Proclaiming “I want a trial”, Donald Trump uses his favorite show Fox and Friends for a 53-minute diatribe, repeating conspiracy theories and attacking witnesses in the impeachment inquiry into his alleged abuses of power.

On Thursday, public hearings of the House Intelligence Committee concluded after 10 current and former US officials piled up evidence of the campaign by Trump and his attorney Rudy Giuliani for Ukraine’s investigations of political rivals. Testimony established the “irregular channel” of foreign policy. It detailed Trump’s refusal of a White House visit to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and of $391 million in military aid to Kiev, unless Zelenskiy announced the investigations to tarnish Presidential candidate Joe Biden and to cover up Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.

EA Video Analysis: An 8-Point Guide to The Impeachment of Donald John Trump

Yesterday Trump — sounding tired and sometimes verging on hysteria with his rambling claims — used Fox’s morning show, an undiluted supporter of his rhetoric, for an attempted counter-attack. He blustered, “Frankly, I want a trial”, before maintaining that the House of Representatives will not impeach him: “I think it’s very hard for them to impeach you if they have absolutely nothing.”

Far from giving way to the evidence in the hearings, he reinforced one of the central points: that he and Giuliani wanted Ukraine’s investigation of a conspiracy theory that Kiev, not Russia, was the source of the server hacking the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign.

On Thursday, Fiona Hill — the National Security Council official overseeing Europe and Russia — explained to the House Intelligence Committee that the claim was Russian disinformation to cover up Moscow’s involvement in the election that put Trump into the White House.

“This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves,” Hill said.

Yesterday Trump insisted that the Obama Administration, all the way to President Barack Obama, were engaged in a plot to destroy his campaign. Then he rambled:

[The FBI] has the server. They told them, ‘Get out of here, we’re not going to give it to you.’ They gave the server to Crowdstrike, which is a company owned by a very wealthy Ukrainian. I still want to see that server….Why did they give it to a Ukrainian company?

[The cybersecurity company Crowdstrike, founded in 2011, is based in California. Co-founder Dmitri Alperovitch is a Russian-born US citizen who immigrated as a child, graduating from the Georgia Institute of Technology.]

Even the friendly Fox hosts were taken aback, asking, “Are you sure [the FBI] did that? Are you sure they gave it to Ukraine?”

Trump replied, “Well, that’s what the word is.”

He also risked sabotaging his defense that he wanted Ukraine to investigate “corruption”, not Biden.

“Joe Biden is corrupt,” Trump said bluntly before insisting that there was no quid pro quo.

Insulting The Witnesses

Trump also rebuffed the appeals of witnesses, including Hill, to stop attacking US diplomats.

He again assailed the former US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, the target oF disinformation spread by Giuliani until she was removed for her post by Trump in May.

In her testimony to the Committee, Yovanovitch powerfully spoke of how she felt “threatened” by Trump when she learned of his declaration, to Ukraine President Zelenskiy, that she was “bad news” and going to “go through some things”.

As the Ambassador testified, Trump tweeted, “Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad.” The incident led Democrats to warn of a possible charge of witness intimidation.

Yesterday he blasted, “This was not an angel, this woman, okay? “I just want to let you know, this was not a baby that we’re dealing with.”

In testimony to the Committee, senior State Department officials George Kent and David Hale spoke of their unease over the attacks. A State Department document, released Friday, confirmed six former US Ambassadors to Ukraine — including William Taylor, currently the top American diplomat in Kiev — expressed their concern on April 5 in a letter to Hale.

But Trump asserted yesterday that the Ambassador — “an Obama person” — was being protected “because she is a woman”.

He alleged three times:

This ambassador, that you know, everybody says is so wonderful, she wouldn’t hang my picture in the embassy, okay?

She’s in charge of the embassy, she wouldn’t hang it. It took like a year and a half, or two years for her to get the picture up.

US diplomats quickly exposed the disinformation, saying portraits of Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo were hung in Embassy in Kiev as soon as they arrived from Washington.

Trump also lashed out at David Holmes, a senior officer at the US Embassy in Ukraine, and he dismissed his former ally Gordon Sondland.

Sondland, a Trump political appointee installed as US Ambassador to the European Union, was a central figure in the Trump-Giuliani campaign. On Wednesday he testified of the quid pro quo for the investigations, detailing Giuliani’s actions on the “orders” of Trump.

EA on BBC: Trump Impeachment — Sondland Blows Up Trump-Giuliani Defense Over Ukraine
TrumpWatch, Day 1,035: Trump Impeachment — Sondland Throws Trump, Giuliani, and Pompeo Under the Ukraine Bus

Trump ranted at the Fox hosts, “Check out [Sondland’s] lawyers. They’re Hillary Clinton lawyers….He’s sitting there with Clinton lawyers. They passed him notes all the time.”

Having said in October that Sondland is a “great American”, Trump proclaimed yesterday, “I hardly know him. I see him hanging around.”

Meanwhile, he refused to cut Giuliani loose, despite the threat posed by the testimony and by the investigation of the attorney by Federal prosecutors.

He’s like an iconic figure in this country for two reasons. He was the greatest mayor in the history of New York and he was the greatest crime fighter probably in the last 50 years.

He’s also a friend of mine. He’s a great person. When you’re dealing with a corrupt country…if Rudy Giuliani – he’s got credentials because of his reputation.