Sondland’s overall overheard call from Trump and his subsequent testimony that there was a quid pro quo. In other words Sondland’s presumptions were perfectly well founded.

This is a commentary on Sondland's testimony to the impeachment enquiry adapted from media sources.

In his opening statement, Sondland connected President Donald Trump directly to the "quid pro quo" trading Ukrainian investigations into Trump's political opponents for official actions, including a White House meeting. Sondland explicitly stated that "everyone was in the loop" about what was going on with the Ukraine foreign policy, implicating top Trump officials.

Sondland, a political appointee and hotel magnate with no background in government before joining the Trump administration, may have just given Democrats the most damning evidence so far in the inquiry. Rep. Adam Schiff, the California Democrat who's the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, called Sondland's testimony "a seminal moment in our investigation."

Here are five takeaways from Sondland's bombshell testimony:

Sondland pressed Ukraine at Trump's direction

In his opening statement and throughout his testimony, Sondland said he was working with Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani on Ukraine matters at the "express direction of the President of the United States."

"We did not want to work with Mr. Giuliani," Sondland said, referring to himself, Energy Secretary Rick Perry and former US special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker. "Simply put, we were playing the hand we were dealt."


Sondland talks about talking to President Trump

Sondland recounted several conversations between himself and Trump about Ukraine opening two investigations: one into Burisma, a company where former Vice President Joe Biden's son was on the board, and another into conspiracies about Ukrainian meddling in the 2016 US election.

Up to this point, a key Republican argument has been that none of the witnesses spoke directly with Trump and they offered only secondhand information. Sondland's testimony about his many conversations with Trump on the matter are crucial to Democrats countering that talking point.
While Sondland said Trump had never expressly told him that US military assistance was contingent on Ukraine announcing investigations into Burisma and the 2016 election, the ambassador said he was "under the impression that, absolutely, it was contingent."


'Everyone knew' about the quid pro quo

In clear terms, Sondland confirmed for all to see that there was a quid pro quo with Ukraine, that Trump withheld a White House meeting until Ukraine launched investigations into the Bidens.
"I know that members of this committee frequently frame these complicated issues in the form of a simple question: Was there a quid pro quo?" Sondland said. "As I testified previously, with regard to the requested White House call and the White House meeting, the answer is yes."


Sondland later said, "Everyone was in the loop. It was no secret."

These new comments corroborate testimony from other witnesses and contradict Trump, who has said all along, and repeated Wednesday, that there was no quid pro quo with Ukraine.
But Sondland didn't go as far as some of the other witnesses. He said Trump withheld a White House invitation from the new Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, until Zelensky announced the investigations. Other witnesses testified that US military assistance was also part of the quid pro quo, but Sondland said Trump never mentioned the foreign aid component.

Sondland implicated Pence, Pompeo and Mulvaney

Republicans have argued that Giuliani could have been running a shadow foreign policy without the involvement or knowledge of other senior White House and State Department officials, but Sondland contradicted that several times in his testimony.

He said "everyone" in the State Department was aware. He also implicated key White House officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, who also directs the Office of Management and Budget.
Sondland testified that Pompeo was directing Volker to communicate with Giuliani "even as late as September 24 of this year."

"Look, we tried our best to fix the problem while keeping the State Department and the (National Security Council) closely appraised of the challenges we faced," Sondland said.

Sondland also testified that he had told Pence he had "concerns that the delay in (military) aid had become tied to the issue of investigations" before Pence had a meeting with Zelensky in Warsaw, Poland, on September 1, implying Pence was aware of the "investigations" in the first place.
These comments, and emails that Sondland described for the committee, placed a new batch of top Trump officials at the center of the scandal. In statements Wednesday, representatives for Pence and Perry disputed Sondland's testimony and maintained they didn't do anything wrong. A Pompeo spokeswoman said some of Sondland's comments about the secretary of state were "flat out false."

