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#**20561** 20.11.2019, 15:41

	Quote:	gaburko
	So glad you were able to evade your lack of knowledge that it's a political, not a judiciary process so gracefully. But we both know you learned something new today from someone younger than you Happy to help!

My friend, I made no comment on the origin of the process, just tried to politely put you right on who impeaches. I think you are mixing me up with Marton.

I reckon I'm still younger though

#**20562** 20.11.2019, 15:50

Back on topic, Sondland has just thrown Trump under the bus.

"So we followed the President's orders."

marton · #**20563** 20.11.2019, 17:12

	Quote:
	Back on topic, Sondland has just thrown Trump under the bus. "So we followed the President's orders."

He also said;

	Quote:
	“I know that members of this Committee have frequently framed these complicated issues in the form of a simple question: Was there a ‘quid pro quo?’ As I testified previously, with regard to the requested White House call and White House meeting, the answer is yes,” Sondland said in his opening statement Sondland testified that he has “no reason to doubt” the accounts of other witnesses who have detailed a July 26 phone call between Sondland and Trump, he also raised the matter of “investigations.”

It will be hard to claim Sondland is a "never Trumper" when he personally donated $1 million to Trump's inaugural committee.

marton · #**20564** 20.11.2019, 17:31

Plot thickens

	Quote:
	Sondland explicitly tied Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to the campaign to put pressure on Ukraine to investigate the Bidens. "Everyone was in the loop. It was no secret": Sondland told lawmakers that he had discussed the investigation in a July 19 email sent to several top US officials. This came days before Trump's 25 call with the Ukrainian leader.

	Quote:
	Former US attorney Preet Bharara said Sondland "exploded all of the defenses you expected" from Republicans and came with "chapter and verse receipts, as they say, saying how many were in the loop" on Ukraine aid being withheld. He continued: "Everything the Republicans have said in defense of the President, he wrecked."

Every day gets more interesting

gaburko · #**20565** 20.11.2019, 17:39

Sondland repeatedly said Trump never told him directly that security assistance was tied to the announcement of investigations. Now it depends which side you are on because both claim victory. CNN is rooting for Pelosi, Fox for Trump and both have enough to support their view.

#**20566** 20.11.2019, 17:44

	Quote:	gaburko
	Sondland repeatedly said Trump never told him directly that security assistance was tied to the announcement of investigations. Now it depends which side you are on because both claim victory. CNN is rooting for Pelosi, Fox for Trump and both have enough to support their view.

He did say Trump told him that Rudy was his proxy, carrying out his wishes and they should go through him; so it is inconceivable that Trump didn't orchestrate or at least tacitly accept what was going on.

Presumably it's getting towards the time that Trump throws Rudy under the bus, so we'll just see what that threatened "insurance" he has is.

marton · #**20567** 20.11.2019, 17:49

	Quote:	gaburko
	Sondland repeatedly said Trump never told him directly that security assistance was tied to the announcement of investigations. Now it depends which side you are on because both claim victory. CNN is rooting for Pelosi, Fox for Trump and both have enough to support their view.

I will take Fox!
From 15 minutes ago, Fox News Chris Wallace: Sondland 'took out the bus' and ran over everybody

#**20568** 20.11.2019, 18:03

	Quote:	gaburko
	BTW, its precisely this type of intellectual superiority and dismissal of realities on the ground that brought Trump to power. You see the world in a certain way, his voters see it in a different way. So far, he's winning.

I don't think so, i didn't have anything to do with the 2016 election, I'm not Russia. Anyway, come on then, let's hear why i am wrong and this treatment of witnesses with unblemished records is actually to be applauded.

#**20569** 20.11.2019, 18:51

	Quote:
	Which body impeaches?

	Quote:
	Anatomy of impeachment.

OMG!

You mean, there's a real dead body?

marton · #**20570** 20.11.2019, 18:55

This is claimed to be Trump's black sharpie handwritten note that he read to reporters before he left the White House for Texas!
Certainly, the spelling looks genuine Trump!

Name: TrumpNotes.jpg
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Name: TrumpNotes.jpg
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#**20571** 20.11.2019, 19:06

	Quote:	marton
	This is claimed to be Trump's black sharpie handwritten note that he read to reporters before he left the White House for Texas! Certainly, the spelling looks genuine Trump!

It's amazing, although it isn't any more, that that photo is not a Photoshopped joke.

marton · #**20572** 20.11.2019, 19:37

Did I ever post that you could not make this stuff up?

