{"id":1316923,"date":"2019-11-23T21:56:02","date_gmt":"2019-11-24T04:56:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/polman-column-ambassador-goes-full-agatha-christie-on-the-trump-regime\/"},"modified":"2019-11-23T21:56:02","modified_gmt":"2019-11-24T04:56:02","slug":"polman-column-ambassador-goes-full-agatha-christie-on-the-trump-regime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/polman-column-ambassador-goes-full-agatha-christie-on-the-trump-regime\/","title":{"rendered":"Polman column: Ambassador goes full Agatha Christie on the Trump regime"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Do you remember the climax of Agatha Christie\u2019s \u201cMurder on the Orient Express?\u201d It turned out all the murder suspects were guilty.<\/p>\n

And as Trump\u2019s handpicked ambassador, Gordon Sondland, publicly declared during Wednesday\u2019s House impeachment hearing, all the suspects in the illegal scheme to squeeze Ukraine for fake Biden dirt are guilty. Starting at the very top, with Trump.<\/p>\n

And Sondland is certainly a credible guy, right? After all, Trump praised him last month as \u201ca really good man and great American.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what the good man and great American told Congress: \u201cEveryone was in the loop.\u201d The whole mission was to \u201cmake the boss happy.\u201d And if it made the boss happy to hold back taxpayer-financed military aid from an ally fighting Russian aggression, until the ally agreed to launch bogus investigations of the Bidens, then fine. In Sondland\u2019s explosive words, \u201cWas there a quid quo pro? The answer is yes\u2026 We followed the president\u2019s orders.\u201d<\/p>\n

Translation: I paid a million bucks to get myself an ambassadorship, and never imagined I\u2019d get sucked into something like this. There\u2019s no way I\u2019m gonna take the fall. If that happens, I\u2019m gonna take everyone down with me \u2013 starting with Trump.<\/p>\n

Sondland\u2019s sworn testimony \u2013 at least for those of us who aren\u2019t \u201cbored\u201d by these proceedings \u2013 is more delicious than a chocolate sundae. Historians will look back on this day as conclusive proof that Trump blatantly abused his office, pursuing his own personal interests and solicited collusion with a foreign government \u2013 all at the expense of our national security. And as Sondland testified, \u201ceveryone was in the loop\u201d on the impeachable act.<\/p>\n

Sondland fingered Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, ex-national security advisor John Bolton, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and, of course, he fingered Rudy Giuliani. In short, \u201ceveryone knew what we were doing and why.\u201d<\/p>\n

Am I overreacting? I\u2019ll yield the floor to Ken Starr, the conservative Clinton-hunting special prosecutor. On Fox News Wednesday, he said: \u201cArticles of impeachment are being drawn up if they haven\u2019t already been drawn up\u2026 This, obviously, has been one of those bombshell days.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sondland also blew up two desperate Republican defenses. The mantra of \u201cno quid pro quo\u201d is dead. And the notion that Rudy and a handful of confederates \u201cwent rogue,\u201d and that Trump had no role in the scheme for fake Biden dirt, is buried.<\/p>\n

Now for the fun part: Sondland was quizzed about his cellphone conversation with Trump on July 26. Sondland was at a Kiev eatery when a foreign service official, David Holmes, has already stated in a sworn deposition that he was with Sondland at the time, that he overheard Trump\u2019s end of the conversation (because Trump was speaking so loudly), and that Trump specifically asked Sondland for an assurance that Ukraine would indeed launch a Biden dirt investigation.<\/p>\n

Sondland, today: \u201cI have no reason to doubt that the conversation included the subject of investigations.\u201d And \u201cI have no reason to doubt\u201d Holmes\u2019 recollection of the cellphone call.<\/p>\n

Holmes, in his deposition, said that Sondland assured Trump that Ukraine\u2019s president was ready to play ball \u2013 and that, in fact, \u201che loves your ass.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sondland was asked whether he really said that. His response: \u201cIt sounds like something I would say.\u201d He and Trump talked frequently, and liked to engage \u201cin Trumpspeak,\u201d which featured \u201ca lot of four-letter words\u201d \u2013 or, in the case of ass, \u201ca three-letter word.\u201d<\/p>\n

(So they spoke a lot? But didn\u2019t Trump say earlier this month that \u201cI hardly know the gentleman\u201d?)<\/p>\n

Looking back, Sondland now laments: \u201cI really regret that the Ukrainians were placed in that predicament.\u201d It\u2019s nice that he feels compelled to voice remorse. And it\u2019s amazing how his memory keeps getting better as the noose keeps tightening. Luckily for us, he has zero interest in taking the fall for a crime boss.<\/p>\n

Indeed, Trump knows how that game works. Last year he told Fox News: \u201cI know all about flipping. For 30, 40 years, I\u2019ve been watching flippers.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Trumpspeak, Wednesday\u2019s flipper is beautiful.<\/p>\n

Email Dick Polman at dickpolman7@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do you remember the climax of Agatha Christie\u2019s \u201cMurder on the Orient Express?\u201d It turned out all the murder suspects were guilty. And as Trump\u2019s handpicked ambassador, Gordon Sondland, publicly declared during Wednesday\u2019s House impeachment hearing, all the suspects in the illegal scheme to squeeze Ukraine for fake Biden dirt are guilty. Starting at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1316923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-06 11:57:29","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1316923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316923\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1316923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1316923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1316923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}