Lordy there are tapes – and it sounds like Donald Trump ordered a mafia hit

| 3:54 pm EST January 24, 2020
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“Take her out!” That’s what Donald Trump said to Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman in April of 2018, according ABC News which says it’s just heard a recording of the conversation. There’s no question that Trump was referring to U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch. There has been a lot of debate and discussion this afternoon about what Trump actually meant by those words. It’s not that complicated.

Donald Trump and his legal team will argue that he was simply saying that he wanted her fired. This isn’t the kind of claim that anyone is actually going to believe is true. Instead it’s a reasonable doubt argument, in the sense that there’s a remote chance Trump could have meant that. Except he didn’t, because of whom he said it to.

ABC News is clear that Trump said “take her out” to Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman. Trump has never exactly been the biggest scholar on governmental matters, but even he knew full well that Lev and Igor didn’t work for the government, and therefore had no authority or ability to fire Ambassador Yovanovitch. For that matter, Trump would have known that Lev and Igor had no influence over anyone in the government who had the ability to fire her.

What Donald Trump did know about Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman is that they were criminals. When he instructed them to “take [Yovanovitch] out,” he was clearly instructing them to do something criminal to her. The only argument he can even try to make here is that he was merely telling Lev and Igor to harass her, or to manufacture some kind of fake scandal about her. But the reality is that this recording sounds like Trump ordered a mafia hit on a U.S. Ambassador. Lev and Igor clearly didn’t have Yovanovitch killed, but that doesn’t negate the criminality of Trump’s orders.