Trump Amb. to EU Sondland reverses himself on Ukraine quid pro quo

a reply to: dfnj2015

Would it not be to late already? Unless he was coerced into changing his testimony.

a reply to: More1ThanAny1

thehill.com...

Two years after leaving office, Joe Biden couldn’t resist the temptation last year to brag to an audience of foreign policy specialists about the time as vice president that he strong-armed Ukraine into firing its top prosecutor.

In his own words, with video cameras rolling, Biden described how he threatened Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in March 2016 that the Obama administration would pull $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees, sending the former Soviet republic toward insolvency, if it didn’t immediately fire Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.


“I said, ‘You’re not getting the billion.’ I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money,’” Biden recalled telling Poroshenko.

“Well, son of a bitch, he got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time,” Biden told the Council on Foreign Relations event, insisting that President Obama was in on the threat.

Their narrative that Biden did no wrong is simply not supported by any facts whatsoever. The man actually did an honest to God quid pro quo... as in "Either drop the investigation into my son or the US will not give you a billion dollars in financial aid, not some ridiculously convoluted bastardization of quid pro quo we're being asked to flip through in which Trump is guilty of quid pro quo because he is deeply looking into the initial breaking of the law by his predecessor and has drawn the president of the Ukraine into the conversation. Presumably, based on the current narrative, if Joe Biden wasn't running for POTUS there'd be no QPQ accusations here and no case whatsoever... well, except for the fact that President Trump would still be laying bare the crimes and sins of his predecessors.

Here is a well done timeline:
www.justsecurity.org...

January 2019 — Giuliani and Ukraine general prosecutor Lutsenko meet for first time, New York

Giuliani and Lutsenko meet in New York over the space of two-to-three days. They discuss “the Ukrainian political situation and the fight against corruption,” Bloomberg News reports, paraphrasing Lutsenko. “Giuliani asked him about investigations into the owner of Burisma, Mykola Zlochevsky, as well as whether the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, was `not loyal to President Trump,’” the article says.

The two met “multiple times” during those days in New York, and Lutsenko told associates that, during their first meeting in January, Giuliani excitedly called Trump to brief the President on what he had found, the New York Times reported. Giuliani “acknowledged that he has discussed the matter with the president on multiple occasions,” the Times wrote.

What do we have here? Giuliani was looking into Ukraine corruption back in January 2019 as reported by NYTimes. Biden didn't announce he was running for president until April 2019.

So this is evidence that Trump and Giuliani really were looking into Biden corruption, months before Biden announced his run for presidency.

Isn't it impossible for Trump and Giuliani to interfere with a presidential election by finding dirt on political opponents without knowing who the opponents are?

youtu.be...

Interesting...

"Sixth, to the best of my recollection, I do not recall any discussions with the White House on withholding U.S. security assistance from Ukraine in return for assistance with the President's 2020 reelection campaign."

Document page 35, lines 8-11
www.cnn.com...

Is this the damning evidence that is piling up?

a reply to: More1ThanAny1

In April 2019, the new Ukrainian prosecutor, Yuriy Lutsenko stated that he was reopening the Burisma case and was interested in speaking with AG Barr about the case. He said he discovered a transfer of funds to Burisma board members and to Hunter Biden's Rosemont Seneca law group. He specifically stated to the media in April, 2019, that "Lutsenko said some of the evidence he knows about in the Burisma case may interest U.S. authorities and he’d like to present that information to new U.S. Attorney General William Barr, particularly the vice president’s intervention.

“Unfortunately, Mr. Biden had correlated and connected this aid with some of the HR (personnel) issues and changes in the prosecutor’s office,” Lutsenko said."

Now, taken in light of the fact that the entirety of the impeachment narrative centers on a phantom idea that Trump contacted the Ukraine out of the blue and initiated all of this, it would seem that a solid 3 months before Trump's phone call with the Ukraine in July the Ukraine's lead prosecutor was already reaching out to the United States with concerns and evidence that Joseph Biden had acted improperly and potentially had committed a significant crime related to crimes his own son had seemingly been involved with inside the Ukraine.

The rabbit hole goes deep here... you just have to watch out for the people satisfied with navel gazing the grass over the rabbit hole because they're foolishly trying to snag this as low hanging fruit against their #1 enemy.

a reply to: ABNARTY

Nice to see at least one person in the thread is actually reading the document that was linked to with great fanfare. Perhaps that should have been step one prior to even creating a thread on the topic... but I shouldn't judge.

a reply to: fleabit

Hahaha! "one person"? Hahaha!