	Quote:
	Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, a top White House aide charged with impeachment strategy and communication inaccurately said three times on a network morning television show that US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, who testifies publicly Wednesday, is the "ambassador to Ukraine." Bondi was pressed on CBS' "This Morning" whether the President knew Sondland well and whether they were in frequent contact. "He was ambassador to the Ukraine, he is ambassador to the Ukraine and the President knows him. The President does not know him very well. He's a short-term ambassador. Of course he knows him," Bondi said. Sondland has been confirmed in his post as US ambassador to the European Union since June 2018.

Source

BTW, it is Ukraine, not the Ukraine.
What Bondi meant exactly by "He's a short-term ambassador." is not known!

Edit: Political appointees like Sondland are not appointed for a fixed term, usually they resign when a new president is inaugurated. So maybe short term means Trump will soon be gone

In most cases, career foreign service officers serve a tour of approximately three years per ambassadorship so the claim he is a short-term ambassador is really odd!

gaburko · #**20573** 20.11.2019, 20:05

And yet again, the WH presents things in a way to create a positive narrative.

“And it was a very short, abrupt conversation,” the ambassador said. “He was not in a good mood. And he just said, ‘I want nothing. I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo. Tell Zelensky to do the right thing.’

It will be now repeated 24/7 and that's all that matter to his voters.

3Wishes · #**20574** 20.11.2019, 21:38

	Quote:	gaburko
	And yet again, the WH presents things in a way to create a positive narrative. “And it was a very short, abrupt conversation,” the ambassador said. “He was not in a good mood. And he just said, ‘I want nothing. I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo. Tell Zelensky to do the right thing.’ It will be now repeated 24/7 and that's all that matter to his voters.

Yup. They have epic spin doctors on staff and certainly every Trump supporter I know eats it up without fact checking. No need to check "facts", they say, because everything in the mainstream media is a lie and/or a conspiracy.

Urs Max · #**20575** 20.11.2019, 23:30

	Quote:	marton
	This leads us to the conspiracy theory that Trump again in this call threatened Ukraine President Zelensky if he did not investigate the Bidens. The elephant in this room is that so far the impeachment witnesses have said the April 21 call was OK compared to the July call. If the transcript is incomplete then it just reinforces the theory that the Trump White House administration is incompetent?

I follow developments from a distance only so I may be wrong: the transcript of the July call has been demonstrated to be incomplete to an extent that it's at best misleading.

Incompetence or intent, that's the question. If Trump lied in his written answers to (congress?) that would by definition have been intentional. And could perhaps be taken as indication for intent in other instances, too.

marton · #**20576** 21.11.2019, 00:38

	Quote:	3Wishes
	Yup. They have epic spin doctors on staff and certainly every Trump supporter I know eats it up without fact checking. No need to check "facts", they say, because everything in the mainstream media is a lie and/or a conspiracy.

Indeed, little hope of the US returning to the old "normality.

	Quote:
	A group of President Trump’s supporters said in interviews with TV producers that Trump shouldn’t be impeached over a number of incidents — despite the fact that those incidents were actually facts surrounding the Watergate scandal and former President Nixon. Probably the most telling; The producer asks another person why they think “people are calling the whistleblower by the name ‘Deep Throat,’ and whether they think Vice President Gerald Ford will pardon Trump if he resigns.

Source

Some Trump supporters I have met due to their unquestioning acceptance of Trump's statements somehow remind me of some Islamic and/or Christian Scientist extremists I know!

marton · #**20577** 21.11.2019, 10:56

As a break from impeachment, it is strange how when Trump tweets about the success of the stock market it is often followed by the market crashing down.

5 days ago he boasted Dow is 28,000, now it is 27,500 and falling; mostly due to Trump's own claim that a phase one China trade deal would be signed in mid-November has turned out to be another Trump lie.

	Quote:
	Donald J. Trump@realDonaldTrump Dow hits 28,000 - FIRST TIME EVER, HIGHEST EVER! .................... 4:18 PM · Nov 16, 2019

marton · #**20578** 21.11.2019, 11:00

	Quote:
	My friend, I made no comment on the origin of the process, just tried to politely put you right on who impeaches. I think you are mixing me up with Marton. I reckon I'm still younger though

Everybody is younger than me!

marton · #**20579** 21.11.2019, 11:07

	Quote:	gaburko
	And yet again, the WH presents things in a way to create a positive narrative. “And it was a very short, abrupt conversation,” the ambassador said. “He was not in a good mood. And he just said, ‘I want nothing. I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo. Tell Zelensky to do the right thing.’ It will be now repeated 24/7 and that's all that matter to his voters.

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, facial expression during Sondland's testimony says it all.
He is the dark-haired guy

https://twitter.com/i/status/1197195784422338561

#**20580** 21.11.2019, 18:25

Well, well, well... Trump's best buddy in the Middle East, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been charged with corruption. He is "the first sitting Israeli prime minister to face criminal charges".

Maybe Trump and Netanyahu can share yet another thing in common very soon.