RUSH: We are at the moment rolling off some audio. Jim Jordan interviewing — or questioning, I should say — Gordon Sondland (and it’s good) about some mythical meeting that didn’t happen. Jordan made a couple of good points, though, that I want to share with you. Grab audio sound bite number seven. This sound bite is the gold mine of the day, and it’s become even more golden.
This is Ambassador Sondland responding to a question from Pencil Neck today about a quid pro quo — Trump demanding from Zelensky — before there would be aid, security assistance offered to Ukraine, and Pencil Neck says to Sondland, “Is this an accurate reflection of your discussion with the president?”
SONDLAND: I believe I just asked him an open-ended question, Mr. Chairman. “What do you want from Ukraine? I keep hearing all these different ideas and theories and this and that. What do you want?” And it was a very short, abrupt conversation. He was not in a good mood. And he just said, “I want nothing. I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo. Tell Zelensky to do the right thing.” Something to that effect.
RUSH: “I want nothing. I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo.” Jim Jordan asked Ambassador Sondland why he didn’t include this in his opening statement, which I have to confess I missed. I mean, I didn’t realize this was not in it — I did, but it didn’t make sense, because the bombshell is that Sondland somehow said today that Trump demanded a quid pro quo. And yet in the answer you just heard, he plainly says the president said he wanted nothing.
“I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo. Tell Zelensky to do the right thing.” Well, it turns out Sondland did not put that in his opening statement, a 23-page opening statement. Jim Jordan said, “Why did you not put it in there?” and Sondland said, “I ran out of room.” And Jordan said, “You ran out of room? In a 23-page opening statement, you didn’t have the space, you didn’t have the time, you didn’t have the room to include this?” “No, I didn’t. (muttering) I — I couldn’t squeeze it in.” So, if Pencil Neck hadn’t asked the question the way he asked it, Sondland may never have said this.
Pencil Neck, at the end of the day, ends up sabotaging himself inadvertently with this question. But that is a really, really curious thing, that Sondland omits this from his opening statement which allows everybody to write that bombshells have dropped, that Trump demanded a quid pro quo. I saw that. I watched the opening statement and I didn’t hear that. I turn around, I look at Drive-By Media headlines: Bombshell here, bombshells dropped there.
Then I hear Sondland’s answer to the question, and it’s exact opposite of what they’re saying. And then Jordan elucidates from Sondland, “I didn’t have time to put it in the opening statement.” He was hiding it! And then Jordan started talking about the whistleblower to Sondland, and made another good point. “Do you remember how we were first informed of this phone call, Ambassador?” “Well, I… (muttering)” Remember what we were told?
The news media told us that a whistleblower had come forward and said that this call was frightening, that it was scary what the president had done in this phone call, what the president had said. “It was frightening. It was outrageous. I had to report it immediately.” And of course, we now have the transcript of the phone call. (laughing) There’s nothing in the phone call. There is literally nothing impeachable. Every witness has been asked, “What is the impeachable offense in that phone call?”
Dead silence has been the answer. Crickets has been the answer. Folks, we are… I don’t care what day of the week it is, and I don’t care what the status. We are all being played in a major, major way. We are all being victimized by an ongoing creation of a grand illusion that the Democrat Party and their cohorts in the media are jointly perpetrating upon us. It is a giant illusion — and I’m using that word specifically and purposely. It isn’t true. It’s made to look like something that isn’t.
The phone call contains nothing scary, nothing frightening, nothing illegal, nothing impeachable. That’s why we’re here, the whistleblower and that phone call and his original report — which was secondhand — is why we are here. We have had Ambassador Sondland admit today that he had no idea that Burisma meant Bidens. We’ve had Ambassador Sondland admit that he didn’t know anything about Ukraine’s efforts to undermine the Trump campaign in 2016.
We’ve had Ambassador Sondland omit the real bombshell of these hearings from his opening statement. The real bombshell — play it again, Sam — is audio sound bite number 7. This is it.
SONDLAND: I believe I just asked him an open-ended question, Mr. Chairman. “What do you want from Ukraine? I keep hearing all these different ideas and theories and this and that. What do you want?” And it was a very short, abrupt conversation. He was not in a good mood. And he just said, “I want nothing. I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo. Tell Zelensky to do the right thing.” Something to that effect.
