do him a political favor. as far as i am concerned, it is abuse of power. i know you disagree with him. how is he wrong, how is it not abuse of power? i would tell tom ridge and anybody else they can t look at this in isolation, you have to look at it in context, what matters is the actual record. the president didn t ask zelensky to do him a favor, he said do us a favor, it is an important word, obscured in the judiciary hearing of the 14 hour marathon hearing, had to correct the record over and over. the context was he made sure the treasure of taxpayers was not spent overseas. that s why they re regarded the third most corrupt nation in the world. he wanted to be sure this would be done right, if zelensky that ran as a swamp drainer to clean up corruption, if he was legitimate. ultimately the president concluded he was and aid was released. all right. just so we re clear, this would set a precedent were a president
president which zelensky wanted to show the ukrainians he was serious and the russians. here is gordon sondland making that point. was there a quid pro quo? as i testified previously with regard to the requested white house call and the white house meeting, the answer is yes. that s a first person witness. had conversations with president trump. there was a quid pro quo, he said. the rest of the context is that is based on his conjecture, speculation, his assumption. the direct evidence in the record, he said he asked the president on the telephone, september 9th i think it was, what do you want from ukraine. the president said i want nothing, i want no quid pro quo. i want zelensky to do the right thing. again, he wanted to ensure zelensky would be the reformer to clean it up, if we re going to spend precious taxpayer dollars there, they ll be spent well. after the whistle-blower came forward, aid was released, and
in 2014 with bar is ma. first time trump talked about it was last year. you haven t seen the transcript of all his calls either. he talked consistently how he feels the election was there was meddling, there was effort by foreigners to go against him. everybody thought 2016 was messed up, both sides of the aisle. that s what s in his mind. as a lawyer, we have the intent behind the offender. what was in trump s mind. the transcript is clear and evidence has come out since, shows zelensky said clearly he didn t feel pressure, there was no pressure. they didn t know aid was delayed. that s not true. came out in testimony a pentagon official said they got a message from ukrainians where is the military aid, july 25th, same day as the phone call. deep state of ukraine, okay. this is the government of ukraine wanted to know where it
president trump according to gordon sondland said no quid pro quo, no quid pro quo, i don t want anything from zelensky, after it was raised in public whether it was a quid pro quo. yes. and sondland was asked, this is not as noticed, he was asked did you believe president trump. let s roll that sound. and you believe the president, correct? you know what, i m not going to characterize whether i believed or didn t believe, i was just trying to convey what he said on the phone. seems like it would be a simple answer if you believe that president trump meant it. well, it should, maybe he should have answered it directly. we have sondland s testimony. what we saw in the judiciary committee, you have to take all of sondland, not little pieces. and the only direct evidence of men s ray a, intent, was on the phone call. that s the problem the democrats have. they promised impeachment by christmas. that s why we re having this conversation now. what they should have done in
was. zelensky was a reformer that came in, he was railing against the establishment in ukraine, had their own set of circumstances like we do. there were people, our understanding from transcript and evidence, there were people within the administration who didn t necessarily have zelensky s best interest in mind because he was going to drain the swamp. all of the details are important. you have to look at the facts, not little bits of it in isolation. it is the whole record that s important. one of the questions is president trump took office in january, 2017 and at no point did he pressure that we know president pore shank oh throughout 2018 doesn t pressure him. joe biden announces he is running for president, in july he is pressuring ukraine to look. let s run this out. it is specific to ukraine. it is not i want you to get rid of corruption. any americans, this is president trump on october 3rd, asked what did you want from zelensky in the phone call. let s run that sound. i