Page 29 - Fact Pattern News Today

Strategy heading into the hearings, were joined by a p t political science lecturer in london. thank you for coming on. >> good morning, natalie. >> the republicans are spinning this to keep the focus on the bidens and corruption and a away from donald trump. is that going to work? >> i think the problem for republicans is that there doesnt appear to be any evidentiary basis to contradict the fact pattern. so they are left with no other options. they might say either trumps actions didnt rise to...

Become all too obvious, a fact all right. ahead of impeachment hearings next week, to avoid what has become all too obvious, a fact pattern of wrongful behavior and arguable abuse of power, gopers have created two main distractions. lets call them thing one and thing two. thing one is the notion that unmasking the whistle-blower is the key to everything. the president pushes the idea. >> who is the whistle-blower? we have to know. is the whistle-blower a spy? >> and it rolls off the tongues of...

Are really -- theyre so important. weve now had at least five witnesses testify privately that president trump tried to shake down the ukrainians for personal gain. what is the story thats emerged from the testimony, and how will you lay that out to the american people, congressman? >> the story is that the president tried to shake down the ukraine for help in his domestic political contest. look, the truth of the matter is that most americans arent going to have an opportunity, don, to watch al...

Anothers testimony and the fact pattern that is here. and by the way, i would frankly suggest to you there is more evidence gathered thus far to suggest that the president did shake down the ukraine and threaten to withhold military assistance, creating an increased vulnerability among our strategic partner than there is evidence to support the idea that the sun will come up in the east tomorrow. i think were way beyond that. thirdly, i think what theyre going to hear from ambassador taylor is a...

Remember that specific conversation on something so significant. >> exactly. lindsey graham, one more thing. this is a joke. im sorry. the idea that the reason that sondland changed his testimony is because adam schiff got to him. if thats the case, provide some evidence of that, because otherwise it seems quite clear the fact pattern suggests gordon sondland said something that he was later advised by counsel could be a situation of imperjuring himself and went back and got himself legally righ...

So what can we expect if and when this case heads to trial in the senate? joining me now is senator sherrod brown from ohio. he is the author of the new book "desk 88: eight progressive senators who changed america." i love the book and well talk about it in a second. first i want to ask you. in terms of impeachment, you said you will look at the evidence if it comes to trial in the senate. but you also say the evidence shows you a fact pattern that even richard nixon wouldnt have committed. wha...

Binary. you can leave, you can quit, you can say i cant operate in this environment. im not saying thats what he should have done. but its not like he has to try and find a way to make it work. if hes being asked to do things that he thinks are unethical or illegal or just yucky, which might be the technical word here, he can walk away from it and he didnt. he tried to apiece the president and thats on him. its also part on the president, of course, but thats on sondland. >> its on sondland and ...

>> you do see republicans on capitol hill i think are the most fascinating group to watch because they are trying to, a, understand the fact pattern, and b, respond to it. and you see them grappling with that in these excerpts and in their public shifting testimony. you have them going from, if you look back just a few weeks to saying, theres absolutely no quid pro quo to now, when they do understand the fact pattern, some of them are saying, okay, sure. so there was a quid pro quo and thats cer...

Aside, sondland was the figure in the entire aid for dirt scandal who the white house had pinned their hopes on in terms of providing some sort of exculpatory testimony. it would appear that that has fallen apart with todays amended testimony. >> but even with his first testimony. remember, he went up in a number of people in the white house were excited as you said for him coming to testify because nthey thought, finally, you have an ally of the president who said in a text message there was no...

And we will look forward to that. joining me is betsy swan, politics report for the daily beast, and charlie savage, political report for "the new york times" and msnbc contributor. charily, starting with you here. the white house counter narrative and anything new in the line of defense? >> well, you see them trying to juggle between the two different narratives and that is trump did nothing wrong and call is perfect and this not a quid pro quo request or, okay, it was, but it was not an impeac...