As Trump and his defenders were doing all this positioning and repositioning, news coverage of the Ukraine call was piling up. It was no longer possible to deny the existence of the whistleblower complaint. So Trump adjusted tactics and began attacking its veracity. On September 22, he began arguing that the whistleblower was not to be trusted because he or she did not have “firsthand” information about the Ukraine call:
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
Now the Fake News Media says I “pressured the Ukrainian President at least 8 times during my telephone call with him.” This supposedly comes from a so-called “whistleblower” who they say doesn’t even have a first hand account of what was said. More Democrat/Crooked Media con.....
79.5K
8:03 PM - Sep 22, 2019
Twitter Ads info and privacy
30.8K people are talking about this
On September 23, Trump broadened the critique of the report, claiming that not only did the whistleblower lack firsthand information but he/she didn’t “know the correct facts.”
And then, on September 24, Trump’s story evolved again as he insisted that the full, “unredacted transcript of my phone conversation” would show “NO quid pro quo.” Note the progression from this is Fake News to he doesn’t know what I really said to there was no quid pro quo.
Then came a watershed moment: Early on the evening of September 24, Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the beginning of a formal impeachment inquiry.
Following Pelosi’s press conference, the president went on something of a Twitter drag. He sent out seven tweets pushing clips from Fox News Channel’s primetime shows, all of which suggested—and here I paraphrase—that nothing at all inappropriate had taken place and this was all a TOTAL WITCH HUNT.
At 7:14 the next morning, President Trump paused to give National Review’s Andy McCarthy a plug for his new book.
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
Great new book by the brilliant Andrew McCarthy, BALL OF COLLUSION, THE PLOT TO RIG AN ELECTION AND DESTROY A PRESIDENCY. Get it, and some other great new books which I will soon be recommending. They tell you about the Crooked Pols and the Witch Hunt that has now been exposed!
66.4K
7:14 AM - Sep 25, 2019
Twitter Ads info and privacy
24.4K people are talking about this
McCarthy has historically been something of an impeachment enthusiast. In 2014 he wrote a book titled Faithless Execution: Building the Political Case for Obama’s Impeachment. In August 2016 he wrote not one, but two pieces arguing that Congress should impeach Hillary Clinton before she was elected president.
Thus far, McCarthy seems to believe that there are no reasonable grounds upon which to impeach President Trump.
After logrolling McCarthy on September 24, President Trump shifted positions once again, retweeting a claim from @JoeGooding that the Inspector General had determined that the whistleblower “had a political bias.”
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
So bad for our Country!
https://twitter.com/joegooding/statu...67137831837696 …
Joe Gooding 💯🇺🇸
@joegooding
This “whistleblower” was found by the Intelligence Community IG to have a political bias against @POTUS @realDonaldTrump and supports one of his opponents in the 2020 race. You. Don’t. Say. #Hannity
View image on Twitter
44.6K
7:08 AM - Sep 26, 2019
Twitter Ads info and privacy
18K people are talking about this
This claim is and was entirely untrue. Who is @JoeGooding? His Twitter bio notes that he’s been retweeted by Trump three times and features a permanent link to an anti-vaxxer blog.
So the president’s official line had now transitioned to outright conspiracy theory.