Taylor. The news was first reported by the Washington Post which reports that sondlands language in the text was relayed to him directly by trump in a phone call, according to a person familiar with his testimony. For the Washington Post, he also plans to testify that he has no knowledge of whether the president was telling him the truth. That at that moment, its only true that the president said it, not that it was the truth. Well, joining me now to discuss, david corn, msnbc political analyst and coauthor of russian roulette. Cynthia oxney and paul butler, both former federal prosecutors and legal analysts. David . Well your thoughts . This is a classic case of someone jumping off the ship before he believes the ship goes down because hes out there saying the president told me something. I dont know if it was true, and it makes it look like theres a conspiracy and im kind of didnt really know what was going on. Theres a lot of what he says that can be contradicted by facts. Hes still in trouble. The ship may be going down, and its far off far away fromju. Into an ocean thats roiling and he has a long way to swim before he gets back to shore. This is not good for trump. If he and others start defying the white house and actually abiding by the law and testifying in front of congress charge. Don mcgahn wouldnt testify. The white house has been trying to hold the line. Nobody says anything. This guy is worrying about his own reputation now. He still wants to be a Hotel Magnate when this is all done and thats why hes doing this. Before i go to eagles on this, sondland, if you talk to a lot of republican sources, and ive had republican sources say it to me, that the line is going to be no quid pro quo. That was the line that went out in their talking points. Thats what everyone has been saying. Now what were learning, it seems to me from sondland is that line was literally delivered to sondland by donald trump. The question being is that what he was being told to say as a cover story or was that the truth. He doesnt know the answer to that. Bill taylor, the diplomat who this text is with is saying theres a quid pro quo happening here. He says theres a quid pro quo. Once sondland goes to trump and says, hey, theres something happening here, trump says theres no quid pro quo. Its already happened. This is trumps cover story. Its again, this is gaslighting. If you read the quasi transcript that came out, can you give me missiles, id like you to do me a favor. So there is a quid pro quo. The were staring at it its right in our face. So sondland will show if he testifies that trump was reacting to thed before it became public. The important thing being, right, the though is what seems to be the quo, right . Quo equals though. First you, cynthia. On the question of whether or not the white house can actually stop mr. Sondland from saying this to congress, whether he can stop him from testifying, because isnt it the law that if he is subpoenaed to testify, he must show up because others have pretended thats not the law. He has to show up. And whats happened in the past is people have been havent wanted to show up and theyve hidden behind the talking points of trump and then they dont show up and congress hasnt done enough about it to force it. So fortunately, ambassador yovanovitch who is a strong woman just said screw you guys. Im going. Takes a woman, man. Im going. Stop me and strolled herself right in the front hall and dared them to try and stop her and they didnt. On this you know, on sondland, before you get carried away that hes some great truth teller and is going to solve the day, this guy is not a great witness. He gives us some stuff on trump but hes still pretending that he didnt know what happened. Complete mystery to him what happened. Even though of course he knew. They were discussing it in june and july. And taylor, the ambassador who is the only one that seems to understand what theyre talking about is wrong says this cant be done. I quit. He uses the language that this is completely wrong. He says it directly to sondland. By the way, this is part of the defense apparently. It was not a quid pro it was a quid pro quo but not a corrupt one. This is the person who is familiar with sondlands testimony that his testimony will be that it was a quid pro quo, but not a corrupt one. Im going to go to you on this one. Is there such thing as a noncorrupt quid pro quo, legally . Remember the ukraine. They are very vulnerable to russia. They depend on u. S. Military aid for their survival as a nation state. And so when the president says, if you dont help me with my campaign, then im not going to give you the funds that you need to maintain your country to maintain your security, to not get taken over by the russians. Thats a corrupt quid pro quo. One question is, why is why is he doing this . He is the ambassador to the european community. Ukraine is not part of the European Union so why did trump outsource this task of deal with the ukraines, of trying to get this, again, trying to get help for his Political Campaign to sondland . Apparently he knew sondland would get the job done and that i totally agree with cynthia that sondland is not going to be a hero in this impeachment. Just one other piece here that this is, according to the Washington Post reporting. The call between sondland and trump lasted less than five minutes. Trump appeared to be in a foul mood according to the person who spoke to the post. Im not sure how thats different than normal. And that also the nbc news reporting on this as of last night is that the individual with knowledge of this testimony said sondland didnt doubt the president or he wouldnt have reassured taylor. But the source said sondland had no