One of the biggest breaks on the Ukraine story has happened in the last 24 hours with the
release of testimony from ambassador to the European union, Gordon Sunland. Now I'm going
to go through this with you because the guy that Trump has been pointing to saying, look,
he says there was no quid pro quo. That guy has now testified that there was a quid pro
quo, so this is major, but there's actually a bigger issue to address here.
There is a, I guess I would call it, let's use a a building analogy. There's a systemic
rot that is taking over the issue of Ukraine for Donald Trump and for Republicans and for
the last few weeks, the foundation has been starting to fracture and rot and weaken below
ground level, right? It was only visible though if you were standing in the basement, but
outside they were still keeping up the facade of the house as if it were solid and strong.
But over the last 48 hours, that foundational rod has started to be noticeable from the
outside because the house is starting to implode on itself. It can't be avoided. Even standing
out in the street, you see the house starting to slump over in disrepair and Republicans
don't know what to do because they can't defend Donald Trump anymore. On the facts. Early
on, they were trying to, uh, defend Donald Trump on the facts.
There was no quid pro quo. The phone call was fine. The military aide, so on and so
forth, they now have been relegated to just having to attack the whistleblower like Kentucky
Senator Rand Paul did. And, uh, which we talked about yesterday or the day before, Republican
Senator Lindsey Graham a month ago said, there's no evidence of a quid pro quo. Now there is.
Thanks in part to Gordon Sundland. So Lindsay Graham now is saying, I'm not even going to
read his testimony because it's just not worth my time. What? Well, then you shouldn't get
your 175,000 a year from taxpayers, right? If you're not even willing to do your job,
at least you shouldn't get your 175,000, he probably will continue to. So here's what
happened. Donald Trump has been saying for weeks, Gordon Sundland, the ambassador to
the European union, he said it, there was no quid pro quo on my call with Ukraine.
So clearly Donald Trump believes we can trust the word of Gordon Sunland, right? Well, now
it's Trump. You can trust the word of Gordon Sunland if his word is convenient for Donald
Trump. Remember that Gordon Sunland was appointed by Donald Trump. Sunland was a major Trump
mega donor who gave $1 million to Trump's inauguration. By the way, that entire thing
is another fiasco that needs to be fixed. These inauguration funds serve effectively
as slush money for what is effectively political bribery and influence peddling. But that's
a story for a different day. But Gordon's Sunland has now amended his testimony saying,
you know what, Trump's dealings with Ukraine, they were a quid pro quo. Sundland talks about
a meeting that happened on September 1st with a top aid to the Ukrainian president during
which it was made clear. According to Sunland, us military aid to Ukraine is contingent upon
president Zelenskyi publicly saying he's launching investigation into Joe Biden, which Donald
Trump wanted in order to help him in his 2020 reelection campaign.
So that's it, right? I mean, whistle blowers are now irrelevant. The guy Trump appointed
who said we should be looking for him for the truth says there was a quid pro quo. Now
let's get into the reaction to this because we knew that anytime there's an amended testimony
that is not convenient for Donald Trump, the conspiracy theories would start would start.
So if you ask Republicans, why did Gordon Sundland first say one thing and now say something
else, they are coming up with all sorts of theories and the most popular one is the Dems
got to Sunland. They threatened his life, they made it clear that they'll destroy his
family and his career if he doesn't lie and say there was a quid pro quo. Is that theoretically
possible? Sure. But with so many other people who are corroborating the same story, why
do Democrats need to do something criminal in threatening Gordon Sundland in this way
in order to get just one guy to change his testimony when there are so many other people
that are saying the exact same thing happened.
The more likely scenario is that earlier on Gordon Sundland didn't yet know how big the
Ukraine fiasco was going to get. Someone thought I can get away with some kind of mealy mouth
statement saying this is sort of what I recall right now. Things bite me missing. I might
update my testimony in the future and hoping it would all sort of die down and that he
wouldn't end up actually uh, um, uh, a part of a much bigger scandal. It's now clear,
it's not going away. It's now clear that everybody else who was involved who has any knowledge
of what happened with Ukraine says there was a quid pro quo and Sunland simply has to come
totally clean, which he is now doing. Tell me what you think explains Gordon Sunderland's
change of position on this issue. I believe that Republicans have absolutely no evidence
whatsoever for their theory that he was strong armed, pressured, threatened by Democrats.
I mean it just, there was no evidence whatsoever. And absent evidence, what I would imagine
is he went in as, as many people who have to give testimony, do initially what's best
for them is to say as little as possible, to be as least controversial as they can be
with the hopes that they'll be forgotten because people generally don't like the idea of having
to go and testify in these ways that didn't happen and he is now coming totally clean.
That's my view. Uh, let me know either leave a comment. If you're watching on YouTube,
send me a tweet. I'm on Twitter at D Pacman and while you're there, make sure you're following
me. Uh, I am approaching 100,000 Twitter followers are completely arbitrary and meaningless,
but nice looking round number and I would appreciate ya. You're helping getting to that
tonight live stream. Join me on Twitch at twitch.tv/david [inaudible].
Yeah, the David Pakman show@davidpakman.com