Want the best of VICE News straight to your inbox? Sign up here.President Donald Trump has kept a relatively low profile on impeachment Twitter since his attack on former Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovich last week.But he couldn’t help himself Thursday.After spending recent days merely retweeting criticisms of the inquiry underway on Capitol Hill, Trump felt the need to pipe up in his own voice to brag about his hearing and call his political opponents sub-human.
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In a 14-tweet barrage Thursday, Trump raged against the impeachment process, cheered on House Republicans, and whined that Fox News booked Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell. “Fox should stay with the people that got them there, not losers!” Trump said.Trump starting taking potshots last week, including when he smeared Yovanovitch in a tweet while she was testying before Congress. The official White House Twitter account has continued the real-time assault in recent days as witness after witness has brought forward more evidence suggesting that there was indeed a quid pro quo at the heart of the Ukraine scandal.“It’s very intimidating,” a visibly shaken Yovanovitch told lawmakers after Schiff read Trump’s tweets to her Friday. “I can’t speak to what the president is trying to do, but I think the effect is to be intimidating.”Democrats responded that intimidating a witness could earn Trump another article of impeachment.Trump didn’t attack senior administration officials Fiona Hill and David Holmes as they appeared before the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday. But he did throw an odd bit of shade on Holmes, a political counselor to the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine.Holmes said he overheard a July 26 phone call between Trump and EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland about a proposed Ukrainian investigation into the Biden family. The president’s voice was “loud and recognizable,” Holmes said, and Sondland turned it away from his ear at one point given the volume.That didn’t matter to Trump. The president, who has apparently tried to eavesdrop on many conversations in his day, questioned whether mere mortals like Holmes could possibly overhear a phone call just feet away from him."My hearing is, and has been, great," he said, in case you were wondering.
Cover: President Donald J. Trump speaks to reporters before boarding Marine One as he departs from the South Lawn at the White House on Wednesday, November 20, 2019, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Salwan Georges/The Washington Post via Getty Images)