over his head when you stop to think about they were doing was their bidding. they were trying to with hold security assistance to the ukrainians, it was to the benefit of the russians. so i m not sure they would blackmail him with doing their job. it does feel like as speaker pelosi said, everything does seem to come back to russia with him. what do you make of that as a member of congress, as an american? all roads lead to russia so it seems. well, we don t know. and i can t help but feel if more of the documents we had subpoenaed had been presented to us or if for example his tax returns had been revealed we might have more information what it is what is his obsession with vladimir putin and assisting the russians despite their maligned intent and their aggression in eastern ukraine? yeah, it is a puzzle. congressman denny heck, larry fifer, thank you both. and coming up while the trump administration is trying to avoid questions from the senate about the president s confl
volker and sondland show the effort of the president and his agent, rudy giuliani to press the ukraine to announce things in this president s personal interest. this is something that is rudy giuliani is present in these two depositions as we start to parse things. there s one line that jumped out at me from gordon sondland, ambassador to the european union on some of rudolph giuliani s demand. mr. sondland telling investigators i had no idea that he brought up the bidens until i saw the call report. i don t recall the date, the place or time, then i put it together. this is key here because when you go back to this exchange of text messages with bill taylor, who was the acting ambassador to ukraine and then gordon sondland, that they said there was no quid pro quo. bill taylor expressed some concern in that text message. he said to sondland, i think it s crazy that with hold security assistance for help
and sondland you ll remember famously texted, quote, the president has been crystal clear, no quid pro quos of any kind. he s expected to testify he was only repeeing what president trump himself told him. and bill taylor, remember he was the guy on the other end of that text who fbi hours prior had texted i think it s crazy to with hold security assistance to help the political campaign. that s the impeachable scandal. i think it s crazy. that man who wrote that, bill taylor wakes up every morn ing kiev and goes to job wheres we do not have an ambassador because the president recalled the last one because she wouldn t go along with his plan. and that bill taylor returned to yeah crane to washington, d.c. so he can tell the congress in person what he witnessed. the process the state department officials are describing is part of the crime. it s the reason that you have this expanding cast of kaerks,
messages that were released to be playing a pretty active role in trying to advance the president s goal of getting ukraine to investigate his political opponents. not only that, but also shutting down in real back on that. i want to show you one of the text messages released in which the top u.s. diplomat says as i said on the phone, i think it is crazy to with hold security assistance. he is the political appointee saying i believe you are incorrect about president trump s intentions. the president has been crystal clear, no quid pro quos of any kind. then he says i suggest we stop the back and forth on text. he is trying to take this offline and limit what they are putting in writing. even though he is saying there is no quid pro quo, democrats on the hill say if it looks like
with sondland, right, the guy he gave a mimmian dollars to the inauguration. and the career foreign service guy clearly uncomfortable trying to put on the record it s happening, and very specifically says, quote, as i said on the phone i think it s crazy to with hold security assistance to help the political campaign and then silence. five hours go by. the new york times reports that before responding to this text that s just hanging there with the career foreign service being like what you re doing is crazy and wrong, right, that the trump appointee sondland spoke to trump. the times reported that yesterday, he speaks to trump. and one could imagine i don t know what was in the conversation but one could imagine what happened in the conversation between trump and the appointee about a career diplomat calling out the fact they re corruptly extorting a foreign occupied nation for a political hit job on the president s political rival. what should i tell them?