Well, it’s on again.
Based on the just-published article by the new york times’ Michael S. Schmidt, headlined…
Sondland Updates Impeachment Testimony, Describing Ukraine Quid Pro Quo
…and the few minutes I just watched of MSNBC’s “Hardball” show, where hate-Trump glee is hitting orgasmic warp speed….
…Gordon D. Sondland, the United States ambassador to the European Union, has flipped and told us that, yes, there was a quid pro quo with the Ukraine.
Presidentially, therefore, Donald Trump has one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. No one will defend him because no one can defend him. It’s all over.
Except…
…I read the article and know what is in it. Which – sorry Michael, sorry Chris and your Trump-despising crew – doesn’t say what that headline suggests.
You can, of course, use the link I’ve provided and read Mr. Schmidt’s entire article – which I hope you do, so there is no doubt at all that what you are about to see is entirely correct and in context.
But, for the meanwhile, here are its key parts (please excuse the length):
A critical witness in the impeachment inquiry offered Congress substantial new testimony this week, revealing that he told a top Ukrainian official that the country likely would not receive American military aid unless it publicly committed to investigations President Trump wanted.
The disclosure from Gordon D. Sondland, the United States ambassador to the European Union, in four new pages of sworn testimony released on Tuesday, confirmed his involvement in laying out a quid pro quo to Ukraine that he had previously not acknowledged.
In his updated testimony, Mr. Sondland recounted how he had discussed the link with Andriy Yermak, a top adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, on the sidelines of a Sept. 1 meeting between Vice President Mike Pence and Mr. Zelensky in Warsaw.
“I said that resumption of the U.S. aid would likely not occur until Ukraine provided the public anticorruption statement that we had been discussing for many weeks,” Mr. Sondland said…
In his new testimony, Mr. Sondland said he believed that withholding the aid — a package of $391 million in security assistance that had been approved by Congress — was “ill-advised,” although he did not know “when, why or by whom the aid was suspended.” But he said he came to believe that the aid was tied to the investigations.
“I presumed that the aid suspension had become linked to the proposed anticorruption statement,” Mr. Sondland said.
Uhhhh………wait a minute.
Do you see anything there that says President Trump demanded a quid pro quo? Nope.
Or do you see an assumption based on an opinion of Mr. Sondland’s? Yep.
And now, speaking of the assumption/opinion, does it say that the investigations were of Joe Biden and his son? Or is it a vague comment that makes no such specification? Nope, nothing at all about Biden.
So what we have here is a witness, who has adjusted his testimony from one form of not implicating President Trump in a quid pro quo/investigations-for-aid demand, to another form of not implicating President Trump in a quid pro quo/investigations-for-aid demand.
In other words, another big fat nothingburger being wordsmithed into something it is not.
And – as I have asked repeatedly – even if Trump had demanded that Ukraine involvement in the 2016 election be investigated, SO WHAT?
Is my memory failing me, or did we not spend over two years in a ridiculous wild goose chase trying to find out if Russia had involvement in the 2016 election – an investigation that, like this ridiculous article, produced exactly nothing?
It was OK to investigate Russian election interference – at the cost of something like $40 million dollars – but not OK to demand an investigation of Ukraine election interference?
As for Joe Biden, you do not see his name in the excerpts I pulled, do you? Not even once.
In fact, the one and only time Joe Biden and his son, Hunter are mentioned in the entire article is here:
Mr. Sondland had said in a text message exchange in early September with William B. Taylor Jr., the top American diplomat in Ukraine, that the president had been clear there was no quid pro quo between the aid and investigations of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., his son and other Democrats. But Mr. Sondland testified last month that he was only repeating what Mr. Trump had told him, leaving open the question of whether he believed the president.
In other words, the one and only reference to Joe Biden is that Trump told Sondland there was no quid pro quo regarding Biden, and Sondland didn’t know anything beyond that.
This is the big revelation? The one that’s going to take down the Trump presidency???????
Yeah, sure. Right.
And these clowns wonder why, when Trump calls them Fake News, it resonates with so many people? God help them.
Oh, one other thing: at the end of the article, there is this poll question:
Notice that it states, as settled fact, that Sondland “describes a quid pro quo with Ukraine”?
A fake poll to be taken about fake news.
I wish I could say that’s unbelievable. But, since I see it damn near every day, I can’t.
