"You might call it a two-fer for Putin if you can push a conspiracy theory so far that it's animating a branch of the United States government that has become the last refuge of those who want to defend the indefensible." - Ari Melber, this morning on 'Morning Joe'
Over the first three days of testimony in the impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump, Republicans have tried out a number of defenses. After the Wednesday testimony of Gordon Sondland, Trump’s ambassador to the European Union, almost all of them have been incinerated." - Michelle Goldberg, NY Times., ' Donald Trump's Gordon Problem'
It was perhaps the defining day of the House Impeachment hearings as Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland - within minutes elapsed of his opening statement - delivered a devastating blow to Trump, confirming the existence of a quid pro quo with Ukraine and insisting: “We followed the president’s orders.” Of course, Dotard tried to deny it claiming he insisted "No quid pro quo!" BUT....that was days AFTER the whistle blower had outed him, and scrutiny of the infamous July 25 phone call had begun.
So Trump's yelp was actually a bald lie. YES, Quid pro quo! Or in more common parlance: Bare ass bribery!
Sondland, to put it mildly, stunned Washington with his bombshell evidence that blew a hole in the White House’s absurd defenses, and also implicated numerous senior officials, including Pompeo, Giuliani, Bolton, Mulvaney, Mike Pence - and the Big Boy - Baby Dotard himself. In other words the whole Trump cabal of criminals and grifters. So of course they'd holler and deflect like the stuck pigs they are - trotting out every lame excuse or suspect explanation under the Sun. But which anyone with an IQ over room temperature digits could see through.
I mean, as Gordo put it: "I could see 2 plus 2 is 4".
Our eyes fixed on the tube from just after 7 a.m. local time to past 1 p.m. Janice and I marveled as Sondland related his story to a TV audience of millions. It included how Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, sought to condition an Oval Office meeting with the new Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in exchange for politically motivated investigations of Trump’s rivals.
Sondland, a wealthy hotelier and Trump donor - now being victimized by thousands of Trumpies on Yelp (with 1 -star ratings for his hotel in Oregon), told those assembled in the chamber:
"I know that members of this committee have frequently framed these complicated issues in the form of a simple question: Was there a ‘quid pro quo?’As I testified previously, with regard to the requested White House call and White House meeting, the answer is yes."
By this time Janice and I were certain Trump's blood pressure was soaring even as Gordo further asserted that an Oval Office meeting with Trump was dependent on Ukraine announcing investigations into Burisma, a gas company linked to the son of former vice-president Joe Biden. Both Biden and Burisma were at the center of a widely discredited Russian-spawned conspiracy theory that Ukraine planted evidence on a server of the Democratic party to show Russia interfered in the 2016 election. The name given to the company and its secret server hidden in the Ukraine was "Crowdstrike". It has since become the top obsession and fetish of Trump's pet monkeys including Devin Nunes, Jim Jordan (whose antics yesterday reminded me of a half -crazed Barbary Ape on angel dust) and John Ratcliffe, aka "Rat man".
Gordo further elaborated:
"Mr Giuliani’s requests were a quid pro quo for arranging a White House visit for President Zelenskiy. Mr Giuliani demanded that Ukraine make a public statement announcing investigations of the 2016 election/DNC server and Burisma. Mr Giuliani was expressing the desires of the president of the United States, and we knew that these investigations were important to the president.”
Sondland did acknowledge, under scattershot Repuke questioning, that he never heard directly from Trump that the security assistance hinged on an announcement of investigations, adding that the conclusion was his “own personal guess”. But by early September, he added, “it was abundantly clear to everyone that there was a link”. And this was also clear to anyone with half a brain and the sense to connect the dots. NO over thinking needed, as the likes of the Reepos' Jim Jordan, or Ratcliffe would expect.
The only shaky part of Sondland's testimony was "his insistence that he was ignorant of the connection between Burisma and the Bidens when he pressed Ukraine for investigations is hardly" - as Michelle Goldberg noted. I also found that this stretched credulity as did Janice.
But one didn't even have to get into the further elaborations. Sondland's 19-page opening statement was a potential death blow to Trump’s fight against impeachment, demolishing talking points made by House Republicans and conservative media. Of course, given Trump is a compulsive liar, he attempted to recast its significance, spouting "NO more need for impeachment!"
Au contraire, schwein hund! Enormous need now for impeachment of your fat orange ass!
Sondland’s evidence also raises questions over the future of Rudy Giuliani, aka Nosferatu the Vampire Reeptardo , e.g.
This is the Trump pandering slimeball who pushed hard for the investigations in Ukraine in the first place. This despite having no official diplomatic role. Like the other Trump reprobates, Giuliani (who had business interests of his own in Ukraine), has refused to testify or hand over documents to the impeachment investigation despite a subpoena.
Now it will be fun watching all these Trumpite ratfuckers - which is what they are, i.e. the original colloquial name for the Nixonian era dirty tricksters (like Gordon Liddy and Roger Stone) - go down in flames.
If yesterday's hearings marked a "bombshell" today's ought to be a double -rigged "IED" as Dr. Fiona Hill and David Holmes explode - each in their own way- the ignorant Russian conspiracy tropes and nonsense to which the Reeptards have clung.Today, you might say, is a major day of reckoning, to see if the GOP really is an arm of the Russian security services. In which case all the guilty parties - from Nunes, to Jordan and Ratcliffe on down, ought to be hung, drawn and quartered along with Donald J. Trump.
See also:
Excerpt:
"The pundits and talking heads keep looking at the polls and noting that the dial on Donald Trump and the impeachment has barely moved. With the implication that it is stuck unto eternity. It takes time for the change to percolate and become our morning coffee. Gordon Sondland, the US ambassador to the European Union, has changed things on multiple levels."
And:
Excerpt:
"Closing the barn door two years too late, the editor of The Hill this week announced that the publication is going to review all the dubious Ukraine conspiracy reporting John Solomon did while he worked there as an executive vice president. We "are reviewing, updating, annotating with any denials of witnesses, and when appropriate, correcting any [of Solomon's] pieces referenced during the ongoing congressional inquiry," announced Bob Cusack.
Solomon is a well-documented fabulist who essentially works for the Republican Party, helping it launder its smear campaigns in public. At The Hill, Solomon played a leading role in advancing debunked claims about Ukraine and the supposed corruption of Joe Biden's son. For years, The Hill published the equivalent of a 9/11 Truther, but only now is the publication going to look back and see if something went wrong. "
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