Tuesday-thursday

Impeachment Inquiry

Pictured: Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman (far left) at the inauguration of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Alexander Vindman

by Ellen Yandel

The top National Security Council expert on Ukraine, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, testified Tuesday that he listened to the July 25 call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Vindman claimed that corrections he suggested to the released transcript based on the actual conversation were not made. These changes included Mr. Trump noting that there were recordings of former Vice President Joe Biden, as well as a specific mention of “Burisma”—the name of the company Mr. Biden’s son, Hunter, worked for in Ukraine.

Several prominent conservatives have questioned Vindman’s loyalty since the testimony, citing his status as a Ukrainian-American immigrant working in direct contact with Ukraine. Vindman, who moved to the U.S. when he was three, stated in his testimony that he is “a patriot.”

Resolution

by Ellen Yandel

Relatedly, the House of Representatives voted Thursday to approve a set of rules for public hearings in the next phase of the impeachment inquiry. The vote is a response to Republican complaints that the inquiry is unfair to Mr. Trump, claiming that without a vote, the inquiry was illegitimate—though Republicans uniformly opposed the proposal. The resolution also moves the investigation towards a more formal and public stage.

Tim Morrison

by Nicholas Chen

Another member, now former, of the National Security Council who listened to the July 25 phone call testified Thursday. He confirmed previous testimony from the top diplomat to Ukraine who claimed that the Trump administration communicated to Ukraine that financial military aid was conditioned on a public investigation into Burisma. The former member of the NSC, Tim Morrison, said that he did not think anything illegal was discussed in the call, but did reaffirm the concerns of the diplomat, William Taylor, about a Sept.1 conversation the Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland had with an aide to the Ukranian president. Discussing it in his opening statement, Morrison made two corrections to Taylor’s otherwise “accurate” testimony—the correction concerning Sondland’s conversation being that it was the prosecutor general, and not the president as Taylor’s account stated, that needed to pursue an investigation in order for the security assistance funds to arrive.

Thursday-Saturday

Chicago teachers Strike

by Nicholas Chen

After 11 days and many hours of negotiation, the Chicago Teachers Union strike that included almost 25,000 teachers ended on Thursday. A tentative agreement addressing many of the union’s main concerns—mainly caps on class sizes, hiring more nurses and social workers and raising salaries—led to classes resuming on Friday. The contract is estimated to cost $1.5 billion, and was approved by elected CPS delegates but is waiting for approval by the entire union. In related news, some of the CPS student-athletes who were sidelined from Illinois High School Association postseason competition were allowed to compete at Saturday’s various regional meets, when a judge overruled a decision from the IHSA regarding CPS cross-country runners being barred from competition because of the ongoing strike. Besides multiple CPS football teams that were also allowed to compete, there is little word regarding other sports being similarly waived.