but to no avail. Try it live!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 21, 2019
In Holmes’ account of the Trump-Sondland call, which primarily focused on rapper A$AP Rocky’s legal problems in Sweden but also touched on “investigations” that the president was attempting to push Ukraine into carrying out against former Vice President Joe Biden, the high-level U.S. diplomat said it was an “extremely distinctive experience in my Foreign Service career.”
“I’ve never seen anything like this, someone calling the president from a mobile phone at a restaurant, and then having a conversation of this level of candor, colorful language. There’s just so much about the call that was so remarkable that I remember it vividly,” said Holmes in a Friday deposition, a transcript of which was published on Monday.
Another colorful detail included in Holmes’ account of the call was Sondland informing Trump that “President [Volodymyr] Zelensky ‘loves your ass.’”