Under aggressive questioning from Democrats, Sondland refused to say he realized that Trump was asking Ukraine to investigate the Bidens. He wouldn't go there. Instead, he said he knew only that Trump and Giuliani wanted Zelensky to probe Burisma.

"With 20/20 hindsight, now that we have the transcript of the call, the Bidens were clearly mentioned on the call," Sondland said, referring to Trump's July 25 phone call with Zelensky, where he mentioned the Bidens by name. "But I wasn't making the connection with the Bidens."
He later said that "a lot of people did not make the connection" between Burisma and the Bidens.

Volker, Trump's former special envoy for Ukraine, gave similar testimony Tuesday.

But it's difficult to take Sondland's explanation at face value. While Burisma was being discussed, Giuliani went on TV and posted online about the need to investigate Biden. (Sondland said he didn't see any of that.) The explanation requires viewers to believe that Sondland never asked why Trump cared so much about a random energy company in Ukraine.

The 'investigations' were really about politics

During the hearing, Sondland undercut a key Trump defense and simultaneously confirmed a claim from the whistleblower complaint that triggered the impeachment inquiry.

Zelensky "had to announce the investigations," Sondland said, referring to the probes into Biden's family and the 2016 election. "He didn't actually have to do them, as I understood it."

Legal experts previously told CNN that this is a critical distinction. Most legitimate investigations are done in secret, so as not to tip off the supposed criminals. But the intense focus on securing a public announcement from Zelensky demonstrates that the scheme was really designed to maximize the political benefit to Trump, instead of a good-faith effort to investigate corruption.

Whether he meant to or not, Sondland confirmed the thrust of the whistleblower complaint, which said Trump's requests for investigations were meant to help his campaign. Trump has argued that he asked for the probes because he wants to clean up corruption in Ukraine. (There is no evidence of wrongdoing or corruption by the Bidens in Ukraine.)

So, NOs, I'm not going to waste time on bullshit games and hair-splitting arguments with a disinformation agent. If I never respond to your posts again, it's because I think they have no grounds, so I am not going to waste my time and everyone else's time responding to them.

More details on same. — Wayfarer

I've always said that Trump in his ineptness of leadership, inability to govern or make his own administration to work makes everything so evident, clear and so obvious. Every truthful book and article paint the same Picture of this guy.

What is clear is that it all came down to the president and what he wanted; no one else appears to have supported his position. Although the pretext for the hold was that some sort of policy review was taking place, the emails make no mention of that actually happening. Instead, officials were anxiously waiting for the president to be convinced that the hold was a bad idea. And while the situation continued throughout the summer, senior defense officials were searching for legal guidance, worried they would be blamed should the hold be lifted too late to actually spend all of the money, which would violate the law.

Things like this simply paralyze the US foreign policy.

But that doesn't matter, of course. To his supporters everything is just a huge conspiracy against their Messiah.

Too old. — NOS4A2

I thought you were undead.

All it took to refute your piffle about announcements was to refer to the testimony. It was presumption, guesswork, fantasy. Like I said, fabricated from thin air. Do you admit this? No, you double down, kick the can down the road to the overheard phone call.

Watch as Holmes melts under cross examination.



I don’t care if you want to waste your time with me or not, I don’t care if you will not defend your fetid propaganda. You’re a lost cause. I’m trying to defend those you are lying to.

I’m trying to defend those you are lying to. — NOS4A2

You are truly a saint in the basket of deplorables.

You are truly a saint in the basket of deplorables.

Lol just looking out for you, bub.

One thing Trump's attack is likely to achieve is an end to internal demonstrations against the Iranian regime. Iranians rather than throwing rocks at the government are now rallying around the flag and against the old enemy. Another is a distraction from an impeachment process that has been increasingly eating away at his credibility. Finally, he'll get another excuse to rub himself up against the stars and stripes (as if it weren't defiled enough). Am I missing anything?

"Our president will start a war with Iran because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate. He's weak and he's ineffective. So the only way he figures that he's going to get reelected — and as sure as you're sitting there — is to start a war with Iran.”

Trump criticizing Obama back in 2011...