RUSH: “I want nothing. I want nothing. I want to quid pro quo.” That was not in his opening statement. It came in the answer to a question from Schiff later on. Here’s Devin Nunes, sound bite number 32. This is Nunes — I applauded this; I told you about it — attempting to provide the context for all of this, as I so artfully and timely did in the first hour of today’s busy broadcast.
NUNES: Let’s talk about things that we do know are facts. President Trump does not like foreign aid to start with. Is that correct, Ambassador?
SONDLAND: I’ve heard that, yes.
NUNES: Now looking back at clearly the challenges and concerns the president had with the involvement of high-level Ukrainian government officials — including the ambassador here in the United States — that attacked him during his presidential campaign, the concerns of leaks that were leaks or just made up-stories and conspiracy theories that were spun in the Steele dossier, that the Democrats on this committee own. They paid for it.
Other DNC operatives that were working with the Ukrainian ambassador here in Washington, D.C., to dirty up your boss, the president of the United States. We’re not gonna hear from those witnesses, just like we’re not gonna hear from the person we deposed on Saturday. We’re not gonna hear about what the real reason, the person who’s in charge of making sure that foreign aid is delivered, we’re not gonna hear about what actually happened with the foreign aid.
RUSH: There it is. That’s the reference to the testimony from Mark Sandy on Saturday behind closed doors that Pencil Neck and the Democrats are not releasing. He’s the person in charge of making sure foreign aid is delivered. He cuts the checks, if you will. We’re not gonna hear what actually happened in the case of Ukraine from the guy responsible for it. We’re not going to hear from any of the witnesses that participated in dirtying up Trump during the 2016 campaign.
It was during some of this line of questioning that Sondland admitted he didn’t know anything about any of that. Let’s go to CBS. Jonathan Turley. This was this afternoon during CBS coverage of the House Intelligence Committee impeachment hearing. During a recess, Norah O’Donnell, who is the new infobabe anchorette with CBS Evening News, was talking to Jonathan Turley, George Washington University law school professor, and she is seeking his reaction to the testimony to that point.
TURLEY: I think Republicans did gain ground today. In fact, today was the first day where I felt they had made progress. And what they did is they tied together the August 31st call with Senator Johnson, who said that the president was adamant and angry that there was no quid pro quo. And that was before the whistleblower thing came out. And they tied that, then, to September 9th, where he’s equally adamant and angry, according to Ambassador Sondland, and then two days later the aid is released. Those are actually hits below the water line for the Democrats.
RUSH: Right. You’re not gonna get that take anywhere else in the media, but the Republicans are making progress. And again, just at the top of this hour, Representative Michael Turner was questioning Sondland; got him to admit that he had no evidence of a Trump quid pro quo. Sondland not only testified earlier today that the president said he didn’t want one, Sondland had to admit that he didn’t know, he had no evidence of a Trump quid pro quo.
But, folks, the headlines have gone out. The headlines from this morning were already written before Sondland even testified based on the release of his statement. “Bombshells dropped today! Republicans nearing time to walk the White House to tell Trump to resign” was the subheadline. And even Ken Starr was promulgating that was probably next up, all because Sondland had dropped the “bombshell” that Trump did demand a quid pro quo.
How does this happen, when Sondland later testified that Trump said explicitly to him “no quid pro quo” and then mere moments ago Sondland said under questioning to Michael Turner that he had no evidence of a Trump quid pro quo? It was just his presumption. Like every other witness who has testified, it’s their assumption, it is their opinion based on media reports, based on conversations with colleagues. None of these people know anything. This is why Snerdley, I’m telling you, they are following somebody’s orders.
Somebody is running these witnesses. Somebody is commanding them. Somebody is scripting them. Somebody is orchestrating this. Vindman, Yovanovitch, Kent, Taylor, now Sondland — who’s only changed his testimony three times. He admitted he had no evidence of Trump quid pro quo. It was all his presumption based on media reports, based on conversations with colleagues. But, as I say, the headline’s already gone out. Let’s see. What is Drudge saying here: “Ambassador drops bombs. Followed president’s orders.
“Giuliani pushed quid pro quo. Pence knew.” See, that stuff’s already out there. Those are just links to stories. Don’t blame Drudge. Those are just links to story that are out there already. They’re AP, they are Yahoo News, they’re Reuters — and they were prewritten. Bombshells dropped. And yet Sondland’s testified Trump explicitly said to him he didn’t want a quid pro quo, and now just admitted that he just presumed that Trump did, and they tried dumping it all on Rudy earlier today.
