Yet Trump claims not to know the gentleman. I believe the correct term would be implausible deniability.
Let's look at Ward's Twitter summary:
The party—during which Parnas and Fruman slipped out of a reception room packed with hundreds of Trump donors to have a private meeting with the President and Giuliani—was the day after Giuliani brought Parnas as his guest to the funeral of former president George H.W. Bush.Parnas and Trump were also together at a fundraiser in April of 2018.
In the days following the meeting, Parnas insinuated to two people that he clearly believed he’d been given a special assignment by the President—like some sort of “James Bond mission,” according to one of the people.
This new reporting puts the president firmly in the Lev Parnas/Igor Fruman camp much earlier than the July 25th phone call. What it shows is that there was an idea of the quid pro quo—“what are we going to do about Ukraine?”—all the way back in December.
Earlier, in February, Lev and Igor met with the previous leader of Ukraine, Poroshenko, offering an official state dinner if he would go along with the nutball conspiracy theory which blames the 2016 election interference on Ukraine and the Dems. (We know from other reporting that this particular bit of disinformation was cooked up by the Russians, who relayed it to Manafort.)
From Parnas' lawyer:
"Mr. Parnas at all times believed that he was acting only on behalf of the President, as directed by his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and never on behalf of any Ukrainian officials.”Marcy's wager. This tweet is pretty funny...
Who will be scapegoated aggressively w/o thinking of the consequences, leading to the person burning Trump down in retaliation?— emptywheel (@emptywheel) November 16, 2019
Most of her readership seems to favor a Rudy-as-scapegoat scenario. I will admit that this idea makes some sense, since Rudy is the only one of the three who could semi-plausibly be portrayed as rogue elephant. Granted, believing in a "Blame Rudy, not Donnie" narrative would require blinding oneself to about a jillion important facts.
I predict that Trump will not scapegoat any of these men. Reckless as he is, he retains a formidable survival instinct. I'm quite sure that he understood Rudy's not-so-cryptic remarks about an insurance policy, which everyone knows was no mere joke.
However, I do feel that there is some possibility that Sondland may turn. I don't think Sondland will be scapegoated, but he could go blabby. In fact, I'm pretty sure that he wants to blab.
Sondland has already expressed some regret that he ever got sucked into this drug deal. He's in the hospitality business; he makes an honest living providing an actual service. He's not an international scammer or wheeler-dealer like Parnas.
So far, the EU ambassador has already offered two different stories, neither of which told the full truth. With multiple witnesses (not just Holmes) against him, Sondland must understand that Donald Effing Trump isn't worth getting busted on a perjury beef. Barr won't bring charges against him, but the statute of limitations on perjury is five years, and the A.G. job may be in cleaner hands in 2021.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Donald Trump's definition of "loyalty" is Die for me.
Sondland doesn't need this shit. Of the three worthies on Marcy's list, he's the likeliest to break down and offer one of those dramatic confessions you'd see toward the end of a Perry Mason episode.
Kardashians. The David Holmes statement, delivered in secret to the committee, contains some very interesting revelations. The most bewildering is a reference to Donald Trump and the Kardashians. I did a bit of research into this business; apparently, the Kardashians aksed Trump to intervene on behalf of a rapper named A$AP Rocky, convicted in Sweden on assault charges. When Rocky was finally released, he reportedly snubbed Trump.
The important part of this story is Trump's closeness to the Kardashian family. I can't tell you now why this is important. You'll see.
Corruption. Trump's argument is that he was simply concerned about corruption in Ukraine. If so, then why hasn't he expressed any interest in the actual issues besetting that country? Why the focus on Hunter Biden, who seems to have done nothing wrong?
Trump completely ignored Ihor Kolomoisky, the oligarch behind Zelensky. Kolomoisky has been accused of robbing billions from Ukraine's most important bank, and of wreaking a horrible vengeance on the person who exposed his crime -- Valeria Gontareva, the woman who headed Ukraine's version of the Federal Reserve. Her house was burned down, she was driven out of the country, and she was nearly killed in an "accident" which no-one considers accidental.
Trump also ignores the spate of acid attacks -- at least forty! -- on activists and journalists who are trying to clean up Ukraine. Just before flying back to DC, Ambassador Yovanovich met with one of these victims, Kateryna Handzyuk. She appears in the video embedded below. The video is a must-see, even though it is a grim sight.
Keep in mind that the acid attackers probably came from the neofascist Azov battalion, which attracts a surprisingly high number of Americn Nazi volunteers.
If Trump truly cared about corruption in Ukraine, why would he focus on Hunter Biden while completely ignoring the fiends who murdered Kateryna Handzyuk and nearly killed Valeria Gontareva? In fact, before the first Zelensky call, Trump's aides tried to brief him on the real corruption problems facing Ukraine, but he refused to pay any attention.
"There have been more than 40 attacks in the last year. Who ordered them? Who is hiding their identities? Why are so many investigations being sabotaged?" Kateryna #Handzyuk, a Ukrainian anticorruption activist, makes her deathbed plea. pic.twitter.com/zZPfDnO5hH— Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (@RFERL) November 5, 2018
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