confirmed by the senate, and sworn to uphold the constitution in an oath that we all take. and so these my former colleagues are experts, and they know how to practice diplomacy. to allow someone like mr. sondland to play the role that he has apparently been playing is beyond my understanding. and the result of his interventions is evident to all of us. it has not been a good result. it s not been a good result for the united states. it s not been a good result for our ukrainian allies. and we find ourselves in this terrible situation because of a lack of respect and a lack of use by the administration for the fantastic tool that is at the administration s disposal, which is the foreign service. and what i really don t understand is why the secretary of state is not speaking up on
assistance for help with a political campaign. ambassador to the eu and million dollar trump donor gordon sondland replying, in that language, that sure has to make you wonder whether he was speaking to an audience of one, right? and that one was not bill taylor, replying, bill, i believe you are incorrect about president trump s intentions. the president has been crystal clear. no quid pro quos of any kind. the president is trying to evaluate whether ukraine is truly going to adopt the transparency and reforms that president zelensky promised during his campaign. i suggest we stop the back and forth by text. come on, people. it s all right there. i said ambassador sondland might have been speaking to an audience of one, and that one sure seems to have gotten the message. here it is. the text message that i saw from ambassador sondland, who is
mr. sondland to play the role that he has apparently been playing is beyond my understanding. and the result of his interventions is evident to all of us. it has not been a good result. it s not been a good result for the united states. it s not been a good result for our ukrainian allies. and we find ourselves in this terrible situation because of a lack of respect and a lack of use by the administration for the fantastic tool that is at the administration s disposal, which is the foreign service. and what i really don t understand is why the secretary of state is not speaking up on behalf of the service. yeah. and its role, which has been greatly diminished in this administration. we ll see in the days and weeks to come. as you ve heard, democrats say they believe this is going to go quickly, so we ll find out some information hopefully. thank you, ambassador james melville. appreciate your time.
taylor, replying, bill, i believe you are incorrect about president trump s intentions. the president has been crystal clear. no quid pro quos of any kind. the president is trying to evaluate whether ukraine is truly going to adopt the transparency and reforms that president zelensky promised during his campaign. i suggest we stop the back and forth by text. come on, people. it s all right there. i said ambassador sondland might have been speaking to an audience of one, and that one sure seems to have gotten the message. here it is. the text message that i saw from ambassador sondland, who is highly respected, was there s no quid pro quo. he said that. he said by the way, it almost sounded like in general. he said, by the way, there s no quid pro quo, and there isn t. now, for biden there would be.
what he was looking for. okay. i m not a legal expert. i m just a citizen. yeah. i m just and that s why we have you here, just to get your read on this. listen, the president claims there was no quid pro quo, right? there doesn t really have to be an explicit one. but these text messages also show that bill taylor, the senior u.s. diplomat in ukraine feared the military aid was being held by the white house until crew yan committed to investigations. as a former diplomat, talk to me about that. how troubling is this? well, that certainly sounds like a quid pro quo to me. you know, in diplomacy, for an american diplomat, the golden ticket is a meeting in the oval office. and to be able to for an ambassador to be able to deliver that to the country in which the ambassador is serving is considered to be, you know, the ultimate prize. and it has tremendous value to