I think the President was not served well by Nunes' opening. He's like a bad high school football coach, running the same playbook because it worked last time. But Ukraine is difft than Mueller. The accusers are Trump's own Executive Branch employees, and ... 1/

it goes to Trump's use of his awesome powers as President, not as a campaign person in 2016. That's why Republicans have struggled so much to come up with a defense of Trump's conduct.

There's another problem with Nunes' statement... 2/

It has zero acknowledgement that what Trump did was wrong. It reminds me of a bad Supreme Court advocate, hiding all the flaws in a case by pretending they just don't exist. It lacks credibility. Everyone knows what he did was wrong, the question is simply if it is impeachable 3/

And 1 other big problem, Nunes doesn't explain why the President has been so afraid to let his Executive Branch officials go tell the truth to Congress. Instead, he has ordered them to stay silent. That itself is behavior fundamentally antithetical to the rule of law, as ... 4/

I argued in today's NYT. But beyond the point that Trump's stonewalling of the truth is itself an impeachable offense, there's another question: Why is Trump so afraid to have his own folks testify and tell the truth to Congress? 5/ END https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/12/opinion/trump-impeachment-hearings.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage