that president slin szelenskiy do this himself. he was insisting that he publicly announce investigations into hispu political rival, an t again which is itself an impeachable offense. sond land spoke to trump and cleared things up saying, quote, president trump said it was not a quid pro quo. they keep saying it like it was a magical indication. ambassador sondland said he talked to president zelenskiy it was not a quid pro quo. p if they didn t clear this up in public, we t would be at a stalemate. i understood stalemate to mean that ukraine would not receive the much needed military assistance. so, again, it was not a quid pro quo, but if president zelenskiy didn t do exactly what president trump wanted him to do, manufacture dirt on his opponent,ur announce it on american, television, then ukraine would not get the
sondland said that everything, including u.s. security assistance to ukraine, was dependent on ukraine s president publicly announcing investigations into trump s political rival and a debunked theory, and the dnc hacking itself. that is a quid pro quo. trump demanded a public announcement of an investigation, the quo, in return for a meeting and military assistance, the quid. now, if that was the only instance of it happening, it would be very, very bad indeed, impeachable, but it was not the only instance. taylor describes talking to a national security council aide a week later who described a conversation with a trump appointee. gordon sondland. quote,on trump told ambassador sondland he was not asking for a quid pro quo. but president trump did insist
workhe books and go from point to point b to point c. essentially, really filling in so manyy of the blanks, many o those blanks being completely, you know, forgotten by ambassador sondland in his testimony last week, a very noncredible set of testimony, very noncredible deposition in which it wason extremely hard t believe he had as many lapses in memory over events that were significant in the last few months. when ambassador taylor had really in excruciating detail the ability to layout exactly the parallel and shadow of foreign policy that clearly was taking place, and that the president appeared to be advocating for a foreign government tovo pressure the foreign government to open an investigation for his political benefit, jeopardizing our national security interests. congressman raskin, i know it is your position that the call notes which show the president
through this impeachment inquiry of president trump s intentions is why we are conducting these investigations. and so you have to compare the information you get from different witnesses. and i will tell you that compared to ambassador sondland, ambassador taylor was extremely credible, was excruciatingly detailed about his recollections. and because of his expertise and his ironclad integrity, his testimony will be able to be held up as a significant component of the pathway to what we decide when it comes to articles of impeachment as it should be. congressman raskin, quickly, how close are you to moving to the next phase of this process? well, the fact investigation continues. it s sort of like a car accident where you get all of the material witnesses to come in and toss state exactly what the saw and what they understood. so, you know, we still have an open mind about everything that took place. but it s true that a lot of the
are you open minded if more comes out that you could support impeachment? sure. i mean, show me something that, that, that is a crime. if you can show me that, you know, trump actually was engaging in a quid pro quo outside the phone call, that would be very disturbing. oh, really? well, then, senator lindsey graham must be very disturbed because today bill taylor, the chief of mission in ukraine, testified there was a quid pro quo. he was told by gordon sondland everything was dependent on announcing an investigation into the bidens includes military assistance. the aid trump personally withheld from ukrainians. i m joined by natasha from politico and matthew miller, nbc s justice and security analyst. natasha, one wonders if they are