Latest: AP reports that a second State Department official overheard a presidential phone call from gumba Gordon Sondland that was revealed by Ambassador Taylor in his televised testimony, yesterday. Taylor referred to his aide David Holmes, who has been summoned by the House Intelligence Committee. The second witness to overhear the conversation is Suriya Jayantia, a career staffer based in Kiev. She no doubt will also be called to testify, adding more evidence of Trumpillini's personal attempt to extort an investigation of Joe Biden from Ukraine in return for release of appropriated military aid. The aid was eventually released, but only after OMB's withholding, directed by the Orange King, was discovered by senators.*Current and former U.S. officials say Sondland’s use of a cellphone in a public place in Ukraine to speak with anyone in the U.S. government back home about sensitive matters, let alone the president, would be a significant breach of communications security. Fiona Hill, who served as the senior director for Russia at the National Security Council, said in a private hearing she found it [Sondland's lack of compliance with security protocol] deeply concerning and asked for someone from the Intelligence Bureau to “sit down with him and explain that this was a counterintelligence risk.” As usual, when Don Veto was asked about Sondland's communication, he could "not recall" the phone call that closely ties him to the Ukraine bribery scheme, "not even a little bit". Perhaps his memory should be refreshed in public? As Nancy put it succinctly, "If the president has something that is exculpatory--Mr. President, that means if you have anything that shows your innocence--then he should make that known. That’s part of the inquiry. And so far we haven’t seen that. But we welcome it.” So does the nation.
{12/11/2019} For those political junkies out there getting ready to binge watch the public impeachment proceedings in the House, NPR has posted a useful version of the complaint [right] that moved the needle on the Hill. The whistleblower's letter of August 12 is annotated with testimony that corroborates its contents. NPR says, "...[this] annotation shows, most of the complaint has been corroborated during closed-door depositions of administration officials, through public statements and from a rough transcript of the call itself, released by the White House". Repugnants will attempt to discredit the source of the complaint, and also attempt to divert attention to the former Vice President and his son's activities in Ukraine. These arguments have already been refuted, so the last line of defense will be that the President's extortion attempt is not impeachable; clearly an argument NOT related to reality since the word "bribery" appears in the Constitution as an impeachable offense. An even more despicable display of partisanship is their demand that the whistleblower's identity be publicly divulged by calling him to testify even though his anonymity is protected under federal law.
*Gordon Sondland, Trump’s ambassador to the European Union who was also immersed in the bribery scheme, tried to explain to Taylor, "that President Trump is a businessman. When a businessman is about to sign a check to someone who owes him something, the businessman asks that person to pay up before signing the check.” The only problem with that mentalityt is that Trumpillini was not closing a mid-town real estate deal, but denying help to a nation state ally against a common aggressor. Besides that crucial contextual difference, what did the Ukrainians owe Trumpillini? Defense Department official Laura Cooper testified that the Orange King directed the freeze without informing Congress, a violation of legal requirements. Ukrainians were being killed and wounded while Trumpillini used national security as a bargaining chip. Apparently the aid was finally released after two months when Sen. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, threatened to block $5 billion in Pentagon spending for 2020 if the aid wasn't given to Ukraine, and after the House began an impeachment investigation.