On Tuesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s special coverage of the House Intelligence Committee’s public impeachment inquiry hearings, former Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), now a contributor for NBC News, said the Democrats witness have shown President Donald Trump has committed the “fact pattern of bribery.”

McCaskill said, “In fact, Sondland tomorrow is going to be cross-examined about the fact he said ‘Well Trump’s a businessman if he’s going to give somebody something he wants them to write a check for it.’ Hello, that is a fact pattern of bribery. Trump could not —Zelensky needed Trump. He needed his approval desperately. He had just gotten elected. Russia is breathing down their neck, killing their people, strangling them out of existence. He has to have America. And Trump knows this. And Trump leverages the fact that he has to have them by saying you got to give me something I want and it didn’t have anything to do about the security of this country. That is bribery. Now they can dance around it, but the fact pattern is very clear.”

She concluded, “People go to prison all the time for conspiracies that are not completed, for attempts of crimes that are not completed. The element of the crime has been met. He was leveraging something of value to get something from someone else and making that a requirement, and so that is in the elements of the crime.”

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