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, 3 tweets, 1 min read
1/ Amb. Gordon Sondland statement is a damning, devastating flip on Trump. Praises Yovanovich and other officials who have testified against Trump (p.5). Acknowledges that Trump/Giuliani circumvented normal bureaucracy to advance political agenda. Wow.
scribd.com/document/43075…
2/ This is a pretty clear statement by Sondland that Giuliani was running Ukraine policy for Trump, and that investigation of Burisma and Biden was condition of Trump meeting with Zelensky. An explicit quid pro quo (p.8)
3/ The rest of the statement is an attempt to distance Sondland from any knowledge or involvement with Giuliani and suggest that Giuliani was driving policy on behalf of Trump. Takeaway: Sondland is saying he was not personally involved in quid pro quo, throws Giuliani under bus.
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More from @bradleyrsimpson see all

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Brad Simpson
@bradleyrsimpson
1/8 A bit of historical context on Trump's endorsement of Turkish ethnic cleansing in Northern Syria. After WWI, the victorious allied powers endorsed ethnic cleansing in remnants of Ottoman Empire, including Turkey. The Armenian genocide was the result. press.princeton.edu/books/hardcove…
2/8 After WWII, the victorious Allied powers, including the US, supported the forced expulsion of millions of ethnic Germans from Czechoslovakia: chronicle.com/article/The-Eu…
3/8 Human rights scholars and historians have documented ethnic cleansing as an "instrument of nation-state creation," as one scholar put it, and until the 1990s it was widely accepted. muse.jhu.edu/article/13640
Read 8 tweets
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Brad Simpson
@bradleyrsimpson
So I have about 90,000 words written in my book manuscript on self-determination, scattered across 25 documents of varying degrees of (in)coherence, w/another 10,000 to go before I can begin writing an intro, conclusion, fill in gaps, edit and mash this word salad together. Ugh.
What we imagine our book will look like
What it ends up looking like
Read 3 tweets
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Brad Simpson
@bradleyrsimpson
1/ This is how is shadow foreign policy operates. White House officials hold meetings with their Ukrainian counterparts in which a Presidential meeting is discussed, and some White House officials object to Biden conditions. 2/ nbcnews.com/politics/trump…
2/ Gordon Sondland, who is not in the bureaucratic chain of command and owes his influence over Ukraine entirely to Trump, pulls Ukrainian officials into another room and just states that a meeting with Trump is conditioned upon Burisma and Hunter Biden investigation.
3/ Who does the historian predict the Ukrainians listen to? Normally, one would expect the highest ranking official they met with. But Trump uses all sorts of proxies when the bureaucracy won’t cooperate, and other countries know this, and so have to judge who *really* speaks.
Read 4 tweets

Related threads

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Ryan Goodman
@rgoodlaw
What #Sondland OMITS from Opening Statement shows how extra-damning this is likely to get

Omissions:

1. Major media (including two NYT blockbusters) in May reported Giuliani pressure on Ukraine for Burisma-BIDEN probe

(Sondland can't credibly claim not knowing)

<thread>
2. Sondland opening remarks omits:

Content of July 10 meeting: Sondland personally pressed Ukrainians to investigate past cases, understood by US officials at Burisma-Biden (freaked out Bolton and Fiona Hill)

(Advice: believe Fiona Hill's testimony on this)
3. Sondland omits:

July 25: Mulvaney arranged for Sondland to prep Trump behind Bolton's back before call with Zelensky.

Note: prior version of WaPo story "indicated otherwise based on info provided by a person familiar with Sondland’s planned testimony"

Did he plan to lie?
Read 9 tweets
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Karol Cummins
@karolcummins
💣B O O M💣

The same prosecutor Trump & Giuliani pressured Zelensky to hire (Lutsenko) to go after Biden’s son engineered Konstin Klimnik’s escape to RU to avoid Mueller’s charges.

And Pompeo’s DOS knew all about it; did TeamTrump facilitate the escape?

nybooks.com/daily/2019/10/…
A classified State Department assessment concluded in 2018 that Ukraine’s former Prosecutor General Yuri Lutsenko—who is at the center of the impeachment inquiry of President Trump—

nybooks.com/daily/2019/10/…
🔑Yuri Lutsenko had allowed a vital potential witness for Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Konstantin Kilimnik, to escape from Ukraine to Russia, beyond the reach of the United States,

nybooks.com/daily/2019/10/…
Read 60 tweets
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𝗔𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿🌊
@AnIllicitWriter
𝗧𝗵𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱 | 𝗧𝗵𝗲🍑𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗗𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹𝗱 𝗝. 𝗧𝗿𝘂𝗺𝗽
Nancy Pelosi Announces Formal Impeachment Inquiry of Trump

🔗nyti.ms/2kORLLE #Trump #ImpeachTrumpNow #Resist #ImpeachTrump
Here’s a timeline of Trump’s Ukraine scandal. It’s damning.

🔗washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/… #Trump #ImpeachTrumpNow #Resist #ImpeachTrump
Read 95 tweets
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Alice Stollmeyer
@StollmeyerEU
Based on docs & interviews with over 24 (!) US officials:

How @USAmbEU #Sondland seized control of Ukraine portfolio to help Trump:

Force Ukraine to forge kompromat on Biden.

Crimes: extortion, abuse of power & election interference

msn.com/en-us/news/pol… #Giuliani #Manafort
@USAmbEU Ambassador #Sondland’s predecessor, @TonyLGardner:

[Sondland's] special assignment to Ukraine is “extremely unusual,’’ since it has little to do with the EU. 🤔

And Sondland's own colleagues are 'not aware' of the scope of his activities in Ukraine. 🤔

nytimes.com/2019/10/04/wor…
@USAmbEU @tonylgardner @StevenErlanger @MatinaStevis Oops: Ambassador #Sondland told Republican Senator

About the #QuidProQuo:

$400 million in aid

wsj.com/articles/trump… #CultureOfCorruption #UkraineGate
Read 10 tweets
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JM Rieger
@RiegerReport
New York Times report from May on Biden, Ukraine and Burisma Holdings:

"No evidence has surfaced that the former vice president intentionally tried to help his son by pressing for the prosecutor general’s dismissal.”

nytimes.com/2019/05/01/us/…
NYT - Hunter Biden was warned by associates who had experience in Ukraine to stay away from Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of Burisma Holdings, who had worked in the government of former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych.

nytimes.com/2019/05/01/us/…
Zlochevsky faced multiple internal/external investigations for money laundering, Yanukovych-era corruption, tax evasion and the granting of gas licenses.

It is unclear if/how seriously Ukraine’s fmr. prosecutor general Viktor Shokin investigated Burisma.

nytimes.com/2019/05/01/us/…
Read 268 tweets
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Karol Cummins
@karolcummins
‼️WHISTLEBLOWER THEORY‼️

Let’s take the Biden ’dirt’ hunt aspect out of the story & set it aside as a horrific diversion for now.

The truth is much worse.

Remember the Cohen, Sater, Flynn, Manafort & Artemenko “Ukrainian Peace Plan” circa Feb 2017?

Putin quid pro quo?
2/19/17
A Back-Channel Plan for Ukraine and Russia, Courtesy of Trump Associates
nytimes.com/2017/02/19/us/…
2/19/17

📌Michael Cohen, presented a sealed envelope to then-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn containing a secret peace plan to resolve the three-year conflict in Ukraine.
amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/51…
Read 33 tweets

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