Targeted For A Scapegoat, Sondland Tosses Whole Trump Cabal Under The Bus With 'Quid Pro Quo' Assertions

"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.

Impeachment hearings: Pentagon official testifies that Ukraine asked about stalled military aid weeks before hold was known – as it happened

Read more  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:

Donald Trump | Impeachment

Ambassador Sondland Blew the Impeachment Inquiry Wide Open

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:

Media

John Solomon and the Hill's Ukraine Reporting Debacle: What It Tells Us About the D.C. Media

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. "

And:

Impeachment

Some Midday Thoughts About Sondland Testimony and Impeachment

And:

Donald Trump | Impeachment | Republicans | Senate

I’ve Given Up All Hope in Senate Republicans Voting to Impeach

by William Rivers Pitt | November 21, 2019 - 7:22am | permalink

"Republicans Killed It" ? In Which Alternate Universe Was That?

Two real patriots sworn in for the a.m. session of hearings yesterday: Jennifer Williams and Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman . They ate Dotard's lunch and his GOP attack dogs'  too.

In his superb book, 'The Twilight Of American Sanity', psychiatrist Allan Frances argues that Trump has the "gut instincts" of a chimp and the sad aspect is too many of his followers and defenders do as well. (According to recent CNN and Quinnipiac polls, these are mostly white males.) By that he meant that rather than use critical thinking and reason (what he calls "System II" cognitive approaches) they too often fall to "chimp like reactive aggression and unreason".   

Do the predominantly white male supporters of 'Captain Bonespurs' have brains that function mostly at chimp level? It appears so.  At least in the political domain. (All day, Republican speeches were delivered by old white men, and glaringly alternated with Democratic speeches from women, people of color and young people. White men make up 90 percent of the Republican caucus.)

Well, we beheld that in spades in the morning impeachment hearings yesterday as Reep after Reep flailed in the face of two first hand witnesses: Lt Col Alexander Vindman, a Ukraine adviser on the National Security Council, and Jennifer Williams, a foreign policy adviser to  vice-president, Michael Pence.  Over some four -plus hours of riveting testimony the pair forced the GOP clowns to eat shit as they disparaged and destroyed the idiotic, Russian-fabricated conspiracy theories to which those like imp Devin Nunes clung.

Both described their concern over an “unusual” call between Donald Trump and the Ukrainian president on July 25th, in which Trump ignored official talking points about fighting corruption to instead ask Volodymyr Zelenskiy for a political “favor”:  an investigation tied to Joe Biden.  In other words, demanding (the term Lt. Col. Vindman used) a personal favor in return for delivering $400 m in military aid. Cutting away all the crap and euphemisms - it amounts to bribery.  And as caustic comic John Oliver put it in his opening segment of 'Last Week Tonight': "If Trump can get away with this he can get away with anything."

Make no mistake that irrespective of the Reepo conspiracy clown show - on display in Klieg lights yesterday- this is deadly serious business. Because we are facing in Trump and his shameless defenders an existential threat from real domestic enemies. Enemies who would not only attack and try to besmirch a Purple heart warrior in Vindman, but also happily use a totally debunked  Russian conspiracy yarn to try to give specious cover to Trump.  In respect of the former, we beheld one GOPer clown after another accuse Vindman of leaks, violating his chain of command, poor judgment (talk about 'pot, kettle, black') ,  accessing colleagues' computers without permission,  and having a "nonsense" view of Trump's thinking. (You mean to say the orange mutt actually thinks?)  The Reepo counsel Stephen Castor  even insinuated disloyalty because Vindman was thrice offered a defense ministry position by a Ukraine official.(Which he adamantly rejected each time)

As WaPo columnist Dana Milbank put it, these efforts disclosed a total lack of decency on the part of these assholes.  But why be surprised at a party of craven apes, who'd rather kiss the ass of their orange  alpha ape master than defend the country?  Do they even love their country?  In every phase of the Trump debacle so far that was difficult to discern.   What they do love is basking in Trump's dubious praise, or perhaps better, not becoming fodder for a deranged tweet.

As one pundit observed, if you went fifty years into the future and related how one American political party tried to use the bunkum from a hostile state to support an autocrat criminal, they'd never believe it.