Rudy has tweeted the following: “During the July 24 conversation @realDonaldTrump agrees to a meeting with Pres. Zelensky without requiring an investigation, any discussion of military aid or any condition whatsoever.” “During the July 24th conversation…” The phone call was July 25th. “During the July 24 conversation @realDonaldTrump agrees to a meeting with Pres. Zelensky…” This is before the phone call. The day before, Rudy says, “Trump agrees to a meeting with Pres. Zelensky without requiring an investigation, any discussion of military aid or any condition whatsoever.”
And Rudy says, “This record shows definitively no quid pro quo, which is the same as no bribery. END OF CASE!” which is what Trump said today on the way to Marine One. The case is over. This is over. There was no quid pro quo. There couldn’t have been any bribery. But the headlines have gone out. Bombshells dropped today. Schiff called a press conference and said it’s getting to be time now to take the march to the White House. Trump has done what Nixon did. He’s obstructed justice!
It’s an abomination, is what this is, folks.
It is a literal abomination.
I don’t know what else to call this.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: People have been patiently waiting. Edgewater, New Jersey. Victor, hello, sir. You are up next. Hi.
CALLER: Hey, Rush. How are you doing today?
RUSH: Good, sir. Good, sir. Thank you.
CALLER: All right. So my point is that Trump used the word “favor” asking Zelensky on the phone call — the transcript of the phone call — for a favor. A favor, by definition, is something done without monetary compensation. So Trump’s using the word “favor” automatically negates the idea that it was a bribe or quid pro quo. This led Schiff to kind of convince Vindman in his testimony yesterday to recharacterize the word “favor” as really being an order.
As the power disparity between Trump and Zelensky was so great, Zelensky had no option but to do it. That immediately destroys the bribery charge because you don’t have to bribe somebody that has no choice.
RUSH: Oh, you don’t have to bribe somebody… Yes, that’s true. You don’t have to bribe somebody that has no choice.
CALLER: (cat meows) So if it’s a favor, then that automatically destroys the idea that there’s a bribery charge because there’s no money involved in favors. If it was an order, then you don’t have to bribe somebody that you’re giving orders to.
RUSH: There wasn’t any bribery. We’re moving. That was yesterday. Today we’ve got it. There was no quid pro quo. This is major, what has happened today. The point about that yesterday was that Vindman was trying to assume that there is some chain of command among world leaders that Trump’s at the top of and other world leaders have to bow down and kiss his feet. “When he asks for a favor, that’s like my general asking me for a favor. It’s not a favor.” It was absurd. Your point about bribery is well taken, but that’s blown up today because Sondland had been forced to admit that nobody ever told him there was a quid pro quo ever.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here we have the Jim Jordan sound bites that I referenced earlier. This is Jordan asking Sondland about his statement that the president told him he didn’t want anything from Ukraine, and we have Sondland’s response.
JORDAN: Why didn’t you put that statement? Your opening statement? I think you couldn’t fit it in. Is that right?
SONDLAND: (scoffs)
JORDAN: We might be here for 46 minutes instead of 45 minutes?
SONDLAND: (snickers) It wasn’t purposeful, trust me.
JORDAN: It wasn’t purposeful?
SONDLAND: No.
JORDAN: You couldn’t put it in a 23-page opener, the most important statement about the subject matter at hand: The president of the United States, in a direct conversation with you about the issue at hand, and the president said — let me read it one more time — “What do you want from Ukraine, Mr. President?” “I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo. I want this new guy, brand-new guy in politics, his party just took over, I want Zelensky to do the right thing. I want him to run on and do what he ran on, which is deal with corruption.” And you can’t find time to fit that in a 23-page opening statement?
RUSH: Bingo. Bingo. I told you he said it but there you’ve heard it from his own mouth. So a Democrat congressman has been leading a boycott effort of Sondland and his wife’s businesses, and after Sondland’s opening statement — which the media has reported, “Bombshell: Sondland says quid pro quo,” the Democrat congressman Blumenauer tweets, “Welcome to the resistance, Gordon Sondland.” You think anything’s gonna happen to this congressman, Mr. Snerdley? (interruption) No. Nothing’s gonna happen to this congressman.
