The New York Times
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| Mr. Sondland was sworn in to testify Wednesday before Congress | Doug Mills, NYT |
"Everyone was in the loop," he said. "It was no secret."
On November 20, 2019, U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland testified that there was a "clear quid pro quo" between Ukraine conducting politically motivated investigations and getting a meeting between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. He confirmed that senior administration officials knew about Trump's and Giuliani's foreign policy plan—including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Vice President Mike Pence. Mr. Sondland highlighted that Trump's priority was to have the Ukrainian government announce that they would start the investigations, which alone could have been damaging enough to Biden's political campaign. Moreover, Sondland also admitted to grudgingly working with Mr. Giuliani on a pressure campaign from "the president's orders", further emphasizing Trump's active participation in a controversy that threatens his presidency. After these revelations, the urging question on corruption in American politics remains.
Discussion Questions
1. After Sondland's new testimony, will Congress's stance be significantly impacted?
2. Do you believe that anyone in the Trump administration ought to be prosecuted?
3. Is it likely that other officials will follow suit to Sondland?
While this is a significant finding in the investigation into the Ukrainian scandal and 'quid pro quo', it don't think it will necessarily be enough to convince members of the Republican party. As new evidence is discovered, he Republican party could begin to disassociate with Trump and vote against him, but for now their actions indicate that they will be loyal to him, especially in the Senate. I personally believe that Trump and high level officials in his administration should be prosecuted for his clear abuse of power and unlawful actions. However, the Senate is unlikely to convict a member of their party with such high crimes without significant, undeniable evidence. Sondland has likely given others the courage and justification to come out and testify against the President, but there is a possibility that it will only silence people further.
ReplyDeleteSondland's testimony definitely validated the concern over Trump's integrity, and demonstrated that there were many people involved and his testimony is incredibly valuable especially because his status is very high. I hope that other officials will follow suit to Sondland and speak honestly for the sake of preserving democracy. I think that more people working in the executive branch should testify like Pompeo and Pence because they could add valuable information to the investigation in the House.
ReplyDeleteI believe that because of Sondland's bravery to testify against the President may make other officials feel safe enough to follow his lead. The more people who speak up, the more power they will have against any repercussions (by dubious methods) that they may receive for their testimony. I believe that because of the credibility that Sondland's testimony added to the prosecution, other will begin to come froward with even small pieces of information that will only confirm Sondland's testimony, and further strengthen the case against Trump. Sondland opened the door for voices to be heard, as well as listened to.
ReplyDeleteWith the current history of the republican party, it is unlikely that this new information will impact their stance; It would likely require some absolutely undeniable evidence of a high crime or misdemeanor in order to sway the republicans in the senate. With prosecution, everyone that has any tie to trump should at least be investigated to understand as much of the story as possible. I do believe that with the way things are, many officials may follow suit to sondland with the extent of the investigation and trumps actions.
ReplyDeleteI'm no Trump supporter, but I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding among most people about why the "quid pro quo" is important. Most people seem to think that if a quid pro quo is proven that an impeachable offense can be raised, but that's simply not true. Only if corrupt intent can be proven from a quid pro quo, making it bribery, can it become an impeachable offense. If Trump is telling the truth and withheld the meeting because he was determined to investigate corruption and it just so happened to involve the Bidens, it's not impeachable. This is a big reason why Sondland's testimony likely won't sway Congress much, despite it being a big step forward to potentially proving corrupt intent. What IS impeachable, however, is obstruction of justice. Trump actually has the metaphorical high ground in this impeachment inquiry, but is ruining all his advantages by trying to stop witnesses. He's just giving them more reasons to impeach! I think that Sondland's testimony will encourage others to step up to testify as well.
ReplyDeleteAlso, for those that think the Biden investigation has to be political, keep in mind that Hunter Biden was deemed innocent by a FORMER Ukrainian prosecutor, who was appointed under the previous administration, which was led by a president accused of corruption by current president Zelensky. There is still a chance that Trump's motivation was really to ensure the previous administration's investigation was legitimate.
I respect the courage it took for Sondland to stand out against Trump's actions, but I am not sure if it will serve to be enough to sway the position of Republicans on Congress. He did put senior administration officials like Mike Pompeo and Mike Pence on the spot, which puts them in a position to potentially hurt their reputation, and hopefully if what he said is true, others will stand out and bring justice to the situation by getting the ball rolling, but especially in such a high-pressure situation, standing up for the right thing puts the individual in a bad position, especially if Trump is resultantly not impeached.
ReplyDeleteHow congress chooses to react to such news is really up to them, democrats can definitely use this against Trump and to encourage many more bystanders to share their stories.Republicans, on the other hand may brush off this event just as it has with countless others against Trump. In my opinion, Trump’s intentions must be put to question along with his integrity.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate Sondland coming forward and calling out Trump’s abuse of power, however I’m not really getting my hopes up about impeachment. It would require more than a dozen Republicans to come forward and condemn the president and I really don’t see that happening anytime soon. I agree with impeachment, I think there was an obvious quid pro quo and it is the right thing to do. However, there is the potential that it will increase polarization and galvanize Trump supporters if the impeachment is unsuccessful (which is the most likely scenario). I believe democratic presidential candidates shouldn’t let their rhetoric be consumed with talk of impeachment, as most voters don’t really care. We need to focus on providing a new vision for the future of America with bipartisan appeal and not spend all our time talking about the incumbent president.
ReplyDeleteWhile Sondland made a brave move to testify before Congress, I do not think his testimony is going to make much of a difference. Considering that the Republican Party hasn’t spoken out against Trump directly in the past few days, it suggests to me that they will not be taking a defying stance against him. I partly think this is due to the nature of Trump’s character. He’s proven to be a, let’s say, unusual character during his time as president thus far and it is nothing like we’ve ever seen before from a president. What made Trump so dominant during his campaign was his loud personality and his ability to annihilate other candidates, even if his information was wrong at times. I think what this has done is scare other members of the Republican Party is challenging Trump on any of his policies or action. As a result, even something that seems as significant as Sondland’s testimony prevents anyone from speaking out. I think the only thing that can really affect Congress’s view on Trump is if more officials come out and agree with Sondland. Currently, one view is not going to be enough to convince Republican officials to join in with the motives to impeach Trump. Until the rest of the Republican Party unifies to impeach Trump, nothing is going to cause them to speak out against him.
ReplyDeleteCongress stance will definitely be effected because they know have to either trust their president or the president of Ukraine. This also gives the democrats another opening to question president Trumps actions and link them to his previous interactions with Ukraine. However, the democrats might still need some more evidence than that to convince the republicans to impeach trump in the senate. As for people on the Trump administration, it honestly depends on what take they have on the matter. Whats most important is that the democrats should keep focusing on the republicans in the senate in order to complete the impeachment process.
ReplyDeleteWhat interesting to note here is that Sondland stressed the point that Trump just wanted the Ukrainian president to announce the investigations, and didn’t really care if they would actually be done. Trump likely never even cared in the slightest whether the Hunter Biden thing was true or not. Instead, he saw the value that the appearance of an international investigation into Biden could serve for him. This makes it abundantly clear that Trump never thought about corruption but rather a narrative that can be exploited for his own benefit, similar to what happened with Clinton’s emails. Knowing how the right-wing propaganda machine can inflate any hint of wrongdoing into a full blown scandal, Trump was seeking a PR bomb from the start.
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