Staff Editorial: Strip away partisanship from inquiry

The first round of the public impeachment hearing was held on Wednesday in Washington, where democratic and republican members of congress took 45 minutes each questioning witnesses William B. Taylor and George Kent.

The testimony given by Taylor, who is the U.S. diplomat to Ukraine and Kent, who is the State Department’s top expert on Ukraine, painted a clearer picture of what is actually happening at the heart of this impeachment inquiry.

We at The Daily Eastern News believe that Wednesday’s testimony from Taylor and Kent was incredibly important and that every American should pay especially close attention to what was said on Wednesday.

Taylor testified that one of his aides overheard a phone call between President Donald J. Trump and Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, where the aide claims Sondland told them afterward that the president cared more about investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden than he did anything else regarding Ukraine.

If that is true, and that is the tricky part in all of this, and is also the point of the inquiry, it is to figure out based on testimony what is true and what is fact, but if what Taylor said is true, than this inquiry may have a lot more legitimacy than what some republicans have previously claimed.

But bear in mind throughout this entire process, the purpose of this inquiry is to separate fact from fiction. That is why we at The Daily Eastern News feel that every American needs to pay incredible attention to what is said in the inquiry so they can make a determination for themselves what it true and what is not.

Because both democrats and republicans will be doing their due diligence to make every aspect of the testimony spin in their favor.

That is why Taylor’s testimony is so key. Because if it is true, then it paints a grim picture of the motives our president had in his dealings with Ukraine and in his withholding of $493 million in military aid.

Republicans countered Taylor’s testimony, questioning the legitimacy of it, claiming it was all word-of-mouth. Democrats hailed his testimony as damning evidence that the president had malicious and personal political motives in dealings with Ukraine.

This is where things get complicated for all of us on the outside looking in. We all have to comb through the testimony and make up our minds about what we think happened. It is going to be important to remember in this process that both sides of the aisle will be trying to persuade us based on partisan bias, it is up to us as Americans to throw away all of this partisanship and take each individual testimony as it is given, not as democrats or republicans try to spin it.