The most devastating piece of testimony on the first day of public impeachment hearings on the floor of Congress this Wednesday came from Bill Taylor, the State Department official who is the acting US ambassador to Ukraine.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-impeachment-inquiry/taylor-says-staffer-overheard-trump-ask-sondland-about-investigations-n1081456
To the surprise of many, Bill Taylor revealed on Wednesday that after a transcript of his original 22nd October closed-door hearing in Congress had been published, another member of his staff who is believed to be a political counsellor called David Holmes read it, and belatedly realised that another phone call he had overheard (not the one between Trump and Zelensky) was of key importance, and belatedly briefed Bill Taylor about it last Friday.
According to Bill Taylor’s account, this staffer was in the company of Gordon Sondland who is Trump’s ambassador to the EU on 26 July (the day after the controversial call with Zelensky). Holmes says that he overheard ambassador Sondland take another telephone call from president Trump in a restaurant in Kiev after attending a meeting between Sondland and Andriy Yermak, a top aide of president Zelensky. Seconds after that call was concluded, David Holmes says that Sondland turned to him and said that Trump “cares more about the investigations of Biden and Burisma than he does about Ukraine”.
If correct, this speaks directly to the issue of criminal intent on the part of president Trump. It provides the most direct evidence yet that Trump was extorting Ukraine for the sole purpose of trying to promote the fake Biden scandal in the name of altering the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
Unsurprisingly perhaps, president Trump says that he “has no memory of that call”, while Congress has summoned the staffer David Holmes for an urgent closed door hearing on Friday on the same day that State Department Russian expert Fiona Hill will be testifying in public.
Gordon Sondland who has already had to come back to Congress once to amend his previous closed door testimony, may yet have to do so again, in the hope that his rapidly evolving memory of key events will keep him out of jail on perjury charges. Sondland is due to give his public testimony next week.