And that.

Am I missing anything? — Baden

I'm not sure if you have missed it, but this is a total disaster.

So now the US is basically attacking militias that are at least theoretically under the control of Iraqi armed forces. And then makes the attack on Iranian military personnel in the Iraqi capital. Yeah, no wonder that the Iraqi Parliament will vote on the subject if the US forces are still wellcome or not in the country.

But perhaps Trump can overthrow the government the US spent two trillion dollars forming in the first Place? Would be a fitting end to the war that Dubya started.

Is it that because leaders represent the people, it's actually a good and just thing when a soldier dies in a pointless war? That the politicians cannot be blamed?

You seem to be missing the point. Soldiers are duty bound to obey orders, it's what they're for; I'm telling your the orders themselves can be stupid, for which the commander in chief can be directly blamed.

No you're missing the point (apparently), in a war it's actually the solder on the ground who does the killing and perpetuating the conflict. The cowards who sit at home and give the orders are just trying to stop them, to stop and prevent war. If it weren't for those pesky solders volunteering and going and killing other solders, we would all be living in peace and harmony, war would never happen.

Am I missing anything? — Baden

I don't think it was strictly a Trump thing (like I'm in the inner circle or something).

The Iranian in question had been a target for a while because he was the primary means by which Shiite Iran destabilized the region.

All the Sunnis in the area were happy to see him die and happy to have Iran told to sit down and shut up. So if Iran chooses to escalate things, its not just the US they'll be fighting and one assumes they know that.

I think they'll take the opportunity to sit down and shut up (after the obligatory flaming is finished).

The action was the equivalent of Iran assassinating Colin Powell at the height of his popularity. They are not going to "sit down and shut up". They have enough surrogates in the region to do plenty of damage and they will. The question is will the US then escalate into a full scale war (which they would have no hope of winning, which they can't afford, and which mother Russia would not like at all). My guess is there will be some tit for tat and then a return to low level hostilities as before. In any case, this will be a good test of Putin's hold over Trump.

I think the more crucial issue now is how the US will continue in Iraq. With it's 5000 troops there, it's not like when it was with 160 000.

“One sure result of the U.S. strike is that the era of U.S.-Iraq cooperation is over,” Richard N. Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former American diplomat, wrote on Twitter. “The U.S. diplomatic & mil presence will end b/c Iraq asks us to depart or our presence is just a target or both. The result will be greater Iranian influence, terrorism and Iraqi infighting.”

The action was the equivalent of Iran assassinating Colin Powell at the height of his popularity — Baden

Sort of, yes. Powell was more destructive.

They are not going to "sit down and shut up". They have enough surrogates in the region to do plenty of damage and they will. — Baden

Like kill an American contractor and dance threateningly around the US Embassy in Baghdad?

My guess is there will be some tit for tat and then a return to low level hostilities as before. — Baden

With less coordinated efforts to give hope to Iraqi Shiites, IOW: sitting down and shutting up.

What is it non-Iranian Shiites hope for? Do you know?

Like kill an American contractor and dance threateningly around the US Embassy in Baghdad? — frank

I expect it will amount to more than that, unfortunately. Not that killing any American isn't a serious act. But I expect Iran to gamble on American weakness rather than strength considering the recent firing of chief Iran hawk John Bolton, the expressed wish to get out of the Middle East, the retreat from Syria, Trump's servile relationship with Putin, the lack of support from American allies, and the general lack of coherence in policy. Why do you think Iran would bet on American strength and bow down?

But I expect Iran to gamble on American weakness rather than strength — Baden

I think that's what killing the American and protesting around the embassy was: checking to see if trump would respond by abandoning Iraq.

Why do you think Iran would bet on American strength and bow down? — Baden

The assassination. What did you think it was for?

What do you mean by "bow down"? I already specified what I meant by SD and SU.

I predict that history will show that the first action that led to this war was withdrawing from the Nuclear Pact, and the second was the imposition of the extremely restrictive sanctions. Trump backed Iran into a corner. That's not to excuse anything they did as a consequence, but it's crazy to think they'd just buckle under to our will.

