Posted: Nov 20, 2019 8:03 pm
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50495289
Again, heads turn to Republicans to see if there's any sign of spines growing.
Impeachment inquiry: A bombshell for President Trump
With his opening statement to the House impeachment hearings on Wednesday, Gordon Sondland fired a torpedo that has blown a hole in the White House's defences.
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Sondland, the US ambassador to the EU, was working with Donald Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, on Ukrainian policy at the explicit direction of the president.
There was a quid-pro-quo. A White House visit for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was directly conditioned on opening investigations that could help the president politically. Sondland also came to believe that US military aid to Ukraine was also being held up for this reason.
Everyone at the White House - acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former National Security Advisor John Bolton and others - was "in the loop".
The word "bombshell" gets thrown around a lot these days, but Sondland's testimony, which represents a shift from his earlier closed-door statements, is a watershed moment in these impeachment investigations.
Again, heads turn to Republicans to see if there's any sign of spines growing.