He’s gonna get a medal, because the media got its headlines today. The media was able to literally lie about Sondland’s testimony because he did. One more Jim Jordan sound bite. Now, there’s a context to this that I’m not quite sure of, and I wish I was able to tell you. It’s brilliant. You’re gonna love this. You’re gonna be standing up and cheering. It’s about a meeting that didn’t happen, but I don’t know any more than that. I didn’t hear this. I heard the tail end of it during a commercial break; so I don’t know what meeting that didn’t happen this is referring to. It begins with Jordan asking, “Ambassador, when did it happen?”
JORDAN: Ambassador, when did it happen?
SONDLAND: When did what happen?
JORDAN: The announcement! When did President Zelensky announce that the investigation was gonna happen? On page 14 you said this: “Was there a quid pro quo?” Your opening statement: “As I testified previously with regard to a White House meeting, the answer is, yes. There needed to be a public statement from President Zelensky.” When the chairman asked you about the security assistance dollars, you said there needed to be a public announcement from Zelensky. So I’m asking you a simple question: When did that happen?
SONDLAND: Never did.
JORDAN: Never did. They got the call July 25th. They got the meeting, not in the White House but in New York on September 25th. They got the money on September 11th. When did the meeting happen again?
SONDLAND: Never did.
JORDAN: You don’t know who was in the meeting?
SONDLAND: Which meeting are you referring to?
JORDAN: The meeting that never happened. Who was in it?
RUSH: The meeting didn’t even happen. When did President Zelensky announce the investigation was gonna happen? See, I think what this is about is that Zelensky had been demanding a meeting, an Oval Office meeting or whatever with Trump. No, it can’t be that, because that did happen. “When did President Zelensky announce the investigation was gonna happen?” and he didn’t because there wasn’t one. The investigation never did happen.
I guess that’s what the meeting is, the investigation. “There needed to be a public statement from President Zelensky. When the chairman asked you about the security assistance dollars, he said there needs to be a public announcement from Mr. Zelensky. When did it happen?” “It never did.” So I guess the announcement is what Jordan means by meeting here, unless I’m still missing something.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Also about the Jordan thing, I think what he was illustrating, is “the meeting” was a stand-in for all of these things that supposedly happened that never did. And by getting Sondland to admit that that meeting didn’t happen and Zelensky never had to do what he was being made to do, that that didn’t happen. I think what Jordan was doing was illustrating that all of this is a bunch of caca.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Jim Jordan is exhausted, folks. He got some things confused. The meeting he was talking about was a meeting supposedly promised to Zelensky in Oval Office. Remember the story that Zelensky desperately wanted a meeting in the Oval Office and for credibility and for the high-profile nature of it, the power denoted to it. And supposedly the message was that Trump was saying, “You don’t get the meeting unless you investigate the Bidens.
“You don’t get the meeting unless you find out what they were doing,” and it turns out that there was a meeting. It was in New York. They met in New York during the United Nations confab there. The meeting that we’ve been told was part of the quid pro quo, it happened. What didn’t happen, there was never any announcement from Zelensky. This is what Trump was demanding, supposedly. Trump was demanding that Zelensky publicly announce to the world that he was gonna investigate the Bidens — and if he didn’t do that, he wouldn’t get the meeting.
He didn’t do it. There still isn’t an investigation of the Bidens, and yet he got the meeting, which was the point that Jordan was making, that there wasn’t an announcement. And the meeting was not in the Oval Office, by the way. Zelensky wanted the Oval Office, but they met in New York. Anyway, Jordan’s point was that everything everybody’s been saying about Zelensky demanding this or Trump demanding Zelensky do something for the meeting, he got meeting and didn’t have to do a damn thing for it.
Zelensky didn’t ever announce an investigation.
He didn’t do one thing to get the meeting.
It just happened.
Meaning, nothing happened! There could not have been any bribery or quid pro quo which has been stated that there wasn’t. But the truth of all this has been buried by the headlines this morning: “Sondland says quid pro quo!” We’ll see. Everything has backfired on these people so far; I think this is going to as well. Every time they’ve gone public with stuff like this, they start feeling their oats and it comes be back and bites ’em — and this will, too, now especially if the news of Sondland’s wife’s businesses is being boycotted by the Democrat congressman… We’ll see.