Top White House official tried to find out if ambassador went rogue or acted at Trump's direction

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: CNN



(CNN)A top White House official told lawmakers he tried to find out whether President Donald Trump told a key US diplomat he wanted Ukraine to investigate the Bidens, multiple sources familiar with his closed-door deposition on Capitol Hill told CNN. His actions show concern inside the White House about the extent of the President's role in the push for investigations that could help Trump politically.

Tim Morrison, the President's top Russia adviser, had multiple conversations with American Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland. In those discussions, the ambassador referenced talks he had with the President. Morrison became concerned that Sondland was going rogue on Ukraine. Morrison told lawmakers he thought Sondland a "free radical," according to two of the sources. The term was a reference to cells that cause cancer.

To to find out whether Sondland had talked to the President, Morrison went so far as asking Trump's executive secretary if the President had actually talked with Sondland. The ambassador's claims about the conversations checked out each time, Morrison said in his testimony Thursday, according to the sources. In his own opening statement, Sondland downplayed both Trump's role and his own in the effort to pressure Ukraine -- suggesting he was reluctantly working with Rudy Giuliani, the President's personal attorney, who was running a shadow diplomatic operation in Ukraine.

Morrison's testimony also could raise more questions about Sondland's deposition and his role in pushing Ukraine to do investigations in return for military aid and a meeting with Trump. It's unclear how many times Sondland and Trump spoke about Ukraine. Morrison did not verify with the President's secretary the details Sondland had given him of the conversations when he checked whether the calls had occurred.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/01/politics/tim-morrison-gordon-sondland-trump/index.html

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Full headline: Top White House official tried to find out if ambassador went rogue or acted at Trump's direction on Ukraine

[bucolic_frolic]

1. A shadow network to absorb blame for the dirty work

led by Giuliani, almost an agent without portfolio. Meanwhile officialdom, led by Trump, has almost complete deniability. I guess this is the way Trump operates.

[Grasswire2]

3. Michael Cohen told us that, didn't he?

It's the way a MOB boss works.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

6. King Henry II: Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?

This statement led to the death of Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1170. Probably one of the first documented cases of plausible deniability.

[TwilightZone]

2. Plausible deniability.

Trump's MO in, well, pretty much everything.

[NBachers]

4. The spider in Sondland's tangled web's going to bite his pig shit ass big time.

He's trying to lie and deceive his way out of this, but he's just getting pulled deeper and deeper into his own web of deceit. He's had chances to come clean and set his story straight, but he's still waffling. I can't wait to see him sent to prison.

[El Shaman]

9. ;-)

'pig shit ass'.....

[PSPS]

5. More perjury to go unpunished

[robbob]

7. TRUMP HIMSELF TOLD THE UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT TO INVESTIGATE BIDEN!!!

Come on, CNN, have you forgotten that simple fact already?

[stuffmatters]

8. Exactly