this is a sustained effort. a lot of people had eyes on it. we re learning today according to john bolton, a lot of people were sounding alarms. also mick mulvaney. this is the first time we re hearing this allegation that he was so involved in this. for john bolton to make this kind of statement, that mulvaney was part of this, him and rudy were working on this operation. i think that is going to change everything significantly because this goes much deeper in the white house than i think any this is the white house chief of staff now involved and this is beyond the whistle-blower. this is beyond the whistle-blower. this is this is so you have the national security the head of the national security council raising all sorts of concerns. has no control over what s going on here. right? and at a certain point donald trump can t keep saying this is just a partisan whistle-blower. oh, wait, this is just who partisan whistle-blowers. maybe three. we have more and more peo
about this. and i think that is the most significant part about this. yes, there s a lot of colorful language in this, but the fact that someone inside the white house is calling what mick mulvaney, rudy giuliani, the president here in some ways, other people, gordon sondland, are running a rogue operation. i mean, that is, to me, the most stunning that language, rogue operation, with legal implications. when you think about all the players who are in this. you ve got john r. bolton, the national security adviser. gordon sondland, who is a trump donor and ambassador to the european union who was going to testify on thursday to congress. then you ve got fiona hill today, right? and then you ve got mick mulvaney who is acting white house chief of staff. you ve got rudy giuliani, the president s personal attorney. now, just i just want to read this. and just tell me what you think
hear what john bolton s going to have to say if we ever hear from him. if we do, i don t think president trump can trust he s going to bite his tongue and hold anything back. also gordon sondland. the trump donor turned ambassador to the european union who was working with rudolph w. giuliani, the president s personal lawyer, to press ukraine to investigate democrats, according to testimony provided to investigators. gordon sondland is going to testify. they re going to want to know about that. yeah, that s exactly right. mr. sondland has already started to put some distance between himself and the president. you remember these text messages that came out basically saying that the people who were working on this ukraine scandal wanted a deliverable in order to get a meeting between the white house and the ukrainian president. and that deliverable included trying to get the ukrainians to announce an investigation into president trump s political rivals. i think one other thing tha
says that according to today s testimony, bolton told fiona hill to tell the white house lawyers that i am not part of whatever drug deal rudy and mulvaney are cooking up. and we re also learning more about mick mulvaney involvement and how he is working with giuliani. what do you make of that? well, again, it s high officials going against government policy. they are the government. they re supposed to set the policy and carry out the president s wishes. but, of course, that s where it stops, at the top, it s the president s wishes. quite clearly according to the smoking transcript. it s not the tape. but it was released by the white house. and we read that the president says do us a favor. and it s quite clear that he tried to put the arm on the ukrainians to dig up dirt on the bidens to use against biden in an election here in the united states. if people out in the country
terms of what bolton was seeing. in the new york times story it says it s not the first time that bolton expressed concerns over rudy giuliani and giuliani being part of this. i think, frank, what he was saying obviously he thought something nefarious was going on, something that was unusual. right. because sort of this back door operation. right. he doesn t mean drug deal, per se. he means what s going on is so ridiculous, so beyond the pale he s comparing it to a drug deal. i do wonder, though, what administration did john bolton think he was joining? you know, his shock here is well-earned shock and we should all be shocked. we should be appalled by what s going on. but the idea he didn t expect to see this, he must have been sleeping through the trump administration prior to his appointment. you know, this reminds me, though, of the interview, the abc interview with george stephanopoulos when the president said it was okay to dig up political dirt on his political