The Deputy Secretary of State just said something that Donald Trump is going to hate
Every few days we see yet another, progressively more senior, member of the State Department testify to the House impeachment inquiry that Donald Trump’s actions toward Ukraine were wrong. The question has been how high up the chain the cooperating witnesses will go, before we inevitably reach the top ranking State Department officials who are in so deep, they have no choice but to repeat Trump’s lies and thus sink or swim with him.
Up to now we’ve seen people as high as Assistant Secretary of State Philip Reeker testify against Donald Trump. Reeker is important, but the thing is, there are a lot of people at the State Department with that title. If you want to get into the true upper ranks, you’d be looking for the Deputy Secretary of State to testify, because there’s only one person holding that title, and he’s the number two person at the State Department. That man’s name is John Sullivan.
John Sullivan has thus far refused to show up and testify to the House impeachment inquiry. Donald Trump clearly fears that Sullivan might sell him out, and he proved as much when he abruptly nominated Sullivan to be the new U.S. Ambassador to Russia, immediately after the House began asking Sullivan to turn over documents. At the time of this nomination, Palmer Report flagged it as a potential mistake on Trump’s part, because it meant Sullivan would have to testify as part of his confirmation process. Sure enough, that happened today.
While being questioned by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today, John Sullivan stated that it would be wrong for the President of the United States to ask a foreign country to investigate a political rival. Sullivan also defended U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, who was improperly fired by Donald Trump because he wanted her out of the way so he and Rudy Giuliani could commit crimes in Ukraine.
These are the kinds of answers that John Sullivan had to give today if he wants to get confirmed to his new post. But it means that the Deputy Secretary of State is now on record, under oath, as having said that what Donald Trump did was improper and wrong. Not only does this help bolster House Democrats’ argument to the public that Trump should be impeached, it could also help make for a compelling court case to force Sullivan to testify during impeachment hearings. Looks like Trump was too clever by half with this one.