There's so much more to this than just Biden or his son. That you're not aware of that speaks volumes to your level of familiarity with the subject. This is mainly about Ukraine's interference in the 2016 election, as well as corruption on a much larger scale than Hunter Biden.

"No merit" to the Biden accusation? "Bring the name Biden into suspicion"?

This accusation of, at the very least, conflict of interest isn't a new one. People within the Obama administration knew it looked terrible when it was happening. There were numerous articles written about it at the time. So, Biden and Hunter's Ukraine antics have been raising eyebrows for years. So much so that John Kerry's son made it a point to memorialize, in an email, his objections to Hunter's work in Ukraine and attributed the large slow down in their business partnership to the decision.

You literally have the son of the Vice President, who just happens to be the point man for US/Ukraine foreign policy, sitting on the board of a Ukrainian business owned by a super shady oligarch. One that is very well known for his corruption. An oligarch who also owns a bank; a bank that just happened to receive tons of money from the U.S., among others. Then the money disappears! Meanwhile, the VP's son is making a huge salary for a job he knows nothing about. What a lucky guy!

That alone, screams investigate me, but that's not it.

The VP then brags, on video, about withholding $1 billion to have a particular prosecutor fired. It's been claimed by that prosecutor, in an E.U. court, that he was fired due to his investigations into the oligarch/his energy company and related corruption. Interestingly, we now evidence of that energy company appealing to the state department, invoking hunter biden by name, in order to get help with all of the corruption allegations. That happened shortly before Senile Joe had the prosecutor fired.

It's really not rocket science. Most normal people can look at the above scenario and understand that an investigation is warranted.

You understand the quote I was responding to was from Sondland, right?
It was his description of a brief private conversation he had with Trump. He had no reason to lie to the ambassador about what he wanted. In fact, it sounded like he was pretty clear. He wanted the new president of Ukraine, who ran on an anti corruption message, to go after corruption. Apparently you just don't like that Biden's son might get caught up in an investigation.

Also remember, this investigation started months before Biden announced he was running.
And as far as all this "Biden is Trump's political rival" b.s., I'm just not buying it. He's not even running against Trump, at the moment, and it's far from guaranteed that he would be the nominee. The guy can barely string together a coherent thought. He reminds me of my grandfather after dementia started to set in. He's running low on money and he's under water in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Document Page 38, lines 9-17

Q: ...Did you speak with President Trump at all about your testimony prior to coming here today?

A: I ran into President Trump at a reception for Finnish President Niinisto. I ran into him in the cross hallway at the White House. I said I've been asked to come in and testify. And there were a lot of people around. He said good, go tell the truth. That was the extent of our conversation.

Yup. Time for the torches and pitchforks. Smoking gun if ever there was one.

a reply to: ABNARTY

See? Trump is influencing witnesses. Instructing an underling to testify and "tell the truth" is clearly obstruction of what is presently defined as "justice" within the hallowed halls of the House of Representatives... yet there it is, plain as day "He (Trump) said good, go tell the truth." SMH... I can't believe the audacity.

originally posted by: carewemust
a reply to: Extorris

It's working! I haven't heard any of the major networks mention the Democrat presidential candidates since Saturday afternoon.

President Trump is all there is. Polls show that the MSM is helping to re-elect Donald Trump. As in 2016, they won't realize this is the case until it's too late. (Brings to mind that definition of "Insanity" doesn't it?)

Ohhhh I heard a few stories.
Beto failed.
Kamala is failing (even in her own home state.)
Biden is dropping like a rock
.....and Warren mapped out her road to a major fail thinking 52 Trillion dollars is going to drop out of the sky.
All real positive stuff for the Dems. LOL

originally posted by: More1ThanAny1
a reply to: Extorris

So if some random bureaucrat with unknown intentions comes along and gives his opinion that there was quid pro quo between the two presidents that say there was not, why does that random bureaucrat's opinion matter?

By "random bureaucrat" you mean Gordan Sondland the EU Ambassador Trump directed? Or Rudy Giuliani? Or Taylor? Or Volker? Or President Zelnskey's Chief Advisor? All of which were working on the "Deliverable" for Trump in order to get Aid released?

