Here's the full audio of the Trump/Fruman/Parnas conversation about Ukraine. The part getting all the attention (regarding Yovanovich) happens around 42:00. The timing here (April 2018) really matters. thedailybeast.com/rudy-pal-lev-p…
This is almost a full year before Trump removed Yovanovich from office. The John Solomon propaganda hits on Yovanovich were published in March of 2019. The context of this April 2018 conversation suggest Trump knows almost nothing about Ukraine.
When Trump says "get rid of her, get her out tomorrow" it's in response to hearing, presumably for the first time, the story that Yovanovich has been smack talking him in Ukraine, saying he's going to be impeached, etc. Trump's not ordering a hit, he's lashing out defensively.
The recording still makes Trump look like a petulant and vindictive child (firing an Ambassador because one shady dude said she was saying mean things about him). But these statements of his do not seem to be a part of the Giuliani/Sondland scheme that unfolded a year later.
The texts indicating that Trump associates had Yovanovich under surveillance happened in March/April 2019, almost a full year after this recorded conversation.
So yes, if Trump is saying "take her out" while one of his pals is tracking her movements, then that would be bad. But there is no connection between those fishy looking March 2019 texts from Hyde and this recorded conversation from April 2018.
Anywho, it's an interesting conversation (at least the parts I've listened to so far)...but lots of folks were misled by the initial reports implying that this conversation was connected to the machinations against Yovanovich that picked up steam in March/April 2019.
So I guess the lesson to be learned, yet again, is that our rapidly churning news cycles are conducive to over-reaction. The stories accurately relayed Trump's words, but the fuller context and timing definitely shift how we should interpret them.
Oh yeah, and also, private citizen and businessman Donald Trump Jr is sitting there participating in the conversation about foreign policy. I'm no expert on these things but, that's definitely not super cool and maybe not even super legal either.
I should clarify...there's a voice on the recording that sounds a whole heck of a lot like Don Jr.
The video clearly shows Jr. there. Another interesting moment is when Trump is complaining about how you'd think the European Union would be good "because we're all sorta from there," (!?!?) but they're actually terrible.
I know this might seem like just a throwaway line to some folks, but this notion of an American "we" that is all "sorta from" Europe is of a piece with his "sh*thole countries" comment. He thinks the "real" Americans are the white ones.
I'm sure his defenders would say that by "we" he meant only the people sitting at that table. Maybe. But the context here is that he's talking about America's economic interests on the world stage.
