This Week In Exposing Trump's Sins Part 146: The Quids And the Quos Meet the Pros

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How bad has trump's week been going so far?

His daily helicopter screamfest to the media had to come with notes handwritten in 60 point font size.

And oh GOD, someone put the lyrics to a Ramones backbeat.

It does not help trump or his Republican lackeys when it got out this week from key testimony on Tuesday - from Lt. Colonel Vindman, State Dept. official to the VP's office Williams, Special envoy to Ukraine Volker, and NSC advisor Morrison - that trump's dealings with Ukraine were to cut off aid to that nation in order to squeeze their newly elected President Zelensky into publicly announcing questionable investigations into the Biden family.

It especially hurt to have Volker - who Republicans hoped to be on trump's side of the investigation - confirm some of the details of the scandal and that trump's actions looked "inappropriate" and indefensible.

It really hurt because Volker provided more links to Gordon Sondland, supposedly the Ambassador to the EU but had been a major part of trump's outreach to Ukraine (nowhere near Sondland's orbit of responsibility). So with Sondland in the crosshairs, rather than take the fall into traffic Sondland took control of the dumptruck and proceeded to drive all over trump, Pence, Sec of State Pompeo, Rick Perry, Chief of Staff Mulvaney, Rudy Giuliani, and random Red Shirt guy who got beamed down to the planet to demonstrate how dangerous the episode was. To quote the Vox article from Zack Beauchamp:

Sondland’s testimony, which kicked off Wednesday’s impeachment hearings, lays out a clear timeline of Trump’s attempts to pressure Ukraine into investigating former Vice President Joe Biden. And it leaves absolutely no doubt as to what was going on.

“I know that members of this committee have frequently framed these complicated issues in the form of a simple question: Was there a ‘quid pro quo?’” Sondland says. “The answer is yes...”

With just that one paragraph, Sondland gave evidence that confirmed the Quid (Ukraine military aid) and the Quo (sham investigations into Hunter Biden) had a Pro (everyone from trump on down was working the scam behind closed doors until the Whistleblower kicked them open). Back to Beauchamp:

Sondland’s testimony also makes clear this was not some kind of rogue operation masterminded by Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani alone. He provides extensive documentation, including contemporary emails and text messages, showing that his own personal efforts in service of arranging the quid pro pro were authorized at the highest levels of the administration...

This is it. It’s the ballgame. Sondland’s testimony is the whole scandal in a nutshell: It makes clear that the president of the United States masterminded a conspiracy to use US foreign policy as a tool to cement his own hold on power...

The timeline of the scandal as described in Sondland’s testimony begins on May 23, three days after President Zelensky’s inauguration. Sondland had attended the inauguration in his official capacity and, on May 23, met with Trump to brief him on the new Ukrainian leadership.

The meeting, which included other US officials who worked on Ukraine, didn’t go as planned. Sondland and his team were attempting to arrange a meeting between Trump and Zelensky, which the latter badly wanted as a sign of his political strength. But Trump kept trying to force them to work with Rudy.

“President Trump directed us to ‘talk with Rudy.’ We understood that ‘talk with Rudy’ meant talk with Mr. Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer,” Sondland said. “We could abandon the efforts to schedule the White House phone call and White House visit between Presidents Trump and Zelensky, which was unquestionably in our foreign policy interest — or we could do as President Trump had directed and ‘talk with Rudy.’ We chose the latter course, not because we liked it, but because it was the only constructive path open to us...”

But the key issue here is not Sondland’s own culpability. It’s the president’s and the White House’s. And on that front, Sondland is relatively credible — he’s testifying against his own interest, as he’s still the US ambassador to the EU and thus serves at the pleasure of the president. What’s more, some of his testimony here is supported by email and text records.

So after meeting with Trump, Sondland’s testimony goes on to say, he began working with two other high-level US officials — Secretary of Energy Rick Perry and US Ambassador to Ukraine Kurt Volker — on coordinating the Trump-Zelensky meeting and other Ukraine issues. Perry and Volker were in charge of communicating directly with Giuliani, according to Sondland, but it becomes clear through these contacts that Giuliani is communicating the president’s desire for a meeting-for-investigations quid pro quo.

For example, in a July 10 White House meeting on Ukraine policy, Sondland testifies, “I recall mentioning the prerequisite of investigations before any White House call or meeting.” On July 19, Sondland sends an email to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, White House acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, and other high-level officials in the Trump administration documenting his work in arranging a quid pro quo — an exchange of hosting Zelensky at the White House for the investigations Trump wanted...

The Ukrainians were fully aware of this. Sondland cites an August 10 text from Andriy Yermak, a high-ranking aide to Zelensky, as proof. In that message, Yermak commits to holding a press conference — a key demand of Giuliani and Trump’s — that would announce investigations into “Burisma and election meddling...”

Other witnesses on Wednesday confirmed the Ukrainians awareness: Contacts from both State and the Pentagon (DoD) testified to their Ukrainian connections asking repeatedly why their needed military aid against Russia's border war with them was being delayed so long.

Everything here is a Quid Pro Quo. Or, if you want to describe this in modern legal terms, bribery and extortion.

And yes, Laura Ingraham, bribery - and the punishment for it - is in the Constitution.

Granted, there's more testimony to come - there's a key one going on RIGHT NOW with Fiona Hill already tearing trump and his corrupt administration a new hole - but there's enough here already to begin straight-up impeachment counts in committee and passing it on for a floor vote in U.S. House. We impeached Clinton on less, for God's sake.

But let's be realistic as well. There is no Smoking Gun moment like in Watergate when Republican Senators went to Nixon and told him "It's over, we can't back you." Today's Republican party leadership is craven and greedy and amoral to the point of immorality. Given the option of removing trump to get Pence installed - even as Pence is facing impeachment charges as well - the GOP has instead double-downed on defending the Shitgibbon all the way... even as his leadership has them flying off the cliffs to rocky doom below.

The best thing about these impeachment hearings is the Truth: Real Truth as based on Fact. The facts are trump is corrupt, that he is using foreign policy to extort personal and political favors from allies, that he is coordinating ANOTHER campaign to subvert the 2020 elections with fake scandal and constant lies, that everything Mueller could prove in his Report was real (Mueller just couldn't find the Pro between the Quid and the Quo).

These Facts are out here now. Democrats know full well the demons they're up against and now there's documentation backing them up. Republicans have to defend an indefensible argument, and defend an openly corrupt regime.

This all matters in one way: The 2020 Elections. trump and the GOP can try to avoid accountability all they want, but they STILL have to convince voters to keep them in power. It's up to us, every American registered to vote, every American who NEED to vote, to go to the ballots in 2020 and KICK. EVERY. CORRUPT. REPUBLICAN BASTARD. OUT. OF. OFFICE.

Elections matter, America. PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, it is up to YOU to stop trump from dragging us deeper into Hell.