Donald Trump, a man you have to take at his word
By
America’s Dumbest Senator (TM), everybody:
Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) stepped forward with a disclosure Friday that he apparently thought might help President Trump weather his Ukraine problem.
But what he said was decidedly unhelpful for Trump.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Johnson disclosed that Trump assured him on Aug. 31 that there was no quid pro quo between him and Ukraine. “He said — expletive deleted — No way. I would never do that. Who told you that?” Johnson said.
The more significant part of the conversation, though, is why Johnson even asked Trump in the first place:Mr. Johnson said he learned of the potential arrangement involving military aid through a phone call with Mr. [Gordon] Sondland that occurred the day before Mr. Johnson spoke to Mr. Trump. Under the arrangement, Mr. Johnson said Mr. Sondland told him, Ukraine would appoint a strong prosecutor general and move to “get to the bottom of what happened in 2016 — if President Trump has that confidence, then he’ll release the military spending,” recounted Mr. Johnson.“At that suggestion, I winced,” Mr. Johnson said. “My reaction was: Oh, God. I don’t want to see those two things combined.”
Gordon Sondland, you might recall, was one of three top U.S. diplomats whose text messages were disclosed to Congress by former Ukraine envoy Kurt Volker on Thursday. In those texts, Sondland twice responds to suggestions of a military aid quid pro quo by suggesting they talk about such things on the phone rather than via text. In the second case, he also rather curiously issues an extensive and carefully worded denial of the quid pro quo that almost seems intended for a situation in which the texts eventually became public.
Feingold losing to this guy twice hasn’t gotten any less gutting.
A second intelligence official who was alarmed by President Trump’s dealings with Ukraine is weighing whether to file his own formal whistle-blower complaint and testify to Congress, according to two people briefed on the matter.
The official has more direct information about the events than the first whistle-blower, whose complaint that Mr. Trump was using his power to get Ukraine to investigate his political rivals touched off an impeachment inquiry. The second official is among those interviewed by the intelligence community inspector general to corroborate the allegations of the original whistle-blower, one of the people said.
The inspector general, Michael Atkinson, briefed lawmakers privately on Friday about how he substantiated the whistle-blower’s account. It was not clear whether he told lawmakers that the second official was considering filing a complaint.
Don’t worry, Trump has assured Ron Johnson that everything the second whistleblower is saying must be false, since he would never offer to give or withhold favors to solicit assistance with his ratfucking campaigns, except for the times he’s done it in public or the times he’s admitted to doing it in private which is okay because such actions are in fact perfectly appropriate.