rumitoid

As Donald Trump strode onstage to deliver remarks at a Lexington, Kentucky "Keep America Great” rally on Monday night, home viewers might have noticed that his campaign made good on his plan to introduce "Read the Transcript" T-shirts into America's politico-sartorial discourse.

It's a move that GOP ad-man Rick Wilson said could be attributed to the 45th president being "a f**king moron", or, as one more generous GOP source put it, "proof that Donald Trump will turn anything and everything into something he can sell."

But it's also proof of his imperviousness to reality.

Nearly six weeks into the House-led impeachment inquiry, aides say Trump remains convinced that Americans will absolve him of anything untoward if they'd just "read the transcript" of his self-described "perfect call" with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (which is not a verbatim transcript and may, according to one witness, have been altered to omit key details).

Of course, polls taken over the last eight weeks shows that as more and more Americans read the "transcript" that inspired the shirts, more and more Americans have become increasingly supportive of Democrats' investigation.

However, it's no longer the only "transcript" Americans can read if they want to judge President Trump's actions for themselves.

Over the past 24 hours, House Democrats have released four transcripts — yes, actual verbatim transcripts — of interviews with numerous administration officials, conducted by both Republican and Democratic members and staff on the House Foreign Affairs, Intelligence and Oversight Committees.

In over 1,200 pages, the transcripts document depositions by former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, State Department Senior Advisor Michael McKinley, former Ukraine Special Envoy Kurt Volker, and Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland.

And if Americans study these new transcripts closely, it’s unlikely they’ll be as convinced as Trump thinks they’ll be that the president never did anything wrong.

Under questioning from Democratic interlocutors, witnesses like Sondland — a wealthy hotelier who Trump named as ambassador to Brussels after a million-dollar donation to his inaugural committee — first denied discussing any sort of "quid pro quo" with Ukrainian officials. But on Monday, Sondland's attorneys submitted a sworn statement by which he corrected the record to specify that he had, in fact, delivered such a message (and by doing so, avoided a perjury charge).

Yovanovitch's testimony told a chilling tale of a career foreign service officer being awakened in the dead of night by her boss, who insisted that she get on the next plane home for her own safety. And the transcript of McKinley's deposition showed how another State Department veteran tried and tried to keep anything from happening to Yovanovitch, only to resign in disgust after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo thrice ignored his entreaties.

PeterS

The problem is that Trump's people can't keep up with events as they unfold. The phone transcript is yesterday's news and won't come into play again until the full transcript can be retrieved from the server. And of course, after next week no transcript is going to matter because we are going to have the in-person testimony that Conservatives have been so desperate to hear. Well, it's coming and Taylor is going to be one of the first persons to testify. This is like going to a bout of title fights and they start out with the heavyweight fight right off the bat. Taylor has first-hand knowledge and is bulletproof being a West Point grad, a Vietnam vet, and a career of service to his country. If Taylor isn't enough then come's Vindman followed by Sondland for a one, two, three punch that no one is going to be able to stand.

Trump dodged a bullet with Mueller and no sooner had he gotten away with it he went and did the same GD thing again. Trump doesn't have to worry about collusion because blackmail is a much bigger crime and one all but Trump dev**ees can understand!