Originally posted by Mountain Man
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Example: Maria Yovanovitch was criticized for not being relevant to the proceedings. She testified about a baseless smear campaign directed towards her by Giuliani and about her subsequent abrupt dismissal leading to the ‘three amigos’ entrance.
Why it’s relevant - while the allegation is about the withholding of aid for political benefit which all happened after she left, her testimony is about events leading up to it. Her testimony supports the notion that Trump and Giuliani had to scramble after the Ukrainian election to establish new relationships with the incoming administration for the overall purpose of carrying out the allegation.
Her testimony alone proves nothing of course, but it shifts the probability in favor of the prosecution as much or as little as the fact finder values it alongside all the other evidence presented. It’s not based on hearsay or opinion but direct testimony of circumstances relevant to the allegation i.e circumstantial evidence.
Now go to testimony of Sondland who was one of the three amigos. Sondland testified to being sent to Ukraine by Trump with the seemingly sole purpose of meeting with Ukrainian officials and communicating to them the need to announce investigations into Burisma and Crowdstrike for a White House visit and, later, the 400 million in aid. His testimony also included the fact that he had frequent interactions with Trump on a direct line and that Trump had told him ‘no quid pro quo’ when asked what he wanted.
Again this is evidence that’s neither hearsay or opinion but relevant since it shows that the ‘three amigos’ had been sent to Ukraine directly by Trump and the only thing they did was to try and get the new Ukrainian administration to announce the investigations.
And again Sondlands testimony increases the probability of the allegation and is consistent with other testimonies.
That’s how circumstantial cases work, each piece of evidence on its own may have a reasonable alternative explanation but each additional circumstantial evidence makes it that much harder to fit under a lie so ideally the truth eventually becomes the only reasonable explanation that accounts for all the evidence.
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