Ben Wittes

"The most corrupt act in recent history," is what Trump detractors are calling the big Roger Stone commutation. Legal author and CNN contributor Jeffrey Toobin said, specifically, that it was "the most corrupt and cronyistic act in perhaps all of recent history." After all, just hours before Trump announced it, Stone had admitted to Howard Fineman that he has the goods on Trump. Will it matter?

I don't know if Ambassador Gordon Sondland is going to turn out to be the John Dean of Trump's impeachment or not-- or if he's just the one who winds up putting Rudy Giuliani in prison-- but his testimony yesterday was pretty damning. Watch the quid pro quo segment above. Fox anchor Chris Wallace mentioned on Fox News-- so watched by Trump supporters living their bubble-- that Sondland "took out the bus and ran it over President Trump, Vice President Pence, Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, Rudy Giuliani, Mick Mulvaney. He implicates all of them." That must be disturbing for them.