U.S. Senator Doug Jones, the Democrat from Alabama: Facebook

By Glynn Wilson –

U.S. Senator Doug Jones, the Democrat from Birmingham, expressed concerns about some aspects of the impeachment inquiry in a press call with reporters on Thursday, while continuing to rebuff media questions about how he might vote.

“I cant’ say how I’m gonna vote, because I don’t know, one, if it’s coming, two, what the charges would be. They are taking testimony today. And there’s still more testimony to go,” Jones said.

“There’s a couple of things I would say. What I’m hearing is … disturbing,” he said, “about the actions of the president as it pertains to Ukraine.”

In testimony on Wednesday, Jones pointed out, Gordon D. Sondland, a Republican megadonor with no government experience appointed by Trump as ambassador to the European Union, testified that he talked directly to the president and told Donald Trump that he had been called to testify, and Trump said, “good, go tell the truth.”

“If that’s the case,” Jones said, “the president should tell that to the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, his Energy Secretary Rick Perry, his former Security Adviser John Bolton, and any number of witnesses,” who have gone along with Trump in claiming executive privilege and defying Congressional subpoenas.

“I’m getting a little bit weary of Republicans saying ‘did the president say this specifically,’ yet he is shielding testimony from those he talked to,” Jones said. “Now he may not have said those things, and if that’s the case, they should come over and say this and let’s get that under oath. If he did say it, get that under oath. I don’t think you can have it both ways. So it’s also been a little frustrating to watch.”

The second thing that concerns him is, “it seems that the entire Ukraine policy was being run by the president’s personal lawyer, Rudi Giuliani.”

“That’s who the president mentioned in the phone call,” Jones said. “The president’s personal lawyer should not be running any foreign policy, especially an important one where there’s a war going on with Russia.”

He’s also concerned about the president’s personal campaign coming up in 2020 with a potential rival.

“If you sit back objectively and look at this, people should be concerned. This is not a witch hunt, it’s not a kangaroo court, it’s not a hoax,” he insisted. “It’s very real and very serious. People need to keep a non-partisan open mind about it.”

When asked, the Senator, from a conservative red state, says the House should not use the sergeant at arms to enforce the subpoenas, even though the House has the power to do that. It’s been a long time since they locked people up in the basement of the Capitol. But technically, those who refuse to show up are in defiance of a legal summons and could be charged or held in contempt of Congress.

“The House has made a decision at this point that they are not going try to enforce subpoenas through the courts because that would take a long time,” he said. “I’m going to leave that to their discretion. Should things come over here (in the Senate, which seems inevitable) we will be looking at our procedures.”

An impeachment trial would take place before the entire Senate, he said, not the Judiciary Committee, and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court would preside. Senators would be required to take a separate oath to carry out impartial justice.

In testimony Thursday, the House Intelligence Committee heard from Fiona Hill, the White House’s former top Europe and Russia expert, who had testified previously about her efforts to oppose the pressure campaign on Ukraine; and David Holmes, an official in the United States Embassy in Ukraine, who was a witness to a key phone call between President Trump and Gordon Sondland, his ambassador to the European Union.

Dr. Hill criticized Republicans for promoting what she called a “fictional narrative” embraced by Mr. Trump,” according to the New York Times, a narrative that Ukraine, not Russia, meddled in the 2016 elections.

“I would ask that you please not promote politically driven falsehoods that so clearly advance Russian interest,” she said. “These fictions are harmful even if they are deployed for purely domestic political purposes.”

Dr. Hill called Mr. Trump’s demands for Ukraine to announce investigations into Joe Biden and the 2016 elections a “domestic political errand” that diverged from American foreign policy goals.

“This is all going to blow up,” she recalled telling Mr. Sondland.

Dr. Hill was asked about a now-famous line from her deposition, in which she quoted John Bolton, the national security adviser at the time, as saying, “I am not part of whatever drug deal Sondland and Mulvaney are cooking up.” She said she took “drug deal” to mean the scheme of exchanging a White House meeting for the investigations Mr. Trump sought.

Both Dr. Hill and Mr. Holmes said that the use of the name “Burisma” — a Ukrainian energy company — was code for investigating the Bidens. Asked whether “anyone involved in Ukraine matters in the spring and summer would understand that as well,” Mr. Holmes had a one-word answer: “Yes.”

Mr. Holmes said he had a “clear impression” that the hold on nearly $400 million in military aid for Ukraine was “likely intended by the president either as an expression of dissatisfaction with the Ukrainians who had not yet agreed to the Burisma/Biden investigation, or as an effort to increase the pressure on them to do so.”

Legislative Logjam

At the outset of the conference call, Senator Jones once again expressed frustration as he has in the past about the Republican leadership in the Senate, where a logjam exists preventing any major legislation from coming to the floor for a vote.

His daily job is not all about impeachment, he said. He’s working on bills important for voting rights, election security, violence against women, rural health and teacher shortages, bills “just sitting there because McConnel won’t let us doing anything about it.”

When I pressed him on why that’s happening, he said McConnell “just says the president won’t sign it so I’m not bringing it up.”

Government Shutdown

When I asked if the country is facing another government shutdown just in time for Christmas again this year, he said he doesn’t think it will happen again.

Another Alabama Senator, Republican Richard Shelby of Tuscaloosa, has been working with Democrat Patrick Leahy on a budget deal, again this year, which would not require another continuing resolution to fund the government short-term. A deal was reached in Congress last year, but the president blew up and refused go along over the level of funding for a border wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

“I don’t think we will be facing that (a shutdown). I certainly hope not,” Senator Jones said, a member of the Armed Services Committee. “Another continuing resolution to kick the can down the road really hurts the military and the Department of Defense.”