BREAKING: Bill Taylor Testified to Adam Schiff Today, Here’s What the Democrat’s Great Hope For Impeachment Said

(AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

Earlier this morning, I was on Twitter and spotted this claim from Rep. Ted Lieu.

LIEU just emerged and described Taylor’s testimony as “incredibly damaging to the president.” Wouldn’t provide specifics. He said questioning of the witness has begun.

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) October 22, 2019

Notice the complete lack of specifics from Lieu, who hasn’t been shy before about helping spread leaks from these hearings that he feels are damaging to President Trump. That should have been the first tip off that there’s some posturing going on here.

Now, we are getting our first details and this appears to be as much of a dud as Kurt Volker’s testimony was.

New: Bill Taylor testified he was told by Sondland that security aid to Ukraine could have been held up in part because of a push for Ukraine to publicly announce an investigation that could help Trump politically, per sources in both parties https://t.co/HpenaM2qQs

— Jeremy Herb (@jeremyherb) October 22, 2019

Because this is CNN, they try to word it in the most sinister way, but the details in the article don’t backup much of that characterization, as we’ll get to in a moment. Further, the idea that Trump was pushing for something that could help him “politically” is pure editorializing.

Let’s dive in here and keep in mind that Bill Taylor is a Democrat and was appointed to his position by a Democrat.

In a lengthy and detailed opening statement, Taylor said that he and Sondland spoke by phone about why the aid was frozen, and Sondland cited the need for Ukraine to open an investigation among other reasons, according to the sources. Sondland told Taylor that the investigations potentially included both Ukraine’s involvement in the 2016 election and Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company that hired former Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden, the sources said.

Notice how this is worded. What’s clear here is that Taylor was not actually ever told that any aid was conditioned on investigating Joe Biden or his son. As has been previously stated by the administration, the aid was in question due to three reasons – Investigations into 2016 behavior, Europe not doing enough, and corruption in general.

So while CNN wants to paint this as definitive, it’s actually anything but. In fact, Sondland testified under oath that even his statements to Taylor about the investigations into 2016 and Burisma were speculation. No one at the White House had actually told him that.

Asked about Taylor’s comments, a source familiar with Sondland’s testimony said that Sondland cited, in addition to the investigations, that the aid may have been frozen because the Europeans weren’t giving Ukraine enough and corruption in general. The source said Sondland was only speculating when he referenced the political investigations into the 2016 election and Burisma.

“He made very clear in his testimony that nobody would give him a straight answer” about why the aid was being held up, the source said about Sondland’s testimony.

Taylor is not bringing any new documents to the committee, and he will just reference those that have already been made public, the source said.

In other words, Taylors entire testimony was his feelings about conversations that are already public. That’s it. No evidence the White House had done anything improper at all. Every thing he says is pure speculation.

Nowhere in the testimony is it indicated (and if it existed, Democrats would be leaking it) that Taylor possessed anything proving an actual quid pro quo, even circumstantially. In fact, we already know the Ukrainians were not even aware the aid was being held up. What this sounds like is the White House was held up the aid, didn’t tell the Ukrainians, and were mulling their options based on a series of factors before simply releasing the aid. You can not have a quid pro quo if the other party isn’t even aware. That’s a pretty big requirement.

This was the Democrat’s biggest hope for an impeachment bombshell. Bill Taylor was supposed to come in, based on perviously released text messages, and provide some semblance of evidence that Trump had done something illegal (or even improper) here. Instead, it seems he provided nothing of value at all outside of giving CNN and Democrats a few lines to mold into their narrative.

Things are becoming more and more clear as these “witnesses” shuffle through. There’s nothing here. We have some people who heard a phone call and made some personal judgements. None of that is dispositive of anything. Democrats are coming up empty and now are backed into a corner. They will have to move forward with impeachment, but it’s going to come in the form of nothing but innuendo and unprovable supposition. It’s the Mueller investigation all over again.

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