1. It wasn’t just a quid pro quo, writes @GrahamDavidA—the testimony and messages released Tuesday make it clear it was a corrupt quid pro quo: theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
@GrahamDavidA 2. Some key nuggets: Yermak drafted a statement announcing Ukraine would investigate "interference in the political processes of the United States.” But that wasn’t enough. Volker said it needed to include explicit mention of “the 2 key items” in order to work.
@GrahamDavidA 3. Volker appended a clause to the Ukrainians’ draft statement: “...including those involving Burisma and the 2016 U.S. elections, which in return with prevent a recurrence of this problem in the future."
@GrahamDavidA 4. This is what Sondland was referring to a week later, when he told Yermak "resumption of U.S. aid would likely not occur until Ukraine provided the public anti-corruption statement that we had been discussing.” It had to include Burisma and 2016, and to come from Zelensky.
@GrahamDavidA 5. The testimony makes it clear that the public statement, not an investigation, was the deliverable. But how did insisting on explicit public mention of Burisma by Zelensky—after Trump had already raised the issue in their phone call—advance the cause of combatting corruption?
