November 6, 2019

Public Impeachment Hearings to Start Next Week

The probe will hear from three witnesses: Bill Taylor, Marie Yovanovitch, and George Kent.

Tom Williams/ZUMA

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The House impeachment inquiry is about to enter a whole new realm.

House intelligence chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) announced on Wednesday that the investigation is set to hold its first open hearings next week, with three key witnesses—Bill Taylor, the top US diplomat to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, the former US ambassador to Ukraine, and George Kent, a top State Department official—scheduled to appear before lawmakers. All three have already provided damning testimony during closed-door sessions on the efforts by the White House to conduct a backdoor policy in Ukraine. Taylor notably confirmed the “crazy” quid quo pro in the president’s ever-imploding Ukraine scandal.

Those closed-door sessions have been central to Republicans’ persistent complaints that the investigation was supposedly being carried out in secret and away from the American people, despite dozens of Republican lawmakers having access to the closed-door meetings. With the investigation now ready for prime time, Republicans are likely to readjust their clamor for more transparency. The Justice Department might consider it to be the perfect time to deflect some of the attention and release its long-awaited inspector general report on the early days of the Russia investigation.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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