Commentary

President Live Tweets Witness Intimidation, Adds Third Ring To Impeachment Media Circus

Well, at least now we know the President is watching his impeachment inquiry. In a tweet that breaks yet another institutional norm -- and quite possibly, the law -- the President of the United States just live tweeted what many real-time observers have concluded is witness intimidation, or at the very least besmirching the character of former Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, even as she was giving testimony about how she feared personally about the President's attacks against her.

"Dude! you realize she's testifying live?!," former @MichaelSteele commented in real-time, adding, "Is no one in the room with you?"

The real-time Twitter element added to the circus-like atmosphere of what promises to be this year's biggest political media circus, as the President's prosecutors, and his GOP defenders, use the media to help make their cases for impeachment.

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For all the political and/or Constitutional points leading up to it, the televised public hearings are as much a media trial as they are a Congressional one.

While House Republicans minority leader Devin Nunes actually implicated "the media" in what he described as the Democratic majority's efforts to "smear" the President, the Republican members have used every opportunity to smear the career diplomats that have been testifying under oath about what they observed about the President's impeachable offenses.

"They’re not trying to change minds so much as they’re trying to convince people to change the channel," NBC's Garrett Haake commented on MSNBC after the first day of public hearings, adding, "The more that all of this is confusing, the more all of it reminds people of 2016 and just more partisan bickering, the less inclined people who are on the fence about impeachment are to move the Democrats way."

Stay tuned for media pundits' analysis of a second day, but it's already turning into a three ring circus.
 

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