Sondland: "Zelensky loves your ass."

Trump: "So, he's going to do the investigations?"

Sondland: "Zelensky's going to do anything you ask him."

This is first-hand verification of Trump's call to Sondland, and it's damning.

Further, given that Volker has substantively amended his earlier testimony to the Intelligence Committee from a few weeks ago, one can imagine that EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland will likely do more of the same during his time in the House docket tomorrow, and confirm his own personal contacts with Trump.

I liked him against my better judgement.

"Based on statements and questions I have heard, some of you on this committee appear to believe that Russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country," Hill will say in her opening statement, "and that perhaps, somehow, for some reason, Ukraine did."

"This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by Russian security services themselves," she will say.

AG William Barr has said that progressives are "militant secularists" out to "destroy the traditional moral order."  If those are seen as the stakes, it may readily follow that anything goes: including soliciting, bribing and extorting Ukraine so as to stack the deck and intervene in our elections.

And, in the process, undermine a vulnerable ally and support the aims of Russia, an American adversary.  The conspiracy to stay in power was lead by Trump and carried out by Trump-appointed high level officials and his personal attorney.

Trump, no doubt, worried that his election in 2016 was a fluke what with stars lining up thanks to Putin and Comey, No longer did he need to leave events to chance.  He had the power of his office to rig it by forcing Ukraine to implicate Biden, who he expected to be his rival, in a crime that did not happen. And, never giving up on the hope that Americans would purchase the fantasy that Ukraine and HIllary and the Democrats got together to steal the DNC emails so as to help defeat Hillary.

The caper roped in his entire gang.  Rudy was designated to run a corrupt channel, as Rudy so eloquently put it, not to meddle in an election, but to "meddle in an investigation."  Whatever it took, was all well and good, trickery, deceit, bribery, and even, throwing Ukraine into the arms of the Russian bear. All this, and can a Trump Tower-Moscow be far behind to boot?

Easily covered up.  Just Trump's grand reputation as an anti-corruption champion, bringing to the task his experience along these lines from Trump University.  Republicans complicitors will bury evidence and assist to obstruct. Good old Nunes and Mitch.  Certification by DOD an DOS to having satisfied anti-corruption criteria may be inconvenient but
not insurmountable.  And, too, Trump did not really want to get into an investigation, just  have the Ukraine president be in a box after a CNN announcement.

Without the whistleblower and Democrat House Intel follow-up, it would have succeeded.  A CNN international program announcing a corruption allegation against Biden and the Democratic Party.

While current Attorney General and a$$-kissing Trump toady Bill Barr might presently perceive the principled resignations of Richardson and Ruckelshaus 46 years ago as quaint and weak-sisterly, their joint actions are a selfless example to younger GOP politicians that once upon a time, two lifelong Republicans achieved their true moral stature in a moment of professional doom. For it is upon them, and not Nixon, that American historians will forever look with admiration.

And that could sure change the game in many ways.

And lest we forget.

  She was not a witness to attack, both from her own ability to speak on her own behalf, but also from the sheer power of her presence. Even Mr. Castor, Republican Counsel,could not, or did not chose to, fill up his full time period for questions, stopping short of his time, with a visible sense of relief.

"There's so many people still trying to serve the country, so when people write books that quickly after leaving, my guess is there's two motivations: They need the money and they need the political future."

November 20, 2019 at 7:23 am EST By Taegan Goddard

Sondland strikes me as smart enough to see he and Rudy are being groomed as fall guys.

Play the race card

Give him a ticker tape when he come home

Politico: "A group of Republican senators met Thursday morning with White House counsel Pat Cipollone, counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner to discuss impeachment strategy."

"Two attendees said that the White House wants the Senate to hold a trial of some length and not immediately dismiss any articles of impeachment with the GOP's majority, as some Republicans have suggested. The White House and Trump's GOP allies decided instead `they want some kind of factual affirmative defense on the merits,' said one attendee."

A purpose and a calling

RudyGiuliani
 seems to suggest he has dirt that would prevent TRUMP from turning on him: "I've seen things written like `he is going to throw me under the bus.' When they say that, I say `he isn't, but I have insurance."