Well, we can barely believe it and we're watching it unfold in real time.  Thus, when Trump "fired back" - again the useless term employed by the lazy media - that "the Republicans killed it", I had to laugh. Killed what? Killed themselves with stupid and transparent excuses and pitifully hollow and asinine efforts to knock down the witnesses?   So one had to wonder what planet- in what alternate universe-  Trump was watching from.  

In a further blow to Trump and his cockeyed, clueless defenders, a witness requested by Republicans, the former envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker, said the investigations Trump requested of Zelenskiy were based on “conspiracy theories” and that “the allegations against Vice-President Biden were self-serving and not credible”.  So that backfired on the GOP chimps as well, despite hired clown Jim Jordan again screaming like a mad monkey on crack, trying to replace reasoned argument with decibels.  NO one was buying.

Moron of the Day award is shared by him and the Trump pet monkey Devin Nunes,   still pathetically trying to portray the whole proceeding as a sham and "hoax".    Second place  award goes to Utah's Reeptard Chris Stewart, who questioned why Lt. Col. Vindman found it necessary to wear his military uniform as opposed to a suit.   Clearly both he and Trump were distressed by the optics of a real patriot's presence at the hearing. (Especially as Capt. Bonespurs Trump evaded service five times using "bone spurs".)

As for Volker, he was given a lot of latitude to change his story before he had his 'come to Jesus' moment.  In the words of NY times columnist Michelle Goldberg last night, on 'All In': 

 "Volker got off very easy. Volker, if not outright committing perjury,  clearly dissembled and they sort of let him get away with suddenly remembering a bunch of things that he had previously forgotten.  And also they let him get away with this thing that a sophisticated foreign policy professional had no idea what these investigations are about. Has no idea why Donald Trump is incredibly interested into this one particular Ukrainian energy company. I mean I don't think anybody can possibly believe that, though Devin Nunes could pretend to.

So I think they went easy on him because despite being basically a witness for the defense he did end up confirming substantial parts of the Democrats' case."

 Indeed, Volker admitted under questioning he thought he and others were pursuing an investigation of Burisma that did not involve a Biden angle.  He 'fessed up:

“In retrospect, I should have seen that connection differently,and had I done so, I would have raised my own objections.  I don’t think that raising 2016 elections or Vice-President Biden, these things that I consider to be conspiracy theories … they’re not things that we should be pursuing as part of national security strategy with Ukraine.”.

Good thinking there, mate!  Now tell that to the dopes - the Repuke conspiracy clowns- who chose you as one of their star witnesses.

As for those clowns, they were stuck mentally in first gear  and were unable to move out- which why I  so often call them Reeptards. For example, the yappy terrier (Janice's favorite term for her)  Elise Stefanik - who clung to her narrative  that "nothing was really delivered", no investigation of the Bidens ever carried out. So no harm no foul. I suppose if she was the victim of an attempted burglary or god forbid, attempted homicide, she'd also say "Nothing really happened! Nothing to see there! GO home!"

But the 'queen' of Reeptards may well be the one that wasn't there: White House press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, who released a statement saying the Democrats were “blinded by hatred” and adding: “We have learned nothing new in today’s illegitimate ‘impeachment’ proceedings,"  Well, if you really believe that there truly is no hope for you,  not even in a remedial nursery school.

All of this sets the stage for tomorrow's blockbuster hearing featuring Gordon Sondland.  The Reeptards have argued that the Trump administration "never directly tied military aid or the prospect of a White House visit to the announcement of investigations". But both Vindman and Volker yesterday  provided the first public testimony about a scene in which  Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union, did just that.

Some are predicting he will "go down with Ship Trump" and others that he will take the Fifth. Or try to. Still others predict he will see the writing on the wall and come clean especially after the Holmes' testimony, deposition on Friday. 

We will see.  One thing we do know: The Reeps will dig an ever deeper hole of fatuous bullshit defense for themselves -  again speeding the day their party finally expires like the Whigs.

