Ahead of his testimony before Congress on Tuesday, a dozen House Democrats called for the U.S. ambassador to the European Union to resign over his role in the ever-evolving Ukraine scandal.
NBC News surveyed all 235 House Democrats. The majority said they would make a decision after the ambassador, Gordon Sondland, is deposed before the House committees conducting the impeachment inquiry on Tuesday.
The Democrats who called for Sondland’s resignation ahead of his testimony include: Reps. Gerry Connolly (VA), Lloyd Doggett (TX), Benny Johnson (MS), Denny Heck (WA), Filemon Vela (TX), David Price (NC), Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ), Anthony Brown (MD), Dwight Evans (PA), Julia Brownley (CA) and Gwen Moore (WI). Several others, including Reps. Jan Schakowsky (IL) and Yvette Clarke (NY) indicated they were leaning toward pushing for Sondland’s resignation.
Sondland, a Trump-appointee, is set to testify on Tuesday following the release of a trove of text messages last week that revealed Sondland was an active participant in Trump and his attorney Rudy Giuliani’s efforts to pressure Ukraine into investigating former Vice President Joe Biden. In texts, Sondland and another U.S. diplomat who testified last week, made Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s willingness to probe Biden a condition for an official White House visit with Trump.
Read TPM’s preview of Sondland’s testimony here.
Why doesn’t this kind of evidence of insider mischief protecting a rogue president somehow translate into Republicans joining the impeachment process?
And why are so many people still so afraid of that process, when every day, another outrageous event tears at the underpinnings of our freedom. It is the mechanism we were granted by the founders to address this mess, they anticipated we would have the courage to use it.
Anyone who thinks the Trump impeachment will unfold the same way Clinton’s did is a dupe.
All those people who fear that, because Clinton gained popularity as he was being shamefully pummeled in a truly partisan impeachment, Trump will somehow do the same, are ignoring the reality that refuses to hide beneath the lies in this one.
Trump’s popularity drops whenever the truth is exposed about his deep dirt, Clinton’s rose because he was being unfairly treated.
The only real equivalency is the word “impeachment”, any further comparison is stretching credulity to a breaking point.
There are no other similarities between these two impeachment proceedings, the label alone is all that links them.
Assuming some standard was established with Clinton that somehow relates to Trump ignores the very truth itself.
THE PEOPLE want to know the truth, when they learned it about Clinton they wondered why it ever got so crazy it led to impeachment in the first place.
But when they learn the truth about Trump, they all want to hang him, not exonerate him, because his influence is really evil, not just careless and cavalier.
Clinton may have been profane, but he wasn’t malicious.
Trump is just plain evil, so THE PEOPLE want him gone, deep down in their democratic psyche.
Those who don’t are just confessing openly that their patriotism is just an excuse for their brainwashed hate for the mystical “left” FOX taught them to own.
Apparently forever.
Someday I am going to hear Sondland’s voice and I am going to be disappointed when he doesn’t sound like Wallace Shawn…
Democrats are so dumb. Why are they calling for him to resign? That lets Trump off the hook. At the very least they should call for Trump or Pompeo to fire him and put the focus where it belongs. Those two are the ones who put him in the position (along with Republican Senators who confirmed). Let them take the heat.
My guess is that they think he will be more willing to tesitfy truthfully if he is no longer under Trump’s and Pompeo’s control.
What testimony?