What Went Down On Day 1 Of The Impeachment Hearings

There is a long and complicated backstory behind Trump’s animosity toward Ukraine, but it appears to stem in part from an unproven conspiracy theory that Ukrainian law enforcement officials had tried to undermine Trump’s 2016 campaign by releasing information about Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, that eventually forced him to step down. If you’re interested, here’s some background on the origins of that theory.

The staff attorney just asked Taylor a question that came close to asking whether he sees Trump’s position as extortion, bribery, a quid pro quo. Taylor said that he could describe the dynamic as he saw it, but declined to agree to those terms.

To what Micah said at the beginning of this chat, Goldman just drew a straight line between “quid pro quo” and some offenses that the Constitution says are impeachable: “Regardless of what you call it, whether it’s a quid pro quo, bribery, extortion…”