well, i think ken starr and andy mccarthy are very good lawyers. like any good lawyers, they can parse this, freeze this anyway they want. as a reporter, it seems to me we have to go to with the headline is today. the headline is that gordon sondland, one of the three amigos, perhaps the one who had the most direct contact with donald trump, says in his opening statement, was there a quid pro quo with regard to the requested white house call and white house meeting? the answer is yes. he says president trump wanted a public statement from president zelensky committing to investigations of burisma and the 2016 elections. we all understood that these prerequisites for the white house call and the white house meeting reflected president trump s desires and requirements. so there seems to have been no doubt whatsoever among the people who were closest and i thought sondland made a very powerful argument that it wasn t
just the three amigos. it was secretary of state pompeo, it was vice president pence. of course, he denies that. mick mulvaney, john bolton. that they were all on the same page and they all understood that the president wanted this announcement of these investigations before he was going to agree, at the very least, to a meeting. and then there s also the question of the military aid. he couldn t have been more clear about that. on the aide, he was very careful. as opposed to the white house meeting, he made it clear he thought that was the president s direct order. on the aid he said, that was my presumption, that was my assumption. that is what i believe. but he was specific and said the president never told him. although he very much came to believe that and acted on it. but the president was also conditioning military aid to these investigations that were going to be announced. one other point that i have to say i find a little incredible, hard to believe, and that is the
focus, to get the meeting. that was shared by the callings that i mentioned, correct? correct. incredibly urgent, ambassador taylor describes going to the front where ukrainians were dying in the don donbass. and you shared ambassador taylor s concern? i did. your forthright testimony, you testified, the benefit of hindsight because you couldn t piece it together. giuliani knew in real time what you were trying to figure out if you went along. is that a fair statement. i think so. you testified that you acted on the orders of the president. you acting on his orders. and you said quite explicitly there was a quid pro quo
and when you are talking about breaking the log jam you are talking about the log jam over the security assistance, correct? i was talking log jam generically. nothing was moving. that included the security assistance, did it not? correct. based on the context of that email this wasn t the first time you had discussed these investigations with secretary pompeo, was it? no. he was aware of the connections that you were making between the investigations and the white house meeting and security assistance. yes. did he ever take issue with you and say no, that connection is not there or you re wrong? not that i recall. you mentioned that you also had a conversation with vice president pence before his meeting with president zelensky in warsaw and that you raised the concern you had as well
august 29, ambassador bolton and president zelensky. september 1, vice president pence meets with president zelensky and septembes murphy and johnson meet with president zelensky. none of those meetings, none of those meetings did any linkage to security assistance dollars and an announcement or the start of any investigation ever come up. none of them. but he seems to be the one that s the most important is probably the one we have talked least about and that is the september 5 meeting. that is actually a meeting where there s it s much more congressional focused than white house focused. this is a meeting were senators murphy and johnson, bipartisan, meet with president zelensky. what s interesting is what both senators have given us letters recounting what happened.