The action was the equivalent of Iran assassinating Colin Powell at the height of his popularity. They are not going to "sit down and shut up". They have enough surrogates in the region to do plenty of damage and they will. The question is will the US then escalate into a full scale war (which they would have no hope of winning, which they can't afford, and which mother Russia would not like at all). My guess is there will be some tit for tat and then a return to low level hostilities as before. In any case, this will be a good test of Putin's hold over Trump.

Putin has such a grip on Trump that Trump keeps bombing Putin’s allies. Perhaps the test has already failed. There was no grip.

I think the strike was murder, plain and simple, and thereby and therefore indefensible on any grounds, and at the same time almost a free pass on whatever the crazies on the other side want to consider doing. As such a disgraceful, inexcusable, stupid thing to do. Unless....

There's another name for murdering your enemy and pretending it's ok: war.

Back when the Iranians took the hostages, '79 - '81, and there was much dithering about it (although I do not think for even a second that Carter was one of the ditherers), William F. Buckley cogently argued that the right action was an immediate declaration of war. Not, he said, to start shooting, but instead to make explicit the right relation between the US and Iran-as-kidnappers and as prior ground and justification for any action the US might care to take. That is, the Iranian action was a profound error of judgment - perhaps understandable as fanaticism - that gave the US at the time a kind of carte blanche, which imo we did not use very well. Now we have made a similar error.

Unless it's war we want. But then and now it is clear to anyone with a brain that war with Iran is a very bad idea. Unless you're a Russian.

It seems to me that everything that Trump has done and how he has done it, with maybe two non-relevant exceptions, has been so antithetical to American purposes and values that mere stupidity cannot account for it. So I wonder who is really driving, who's in the wheelhouse at the White House.

Putin has such a grip on Trump that Trump keeps bombing Putin’s allies. Perhaps the test has already failed. There was no grip. — NOS4A2

That you're a goad and a deliberate annoyance is widely acknowledged and proclaimed, but we do not expect you to be stupid too. I feel a certain confidence about Putin, mainly that he's good at what he does, and if that means setting off a bomb under his own mother's petticoats while she's in them, I'm confident he'd do it even with a small, self-satisfied smile.

That you're a goad and a deliberate annoyance is widely acknowledged and proclaimed, but we do not expect you to be stupid too. I feel a certain confidence about Putin, mainly that he's good at what he does, and if that means setting off a bomb under his own mother's petticoats while she's in them, I'm confident he'd do it even with a small, self-satisfied smile.

They are words on a screen. The deliberate annoyance is your own fault, as you goad yourself into a frothing fit each time you read them.

Your conspiracy theories only add to the tin-foil nature of your responses.

the first action that led to this war — Relativist

That coup was the origin of relations, but there was reason to hope Obama's nuclear deal might lead to improving relations over time. By withdrawing from it, Trump killed that possibility and demonstrated that the US is an untrustworthy negotiator.

Putin has such a grip on Trump that Trump keeps bombing Putin’s allies. — NOS4A2

Actually Trump also bombed his own allies. But I guess it works great. See how well it worked with Pakistan, your former ally.

Yeah, some time ago the US was really a leader in the World. Just think about this newsreel from the 1950's and how things are now.

Putin has such a grip on Trump that Trump keeps bombing Putin’s allies. — NOS4A2

When the US bombs Russia's allies, do you think that will somehow turn them against Russia? Seems to me it's a win for Putin - I doubt Putin really cares about the loss of life among his allies.

The US is more a leader now than it ever was. Number one economy, number one energy producer, number one military force on the globe. The US has effectively defended the West while Europe had to rebuild itself from its disastrous century of wars. It’s pretty clear the US is still the world leader, if not by choice, then at least because no one else has stepped up to the plate.

For students of bad rhetoric, unsupported argument, vacuity, and cliche, please see the above. Or try the "America fuck yeah" video in the Iran thread.