And the answer is … Sondland doesn’t want to risk going the way of Roger Stone. He showed up this morning and threw pretty much the entire Trump administration under the bus.
Updates to come. Comments welcome.
Update: Sondland is still testifying. What a morning, though.
I want to highlight part of Devin Nunes’s opening statement:
When the Democrats can’t get any traction for their allegations of a quid pro quo, they move the goalposts and accuse the President of extortion, then bribery, and as a last resort, obstructing justice.
This was followed by Sondland’s opening statement:
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.
Sondland says he eventually put two and two together and realized the military aid was also being withheld pending the announcement of investigations into the Bidens and Barisma.
This afternoon, Trump stood on the South Lawn and read from some oversized notes:
Close your eyes and imagine Joe Pesci as Tommy DeVito in Goodfellas giving this same “speech.”
Nunes’s cross-examination was all whackjob, all the time — Barisma, Bidens, Steele Dossier, a black ledger, and whistleblower whistleblower whistleblower. The purpose of this stuff is, of course, to give partisans an excuse for ignoring the facts. And, sadly, it probably will work.
Update: This is what Trump was referencing in the video above:
“I finally called the president. I believe it was on the 9th of September; I can’t find the records and they won’t provide them to me,” Sondland told the House committee. “But I believe I just asked him an open-ended question, Mr. Chairman. ‘What do you want from Ukraine? I keep hearing all these different ideas and theories and this and that. What do you want?’ ”
“And it was a very short, abrupt conversation,” he continued. “He was not in a good mood. And he just said, ‘I want nothing. I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo. Tell Zelensky’ ” — that is, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — “to do the right thing.’ Something to that effect.”
Speaking to reporters outside the White House on Wednesday, Trump seized on that testimony as exculpatory. Reading from handwritten notes, he reiterated what Sondland had said and declared the testimony the final word on the matter.
So, Trump is quoting himself saying no quid pro quo as proof there was no quid pro quo.
Update: See also Aaron Blake, 5 takeaways from Gordon Sondland’s blockbuster testimony.
Making popcorn! BRB
'Oh Frabjuous day! Kalloo!! Kallay!!!'
'Ding-dong the SOB is dead. Which old SOB? The Orange SOB!!!'
Sondland is carpet-bombing pretty much the entire tRUMP (mal)administration with truth-napalm!!!!!
Btw – You wanna see an ugly suit? Check out the one Rep. Devin "Moo-cow" Nunes is wearing! He looks like a tween dressed-up for Halloween as a gangster!!! LOL!!!!!
You're right he does have a John McEnroe look about him.. There's a little Roy Cohn in there too.
Ugly suit for an ugly guy. Nunes has no conscience. Perfect mob character.
I used to have a suit very similar to Nunes' suit. That was years ago, though. It was a pretty decent suit. I picked it up at Sears Roebucks on an Easter Special for like $30 bucks, but back in the day $30 bucks was big money. It was a light gray pin striped polyester with a vest from the Johnny Carson Summertime Collection.
There is a possibility it could still be in my closet. I'll have to go check. But after 40 years I think my wife might have moved it along without my knowing about it. She does things like that.
Sondland says it was one big happy party and everybody was in on the games.
I think it's time for Pompeo to pack it up at the State Dept. He knew what was going on when he allowed Ambassador Yovanovitch to get kicked to the curb. He's just another vile bag of shit!
Can I get a "Welcome, President Pelosi"?
The circle of wagons keeps getting smaller. They say one should never watch sausage being made. It distracts from any further sausage eating experience. Watching our foreign policy being made by the window of this inquiry, might trigger nausea when even hearing the words foreign policy even being mentioned. Are the Ducks in a row, as in rows and columns, or are the ducks in a row, as in a quarrel? Is the lead duck Daffy? Is the lead duck Putin?
Nunes believed Trump and wore kangaroo attire. How come no one else got the memo?
So many questions. Seems like a lots of people have a lots of explaining to do.
One of the rats that ran away is Rick Perry, who resigned about a month ago as head of the Dept of Energy. It didn't pass the smell test. He, like Nikki Haley were sharp enough to flee before the SHTF.
They're going to need a giant road-hog Greyhound bus to fit everybody Sondland just threw under it.
He also busted out Bolton, which may prompt him to not wait for the decision he asked for from the court, whether he could/should testify in spite of the President's decision, and come forward and back that bus up a few times over them all!
Even our own modern day Inspector Javert, Ken Starr, is saying Sondland's testimony may be sticking a fork in this rancid mess:
"The real issue is the senators are watching," Starr continued. "Are senators going to now say, in light of what we hear today—it's going to be a long day even with the ambassador alone—in light of what we have heard, 'We need to make a trip down to the White House'—that historical example set during the Nixon presidency."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/11/20/one-those-bombshell-days-nixon-74-ken-starr-wonders-if-gop-senators-ready-call-trump
Still, even with all this, I will be surprised if GOP senators actually make that trip. I expect that McConnell is planning to use a senate trial as the last line of defense, but given the undeniable facts thus far it may well end up being a Maginot line for them and Trump.
Especially those up for reelection in 2020, are they willing to risk their own Waterloo for an incompetent criminal in the white house by acquitting Trump in spite of it all? Its going to be interesting.
If anybody out there is compiling a code talkers dictionary here's an entry that is worthy of inclusion.. "leave no stone unturned"..It means you are going to do exactly as you're told, you're going to comply with every demand your extortionist places upon you.
"I WANT NOTHING
I WANT NOTHING"
Wowsers! Are we in some kind of existentialist playlet?
Imagine being so addled that you have to write something down twice in order to remember to say it twice.
PS Remember — this phone conversation happened AFTER they were caught and they knew it. Sondland's use of the word "theories" is extremely euphemistic.