White House Denies Any Evidence of Quid Pro Quo After Transcript Featuring Clear Evidence of Quid Pro Quo

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In response to the Tuesday release of damning closed-doors transcripts connected to the Democratic-led House impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, the White House released a statement insisting that the new evidence cleared the administration from accusations of quid pro quo deals.

“Both transcripts released today show there is even less evidence for this illegitimate impeachment sham than previously thought,” stated White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham while commenting on congressional testimonies by U.S. Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland and former U.S. special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker.

“Ambassador Sondland squarely states that he ‘did not know, (and still does not know) when, why or by whom the aid was suspended.’ He also said he ‘presumed’ there was a link to the aid — but cannot identify any solid source for that assumption,” she added, referencing the claim that Trump withheld military aid to Ukraine in an attempt to have them launch an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son. “By contrast, Volker’s testimony confirms there could not have been a quid pro quo because the Ukrainians did not know about the military aid held at the time. No amount of salacious media-biased headlines, which are clearly designed to influence the narrative, change the fact that the President has done nothing wrong.”

The chairs of the Intelligence, Oversight, and Foreign Affairs panels — the three committees leading the impeachment inquiry into Trump’s potential misconduct with Ukraine — released a statement of their own regarding Volker and Sondland’s testimonies, which were conducted on October 3 and October 17, respectively: “The testimony of Ambassadors Volker and Sondland shows the progression of efforts by the President and his agent, Rudy Giuliani, to use the State Department to press Ukraine to announce investigations beneficial to the President’s personal and political interests.”

In his updated testimony, Sondland all-but admitted to a quid pro quo deal, as he explained that he told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s adviser that “U.S. aid would likely not occur until Ukraine provided the public anti-corruption statement that we had been discussing for many weeks.”

“Let me state clearly: Inviting a foreign government to undertake investigations for the purpose of influencing an upcoming U.S. election would be wrong,” testified Sondland. “Withholding foreign aid in order to pressure a foreign government to take such steps would be wrong. I did not and would not ever participate in such undertakings. In my opinion, security aid to Ukraine was in our vital national interest and should not have been delayed for any reason.”

In the transcript of Volker’s testimony, the former special envoy said that he informed Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, that allegations regarding Biden’s involvement in squashing an investigation into Hunter Biden’s Ukrainian natural gas company were “simply not credible.”

“I’ve known him a long time, he’s a person of integrity, and that’s not credible,” he continued.

However, Volker maintained that he was not explicitly instructed to make a quid pro quo deal. After he was asked, “In no way, shape, or form in either the readouts from the United States or Ukraine did you receive any indication whatsoever for anything that resembles a quid pro quo,” Volker replied in the affirmative.

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