Trump impeachment hearings: Sondland says 'We followed the president's orders' – live – The Guardian, Google News

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Here’s a better picture of the president’s notes:

I want nothing.

I want nothing.

I want no quid pro quo.

Tell Zellinsky to do the right thing.

This is the final word from the Pres of the U.S.

The one independent in the House, a Republican before his party’s embrace of Trump drove him out:

Giuliani is defending himself on Twitter. He claims that Volker brought him in, as if he was not working, primarily and singularly, on Trump’s behalf.

In any case Volker testified that Giuliani asked him, Volker, to put him in touch with Zelenskiy’s aid.

Goldman: You’re now aware what the president wanted, the Biden investigation and a 2016 election investigation, is that right?

Sondland: That’s correct.

Goldman is walking Sondland through text messages and emails he has submitted demonstrating that secretary of state Mike Pompeo was looped in on the effort to engineer the quid pro quo.

A fish may rot from the head, but in this case, theDemocratsare saying, the whole fish was rotten.

The testimony is aligning.The official stance of the diplomats is, we thought that the drug deal we were negotiating was adog deal, and when we learned it was aboutdrugswe were shocked, appalled and we never would have agreed to (that.

Schiff is nailing Sondland down on both Mick Mulvaney and Mike Pompeo knowing about the quid pro quo.

Schiff reminds the room thatMulvaney held a press conference saying aid was tied to investigations.Mulvaney later tried to walk that back.

Sondland saw a recording of the press conference. “He said yes it was” – the military aid was tied to investigations.

Schiff begins by pressing Sondland on his inability, for so long, to link Burisma and Biden. Giuliani was saying it on TV! Schiff says.

Sondland says he did not listen to what Giuliani was saying on TV because he was talking directly with Giuliani.

Schiff announces an extra 30 – minute question period for the chairman, ranking member and lawyers.

Nunes won’t like that. And will Castor be able to fill it?

Castor finishes with an attack on Sondland, saying he didn’t take notes and testified that he did not recall a lot of things. Castor calls it a “trifecta” of unreliability.

Sondland says he has not had access to documents but he did have some texts which he read and his testimony was strengthened by others.

Sondland has just bristled at the notion that he was in some kind of “irregular channel” of US-Ukraine policy.

If the president himself was in the channel, Sondland asks, how is that the irregular one?

I don’t see how, when you’re talking to the president of the United States, the secretary of state, the national security adviser, the chief of staff in the White House, the secretary of energy – if a bunch of folks who are not in that channel are aggrieved for not being included, I don’t know why they considerusto be the irregular channel andtheythe regular channel, when it’s the leadership that makes the decisions.

Concerns about the quid pro quo “were never raised,” Sondland says. “Everyone’s hair was on fire but no one decided to talk to us.”