To the Editor:

Those of us who watched the impeachment inquiry testimony and some of the factual news reports afterward learned a number of facts. Here are a few.

1. He did it. Trump abused his power for personal benefit. Based on multiple accounts, Trump withheld meetings and military aid from Ukraine to get the Ukrainian president to announce an investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden. Whether you choose to call that a bribe, extortion, or quid pro quo, it remains an abuse of power. Ambassador Gordon Sondland clearly stated under oath that this is the case. Testimony of other witnesses supported this fact.

2. The extortion almost worked until the whistleblower complaint got discovered by Congress. The Ukrainian president had even scheduled an interview to announce the bogus investigation, but when word got out about the extortion, the interview was canceled. Eventually most of the aid got released and the jig was up.

3. Trump was not interested in actually doing anything about corruption. The requirement on the Ukrainian president was to announce an investigation. He was not asked to actually begin an investigation, according to people directly involved in the negotiations. Getting political dirt was the only motivation.

4. Trump and Republicans are promoting a Russian propaganda lie. The story that Ukraine had anything to do with the 2016 election was cooked up by Soviet President Vladimir Putin and Russian intelligence. One of the most impressive witnesses testified under oath that the Ukraine story was orchestrated by Russia to stir up dissent in the U.S. and that repeating that lie did a disservice to the country. The intelligence department has briefed Senators of the fact that Russia started the lie about Ukraine. Despite this, many Republicans keep repeating this lie that Trump likes. Trump is biased against Ukraine because Putin, Rudy Giuliani, and other keep telling him the lie that Ukraine supported Hillary and attacked him.

5. The hold on the military aid probably was against the law. Congress had passed a law decades ago requiring aid that had been appropriated and approved by Congress had to be released and could not be held by the president.

6. The hold on military aid had a negative effect on our national security. The hold weakened Ukraine in dealing with Russia both militarily and diplomatically. The hold also made the U.S. appear to be an unreliable ally to every other country on the planet. Other countries are not as likely to trust the U.S. and commitments we make.

7. EU ambassador Sondland, Rudy Giuliani, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and others were acting outside the normal diplomatic channels and excluded career diplomats from what they were up to. Trump was directing the rogue group assigned the task of digging up or making up dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden. All three — Sondland, Giuliani, and Pompeo — were in direct contact with Trump in doing his bidding outside of standard diplomatic channels.

8. You did not need to listen to the hearings to know that Trump is trying desperately to cover up what happened. He has ordered virtually everyone to ignore subpoenas in violation of the Constitution and the law. Patriotic career, non-partisan diplomats came forward to testify under oath about what they knew, did, heard, and saw. Only because of patriots who place country above loyalty to a cult leader do we know about what happened.

9. Facts don’t matter to Republicans. This became abundantly clear in interviews with a variety of Republicans in both the House and Senate. Distressingly, facts do not appear to matter to a lot of Republican voters either. The lengths to which people are going through to either deny that which is irrefutable or claim that it doesn’t matter or is normal is astounding. 

Bill Clinton got impeached because he denied getting oral sex from a woman. The case today is of a president abusing his power to get personal gain at the expense of the country and an ally and then doing everything in his power to cover it up. Only Putin and Russia benefit from Trump’s actions. I leave you with the facts to draw your own conclusions.

Norman Hoffman

Waynesville