independent knowledge of whether or not there was a quid pro quo and military aid was being withheld by the administration. But we know it was withheld and that Donald Trumps acting chief of staff did it. The trump card here, no pun intended here, is Rudy Giuliani. And sondland was in touch with Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani says he was more in touch and sondland says he was less in touch. After 30 seconds of talking to Rudy Giuliani, you cant sniff out that something is up here . Rudy giuliani was obsessed with the biden thing. Now trump was obsessed with the server, the whole Conspiracy Theory that ukraine somehow had the democratic servers and the russians hadnt attacked and it was the dnc that hacked themselves. It would take us two hours to go through this. Giuliani was obsessed with getting biden. So its almost inconceivable that sondland had any series of conversations with giuliani and that did not come up. And so now hes playing dumb. I still think hes not a hero, but hes a really bad witness on the trump side. Hes a bad witness but even in the transcript we have evidence he did know. Bill taylor telling him. He talks about how he spoke with zelensky and he gets it. And trump wants the deliverables. So thats in the transcript. Let me say one thing about this quid pro quo question. You could have a perfectly lawful quid pro quo. It could be, you have to do this for your country and you have to do this for our country, right . Thats thats a legal thats what Foreign Policy is all about. I have no problem with that. The problem with this one is, you have to do something for me and my campaign, for donald trump, in return. And there is no way that could ever be legal. I want to get in on that more. Paul butler, were talking essentially about conspiracy. Thats the point here. That this is allegedly a conspiracy between Rudy Giuliani, these two nefarious sort of guys out in the ether that he was working for and with to try to dig up this dirt on joe bidens son. Make up this dirt. Not dig up. Make up. Youre absolutely right and thats a fair correction. And apparently bringing in this sort of faux diplomat, mr. Sondland, who is really a trump crony brought in to be a diplomat. And the people being excised from it, the people who wouldnt play ball were the real diplomats, the ambassador. The career diplomat wouldnt do it. If people didnt play ball, they were out of it. Is that in and of itself the fact that career diplomats who knew better taylor and ms. Yovanovitch, were being pushed out the door . Is that proof they were trying to just keep it to the people willing to be part of the conspiracy . It is certainly consciousness of guilt and proof of the manner they were doing it. Let me say this about conspiracies. The more people in the experience and the more people with big mouths and big egos less likely it is to stay in. And in this one, what do we have . We have trump. Big ego. Big mouth. Giuliani, big ego, big mouth. Sondland has a business to protect. And hes willing to throw trump under the bus but not willing to admit his own. It wont be long until giuliani is pointing at sondland and sondland is pointing at giuliani and thats the way this will unravel. He busted the mafia back in new york when he or the Southern District of new york, assuming hes now in jeopardy. Paul butler, im going to go out with this with you. Giuliani and donald trump had a lunch. Sort of seen as a show of support because there is a concern now that everyone will start trying to protect themselves. That people will Start Talking because they fear their only legal liability and the only person that give someone up higher than himself is donald trump. Yes. If giuliani is relying on trumps loyalty, giuliani might want to talk to Michael Cohen. He might want to talk to sessions. He might want to talk to a whole bunch of people who apparently believe that trump would protect them but when push came to shove, trump looks out for donald trump. And, in fact, we have these associates of giuliani who have been indicted. And theyve got this weird series of connections. And sometimes giulianis giants, other times theyre helping him with his cases. Other times theyre donating lots of money to concerns like trumps superpacs and inauguration committee. Other times theyre broke, they dont have a lot of money. So its really weird like where these guys are getting this money. It seems extremely nefarious. And if they are that tight with giuliani, and if theyre exposed, then a prosecutor is going to say, you want to make a deal . Give the stuff on giuliani and then if giuliani gets caught up, prosecutors are going to go to giuliani. You want to make a deal, give us the big guy. Were going to stop it. Were going to take a quick commercial break and pay the bills. Well be right back and continue this conversation next. Work so hard give it everything you got strength of a lioness tough as a knot rocking the stage and we never gonna stop all strength, no sweat. Just in case you forgot all strength. No sweat secret. All strength. No sweat. I feel pressure when i talk to your foreign minister. He pressures me all the time. Its totally appropriate. Right . Isnt that right . Yeah, its totally right. Go ahead and say it. You can admit it. Its okay. Its completely right. Nations do this. Nations Work Together and they say, boy, goodness gracious. If you can help me with x, well help you achieve y. This is what partnerships do. Its win win. No, thats not true. The folks at trump world seem to be at odds about quid pro quos. Secretary of state saying its totally appropriate whereas donald trump denies any quid pro quo. And now breaking overnight, we have a Washington Post reporting that Gordon Sondland, the