Official LRC President Donald J Trump Thread

taylor is saying that the trumpers made it perfectly clear that a quid pro quo was in the works: Investigate Bidens to get get US aid.

Automatic impeachment. And probably some perjury investigations are due.

CNN obtains opening statement from top US diplomat in Ukraine

The top diplomat in Ukraine Bill Taylor testified today that he was told by US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland that security aid to Ukraine could have been held up, in part, because of a push for Ukraine to publicly announce an investigation that could help President Trump politically, according to sources in both parties.

CNN has obtained a copy of his lengthy and detailed opening statement.

In it, Taylor said that he and Sondland spoke by phone about why the aid was frozen, and Sondland cited the need for Ukraine to open an investigation among other reasons, according to the sources.

Sondland told Taylor that the investigations potentially included both Ukraine's involvement in the 2016 election and Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company that hired former Vice President Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden, the sources said.

so now we have the chief of staff of the WH saying it was a quid pro quo and the head diplomat to Ukraine saying it was a quid pro quo.

This is why we don't need a whistleblower.

It’s a shame the impeachment ever has to end.

The bolded words stand out.

Trump demanded PUBLIC statement about Biden investigation from Ukrainians to make them the fall guys!

agip wrote:

so now we have the chief of staff of the WH saying it was a quid pro quo and the head diplomat to Ukraine saying it was a quid pro quo.

This is why we don't need a whistleblower.

And Trump really thought the transcript of the call was perfect. He really did.

fair enough. The opening statement is apparenlty out in the open now - maybe it is less equivocal.

some more direct quotes are not equivocal at all and suggest sondland is in some doo-doo.

WaPo:

“Amb. Sondland also told me that he now recognized that he had made a mistake by earlier telling the Ukrainian officials to whom he spoke that a White House meeting with President Zelensky was dependent on a public announcement of investigations — in fact, Amb. Sondland said, ‘everything’ was dependent on such an announcement, including security assistance,’” Taylor told House investigators.

“He said that President Trump wanted President Zelensky ‘in a public box’ by making a public statement about ordering such investigations.’

Two Sides wrote:

agip wrote:

so now we have the chief of staff of the WH saying it was a quid pro quo and the head diplomat to Ukraine saying it was a quid pro quo.

This is why we don't need a whistleblower.

And Trump really thought the transcript of the call was perfect. He really did.

truly this is the terrifying part. that trump and his people think this is how politics should be done.

the 'i'm corrupt, you're corrupt, get over it' school of american politics.

disgusting. you can only imagine the crimes trump and his family have committed over the years, screwing us out of tax dollars and hosing over regular people.

This CATBIRD SEAT I am in is REALLY holding me in. I CAN NOT extricate myself from it.

agip wrote:

so now we have the chief of staff of the WH saying it was a quid pro quo and the head diplomat to Ukraine saying it was a quid pro quo.

This is why we don't need a whistleblower.

We will end up with more than a handful of witnesses connecting the dots... at what number of witnesses do people on the right stop believing they are all from the deep state?

Trollminator wrote:

agip wrote:

so now we have the chief of staff of the WH saying it was a quid pro quo and the head diplomat to Ukraine saying it was a quid pro quo.

This is why we don't need a whistleblower.

We will end up with more than a handful of witnesses connecting the dots... at what number of witnesses do people on the right stop believing they are all from the deep state?

Never.

It's just like the Climate Crisis. Conspiracy theory is the only thing holding their brains together.

Admitting that the conspiracies don't exist would cause too much psychic pain.

Rosie Ruiz wannabes, only not even well-known!

Zero ambition...

I remember that, during the 2016 campaign, there was a whole lot of talk about how horrible everything in this country was and how we needed something to completely shake things up. I was mystified at the time by this. It seemed like there was no great crisis in the country, the economy was growing, no big wars, . . . What were people so incensed about?

I have since become convinced that fear and the notion that "we are victims" drive the whole Trump phenomenon. The article here is perhaps not news to many on here. But it is rather stunning to me. White men are literally dying of despair.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/deaths-of-despair-why-this-group-of-americans-has-higher-mortality-rates-130633528.html

Look at the first graphic: The mortality rate for middle aged whites in the US dramatically changed direction in 2000 (for the worse) and is now nearly double the rate of some other advanced countries dominated by whites. The trend lines shown are absolutely staggering.

Look at the map showing geographical distribution of "deaths by despair" (next graphic). Trump country absolutely jumps off the page at you.

“The entire trend is driven by premature mortality among less-than-college-educated whites, mainly in the middle-aged years. That’s a pretty big marker that something’s really wrong.” - Carol Graham of Brookings

“What struck me is that poor African-Americans were three times as likely to be optimistic about the future as poor whites,” - Graham

Striking stuff - to me at least

I'm reading the opening statement...

main takeaways are

1) trump set up an irregular policy team on Ukraine, so the regular state department people would not find out about the quid pro quo. This was led by giuliani and sondland. There was confusion because the regular state department people had no idea why the ukranians and WH people were acting in such strange ways. And why the regulars were told not to transcribe any calls or be on calls. The answer is that the WH kept asking for an invsestigation into bidens and servers and the ukrainians didn't know what to do.

2) Bolton was a superhero here. He was not on the irregular channel so he kept fighting to normalize things.

The juxtaposition of two posts preceding my post on despair is quite remarkable. I did not see these as I was typing my post. But they fit in remarkably well.

"would cause too much psychic pain."

"Zero ambition..."

I just read that article and was about to post it, agree with your analysis.

Conservatives more than anyone should read this and interpret it. They vote against the own best interests consistently. Higher minimum wage and free health care would benefit them more than anyone.

They’re so easily duped.

this is key to the future of the nation yes.

I think most people are saying something like 'well the US has adapted and changed in the past - it's built into the DNA of the country. Other groups have changed and adapted and thrived...now it's the turn of the HS educated white male. They have to get educations, they have to stop with the guns, they have to stop with the drugs.'

but in the end if HS educated males won't keep up their end of the deal, other groups will take the reins. I hope.

the problem with your argumetn is that the main issue HS educated males are dealing with is humiliation - they feel the world is against them so they lash out by voting for trump 'because he's a fighter' and 'because he doesn't take any carp,'

not sure how freaking eliz warren would make these guys feel better about themselves. Being lectured by a female harvard professor will just enrage them and cause them to do more harm to themselves. they'll feel even more separated from US culture.

It's not just economics here....