By John Paluska, Founder of The Daily Fodder
Ukrainian-stationed State Department official David Holmes' public testimony is another kink in the chain of the quid pro quo argument. His testimony repeatedly asserts it was department officials, not President Trump, who were trying to orchestrate "commercial deals" and other things they "thought President Trump might care about."
This led, as Holmes states in his testimony, Ambassador Taylor to state "we need to work on turning the President around on Ukraine." This is quite a different tone to what Adam Schiff and the Democrats have been pushing in the last months. The picture of an apathetic President Trump toward Ukraine and Ukrainian matters puts a major damper on their narrative of President Trump begging for an investigation into Joe Biden. It appears the more we dig into Ukrainian affairs the less President Trump had to do with any of it.
But, even so, there is one major inconsistency in Holmes' testimony as it relates to the call transcripts which, as he said, he was not present for. In the second transcript, President Trump says he is more than willing to arrange a meeting between himself and Zelenskiy and says he wants Zelenskiy to give him a date to visit:
"Whenever you would like to come to the White House, feel free to call. Give us a date and we'll work that out. I look forward to seeing you."
To which Zelenskiy replies:
"Thank you very much. I would be very happy to come and would be happy to meet with you personally and get to know you better."
This sounds like the polar opposite of Holmes' testimony of Trump being apathetic toward a meeting with the Ukrainian president. Perhaps they "turned him" just in time? The more we dig, the more we find a nefarious backwater channel of key officials doing all the heavy lifting and then lying to cover their scent.
They accused Trump of a "quid pro quo" with Ukraine. Sondland denied that. They accused Trump of begging Ukraine to be involved with an investigation, which Holmes effectively and categorically denied. In fact, he goes so far to deny it that he actually places the pressure on Zelenskiy:
"It is important to understand that a White House meeting was critical to President Zelenskyy. President Zelenskyy needed to show U.S. support at the highest levels in order to demonstrate to Russian President Putin that he had U.S. Backing. . ."
The context of this section of his testimony is before the second phone call but after the first, and around the time Trump signed and sent a congratulatory letter to Zelenskiy. Either way, President Trump, at least according to Holmes' testimony, was an apathetic party who needed to be "turned" into working with Ukraine. For an impeachment show trial trying to convince the general public that Trump was consistently pressuring Zelenskiy for an investigation into Joe Biden, this testimony promotes the opposite.
Follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook!
0 Comments