House Democrats emerged from a morning of closed-door testimony from a key witness in their impeachment probe stressing the “disturbing” details the witness, career diplomat Bill Taylor put forward.
Ruh Roh.
And too many people are all too happy to ignore all of this because either they don’t understand it, or they simply don’t care and investing any time into this is just a waste of time.
I have to wonder what magnitude of data will finally make folks sit up and take notice?
A glimpse of honesty and moral clarity in these times of endless gaslighting is beyond refreshing. I am so thankful to those few people that are willing to tell the truth at all cost to themselves.
Good for him and bad for Mr. Trump. I’m liking the way Dems are handling the inquiry. Let the Republicans try to spin their way out of this.
I would imagine that some details will leak later this afternoon. You will know when Twitter explodes.
Contemporaneous notes are a huge deal…that means he took notes about the phone calls Sondland had with him. So, the attempt to keep the whole thing off the record by Sondland failed, and it sounds like he may have committed perjury during his testimony. This is, of course, why the testimonies are being done behind closed doors, so they catch people who are trying to lie or shade the facts to support Trump.
It sounds like we are very lucky that Taylor was brought in, if they had brought in the usual Trump lackey then we wouldn’t have this information. And, it sounds like Taylor is rightly pissed off at what happened, he will be a key witness going forward. I’m sure we’re going to have Republicans attempt to assassinate his character and attack the process even more, but that’s just going to show how desperate they are becoming…damage like this will make it crystal clear to Americans what happened and that it was wrong.
It is time (past time, actually) to stop calling the Ukraine matter a "qui pro quo’ and call it what it was: BRIBERY.
A President who deliberately withholds money appropriated by Congress intended to aid an ally protect itself from an invading country UNLESS AND UNTIL that ally provides manufactured evidence against the President’s political opponent, is committing BRIBERY - one of the very specific crimes described in the Constitution for which impeachment is the appropriate remedy.
But, but, but HILLARY!!! EMAILS!!! OBAMA!!! OMAR!!! AOC!!!
The Wurlitzer is just gettin’ warmed up. They will find a way to explain it to the minions in the least offensive terms and deflect everything, just as they have always done.
I’m waiting for more of the support to erode, but this is a case of a tree falling in the forest and no one hearing it, I’m afraid. I sincerely hope something is going to break through. How much of the hearings credibility has been eroded due to the closed -door nature, even though that’s how it’s done?
Gender diversity on corporate boards is a good thing. Research shows that the more women, the better the oversight, and the greater the likelihood that the board will can an underperforming CEO. The US House of Representatives, even with the Blue Wave, is still only 24% female. In this case, we want our representatives to do more than just feel disturbed about our underperforming president and his wayward cabinet. Thank god we have Nancy.
This week’s neutron bomb. It actually exploded weeks ago but has a delayed domino effect.
CNN has the transcript of his 15 page opening statement. It will be released fairly soon and it will further accelerate the impeachment train.
The key to the removal train is to explain the Parnas/Fruman link. They are Russian mob. They work for Trump. That means Trump works for the mob (b/c the mob doesn’t work for you. You always work for them!).
Parnas/Fruman are paid by Firtash. He’s the oligarch front man for the Russian mob and the Kremlin on UKR matters. That means Trump has a direct relationship to the Kremlin and this proves he is a Russian asset. That should be enough to get him out and send him into exile.
“Sondland now has some explaining to do.”
Lucy! You got some ‘splainin to do!
ETA @Schmed beat me to it. 
This should be the ballgame, but bullshit mountain will go into hyperdrive and Republicans will eat it up.
I think I want everything, but it would be nice if Fox would take the transcript just as seriously and start spilling the tea to the minions.
“Taylor’s testimony cannot be trusted because he once worked for Obama!” – GOP Reps later today
This is the first step. “Discovery”
To copy what I wrote earlier, Bill Taylor is the kind of guy who keeps the lights on. West Point, served in Vietnam (no bone spurs), various state department positions, ending up as Ambassador to Ukraine under Bush II, stayed until 2009 under Obama.
Given the tenor of his e-mails, there was basically zero chance that he was not going to tell the whole unvarnished truth when put under oath. That Republicans think they have a leg to stand on is just baffling to me, too much FOX New has addled their brains. But you gotta get him on tape. Get the information on record.
You don’t want to flight this out piece by piece. Don’t expect people to be swayed by each headline.
And by keeping things behind closed doors, the D’s will be able to (a) keep Trumpsters from trying to make up a cover story that sort of fits, forcing them to be more truthful absent knowing what everyone has said, and (b) allows the D’s to put the entire thing together into a nice package for public hearings, with certain witnesses being recalled for open testimony as the D’s lay out their case.
Good to see smart people: Pelosi, Schiff, before his death Cummings in charge not the stupid jump to conclusions set who let their anger generally at Trump get ahead of evidence, convincing some folks in the middle that it was all politics.
Ok, I’m with you on this. Screw the quid pro quo. Probably half the country has no idea what that means. Bribery is fine. I like extortion better but I’m ok with using both interchangeably.
House Democrats? This testimony will move most remaining, if not all remaining.
Senate Republicans? Some perturbation.
Public at large? No idea.