Lost in the noise of Gordon Sondland’s cavalier testimony today, as well as the breathless Democrat and media spinning of it throughout the day, was Rep. Devin Nunes’s OUTSTANDING opening remarks and a little neutron bomb from Ukraine’s Office of the Prosecutor General. First of all, here are selected excerpts from Nunes’s opening statement:

As I’ve noted before, the Democrats on this committee spent three years accusing President Trump of being a Russian agent. In March 2018, after a year-long investigation, Committee Republicans issued a 240-page report describing in detail how the Russians meddled in the 2016 elections and making specific recommendations to improve our election security.

Denouncing the report as a whitewash and accusing Republicans of “subverting” the investigation, the Democrats issued their own report focusing on their now-debunked conspiracy theory that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to hack the elections.

Notably, the Democrats vowed to present a further “comprehensive report” after they finished their investigation into Trump’s treasonous collusion with Russia. For some completely inexplicable reason, after the implosion of their Russia hoax, the Democrats failed to issue that comprehensive report.

This episode shows how the Democrats have exploited the Intelligence Committee for political purposes for three years, culminating in these impeaching hearings. In their mania to attack the President, no conspiracy theory is too outlandish for the Democrats.

Time and again, they floated the possibility of some far-fetched malfeasance by Trump, declared the dire need to investigate it, and then suddenly dropped the issue and moved on to their next asinine theory. A sampling of their accusations and insinuations includes:

• Trump is a long-time Russian agent, as described in the Steele dossier.
• The Russians gave Trump advance access to emails stolen from the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign.
• The Trump campaign based some of its activities on these stolen documents.
• Trump received nefarious materials from the Russians through a Trump Campaign aide.
• Trump laundered Russian money through real estate deals.
• Trump was blackmailed by Russia through his financial exposure with Deutsche Bank.
• Trump had a diabolical plan to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.
• Trump changed the Republican National Committee platform to hurt Ukraine and benefit Russia.
• The Russians laundered money through the NRA for the Trump campaign.
• Trump’s son in law lied about his Russian contacts while obtaining his security clearance

It’s a long list of false charges, and that’s merely a partial list.

Clearly, these ludicrous accusations don’t reflect committee members who are honestly searching for the truth. They are the actions of partisan extremists who hijacked the Intelligence Committee, transformed it into an Impeachment Committee, abandoned its core oversight functions, and turned it into a beachhead for ousting an elected President from office.

You have to keep that history in mind as you consider the Democrats’ latest catalogue of supposed Trump outrages.

Granted, a friendly call with the Ukrainian president wouldn’t seem to rise to the same level as being a Russian agent. But the Democrats were running out of time—if they waited any longer, their impeachment circus would interfere with their own candidates’ 2020 campaigns. And so you have to give them points for creativity in selling this absurdity as an impeachable offense.

All this explains why the Democrats have gathered zero Republican support in the House of Representatives for their impeachment crusade. In fact, the vote we held was a bipartisan vote against impeachment.

….

And so they’ve zeroed in on an anonymous whistleblower complaint that was cooked up in cooperation with Democrats on this very committee. They lied to the American people about that cooperation and refuse to let us question the whistleblower to discover the truth.

Meanwhile, the Democrats lash out against anyone who questions or casts doubt on this spectacle.

When Ukrainian President Zelensky denies anything improper happened on the phone call, the Democrats say he’s a liar.

When journalists report on Ukrainian election meddling and Hunter Biden’s position on the board of a corrupt Ukrainian company, the Democrats label them conspiracy theorists.

When the Democrats can’t get any traction for their allegations of a quid pro quo, they move the goalposts and accuse the President of extortion, then bribery, and as a last resort, obstructing justice.

….

In closing, the Democrats fake outrage that President Trump used his own channel to communicate with Ukraine. I’ll remind them that our first president, George Washington, directed his own diplomatic channels to secure a treaty with Great Britain. If my Democratic colleagues were around in 1794, they’d want to impeach him too.

<end of opening statement>

Sondland was forced to admit today that nobody EVER told him that there was a quid pro quo for releasing military aid to Ukraine. He also stated that he asked the President in a phone call what he wanted from Ukraine, and that the President responded, “I want nothing. Nothing. No quid pro quo …. I want President Zelensky to do the right thing.” Everything else touted as bombshells by the Democrats is pablum. Nothing else matters. This tweet from Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) tells it all:

.@RepMikeTurner: "Is it correct no one on this planet told you that @realdonaldtrump was tying this aid to the investigation? If your answer is yes, then the Chairman is wrong and the headline on @CNN is wrong."

Ambassador Sondland: "Yes." pic.twitter.com/YBjLKln6US

— Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) November 20, 2019

President Trump knows Ukraine worked against him in that election, as noted in a 19 November article in the Washington Examiner. He knows about Alexandra Chalupa and the DNC’s dirt-digging operation in 2016. He is right to be wary of Ukraine regarding corruption in general. I would wager that President Zelensky knows that fact as well and wishes to curry favor with the President. And now he knows that President Trump delivers the bacon because Ukraine received lethal military aid for the first time – which the Obama regime refused to provide! Ukraine got the aid, and there was no quid pro quo.

Rep. Nunes and the House Republicans know all of these facts very well. They know that Ukraine now owes President Trump BIGLY. They also know that the Democrats are desperate to impeach the President because their corrupt schemes are being exposed. Speaking of which, isn’t it interesting that Ukraine just announced movement in the investigation into Burisma Holdings on Wednesday? Right now, there is mixed reporting whether there is an indictment or more investigation.

Now you can understand Rep. Nunes’s point that the Democrats are “running out of time.” They know they’re exposed in Ukraine on two fronts: Burisma and its tentacles to many Democrats, and 2016 election meddling. They are manufacturing a false impeachment narrative in hopes of persuading enough Americans that impeachment is warranted. They hope that enough Republican senators (there are more than a few #NeverTrumpers there) will vote to sustain that impeachment and remove the President so that everything can be swept under the rug. And they want to move fast by controlling the entire process on a partisan basis!

This is the Democrat equivalent of a “Hail Mary” pass at the end of the football game from a team down a touchdown. What they weren’t counting on was a Trump-Zelensky interception.

The end.