Nets Celebrate Amb. Sondland as ‘the Most Pivotal Witness Yet’

Nicholas Fondacaro | November 20, 2019
Font Size

***To read the full blog, please check out the complete post on NewsBusters***

Despite how they were dismissive of his truthfulness prior to Wednesday and the fact that he could not directly implicate President Trump in a quid pro quo scheme with Ukraine, ABC, CBS, and NBC heralded the public testimony of E.U. Ambassador Gordon Sondland as a “bombshell” from “the most pivotal witness yet.”

And they begin tonight with the most pivotal witness yet in the impeachment investigation, who today said there was a quid pro quo, and that many in the Trump administration knew about it,” proclaimed sensationalist ABC anchor David Muir on World News Tonight. But, moments later, he admitted that Sondland never heard the President speak about or instruct him on a quid pro quo.

But that didn’t stop ABC senior congressional correspondent Mary Bruce from touting Sondland’s testimony as “a true Washington blockbuster.” She then boasted that Sondland was “defying” Trump:

BRUCE: Gordon Sondland, President Trump's hand-picked point person in Ukraine, defying the President, telling the nation there was a quid pro quo, on order from the President's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, acting at the direction of the President.

As for when Republicans got the Ambassador to admit he never received instruction from the President, to Bruce it was just a story about how “Republicans pounced.” The hearing exchange is in the ABC transcript below.

In a statement that could easily be applied to the networks themselves, ABC chief White House correspondent Jon Karl suggested: “The President seized on one small sliver of Ambassador Gordon Sondland’s testimony regarding a September phone call in which he says he asked President Trump what he wanted from Ukraine.”

(...)

donate