before trump had that phone call with zlaensky. so, he s been a critical part of the president s strategy towards ukraine, which has involved pressuring ukraine to play ball on the corruption allegations. look, there s some text messages we could go through here. and let s take a look at them. there were three of them given to committees by former u.s. special envoy to ukraine, kurt volker, who you just mentioned. september 1st, ambassador bill taylor s asked whether security assistance is conditioned on investigations. ambassador sondland says call me. eight days later, taylor says he thinks it s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign. sondland responds the president has been crystal clear, no quid pro quos of any kind. what s your take on this? well, sondland actually followed up on that text message, saying, let s take this offline. mm-hmm, mm-hmm. let s not continue this on
white house says there s nothing to see here and there was really no concerns, everything was a perfect phone call, we know at least one diplomat really thought that was not the case. this is a guy named bill taylor. he was the top u.s. diplomat in ukraine, and he in a text message to another u.s. diplomat, ambassador to the eu, gordon sondland, was saying, as i said on the phone, i think it s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a presidential campaign. and ambassador sondland, who s a presidential appointee, says bill, i believe you re incorrect about president trump s intentions. the president has been crystal clear, no quid pro quos of any kind . but then he says i suggest we stop the back and forth by text. so indications that they didn t want to put too much in writing. josh, that means these can be very problematic for the president or no? can he get out from this? well, i think the fact that you have a career diplomat pushing back in realtime,
these texts was like my middle school cafeteria going like, ooh, busted. they re busted. because here s the thing, the texts unmask that they were up to no good, all right? they document what were essentially several quid pro quos they were lining up. the ukrainians had to deliver something tangible in exchange for trump s support. it wasn t just a favor as trump phrases it. the quote is from one of the diplomats i think the president really wants a deliverable but even more than that above the actual wrongdoing in the text the thing so damning about these texts is the consciousness of guilt that hangs over them. and this is kwee to me, this is actually key. they knew what they were doing was wrong, and they were trying to keep it secret. on september 1st, okay, we re just going to go through a few.
he says that text totally exonerated him. the president has been crystal clear, no quid pro quos. that shortly came to a crashing end soon thereafter when ron johnson went to the wall street journal with a story that he thought was helping. he said that same guy at the state department, gordon sonlan, told him he was a little worried because it seemed like there was a quid pro quo being demanded by president trump when it came to ukraine. gordon sondland described to him a quid pro quo. the release of the u.s. aid to ukraine was contingent on an investigation desired by president trump and his allies. he told the washington journal in detail, the conversation happened on the phone, on a
it was right after that, within hours, that bill taylor sent this text back home to washington. saying, are we now saying that security assistance and white house meetings are conditioned on investigations? the state department official responded by saying, call me. in a week he was still pressing the point. they responded hours later with an officious, lawyerly statement about how president trump had been crystal clear. no quid pro quos of any kind. bill, i believe you are incorrect about president trump s intentions. president trump himself today seized on that particular text message in his remarks to reporters when he was talking about his impeachment woes.