Comment on Quid pro quo, domestic errands: Takeaways from impeachment

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump asked a foreign country to investigate a political rival as he enters his reelection campaign. That has been established almost beyond doubt. But Republicans and Democrats agree on little else as they engage in on only the fourth impeachment inquiry in the nation’s history. Here are key takeaways from two weeks of hearings. This for that In the most anticipated testimony, Gordon Sondland, the European Union ambassador, repeatedly described the administration’s dealings with Ukraine as a quid pro quo — one thing in return for another. “I know that members of this committee have frequently framed these complicated issues in the form of a simple question: Was there a `quid pro quo?’ As I testified previously, with regard to the requested White House call and White House meeting, the answer is yes,” Sondland said. The deal, he said, involved arranging a White House visit for Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in return for Zelenskiy’s announcing investigations of Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company, and a discredited conspiracy theory that Ukraine had interfered in the 2016 U.S.