In the meantime, as often as the Repukes try to impugn Mueller and his report, we ought to remember the words of former acting Solicitor General Walter Dellinger (last night, 'All In'):

"We start out in 2016 it was not a Russian hoax.  From every intel agency we know it was a massive and systematic Russian interference in the 2016 campaign. The president then excuses Russia and therefore invites their further participation.  What 2016 is about - this reference to investigating 2016 -  is trying to hold the Russians harmless by blaming the Ukrainians for what happened.   And that is telling Vladiir Putiin, 'we've really got y0ur back. We're not going to try to sanction you we're even going to point the finger at somebody else.'

So we have impeachable offenses that are so much worse than the federal criminal code: An attempt to misuse the power of the presidency to corrupt a forthcoming democratic election."

So let's bear in mind each time Nunes or one of his associated clowns gaslights witnesses about fueling the "Democrat's impeachment inquisition" they are in fact part of this criminal process to corrupt the next election - accessories after the fact to Trump's traitorous crime.

See also:

Cody Fenwick

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Donald Trump | Impeachment

Here Are 7 Remarkable Moments from the Morning’s Impeachment Testimony

And:

Donald Trump

The Roaring of the Alpha Males (and the Silence of the Lambs)

by Mira Oklobdzija | November 20, 2019 - 7:03am | 

Other Voices Weigh In On The Impeachment Hearings

Left: Devin Nunes, GOP Counsel Stephen Castor and Jim Jordan confer on first day of impeachment hearings. Right: Marie Yovonavitch enters the House Chamber to testify.

Below please find other voices, bloggers sounding off about this week's hearings:

Donald Trump | Impeachment | Nancy Pelosi | Ukraine

Nancy Pelosi Subtly Mocks Trump — and Sends a Big Hint about a Likely Article of Impeachment

Excerpt:

"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi repeatedly pounded home on Thursday the idea that “bribery” is a central charge in the impeachment inquiry surrounding President Donald Trump’s Ukraine scandal during a briefing with reporters.

“The devastating testimony [on Wednesday] corroborated evidence of bribery uncovered in the inquiry and that the president abused power and violated his oath by threatening to withhold military aid and a White House meeting in exchange for an investigation into his political rival,” she said of the previous day’s pubic hearing. “A clear attempt of the president to give himself the advantage in the 2020 election. Doing so, as I’ve said to the president, jeopardized our national security, undermined our national security, jeopardized the integrity of our electoral system.”

She emphasized that “bribery” is listed in the Constitution as one of the two named impeachable offenses.

Donald Trump | Ukraine

Ambassador Yovanovitch, Once a Trump Target, May Become His Nightmare

by William Rivers Pitt | November 15, 2019 - 6:09am | 

Excerpt:

Read the transcript! The phone call was perfect! No quid pro quo!

This has been the deeply misleading and self-serving refrain of Donald Trump and his defenders regarding the now-infamous July 25 telephone call between Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. In deploying this line of nonsense, they seek to convince all who might listen that the July 25 call is the only element of the scandal engulfing the White House.

On Friday, former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch will have a golden opportunity to put that brazen misrepresentation to bed once and for all. For Yovanovitch, the story of Trump’s Ukraine extortion scheme did not begin when story first broke several weeks ago. It began for her at the end of last year, when she found out that Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani was taking an active interest in Ukraine, and in her.....

Marie Yovanovitch’s career-spanning professional integrity stood as an impediment to these intentions. If Giuliani was to effectively execute the plan to dragoon Ukraine into doing Trump’s political bidding, it was understood that an individual of Yovanovitch’s reputation would not stand for it. She had to be removed from the board … and so the whispers began....

Was Yovanovitch directly involved in the July 25 phone call, or in any aspect of Trump’s extortion scheme against the government in Ukraine? The answer is a definitive “no.” Yovanovitch, however, is living proof that Trump and his allies were up to some profoundly underhanded shenanigans many long months before that July 25 call, and those shenanigans not only cost Yovanovitch her post, but left her feeling that her own personal safety was in jeopardy

Impeachment | Media | Republicans

Impeachment Hearings Confirm Republican Party Is Detached from Reality. What Does the Press Do Now?

