mr giuliani remember that this year mark asked me to connect him with mr giuliani i did they had a meeting and then they both called me afterwards mr join ali said that he thought ukraine should make a statement about fighting corruption mr your luck said and we will say also specifically 2016 mr jeremiah provided be a draft statement and i want it is midnight's g.m.t. 7 pm in washington d.c. you're watching our coverage of the impeachment hearings more witnesses have been questioned about whether donald trump abused his presidential powers when he held up military aid to ukraine and asks its leader to investigate political rival joe biden the former u.s. special envoy to ukraine kurt volker testified that he didn't knowingly take part in efforts to investigate biden but admitted he should have realized what was going on area white house ukraine expert new tenant colonel alexander vinda men spoke about trumpets phone call with ukraine's president which is at the center of the

allegations he described the call as improper and said he flogged it up out of a sense of duty and jennifer williams an advisor to the u.s. vice president said she considered the phone call to be unusual well let's speak to mock peterson he is professor of public policy political science and law at the u.c.l.a. laskin school of public affairs he's live from los angeles thank you so much for being with us a lot happening today what have been the highlights for you so far which of the testimonies that we've heard today were the most damning for the president and why . well much to the testimony of these individuals today are less involved in some ways than the earlier testimony as we've had perhaps the most damning in a way are the 2 most recent ones who are currently testifying before the committee because these are the 2 individuals who are most likely to be supportive of the

president's position and we've heard them talk about that we've heard them to be able to identify ways in which they were consistent the president's views were consistent with policy but they're leaving out a whole bunch and that's part of what representative jim jordan was trying to do was set a context that simply has to be the void of a lot of the other contacts then exit important to be pushed pursuing these investigations right and kurt volker is a witness that republicans have pushed for and he offered a different testimony then when he spoke behind closed doors how significant is that. it's always significant when someone has been deposed over several hours in a setting in which they can be totally forthcoming and then they come forward and have to change their testimony to some degree i think all of us certainly can forget things or no one says it may be triggered by other kinds of testimony but it's certainly not not helpful to the case that the republicans are trying to

present of. embassador sunland and of his bias or volcker have to change what they've said behind closed doors and the republicans again very keen to to know that the whistle blowing as this came up time and time again what would that change finding out who the whistleblowing is. at this point i wouldn't change anything what the whistleblower did was bring attention to the potential concerns her around the social the whistleblower by by his own or her own statement as in the coding these are conversations 2nd and 3rd hand conversations with a range of people from the white house on a national security apparatus that the whole point of that was and see should there be an investigation that was affirmed by the inspector general and it then goes forward so congress so now are having the investigation at this point the people who have actually listened to the call who have been in the room have been in the network of interacting with the ambassador of some of whom of interacting with the

president are now speaking in 1st hand and 2nd hand terms and or speaking within their network of conversation that they would have normally in the in the process of developing diplomatic strategy so the whistleblower now has absolutely no role at all it's like the person who called 911 i hear shots the police come ok there were shots now there's something on bus ok why do we care about the person who made the call in the 1st place interesting piece and thank you so much for sharing it he's with us we're going to go back to the hearings in washington now and continue to miss an early quickly after the call that same day that same day said today he said i reported my concerns to mr eisenberg it is improper for the present a united states to demand a foreign government investigate u.s. political and he was going to mr eisenberg with his concerns about the conversation if he did not any point on the edits say that there should be

a demand and you know. he didn't do that but he did say that he didn't come to you with his concerns chris you weren't available that same day he came to you with with edits. that was that correct i believe that's generally correct yes or ok well he said you weren't available and you didn't hear the president make a demand did you know sir so some time between the call and today lieutenant colonel dimon must have been here and some voices in he heard demand at the time but he didn't hear it that day and he didn't make it an issue that day but today he does i think that's pretty bizarre. when lieutenant colonel then went to legal mr eisenberg you know if he was advised not to speak to you i don't have any firsthand knowledge of that no sir you know if he was advised to contact the i.g.

