I have a disagreement with Rachel Maddow. Last night on her show she said the blockbuster story of the day was that of David Holmes, the official at the American embassy in Ukraine who overheard the phone call between Trump and Gordon Sondland. My disagreement with her is not that the story wasn't a Really Big Deal. It was. But massive a story as that is -- and make no mistake, it's a massive one, perhaps the biggest on most days -- I think there was an even bigger story that she reported later in the broadcast, a breaking scoop from the Associated Press. That story was about how Ukraine's president-elect Zelensky not only did feel pressured by Trump, despite him publicly stating otherwise, but even had a secret meeting with advisers on May 7, almost three weeks before the second Trump phone call. Moreover, this was also just one day after U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was recalled. Among those at the meeting with two top Ukranian officials and Amos Hochstein, a former American diplomat and Ukraine expert who advised Joe Biden on the country during the Obama administration. Yes, the overheard Trump-Sondland phone call story is huge because it confirms details and gives lie to other testimony, making the Trump plan with Rudy Giuliani wider than previously thought. The Ukraine pressure story, however, is directly at the heart of the extortion-bribery charge of impeachment. The one and only serious defense Trump supporters have been trying to push is that Trump's call to Zelensky was fine because the Ukranian did not feel he was being pressured and said so publicly. This story breaks that one, final, weak defense. And further, it gives lie to the Republican contention that Zelensky couldn't have felt extorted since he supposedly didn't even know of the demand before the phone call. (Not that it matters if he was aware what was going on. If someone is trying to extort you -- they are trying to extort you. They don't get a pass because they covered their tracks so well.) One thing of which I'm pretty certain of is that after the story broke and the show ended, someone from the House Intelligence Committee instantly began looking into contacting former diplomat Amos Hochstein about whether it's worth their while having him come in to give a deposition on the meeting with Ukraine president-elect Zelensky. You can read the full story here, written by Desmond Butler and Michael Biesecker. In fairness, yes, both stories of the day are huge. It’s really almost a toss of the coin which is bigger. I just fall on the side of the pressuring. But let's put it this way: if one thinks that this story about Zelensky feeling pressured to the extent that he held meetings about it.is only the second biggest story of the day, then the day was even far-more horrifically worse for Trump than before... A perfect call, indeed.
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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