Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a Ukraine expert on the National Security Council, testified Tuesday that for all of President Donald Trump’s professed concern about rooting out Ukrainian corruption, he didn’t bring it up on his two calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
All of this is good stuff - laying down a foundation of truth. Makes it harder for the shit the cons are slinging to stick to the wall.
But I’m with the smart money saying the damn is going to break with Sondland. He’s going to turn big, and turn hard.
Tomorrow will be a deal breaker.
I got nuthin’
The RWNJ talking points are imploding faster than they can make up new ones.
Vindman’s sincerity and fidelity to the truth comes through as he searches for the accurate words in a rather unpolished way. He knows he’s in this hearing but also being broadcast widely. It would make anyone nervous and tepid!
I missed that part. The WH appeared to blame Vindman for the false NSC readout of the April call, yet later in the hearings Vindman said it is a separate PR outfit of the NSC that does the summaries (referring to the July call).
WH Hogan Gidley: “It is standard operating procedure for the National Security Council to provide readouts of the President’s phone calls with foreign leaders. This one [April] was prepared by the NSC’s Ukraine expert.” … That expert is Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman (according to CNN)
Did Vindman specifically deny responsibility for the false April readout?
The Pentagon went so far as to conduct its own legal analysis of the holds, determining that they were illegal
so when does this come up?
How would withholding aid “root out corruption”? Particularly aid that has nothing to do with corruption and in large part will not be cash? What corrupt end is there for a Javelin missile?
Such bullshit.
Volker is already signaling that he’s going to underbus Sondland big time.
Trump, are you gonna threaten Vindman with ‘‘things’’ that’ll happen to him?
C’mon, tweet. You’ll feel better…heh heh
The “So what? Get over it” defense looks more and more like the only one they’ll have left.
And that will be enough for most - almost all - Republicans.
I’m buying stock in Depends ™
My impression of Volker’s role in all this is he’s been noted by various other witnesses as having participated in several meetings, phone calls, text exchanges, e-mail exchanges, etc, that would inform investigators he was very aware of many events, and complicit in some of them.
Claiming now to be mostly ignorant and on the periphery of it all is akin to Tom Brady saying he’s vaguely aware of the offensive personnel on the New England Patriots. WTF?
Trump had to find a way to vindicate Putin for interfering in our elections and this was the best he could come up with? He didn’t even put his best and brightest on the case. That alone tells you that Trump was cooking up a Russian Mafia scam to help his own interests instead of conducting any real foreign policy for the US.
Ukrainian corruption has nothing to do with his motives.
This is all about Russia not Ukraine. That’s the way I would write the Articles of Impeachment. Trump continues to work with a foreign adversary of this nation and cares more about vindicating Putin for its attacks on this nation than he does about even Biden maybe defeating him. Why?
So when is Chief Justice Roberts going to let those Trump tax returns so the impeachment trial can go forward?
Dixie continues to rebel against our Constitution and seek foreign involvement in our government.
there are no “best and brightest” in this White House.
What’s the opposite of a gish gallop?
Ask yourself…how much a guy like Lt. Col. Vindman must loathe a punk like Donald Trump. Can you imagine what he must think of a draft dodging bigot? No wonder they fear this man.
Maybe we can stop calling this an impeachment investigation since investigations are conducted to discover and we know what that is already. Trump was hoping to pull the same stunt in 2020 that he did in 2016. Put his opponent under the cloud of investigation ( that stops right after the election ) and use a foreign country to assist.
He told Ukraine that he would not give them essential aid unless they got those investigations going. That’s what he did. That discussion is over.
It hit the fan and here we are. This is not an investigation. We know what’s under the GOP’s bullshit. It’s about getting that bullshit off the truth so it can be appreciated as we know it to be.