Daily Beast: “The texts laid bare, with great specificity, a coordinated effort between State Department officials and Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, to compel the new Ukrainian government of Volodymyr Zelensky to publicly commit to investigating a firm tied to former Vice President Joe Biden’s son, thereby making foreign aid contingent on the Ukrainians helping Trump’s re-election efforts.”
Philip Bump: “It’s generally not a good sign when a government official sends a written message questioning the propriety of an action and another official replies by suggesting they talk on the phone. The implication is that the second official is worried about leaving behind evidence of their conversation. A phone call doesn’t leave a paper trail.”
“While the released text messages are neither comprehensive (representing ‘only a subset of the full body of the materials,’ according to the letter accompanying the messages) nor directly implicate Trump, they include significant new revelations and suggestions about the Trump-Ukraine interactions. Including, in two suggestive moments, specifically the sort of don’t-document-this responses that imply an awareness of lines being crossed.”
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