Testified to by them and more and affirmed in text message transcripts.

a reply to: More1ThanAny1

Yep, and technically, we're still not in a "Presidential Election". Yes, the dems are holding a primary but neither party has even nominated a presidential candidate yet.

OK. I have read through 114 pages and that's it for tonight. While there may be some startling revelation on page XYZ, it is seriously getting repetitive.

I am fully convinced almost nobody read this transcript. The story the witness tells is pretty darn clear. There is nothing new here other than the minutiae of the events in question.

I can see why some in Congress wanted this behind closed doors. For the Trump haters out there waiting with baited breath for juicy gotcha' bolts out of the blue, take a powder. It's not here. Instead it's the sausage making 101 of international diplomacy.

Maybe you can start a new drinking game. Every time the MSM throws out the word "insidious" in conjunctions with the Ambassadors name, you have to take a shot.

THINGS ARE COMING INTO CLEARER FOCUS....

Adam Schiff told all the witnesses he colluded with, that the whistle-blower's complaint would be based on the (fake) call transcript that Schiff read to Congress and the Public on live TV last month.

Schiff wrongly assumed that President Trump was a typical President. One who wouldn't dare make a top-secret conversation like that public.

The above scenario is the only way to explain why all Democrats and the Liberal Media are REACTING as if Adam Schiff's fabricated lies are what President Trump actually said.

People who are not in on that scam, read the Trump-Zelensky call transcript and wonder, "What the hell are these Democrats and MSM smoking??"

President Zelensky himself says that there was no Quid-quo-pro between he and Trump.

Yet the Democrats and media keep acting as if Schiff's fabrication is actually what was said....and Trump should be impeached, as a result.

As President Trump correctly stated during last night's rally: "THESE PEOPLE ARE CRAZY!"

(Irony: Democrats are helping President Trump's re-election efforts, but are sacrificing their own re-elections in the process.)

a reply to: ABNARTY

Thanks for the review. I figured as much. I think the majority of us still have our eye on the ball no matter how hard some try to deflect and ignore the reality of what’s really going on, try as they may.

a reply to: carewemust

People who are not in on that scam, read the Trump-Zelensky call transcript and wonder, "What the hell are these Democrats and MSM smoking??"

IDK but if it can make you feel that removed from reality, I want some!

Joe won the primary already? The one that has not occurred yet? No Trump is investigating the swamp Joe Byeden has been part of tDC for how many years? QUIT SUPPORTING THE SWAMP period. Do you like the fact that JOe Byeden has a video on youtube where he cops a feel of an extremely young girl twice? HOW CAN YOU DEFEND HIM?

Right I know Orange man bad. Sorry your case of Hiliarhea turned into TDS. This is a bigger nothingburger than the Bueller report was.



a reply to: AngryCymraeg

a reply to: burdman30ott6

The man actually did an honest to God quid pro quo... as in "Either drop the investigation into my son or the US will not give you a billion dollars

Yes, it was a quid pro quo. But it was not "drop the investigation of my son", it was "dump Shokin because he's not doing what you said he was going to do, prosecute corrupt officials." That was our government's, as well as other government's position.

Oh, and it wasn't a matter of "give you a billion dollars." It was a loan guarantee.


But what Trump does is quite different. He didn't really give a crap about any actual investigation, he just wanted Zelinksy to say, in public, that there was an investigation. Into Biden. And it wasn't a loan guarantee.

Huh. Remember when Comey said the Clinton email thing was being reopened?

WTF so since the American people have been wearing too short a skirt it is ok that our leaders are corrupt and have been raping us for decades? Joe has not won the primary yet has he! So it is the President's job to look at corruption by a former vice president who quite boldly admitted to QPQ at a dinner.

The Same clown who said "Not in my backyard" while passing the most racist legislation towards incarceration of minorities in my lifetime that Trump recently took a huge step in reversing.

To be fair you likened the Presidents investigation of corruption to a girl saying it is ok to rape her because she wore her skirt too short. Are you serious did it take as long as the Bueller nothing burger took to find no evidence? Joe has been in DC for eonss Trump less than 3 years (2 under abogus investigation) but it is all supposed to be wrapped up in what 2-3 months.

Sickening advocating rape of someone who has worn a short skirt and the raping of our nation all in one sentence no make that appalling. Good luck sleeping
a reply to: Extorris