What Went Down On Day 1 Of The Impeachment Hearings

“Unusual but not outlandish” is something I will remember for a while. Castor seemed to think he got some real concession there. I think it is obvious that Taylor found Sondland and Giuliani’s roles weird, and my guess is we don’t have similar analogies in the Obama or Bush administrations and Taylor is correct.

Castor is trying to make the “irregular channel” of Ukraine policy seem like not that big a deal. This strikes me as unwise for a couple reasons. First, I don’t think the existence of an irregular channel is what has people so riled up. Second, he’s repeating the not-great phrase “irregular channel” quite a bit!

That point about who’s setting policy is true, Perry — Sondland’s involvement was always a little strange because Ukraine is not actually part of his portfolio. Taylor did say in his closed-door testimony that there can be a place for “irregular” channels in diplomacy, especially when they involve people like Sondland who have the ear of the president. But he added that’s not the case when they undermine normal diplomacy or U.S. interests.