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(CNN) - The Democrats have revealed what may be their master test and their quid pro quo after the most consistent and dramatic turn so far in their investigation of political judgment on President Donald Trump.
On another hallucinating day of a presidency that is carving one of the most turbulent passages in the political history of the United States, Trump's plight and that of his Republican defenders darkened noticeably.
The chief US diplomat in Ukraine told the House of Representatives investigators that he had been told that the delivery of military aid to Kiev would depend on a promise to investigate the 2016 elections and the 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, who, according to a new CNN survey conducted by SSRS, takes the advantage to Trump by 10 points in a hypothetical confrontation in the 2020 general elections.
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Bill Taylor's statement on Tuesday seems to directly refute the president's claim that there was no quid pro quo in his dealings with the former Soviet state.
Taylor's testimony reinforces a report of denunciation of irregularities and a transcript of Trump's notorious July 25 call with the president of Ukraine showing that he asked for a "favor" in exchange for much needed help while Ukraine fights Russia.
This makes it much more difficult for the Republican Party to defend the president about the facts of the case, since they have emerged from testimony days in the context of the closed political trial investigation.
And the new testimony may increasingly force the president's supporters to an alternative argument: that what he did was inappropriate but does not meet the standard of high crimes and misdemeanors necessary for political trial.
The Democrats argued that Taylor's testimony was the most shocking revelation so far from his one-month political trial investigation, which then will probably become more complicated.
“This testimony is a radical change. I think it could speed things up, ”said Democrat Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts.
Democrat Gregory Meeks of New York said there was clear evidence of a quid pro quo manifested in Trump's pressure on Ukraine.
"It's there, so read the text of the statement," he told Anderson Cooper of CNN.
Carrie Cordero, a CNN legal analyst and former senior official of the Department of Justice and the intelligence community, described Taylor's testimony as "a big problem."
"Bill Taylor clearly provided more information on when we have understood more clearly at this time the exchange that was on the table," said Lamb in "Erin Burnett OutFront."
- Trump accuses lynching democrats
The White House criticizes the 'radical bureaucrats'
Trump has denied acting badly and says the Democrats are trying to accuse him because they can't win the 2020 elections. His legal team accuses the Democrats of carrying out an illegitimate process that is unfair to the president.
But another day of devastating revelations at the Capitol helps explain Trump's increasingly explosive behavior, which saw him compare his own sense of victimization with blacks who were lynched in the darkest moments of the country's past.
The White House did not directly challenge Taylor's testimony, but chose to attack the constitutionally sound democratic process and conjure a new conspiracy theory.
"President Trump has done nothing wrong: this is a coordinated smear campaign of far-left lawmakers and non-elected radical bureaucrats fighting a war against the Constitution," said White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham in a statement.
Taylor, one of the "unelected radical bureaucrats" in the sights of the president, is a highly regarded career official who was directly appointed by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and is a veteran of the Republican administration George W. Bush.
While Trump fumed in the White House, Republicans fought on how to deal with the latest flood of revelations.
His most loyal defenders insisted that Taylor's testimony changed nothing. "I've been there 10 hours, I can assure you there is no quid pro quo," said Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina.
Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina defended Trump's use of the term "lynching."
“This is a farce. This is a joke, ”he said.
“So yes, this is a lynching, in every way. This is not American, ”he added.
But other more moderate Republicans publicly expressed concern about the new testimony, which provided a new atmosphere in Trump's political actions involving Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and several personal appointments.
"The question we are going to answer here is: does this reach a level of political judgment or is it a disagreement about politics?" Said Republican representative Will Hurd of Texas.
Hurd was asked in CNN's "The Situation Room" if retaining nearly $ 400 million in aid to force Ukraine to investigate Trump's political opponents was actionable behavior.
"I think it would reach a level we should consider," Hurd said.
Republican Rep. Francis Rooney of Florida said he was worried about Taylor's statement. “Does it rise to the level of a prosecutable crime? I do not know".
The debate focuses on the nature of crimes and misdemeanors
The fact that there are now open discussions in the Capitol about the nature of a prosecutable crime hints at the seriousness of the case against the president and the surprising level of detail discovered by the Democratic political trial investigation.
It is not a prosecutable crime in itself that a president has a hidden foreign policy business. Franklin Roosevelt, for example, had his own hidden team of envoys during World War II.
However, Trump's scheme - which subverts the long-term objectives of US foreign policy and plays with Russia's aspirations in Ukraine - raises serious national security issues.
But it is about the question of whether the president used his power to establish foreign policy to politically dirty a possible rival of 2020 and to boost an investigation into the Democrats about the 2016 campaign that the political trial case will hang.
In practice, Taylor's testimony probably means a trip back to the commissions for Trump's ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, who testified last week.
It is likely that his testimony will also increase the pressure for a statement by former National Security advisor John Bolton and Tim Morrison, the current senior Trump White House official, who were mentioned in the statement.
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Signs of a quid pro quo
Taylor said in his opening statement that Sondland had “tried to explain to me that President Trump is a businessman. When a businessman is about to sign a check to someone who owes him something, he said, the businessman asks that person to pay before signing the check. ”
The testimony establishes a credibility test between Sondland, a rich hotelier and Republican donor with no diplomatic experience, and Taylor, who has 50 years of government service and is a methodical, professional and veteran diplomat of the Vietnam War.
Taylor's opening statement was full of details and included an impressive section that apparently depicts Trump denying that he was offering a quid pro quo even when he was doing it.
"According to Morrison, President Trump told Ambassador Sondland that he was not asking for a 'quid pro quo.' But President Trump insisted that President Zelensky appear in public and say that he is opening investigations on Biden and the electoral interference of 2016 and that President Zelensky should do it himself. ”
In another intriguing development on Tuesday, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, who was already taking a rearguard action against Trump's withdrawal from Syria, rejected the president's attempts to use him as his personality guarantee.
The Kentucky Republican said he never had or at least did not remember a conversation in which, as Trump reported, he described the president's call with Zelensky as perfect.
He also criticized Trump's lynching comment, although, reflecting his political tightrope, he criticized the Democratic process in the House.
But despite the growing frustration in the Washington Republican Party with Trump, there is still little sign that, even with Trump's growing support for removal and removal among voters in general, his Republican firewall could break into a trial of impeachment in the Senate.
A new CNN / SSRS poll on Tuesday found that only 6% of Republican voters are in favor of Trump's expulsion, a sobering statistic for Republican lawmakers who want a long future in politics.
