The Times today has a report on…how shall we say it?…
…
Gordon Sondland’s sudden rush of shit to the heart when he realized that credible testimony to the impeachment inquiry placed him squarely in the crosshairs for a perjury charge:
In the addendum, Mr. Sondland said he had “refreshed my recollection” after reading the testimony given by Mr. Taylor and Timothy Morrison, the senior director for Europe and Russia at the National Security Council.
What does this suddenly repaired memory reveal about Trump’s Ukraine conspiracy?
The disclosure from Gordon D. Sondland, the United States ambassador to the European Union, in four new pages of sworn testimony released on Tuesday, confirmed his involvement in essentially laying out a quid pro quo* to Ukraine that he had previously not acknowledged.
“I said that resumption of the U.S. aid would likely not occur until Ukraine provided the public anticorruption statement that we had been discussing for many weeks,” Mr. Sondland said in the document, which was released by the House committees leading the inquiry, along with the transcript of his original testimony from last month.
Oh. And if you’re a Trumpanzee…Shit.
Nothing about this is good for Trump, nor, really Sondland himself, who is now seen by more or less everyone as an untrustworthy hack now on the record with a story that kills any chance for help from Trumpworld. But at least he’s dodged the most immediate personal legal threat. For now.
I think I’m in agreement with the Shitgibbon on this one matter at least: let’s focus on the substance, shall we?
ETA: Also, as a twitterer reminded me, enough with the “quid pro quo” cutesy crap. Trump and his team were extorting a foreign leader to produce false material about a political opponent in service of Trump’s reelection. That’s not the rough and tumble of bargaining between nations. It’s straight up Mafia thuggery: “Nice country you got here. Shame if something happened to it.” This isn’t (just) an impeachable offense. It’s a crime, and Trump and his aides are as-yet-unindicted mobsters
Open thread.
Image: Vincent van Gogh, Two Rats, 1884
“Refreshed My Recollection” Is The New “Oh Shit”Post + Comments (46)