the new york times this weekend published a long excellent rundown about this big change our country has suddenly gone through toward ukraine and how it hasn t been run through any normal policy process. it hasn t been articulated at all. it s been this off the books odd process involving people who were not sure who they worked for and maybe in giuliani s case he s doing energy deals on the side. just this mess in terms of not even knowing who is acting as a lawyer, who is being paid by who. one of the things the times slips in in literally paragraph 75 of this 81-paragraph article is the bigger thing at work here, president trump has quietly been working to get ukraine to settle with russia to end this war. quote, mr. trump has quietly been urging a deal to reduce tensions between ukraine and russia that would pave the way for a removal of western sanctions on moscow, long a goal of mr. putin s.
the hour, still. this scandal is still unfolding. there was a bunch of important developments over the weekend. but to try to keep it in perspective and not get too overwhelmed, also to help stack up, like, when something new happens, how important is this, how much does this change the story? in order to keep perspective on it, it s good to start with the basics. all right, go back for a second to where this started. 2014, halfway through barack obama s second term in office as president. russia invades the neighborhoods neighboring country of ukraine. ukraine had been interested in orienting itself more toward the west, more toward europe, the european union, maybe even nato someday. russia and russian interests had paid darn good money to install a pro-putin, pro-kremlin strong-man leader in ukraine to keep ukraine oriented toward russia instead of toward the west, but that pro-putin strongman was thrown out by his own people, in part because of
something for which we sanctioned russia. he is also reportedly been trying to pressure ukraine into settling with russia over russia s ongoing war and occupation in that country. the new york times reporting this weekend that trump has quietly been urging a deal to remove western sanctions on russia for what it did in ukraine, as well. secret talks about relieving sanctions on russia during the campaigns it was secr. secret talks about relieving sanctions on russia during the campaign, secret talks about russia sanctions, relieving sanctions on russia when they first got to russia. now it s talks about leaving sanctions between the president and various foreign governments. for a scatter-shot administration that can t seem to hold a single idea in its head for more than 15 minutes, boy, do they seem focused here on relieving sapg shnctions on russia, working on it in every possible way, including this breaking news tonight about not just the president s involvement in this, but what
those depositions are scheduled to begin this week. do you think you re going to get all of those people to come in for their depositions? i hope most of them come in. certainly, it s important that mr. volker come in. as you mentioned, he is mentioned in the complaint several times by the whistle-blower and, you know, he has some interesting potential conflicts of interest that might shed light on whether he actually helped to pressure the ukrainian president to actually do what president trump wanted him to do. in any case, he s an important witness to some of the events that unfolded in ukraine at that time. having him resign basically very shortly after you announced, your committee announced you wanted to depose him, raised some interesting questions as to the timing of his resignation. does that have an effect on the white house s wanting to block it?
this book has been killing me, actively, for more than a year now. it s been my pet project for these past many, many months. and it turns out, much to my surprise, i guess, timing-wise, that all of the stuff that i have been researching and writing about in terms of the oil and gas industry around the world, particularly the oil and gas industry as it relates to russia and ukraine and vladimir putin and donald trump, all of that is, like, hot in the news right now because that s the kernel of the trump impeachment, it turns out. i doesn t know it was going to time out this way, but it has. the book comes out midnight tonight. i start the book tour later this week. you can find out more at msnbc.com/blowout. if you do want to see me talk about the book, if you want to see me in person, if you want to see me on my crutches on a stage somewhere, i checked tonight and i think at this point there s only one stop on the book tour that is not sold out, and that is the one stop in atlanta. so