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Gordon Sondland, Trump’s personal Amigo in Ukraine, highlighted these bullet points in riveting fashion, in his Opening Statement to Congress. I hope the GOP water-carriers are taking notes.
Number 4 is a real doosie. Well Sondland ought to know. He had his Giuliani-Trump orders (according to points 1 and 2).
[Note: the actual text for these points are also listed, at the end of this post.]
And lastly for good measure, in case the hard-of-comprehending members of the Trump coalition failed to grasp his meaning, Sondland stressed with dramatic emphasis:
”Everyone was in the loop.”
Wow.
This seem more significant than the David Holmes statement in many ways. (A statement, by the way, that Sondland just affirmed as basically accurate.)
Gordon Sondland had spelled out the Quid beforehand to Zelensky — before the July 25th phone call.
Zelensky must provide assurance to “run a fully transparent investigation” and “turn over every stone” during his upcoming call with Trump
And everyone on Team Trump knew about this — beforehand.
If this is not a classic “shakedown”, I don’t know what is.
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I was not aware until I read Ambassador Taylor's testimony of the various exchanges on September 7-8 about President Trump apparently insisting that President Zelenskyy personally go to a microphone and say he was opening investigations of the Bidens and 2016 election interference, or Mr. Yermak's message to Ambassador Sondland that President Zelenskyy was prepared to make a statement on CNN. However, Amabssador Taylor did tell me on September 8 "now they're insisting Zelenskyy commit to the investigation in an interview with CNN." I was surprise the requirement was so specific and concrete.
— David Holmes, Opening Statement to Congress.
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Turns out the Text Tab in that Transcript file DID have actual text, even though they used white font, for some odd reason. So here is that text from the graphic images above:
First, Secretary Perry, Ambassador Volker and I worked with Mr. Rudy Giuliani on Ukraine matters at the express direction of the President of the United States. We did not want to work with Mr. Giuliani. Simply put, we played the hand we were dealt. We all understood that if we refused to work with Mr. Giuliani, we would lose an important opportunity to cement relations between the United States and Ukraine. So we followed the President’s orders.
Second, although we disagreed with the need to involve Mr. Giuliani, we did not believe that his role was improper at the time. As I previously testifed, if I had known of all of Mr. Giuliani’s dealings or of his associations with individuals now under criminal indictment, I would not have acquiesced to his participation. Still, given what we knew at the time, what we were asked to do did not appear to be wrong.
Third, let me say: precisely because we did not think that we were engaging in improper behavior, we made every effort to ensure that the relevant decision makers at the National Security Council and State Department knew the important details of our efforts. The suggestion that we were engaged in some irregular or rogue diplomacy is absolutely false. I have now identified certain State Department emails and messages that provide contemporaneous support for my view. These emails show that the leadership of State, NSC, and the White House were all informed about the Ukraine efforts from May 23, 2019, until the security aid was released on September 11, 2019. I will quote from some of those messages with you shortly.
Fourth, as I testified previously, Mr. Giuliani’s requests were a quid pro quo for arranging a White House visit for President Zelensky. Mr. Giuliani demanded that Ukraine make a public statement announcing investigations of the 2016 election/DNC server and Burisma. Mr. Giuliani was expressing the desires of the President of the United States, and we knew that these investigations were important to the President.
Fifth, in July and August 2019, we learned that the White House had also suspended security aid to Ukraine. I was adamantly opposed to any suspension of aid, as the Ukrainians needed those funds to fight against Russian aggression. I tried diligently to ask why the aid was suspended, but I never received a clear answer. In the absence of any credible explanation for the suspension of aid, I later came to believe that the resumption of security aid would not occur until there was a public statement from Ukraine committing to the investigations of the 2016 election and Burisma, as Mr. Giuliani had demanded. I shared concerns of the potential quid pro quo regarding the security aid with Senator Ron Johnson. And I also shared my concerns with the Ukrainians.
And here is the take-away point:
Everyone was in the loop. It was no secret. Everyone was informed via email on July 19, days before the Presidential call. As I communicated to the team, I told President Zelensky in advance that assurances to “run a fully transparent investigation” and “turn over every stone” were necessary in his call with President Trump.
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Thanks to greenbird: for the link to the text-pdf of Sondland’s opening statement.