{"id":13207,"date":"2019-11-20T16:42:06","date_gmt":"2019-11-21T00:42:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=13207"},"modified":"2019-11-20T16:54:31","modified_gmt":"2019-11-21T00:54:31","slug":"was-there-a-quid-pro-quo-the-answer-is-yes-sondlands-bombshells-bradcast-11202019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=13207","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Was There a Quid Pro Quo? The Answer is Yes&#8217;: Sondland&#8217;s Bombshells: &#8216;BradCast&#8217; 11\/20\/2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/Images\/BradCast_GordonSonland_tilt_Impeachment_112019.jpg\" hspace=\"6\" vspace=\"3\" border=\"0\" align=\"right\">It was what many are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/article\/gordon-sondland-dean-impeachment\/\">characterizing<\/a> today as a &#8220;John Dean moment&#8221; in the public impeachment hearings of Donald J. Trump. His $1 million donor turned swamp-dwelling Ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, dropped some <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/11\/20\/us\/politics\/sondland-statement.html\">bombshell testimony<\/a> on Wednesday &#8212; and we do not use that word on <a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/BradCast\"><i>The BradCast<\/i><\/a> lightly. [<i>Audio link to today&#8217;s show follows below.<\/i>]\n<p>Sondland, who Trump <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/realDonaldTrump\/status\/1181560708808486914?s=20\">described<\/a> as &#8220;a really good man and great American&#8221; as recently as last month, admitted in his blockbuster <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/f\/?id=0000016e-88f1-d93d-ad6f-8ef3ea120000\">testimony<\/a> that the President&#8217;s scheme to withhold a White House meeting and $391 million in military aid to Ukraine in exchange for the announcement of investigations into his political rivals was, in fact, a &#8220;quid pro quo&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, Sondland tossed a whole bunch of top Trump officials and allies under the bus in the bargain &#8212; including Sec. of State Mike Pompeo, former National Security Advisor John Bolton, White House acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, Trump&#8217;s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Vice President Mike Pence and, especially, the President of the United States himself. &#8220;Everyone,&#8221; he said, &#8220;was in the loop. It was no secret.&#8221;  He explained that he <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/6486944b076b4df99a583a3a7c85574d\">&#8220;followed the directions of the President&#8221;<\/a> when he &#8220;worked with Mr. Giuliani&#8221; on the Ukraine pressure campaign &#8220;because the President directed us to do so.&#8221;   That, barely two months after Steve Doocy of Trump&#8217;s favorite TV show, <i>Fox &#038; Friends<\/i>, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/lispower1\/status\/1191827371839705090?s=21\">declared<\/a>: &#8220;If the President said &#8216;I&#8217;ll give you the money, but you gotta investigate Joe Biden &#8212; that is really off-the-rails wrong.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>We were joined once again today, just moments after the Sondland hearing concluded, by our official <i>BradCast<\/i> partner-in-impeachable-crimes, the great <b>HEATHER DIGBY PARTON<\/b> of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.salon.com\/writer\/heather_digby_parton\">Salon<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.salon.com\/writer\/heather_digby_parton\">Digby&#8217;s Hullabaloo<\/a>, with extended explosive excerpts of today&#8217;s testimony, along with insight and analysis.  Our special coverage continues with the remarkable events that transpired on Wednesday in the U.S. House Intelligence Committee&#8217;s ongoing impeachment proceedings on what may well prove to be an historic day (or the long-awaited beginning of the end?) for the shamefully failed Presidency of Donald J. Trump&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\".\/Images\/Speaker_Icon_24.png\" style=\"width: 24px; float: none; vertical-align: middle;\"><span style=\"font-size: 18px; line-height: 18px;\"> <b><i><a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/audio\/BradCast_BradFriedman_Impeachment_HeatherDigbyParton-GordonSondland-QuidProQuoBombshell_112019.mp3\">CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!&#8230;<\/a><\/i><\/b><br \/>\n[audio:http:\/\/BradBlog.com\/audio\/BradCast_BradFriedman_Impeachment_HeatherDigbyParton-GordonSondland-QuidProQuoBombshell_112019.mp3]<\/blockquote>\n<p><center><b>* * *<\/b><\/center><i>While we post <a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/BradCast\"><\/i>The BradCast<i><\/a> here every day, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they&#8217;re available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at <a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/the-bradcast-w-brad-friedman\/id803467610\">iTunes<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pandora.com\/podcast\/the-bradcast-w-brad-friedman\/PC:1000025838\">Pandora<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/tunein.com\/radio\/The-BradCast-with-Brad-Friedman-p477565\/\">TuneIn<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.google.com\/feed\/aHR0cHM6Ly9icmFkYmxvZy5jb20vcG9kY2FzdGdlbi9icmFkY2FzdC9mZWVkLnhtbA\">Google<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/The-BradCast-w-Brad-Friedman\/dp\/B08JJRN86R\/ref=sr_1_1\">Amazon<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/podcastgen\/bradcast\/feed.xml\">our native RSS feed<\/a>!<\/i><\/p>\n<p><!--BB-DONATEPITCH-START--><\/p>\n<div style=\"background:#f5f0e0; border:2px solid #6b5a2e; border-radius:6px; padding:10px 14px; text-align:center; font-family:Georgia,serif;\"><span style=\"display:block; margin:0 0 8px 0; color:#3a2e0e; font-size:0.95em; line-height:1.5;\"><strong>The BRAD BLOG<\/strong>, <em>The BradCast<\/em> and <em>Green News Report<\/em> are all 100% independent and 100% listener and reader supported!<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/Donate\" style=\"display:inline-block; background:#6b5a2e; color:#ffffff; padding:6px 18px; border-radius:4px; font-weight:bold; text-decoration:none; font-family:Georgia,serif; font-size:0.9em;\">Please CLICK HERE to help support our work today!<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!--BB-DONATEPITCH-END--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was what many are characterizing today as a &#8220;John Dean moment&#8221; in the public impeachment hearings of Donald J. Trump. His $1 million donor turned swamp-dwelling Ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, dropped some bombshell testimony on Wednesday &#8212; and we do not use that word on The BradCast lightly. [Audio link to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,802,89,675,299,479,14,1418,178,185,1279,477,1424,981,853,958,300,402,286,1109,198,698],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-13207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-accountability","category-adam-schiff","category-media-appearance","category-bradcast","category-democrats","category-donald-trump","category-fox-news","category-gordon-sondland","category-impeachment","category-john-bolton","category-john-dean","category-kpfk","category-kurt-volker","category-mick-mulvaney","category-mike-pence","category-mike-pompeo","category-republicans","category-richard-nixon","category-rudolph-guilliani","category-sean-patrick-maloney","category-us-house","category-ukraine","bb-type-bradcast"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13207\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13207"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=13207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}