u. S. Ambassador to the eu will testify to congress on thursday that he worked with Rudy Giuliani to get ukraine to investigate, quote unquote corruption in exchange for a white house meeting. According to a person familiar with sondlands planned testimony it was a quid pro quo, but not a corrupt one. David, cynthia, paul back with me. David, this idea that this is how it works, youve covered a lot of International News and the way that it works. This is not how it works. No, no, and cynthia mentioned this earlier. You can have a legitimate quid pro quo in Foreign Policy. You send troops here. Its easier for you to do that and well replenish your supplies or well make a call to this other country on your behalf. Its policy. Its trading policy. Its not trading political favors and digging up dirt on your enemy. So pompeo making up dirt. Making up dirt. So thats where this is completely wrong and it also might violate civil laws. It also might lead to a conspiracy. To your very point of making up conspiracies because the two things they want, and we talk a lot about the dirt they wanted dug up or pretended or made up about the bidens, the other thing they want is to prove a Conspiracy Theory. This is almost like donald trump saying he was going to send investigators to hawaii saying he was going to prove birtherism which was equally crazy, which is true. He wanted to use the resources of another country. Their version of william barr to go after and try to pretend this Conspiracy Theory was true. This is now this is why hes going to be impeached. Absolutely. And i guess the question then is, if there is a real quid pro quo, which is policy for policy, if this is now policy for favors for me, including making up information about an opponent and also pretending a Conspiracy Theory is real, is that a crime . Yes. Thats definitely a crime. What is the crime . First of all, its an abuse of power which is its basically all we need. Its an abuse of power. Its the coverup with taking this call and hiding it on the supersecret server. And its obstruction. Its also a Campaign Finance violation. Youre saying, i want something of value. I want you to make this up. Even if nothing ever comes back, i want you to churn and make it look like something. And thats going to help me and my campaign. Thats something of value for which Michael Cohen is in jail. It is similar to the Stormy Daniels situation which was that what donald trump wanted in getting these payments done to Stormy Daniels was assistance for his campaign to tamp down what would have been a negative story. Thats the thing thats of value. In this case, the thing thats of value is if they can find somewhere, a hat to hang their Conspiracy Theory on, and if they can dig up dirt on a potential opponent, thats the thing about it. Is that what gets us the thing that frustrated us about the Mueller Investigation was they couldnt put a fine point on what the crime would be of the obstruction. One thing mueller did say was that soliciting Oppo Research from a Foreign National is a violation of federal criminal law. He wasnt sure he could prove criminal intent in the russia investigation. Now everyone is on notice that its illegal. It looks like trumps defense is going to be, well, i was asking just that they take a look at corruption and investigate corruption and, by that, he doesnt mean he will say his own political concerns. He means corruption that was going on in the ukraine. For the Campaign Finance violation, there does have to be a quid pro quo, but if there is, it makes it look even sleazier because then its an obvious shakedown. And for that, these Text Messages are super incriminating evidence because not only do we have the ambassador saying, as i said to you on the telephone, its crazy that were holding up military aid in exchange for you helping out donald trump with his campaign. As i said to you on the telephone, meaning they had an earlier conversation about this, when apparently nobody contra dicted the ambassador to say theres not a quid pro quo. As you pointed out, joy, it took five hours later before they get back and say, oh, the president says theres not a quid pro quo. Therefore, its not a quid pro quo. In that same call, though, trump said im not asking ukraine for anything, and we know thats a boldfaced lie. Hes doing everything to get the ukrainians to investigate the bidens and to investigate the origins of the Russian Investigation based on that bizarre Conspiracy Theory that the ukraine had something to do with that investigation into donald trump. Just to be clear, the Russian Investigation started because the fbi and the Justice Department had concerns that donald trump was a double agent, that he was working for the russians. Thats why the Russian Investigation started. I want to state for one moment because theres also this idea of the unindicted coconspirator. What were hearing paul describe, sounds like a conspiracy to commit a Campaign Finance violation because the only possible beneficiary of this fake dirt and of this insane Conspiracy Theory would be donald trump and his campaign. Now you have these four men. You handed me this indictment here. Lev parnas and igor fruman and two other men who are now indicted. Do we now have a Michael Cohenlike situation where the two people the three people not names here but who are involved are Rudy Giuliani, donald trump well, at least Rudy Giuliani and donald trump at minimum. And william barr who is also names in the transcrypt as saying work with giuliani and are those three in legal jeopardy . Giuliani looks like hes in legal jeopardy. Trump isnt in legal jeopardy because he cant be indicted while hes president. Something that has to come out on thursday