Followup to my last Scumbag post: So far, I’ve watched Ambassador Sondland’s opening statement, Chairman Schiff’s first questions, and the Democratic counsel’s questioning. (I’m running late, so this is DVR playback. For a sense of scale, it’s mid-afternoon, and the hearing is was still running.) Lordy, what a scumbag.

I’m surprised. Sondland has been almost honest. More than I expected, anyway. I still wouldn’t trust the good and honorable gentleman with a burnt match. His testimony is still a mix of honesty about other people’s mistakes and sudden-onset amnesia about his own actions. Any time someone asked him about something specific Sondland had seen or done, he spews qualifications and half answers. Here’s my paraphrase:

Q: Did you say <that specific thing>?
A: I don’t know. I don’t remember.
Q: Do you any reason to think that the earlier testimony of what you said was wrong?
A: No, no, I don’t doubt what they said. That sounds like something I’d say. But no, I don’t remember saying it.

When someone asked Sondland about what he’d known himself, his answers suddenly grew qualifications. “It wasn’t anything specific,” “I don’t have my notes,” and, “That wasn’t something I specifically remember hearing anyone say directly; it was just my personal assumption based on my experience.” Maybe the Ambassador was being painfully and carefully specific. It’s possible. His answers were certainly lawyerly, but I mean that in the very worst way.

Sondland used a lot of empty negatives: “President Trump never told specifically me that Ukrainian aid was conditioned on the investigations.” And I’m sure trump never specifically used those exact words. Trump might have bellowed “Gimmie the damn announcement or they won’t get shit!” but those are different words.

Sondland was more specific about Rudi Giuiliani. Talk about throwing someone under the bus. What a goddamn lawyer. Not that I mind the thump-thump sounds that Rudi’s denials made going under the bus wheels. Rudi Giuliani remains one of the worst players in a cesspool administration.

Which is probably the core issue: Sondland’s testimony implicates most of the Trump administration Sondland carefully pointed out everyone elses’s crimes. It is an important step of the impeachment. Heck, this could be where things really break open.

So I can understand why Democrats might not challenge Sondland too hard on his own crimes. They did the same thing with U.S. Special Envoy Kurt Volker. Neither one has been a patriotic saint. At best, they went along with terrible stuff.

Nor can I blame Sondland for ratting out everyone else around him. He looks to have been deeper into the scheme than Volker. I already said how Schiff already listed all the places where Sondland was right in the middle of every crime. Guilty as sin. And yet, in Sondland’s telling, he came out at least slightly over the ‘unprosecutable’ side of every crime. “Talk to Rudi!” And Sondland was just following orders.

And sure, it was entertained to hear the Ambassador swear that he only played the piano in the parlor. He had NO IDEA what went on upstairs.

So, a scumbag ratting out all his co-conspirators. And they had few real feelings of their own; they were just following orders

Good luck with that defense.