the story so far

[calimac]

Jimmy Kimmel recaps the scandal in two minutes:

"" (Watch on YouTube)

Just to recap: Now that we have the whole story, if you haven’t been following this, this is what happened. Donald Trump wanted this thing about Joe Biden’s son to be like the 2020 version of Hillary’s e-mails. So he sent Rudy Giuliani, who knew some guys who knew some other guys, to go to Ukraine to dig that dirt and plant those seeds. Then he sent his hotel buddy, Gordon Sondland, who wasn’t even involved with Ukraine – he was the ambassador to the E.U. – he told Sondland to get together with Rudy to put the screws to the new Ukrainian president, who desperately needed U.S. backing because he’s at war with the Russians. So Trump knew he had Zelensky over a barrel, and he was basically like, “hey, nice democracy you got there; shame if something were to happen to it.” So Giuliani and Sondland let the Ukrainians know that they had to announce an investigation publicly into the Bidens. Now they didn’t actually have to do the investigation – that’s how much Mr. Crime-fighter cares about corruption – they just had to announce it so his trolls could paste that all over Facebook and Fox News. That was the plan. But there was a problem. The ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, wasn’t on board with it, so Giuliani and his goons moved on her like a vitch. They basically fitted her career with cement shoes and pulled her out of the country, which – problem solved, right? Well, unfortunately for them, just when they were about to get the goods, just as Zelensky is about to give in and announce this imaginary investigation, this whole story came out, the whistle blew. So Trump quickly released the aid, he dictates a bogus message to Sondland saying “I want no quid pro quo,” and they all crossed their fingers and hoped that no-one ever mentions it again. And they would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for the whistleblower and those meddling Foreign Service officials. So that’s what happened, OK? And the question now going forward for those congresspeople who support him is: Are you a Republican or are you an American? And I guess we’re going to find out pretty soon, hopefully.