Bill Taylor’s testimony just delivered a bodyblow to Bill Barr

| 6:45 pm EDT October 22, 2019
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Earlier this week the Department of Justice tried to distance itself from Rudy Giuliani by insisting that at the time it met with Giuliani to discuss a federal case pending against one of his clients, it didn’t know the SDNY was actively investigating Rudy’s associates. The funny thing was, it’s been well documented that Attorney General Bill Barr did know about the SDNY probe. It was unclear if DOJ officials were trying to save themselves by throwing Barr under the bus, or what.

Even as that saga plays out, things just took a sharp turn in an ugly direction for Bill Barr. Earlier today, the State Department’s Bill Taylor testified behind closed doors to the House impeachment inquiry about Donald Trump’s Ukraine scandal. Taylor’s opening statement has since been obtained by the Washington Post. It turns out Gordon Sondland told Taylor that Trump wouldn’t allow anything with Ukraine to proceed unless the President of Ukraine publicly announced an investigation into the fake Biden scandal. Here’s the kicker.

According to Taylor, Sondland said that the public announcement by Ukraine would be made “possibly in coordination with Attorney General Barr’s probe into the investigation of interference in the 2016 elections.” In other words, Taylor just put Barr at the center of Trump’s criminal attempt at extorting Ukraine. Does anyone believe for a minute that Trump would have floated this to Sondland if he hadn’t already cleared it with Barr?

Now, naturally, the Department of Justice is releasing a statement saying that it didn’t know Sondland was tying Trump’s Ukraine quid pro quo to Bill Barr. Interestingly, the statement doesn’t say that Barr didn’t know about it. This is similar to the DOJ’s earlier statement distancing itself from Giuliani, which appears to be trying to protect the DOJ itself, but not necessarily Barr.