do me a favor though, and lists the things he wants. also, what do you think about sondland s credibility? he says he s not a notetaker. he said maybe his memory isn t the best and needed to be refreshed. everyone remembering different pieces of it in different ways, coming back and with sondland editing or adding bits and pieces to the testimony that makes it hard to unpack the order of events. sondland himself candidly says he doesn t have notes. he s not a notetaker guy. he said that openly. and didn t have access to e-mails and records that might help him recreate some of the memories. he essentially is acknowledging this as he comes before congress. i talk to world leaders all the time, this is what i do, according to sondland. i may not remember the details of the calls. because there are so many calls. you watch him and it s hard
said that there are records of these emails. there are text messages. and you know, i think and that he doesn t even have access to them. and was denied access to some of them. i think it s true the best defense is yeah we did it, but, you know, it s not such a big deal. but i think it gets harder and harder if the democrats are able to get access to the documents. one thing on the naming names by the way and to your point gloria about dropping all the people in. i believes since this happened today both pompeo and pence issued a denial of the claims that sondland made in his testimony. and so, you know, to the extent he was trying to make it seem like the gang was all in on it at least a couple of folks say we don t agree with that. which i think is noteworthy. you have members of the administration saying another member of the administration is not saying something accurate testimony. i loved it when twice he sort of proudly said that, you know not a note taker never have b
holmes, the senior u.s. embassy official in ukraine who overheard that phone conversation between the president and ambassador sondland at that restaurant in kiev. so i think david holmes is going to be interesting because gordon sondland toll us yesterday he s not a note taker. david holmes is a note taker. and he was shocked by that conversation. he went back, he memorialized it. and we re going to hear exactly he was able to overhear exactly what was said. and you know what the attack is going to be on him. you heard it from the republican counsel yesterday. in that deposition he was so enthusiastic. he probably never heard a presidential phone call before. and he was so eager to report out this bad information against trump. and castor made the point that a lot of these witnesses coming forward in his judgment are resolving inconsistencies or tension or things they don t quite remember in the least favorable light. but this is where there s
saying, you never had a conversation directly with the president. again, no defense. if there was a defense, these people would be coming forward. one of the things also striking about david holmes was the level of detail in everything he talked about. gordon sondland yesterday said he wasn t a notetaker, david holmes is a notetaker. practically verbatim description of how the two tables were put together. why it s so important, if you look back at sondland s testimony, how many times did he say, i don t remember, at a very specific point in his testimony. whenever it got close to the president, donald trump, everything was very vague. to your point about these other officials coming in, and where is john bolton, you cannot lie to congress. one of the problems were these people who were first hand for
zelensky to look into the bidens. neither request had been included in the official talking points for the call prepared by the nfc staff but both were in donald trump s personal interest and the interests of his 2020 reelection campaign. and the ukrainian president knew about both in advance in part because of efforts by ambassador sondland and volker to make him aware of president trump s demands. the next day july 26, in kiev, holmes served as a note taker during a meeting between acting ambassador bill taylor, volker and sondland with president zelensky and other senior ukraine officials. zelensky said on the previous day s call said that on the previous day s call president trump had quote three times raised some very sensitive issues that he would have to follow up on those issues when they met in person. although he did not realize it