Sondland Confirms That the Whole Point of Trump's Attempted Extortion Was to Smear Joe Biden
November 21st 2019
Gordon Sondland - Caricature (DonkeyHotey)
By Dartagnan (of the Daily Kos community)
Watching Gordon Sondland testify on Wednesday morning, one sentence immediately leapt out. As Talking Points Memo notes, Sondland demolished, in one sentence, the entire defense of Donald Trump’s thuggish attempt to extort phony “dirt” on former Vice-President Joe Biden—namely the assertion that the most thoroughly corrupt president in the modern era was simply interested in “rooting out corruption.”
Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland confirmed publicly on Wednesday that Ukraine announcing investigations advantageous to President Trump’s political interests was more important than the investigations themselves.
Sondland’s testimony could not have been clearer—even the Trump administration believed that the so-called “allegations” about Hunter Biden were a load of garbage. The only purpose of this extortion was to generate a huge talking point that Trump could hammer over and over again ...along the path to reelection.
“But he had to get these two investigations if that official act was going to take place, correct?” Schiff asked, referencing probes into the 2016 election and Burisma, a gas company that former Vice President Joe Biden’s formerly sat on. The “official act” referenced a working meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“He had to announce the investigations, he didn’t actually have to do them, as I understood it,” Sondland said.
The announcement had to be “public,” but the investigations themselves? Meh, don’t bother.
Why not? Because there was never any “there” there. But, boy wouldn’t Fox News, Breitbart, Drudge and all of the other rightwing garbage spewers that pollute the minds of the American electorate have had a field day?
It could have been the 2020 equivalent of “but her emails!”—and, in theory, just enough to carry Trump over the imagined line against his imagined opponent in those swing states. If only those meddling State Department bureaucrats would have kept their mouths shut. If only they hadn’t taken their responsibility to the Constitution—and to the country—so dang seriously.
Enjoy the video, in all its glory.
Posted with permission