So what if the sole impeachment witness who initially denied there was a quid pro quo suddenly remembered that, actually, he delivered the quid pro quo and updated his testimony to reflect that? After Gordon Sondland, Trump's ambassador to the E.U., had his quid pro quo epiphany Tuesday upon reading the accounts of other Trump officials, Senate Republicans fell all over themselves to say it didn't matter one bit to them.
Trump sycophant Sen. Lindsey Graham, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, told reporters he wouldn't even bother to read any of the transcripts, Sondland's reversal included. "I've written the whole process off," Graham said. "I think this is a bunch of B.S." Ignorance sure is bliss when the leader of your party is G-U-I-L-T-Y of the very quid pro quo you once said was a red line.
GOP Majority Leader Mitch McConnell assured reporters that if the vote were held today, "it would not lead to a removal" of Trump. From there, GOP responses all just went to sh*t, frankly.
Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa: "What difference does it make? This is all out in the public, with the [summary] the president put out two or three months ago. It doesn’t make any difference what anybody else said." You tell 'em, Grassley—who cares if the president sold out U.S. national security for a personal political favor.
Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota: ”Neither the president of Ukraine or the president of the United States says there’s a quid pro quo or that there was pressure applied. Does everybody else’s opinion matter if the supposed victim wasn’t victimized?” Exactly, President Zelensky surely felt free to be honest about being pressured after Trump previously withheld $400 million in lifesaving aid from Ukraine on a whim.
If you're noticing a theme here around everyone staying laser focused on the rough transcript of the July 25 call while ignoring absolutely everything else, that's the new Trump-driven Senate GOP strategy: Just focus on the call. As if the call wasn't a mobster-style shakedown of a foreign leader
What that means is that Senate Republicans are now giving their imprimatur to Trump harming national security in pursuit of his own political goals. Remember what Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman told Congress in his testimony? He was immediately concerned by Trump's ask on the call because involving Ukraine in U.S. domestic politics would surely hurt the country's ability to defend itself against Russian aggression. But Republicans, the supposed party of national security, couldn't care less that Trump is brazenly compromising U.S. interests abroad. They’re more committed to donning their blinders in order to win reelection than they are to ensuring the safety of the country.
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