In her testimony, [Fiona] Hill described her fears that Mr. Sondland represented a counterintelligence risk because his actions made him vulnerable to foreign governments who could exploit his inexperience. She said Mr. Sondland extensively used a personal cellphone for official diplomatic business and repeatedly told foreign officials they were welcome to come to the White House whenever they liked.
Ms. Hill said that his invitations, which were highly unusual and not communicated to others at the White House, prompted one instance in which Romanian officials arrived at the White House without appointments, citing Mr. Sondland.
Scathing Online Schoolmarm finds this a nice, pithy description of America’s own Genius of the Carpathians.
Evan McMullin said it.
It isn’t clear whether Trump considered his request for [Rex] Tillerson to intervene [in a criminal case] to be improper or was just testing the bounds of what he could do as president on an issue that could provide diplomatic benefits while also helping Giuliani, a longtime supporter…
Tillerson has said publicly that the president frequently asked him to do things that were illegal.
“So often, the president would say ‘Here’s what I want to do and here’s how I want to do it,’ and I would have to say to him, ‘Mr. President I understand what you want to do but you can’t do it that way,”’ Tillerson said in an on-stage interview with Bob Schieffer in Texas last year. “It violates the law, it violates treaty you know and he just, he got really frustrated when we’d have those conversations.”