(10-23-2019, 11:17 PM)jj82284 Wrote:

(10-23-2019, 08:19 PM)ferocious Wrote: I read the article you posted the link to, which suggested I refer to the original NY Times article, should I choose to wade through it. I chose to. here is the exact quote from the actual article.

"The chain of events that Mr. Taylor laid out in his testimony suggested a clear quid pro quo between the $391 million in suspended assistance and Mr. Trump’s demands that Ukraine investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. as well as a debunked conspiracy theory involving Ukrainian help for Democrats in the 2016 election.

Yet in the publicly released portion of his testimony, Mr. Taylor neither described any direct conversation with Mr. Trump himself nor made any reference to documents or recordings that would explicitly implicate the president. Instead, he provided a road map for investigators by quoting others around Mr. Trump describing his actions and statements."

That is to say, the lawmakers present were aghast, and we are not yet privy to what Mr. Taylor told them behind closed doors, in TEN HOURS of testimony.

The article goes on to describe the White House response to the released statement, then goes on to say that "Taylor’s testimony once again focused attention on Mr. Trump’s unusual relationship with President Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia."

The article closes by saying that

"In his 14-page opening statement, bristling with indignation yet chock-full of dates, facts and quotes, Mr. Taylor on Tuesday described “two channels of U.S. policymaking and implementation, one regular and one highly irregular,” run largely by the president’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, as well as others like Gordon D. Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union.

Those who would like to can read the actual article that the op-ed article linked to above was referring to:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/22/us/po...aylor.html

The level of ignorance is getting pretty ridiculous.  How many times, in how many languages do we have to keep telling you That there is no evidence that the Ukrainians actually knew that the aid was being withheld.  

Maybe you're right that there's no evidence that the Ukrainians realized aid was withheld, but what the Ukrainians thought is immaterial to the question of if power was abused.
The question is, were we trying to influence the Ukrainians in an abusive way? Whether or not we succeeded is besides the point.
To take your example, if I accuse you of hiring a hitman to kill your own wife, saying "look! She's still alive!" isn't much of a defense.  Trying to hire a hitman is illegal whether or not the hitman takes your money, and whether or not the hitman actually kills the target.

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