Eric Boehlert

Excerpt:

Republicans proudly advertised their radical ways during Wednesday's impeachment hearings into Donald Trump, wallowing in conspiracies and embracing debunked claims. The question now: How does the Beltway media cover a party that has aggressively removed itself from reality? How does the news business describe and treat a political party that routinely echoes the most unbelievable claims from Fox News and the darkest corners of the right-wing media?

The truth is, this is a decadeslong game of dare that Republicans have been playing with the press, as members of the party uniformly become more radical and more antidemocratic, and basically challenge the press to call them out, knowing full well it won't happen. That's because the Beltway press basically revolves around the central idea that there are two major competing parties in this country and that they are mirror opposites of each other. Republicans are just as conservative as Democrats are liberal. 

Republicans are just as serious as Democrats are. Republicans are just as fact-based and honorable as Democrats are. That false equivalency drives political coverage in this country, and has for decades.

Why this obsession? Because to concede that one party operates under a radically different set of guidelines (or no guidelines at all, in the case of the GOP), journalists have to do two things. They have to defend themselves against allegations of "liberal media bias," and they have to throw out the old, dependable rule book that allowed the press to lazily suggest that Republicans and Democrats function on the same plane, and therefore had to be treated similarly. 

Cody Fenwick

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Donald Trump | Impeachment | Ukraine

Here Are 5 Stunning Details from New Witness Testimony about Trump’s Damning Phone Call

Excerpt:

New testimony from State Department employee David Holmes given to the House Intelligence Committee on Friday in closed session confirmed a previous revelation that he had overheard President Donald Trump on a phone call discussing Ukrainian investigations, CNN reported.

Here are five stunning details about Holmes’ opening testimony, as revealed by CNN:

1. “Loves your ass”

Sondland reportedly told Trump that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “loves your ass” — a sign of just how self-obsessed the president is and how he expects those around him to be sycophantic.

2. “So, he’s gonna do the investigation?”

“So, he’s gonna do the investigation?” Trump then reportedly asked Sondland. Sondland replied “He’s gonna do it” and that Zelensky would do “anything you ask him to,” according to the CNN report.

This ties Trump directly to Sondland’s work pushing for the investigations in Ukraine. Existing evidence already showed that Trump was deeply involved in the effort, but Republicans have nevertheless tried to raise doubts about this claim. This testimony seems to undercut that argument even more.

3.”Give a shit about Ukraine”

CNN reported:

Holmes also confirmed Taylor’s testimony about the President’s thoughts on Ukraine, saying he asked Sondland “if it was true that the President did not ‘give a shit about Ukraine.’”
Holmes said Sondland responded Trump only cares about “big stuff.”

4. “The Bidens investigations”

In response to a question from Holmes, Sondland reportedly said that the “big stuff” was stuff that benefits Trump, “like the Biden investigation that Mr. Giuliani was pushing.”

This testimony is bad for both Sondland and Trump. Sondland previously testified that he didn’t realize the investigations he was pushing for in Ukraine would have involved the Bidens, which these claims seem to contradict. And it also bolsters the already strong case that Trump had no interest in corruption in Ukraine, as his defenders claim, but only in taking down a potential political opponent.

5. “I could hear the president’s voice through the earpiece of the phone.”

Holmes reportedly said he didn’t take notes on the conversation, but he remembered it clearly. And he also reported that Trump’s voice on the phone call was so loud he could hear what the president said, even though it wasn’t on speakerphone — which raises even more questions about the operational security of the call, which is already highly dubious.

Watch CNN’s Manu Raju report on the testimony:

Joan McCarter

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Donald Trump | Ukraine

New Witness Says Loudmouth Trump Asked about Zelensky, 'So, He's Gonna Do the Investigation?'

Excerpt:

David Holmes, a career foreign service officer serving in Ukraine, told a congressional panel behind closed doors that he was present when Donald Trump spoke on the phone with U.S. Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland about Sondland’s efforts to make Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky announce an investigation to Hunter Biden. Holmes opening statement, obtained by CNN, discloses that there are as many as three other witnesses to the call.

Sondland, Holmes and a few others were at a restaurant in Kyiv when the ambassador made the call to Trump. Trump apparently spoke so loudly that Sondland held the phone away from his ear and Holmes, and presumably the others, heard the conversation. In the call, Sondland told Trump that President Zelensky “loves your ass.”