In her opening statement deputy assistant defense secretary Laura Cooper
announced that her staff had located two emails indicating that not
just officials in the United States, but officials at the Ukrainian
Embassy, expressed concern about the military assistance hold on July
25. That’s the same day that Donald Trump placed his call to Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelensky. What this means is that Zelensky could
very well have been fully aware that Trump had placed a hold on that
assistance at the time of the call.
Much of the GOP's defense of
Trump is based on the pretense that the Ukrainians were unaware of the
hold on assistance until it became public knowledge at the end of
August. But Cooper is the first to indicate that the Ukrainians were
already aware of the hold at the time Trump talked with Zelensky. That
means that when Trump was asking for investigations into Hillary Clinton
and Joe Biden, he was not only doing so while withholding defense
funding from Ukraine, they knew it.
Cooper’s testimony, and that of other witnesses, completely takes the “Ukraine didn’t even know” claim off the table.
Following
that key testimony, Ambassador Sondland showed up, and proceeded to
drop several bombs--throwing Trump, Pompeo, and Mulvaney under the
proverbial bus: Gordon Sondland testified there WAS a quid pro quo, that
a he was ORDERED to 'talk to Rudy,' and says Bidens probe was to
benefit the president.
In his opening statement, Sondland
implicated top officials including Donald Trump, Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo, former National Security Adviser John Bolton and Vice President
Mike Pence
"They knew what we were doing and why," Sondland said as he plainly asserted, "Everyone was in the loop. It was no secret."
Sondland
elaborated further, saying "They knew what we were doing and why.
Everyone was in the loop. It was no secret." And he said flat-out there
was a 'quid pro quo' at work.
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