BREAKING! White House admits quid pro quo over Ukraine aid

[yuiyoshida]

[sandensea]

1. Reminds me of when Poppy Bush swore there was 'no quid pro quo' with Honduras

And then, of course, Honduras turned into a narco state.

[Nitram]

2. The people Trump surrounded himself with really are stupid. They all sound like a bunch of thugs

who just teleported from Prohibition-era Chicago. Yeah, we done it. So whatcha gonna do aboudit? Everybody does it.

[jberryhill]

3. Yeah. Mulvaney is dumber than I had thought

He doesn't see the difference between the normal conduct of foreign policy to advance US policy interests, and strongarming foreign governments into advancing Trump's political interests.

[Nitram]

4. Nor does he realize that even when everybody does it, if it is illegal, they don't talk about it.

Plausible deniability is the name of the game. Not blurting out your misdeeds in public.

[Sancho]

5. "Don't be a fool!"

[amcgrath]

6. They know they are busted,

So this is clearly an attempt to put out the story themselves and play it down before it comes out in hearings

But,

Yes, Quid Pro Quo is normal - there are always terms and conditions, but only ever to each countries benefit, not an individual president or politician.

He says there has been no cover up but there has been, there have been both denials of what the whistle blower said as well as deliberate attempts to intimidate the whistle blower.

This was not a slip of the tongue, this is not a breakthrough, this is absolutely the Trumpian playbook. Deny, abuse and intimidate any accuser, then admit it when its no longer containable - along with a comment about "if it wasn't legal, we wouldn't come out and admit to it"