Fox Viewers Confused, Panicked As Fox Briefly Does Yovanovitch Hearing 'News'

Everything should be back to batshit normal by Opinion Time.

For a brief while this morning, some of the journalists at Fox News seemed almost like Americans, expressing the wild belief that former US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch had given important testimony during the impeachment hearing, and even suggesting that Donald Trump's weirdass tweet attacking her could be considered a form of witness tampering. WEIRD!

In case you missed it, here's Trump grumping that Yovanovitch is BAD NEWS:

Yep, she had some kind of diplomatic posting in Somalia, to be sure. It was early in her career, but clearly she was so terrible at it that she managed to turn an entire country into ... Somalia!

Here's Chris Wallace on Fox, noting that anyone not moved by how Yovanovitch was treated must have no soul at all, which we should assume includes the schmuck who sent that tweet up there. It's followed by Brett Baier commenting on Trump's tweet and suggesting we'd all just seen the "president" of the USA buying himself a new impeachment count for witness intimidation:

Wow. Fox News' Bret Baier says that Trump's tweets attacking Yovanovitch could be construed as witness intimidation… https: //t.co/A863oBrJYE

— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1573833692.0 

This whole hearing turned on a dime when the president tweeted about her real time, and during the questioning, Adam Schiff stopped the Democratic questioning to read the president's tweet to her. Now, that enabled Schiff to then characterize that tweet as intimidating the witness or tampering with the witness, which is a crime. Adding essentially an article of impeachment real time, as this hearing is going on. That changed the entire dynamic of first part of this hearing [.]

Baier's prediction that Republicans would need to spend the rest of the hearing cleaning up the mess Trump had made wasn't borne out, though perhaps that's why every single one of the Rs started their questioning by praising Yovanovitch's service. Baier even took to the Twitters himself to note what a very weird moment it was:

That was a turning point in this hearing so far. She was already a sympathetic witness & the President’s tweet rip… https: //t.co/2rgHRUOWAp

— Bret Baier (@Bret Baier) 1573832088.0 

As you'd expect, Fox fans decided the network had turned into CNN, the New York Times, and the Daily Worker all in one, and vowed they'll boycott Fox and all its MyPillow ads from now on.

Even career dickweed Ken Starr managed to be icked out by Trump's tweet, although he decided it probably wasn't intimidation. Maybe because Yovanovich continued to testify?

Former independent counsel Ken Starr criticizes Trump's tweets attacking Yovanovitch: "I must say that the presiden… https://t.co/IOPdcZl0eN

— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1573835023.0 

I must say that the president was not advised by counsel in deciding to do this tweet. Extraordinarily poor judgment. The president often says "I follow my instincts." Sometimes we have to control our instincts. So obviously I think this was quite injurious. I don't think it rises to the level of intimidation of a witness, but I think that's the way it's going to be characterized.

Yes of course we must note for posterity that Starr used to have a stricter view of witness tampering, but that prosecution is no longer operative.

Fortunately Starr apparently remembered where he was, so he suggested the best way to handle the tweet would be to pretend it never even happened, which definitely works well for Fox, which has always been at war with Eastfactia. Let's just slag Adam Schiff some more instead, OK?

Ken Starr's brilliant legal advice, ignore the tweet Ken Starr on Fox News: I would rise above the tweet, ignore i… https://t.co/6ZlavCa7Je

— Lis Power (@Lis Power) 1573835615.0 

Thank goodness SOME people at Fox knew what their job was, like whoever decided to post this on the Fox News Dot Com website -- you know, the part of the operation Fox likes to brag is part of its serious news:  

Haw Haw, everything she touches turns to shit! After a while, they swapped out the photo, possibly because the first one was too flattering:  

The on-air talent tried to make Trump's tweet go away, too, like the dude who literally looked in his pocket Constitution and determined that "witness tampering" is not in it, so Trump is good to go for another six terms.

Fox News Senior Capitol Hill producer: "Now, when we look at the U.S. Constitution and look at Article 2, Section 4… https://t.co/fmP8ctjlHQ

— Lis Power (@Lis Power) 1573833907.0 

Ever the stickler for detail, historian Kevin Kruse pointed out a true fact about prior impeachments:

The articles of impeachment against Nixon and Clinton both included charges based on presidential efforts to influe… https: //t.co/yqAnc7AS3k

— Kevin M. Kruse (@Kevin M. Kruse) 1573834320.0 

As of yet, we don't think anyone on Fox has gone with "Even a Twitter-famous historian now admits the Clinton and Nixon impeachments exceeded their constitutional authority." But they'll get there, we bet.

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