that? this is a key question all along. is there a quid pro quo. and if there is, can it be that if the ukranians don t actually know about the security aid being frozen. so the first time it was publicly reported was in politico august 2 9 . our reporting is showing that the ukranians were getting word even earlier than that. the president says there was no quid pro quo. but i think you re right, sequence of events shows that there is these are not happening separate from each other, they are happening in parallel to each other. congress gets involved and forced the aid to be restored, not because they were trying to assist the president in his investigation because they think that ukraine needs this money and they are in a war right now basically with russia. so once the money was restored, president zelensky backs off the interview. he had been told by bill taylor don t get involved in american politics here this, is not good for you. he had been told by members of
this this nonsense that the republicans have been pushing. that this was a generic concern about corruption. that they just wanted investigations. ambassador taylor chose specific words. he said this was about political gain. this was about advantage in a political campaign. so my questions were designed to get at exactly what he meant. he didn t say investigations. he didn t say just burisma. he made crystal clear that he knew that there was a quid pro quo being demanded. he puts it together very clearly. a quid pro quo that would benefit the president personally, politically, and it s wrong. you know, another thing that jumped out at us, apparently taylor testified that in june gordon sondland requested that the phone call not be transcribed at all. that no notes or there wouldn t be any monitoring of it at all. that seemed to be new to us. right. and there s a term for that. it s called consciousness of
guilt. it s one of the first red flags that went up for ambassador taylor. he knew it didn t make sense and that s when his antennas started to work and and in a straight line from that point, he starts to put together the sad truth, the truth that should break everyone s heart who cares about things being done the right way. that there was this grimy financial interest by rudy giuliani and his now indicted clients mixed up in this toxic brew with the president s shabby political interests. and they were pushing that and displacing the very serious national security policy that was that was critical to the defense of europe and ukraine and to our own national security. and as he watched it unfold, he brought it to pompeo. he tried to do something about it. he tried to see it in the best possible light until it was unmistakable that it was wrong. all right. a few things about the hearings next week. number one, any reason you re skipping thursday?
bit of a code word for bidens. ambassador taylor. as i understood the reason for investigating burisma was to cast vice president biden in a bad light. then you respond, that would be the domestic political gain? taylor says, yes. and you reinforce this to cast vice president biden in a bad light. he says, right. and the political campaign would be what political campaign, you ask. and then he simply says, a political campaign for the re-election of president trump. it sounds like in bill taylor, you have somebody that isn t subtle, that doesn t speak in sort of that washington speak sometimes where he s trying to round the edges. he seems like a very matter-of-fact witness here. do you expect him to be that in public? i sure hope so. and and and not because i want him to say anything in particular. but because guys like bill taylor don t pull their punches. they have a clear sense of right and wrong. and when he saw it, he knew what it was. but his language was important there b
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