i see. grosser i have no firsthand knowledge about so you don't know what he was advised when he went to legal there so i do not thank you i appreciate that. mr volcker i want to day i really enjoyed your opening testimony today taking us through that i know it's kind of long but i thought it was extremely well done and i appreciated you talk about letter signed and and sharing concerns about leadership in your assigned country. agreeing with and sometimes disagreeing with the leadership of your own country when when you felt it was appropriate you're the boots on the ground for the administration let's face it you're part of that team that is there to to serve the country in that way and that all to me sounded like the works of a very good diplomat and i want to thank you for that thank you sir it's truly appreciated and you know corruption was a concern legitimately in ukraine and in many ways and mr joyner jordan pointed out some of the things that were done by ukrainians in plain sight i might use that

term in plain sight by putting op eds in our newspapers and it's certainly more than one country can be trying to influence our elections would you agree with that agree with that and you know we keep hearing that that whole thing about ukrainians that's all been debunked it was just the russians well you know that comes from and i see community that some of the people that have come up with those conclusions are some of the very same people that we're going to find out if we haven't already were deeply involved with this whole russian collusion hoax but i want to say you did a great job you vetted zilinskas intentions what he intended to be as the president would would you say that's accurate yes that was in fact one of the key objectives of the presidential delegation at the inauguration to take our own judgment and report back to the president and that's what your job should be and you became comfortable with this president correct as i did. and you work to assure our president that you are comfortable with this size and that correct that's correct

and in some ways you have to work sometimes through any means available and that might include working with rudy giuliani if it could be helpful to you to get that message and advice to the present with that because i believe that the message is being conveyed by mr giuliani were a problem because they were. they were at variance with with our official message to the president was and not conveying that positive assessment that we all had and so i thought it was important to try to step in and fix the problem and in that i think you turned it useful were ometer of where things were yes so there's useful barometers i think income in a lot of different fashions like dennis rodman in north korea or james taylor in france thing and you got a friend if they can help the cause and in that situation it's not a little good job and basters thank you very much i think that the spear

chairman thank you and thank you both for your participation here today and for your service i want to take us out some 30000 feet for a minute and talk about cover ups but for the fact that the whistleblower came forward we would know anything about this after the fact that the inspector general of the cia found it to be both urgent and credible we would know anything about it. mr morrison you said that after you heard the call you went directly to the attorneys in the national security council and recommended that they be limited access and they were subsequently put into a special server the white house has not released any documents whatsoever to this committee so to you mr volcker thank you but for the fact that you as a private citizen with your own personal phone and your text messages with mr giuliani

and mr santelli and and mr miacca and whomever else i for those text messages that we've been putting up on the screen all day we would have nothing nothing and this cover up would be complete that's something we should think about now. on july 19th you had breakfast with rudy giuliani at the trump hotel correct and secret in that conversation at one point he brought up mr lute sankoh and you said that whatever mr lute sankoh is saying that's not credible is that correct yes and then he brought up mr biden and i'm going to quote you here i've known him for a long time is a person of integrity giuliani simply not credible to me joe

biden would be influenced in his duties as vice president by money or things for a son or anything like that and we've had many discussions over the last few days about these investigations into biden and the 2016 crowd strike server and you had that conversation with mr giuliani basically. debunked all of that now at that time. at that breakfast who else was with you at that breakfast there was someone that mr giuliani brought along i later learned of this was left parnassus who we've learned a lot about since then so mr lamb parness was at that breakfast that mr giuliani had with you and we now know that mr parnassus has since been indicted for campaign for and campaign contributions to president trump's political action committees that correct i have seen all right. on may 23rd you

were in that discussion with the president and at one point he referred to selenski having terrible people around him who do you think he was calling terrible people around him there were 2 people that came to mind one of them was a former investigative journalist and later a parliamentarian name so he lashed genco. the city last chunk goes someone that had many of these stories is. seen as bringing forth a black ledger relating to paul man a for its activities in ukraine it was one person the other person i thought it could refer to was the person who was being named as presents alinsky is the chief of presidential administration andree don he was known as a lawyer for one of the main all of our senior crane you go cold voice ski and there's a lot of controversy at the time about him being appointed to the ministration you

call that do you do you think of them as terrible people i don't think either one of them as terrible people know all right thank you mr morrison. earlier in testimony that was elicited from our colleagues on the other side of the aisle you indicated that others had represented to you that colonel than men leaked you remember saying that you spent all right colonel denman this morning under oath said that he did not does not leak now would you therefore want to maybe brief rearrange your comments about the references you made to colonel been a member so you didn't even though under oath he said that he has never leaked you believe that you believe in people who said to you that he may have late i didn't believe or disbelieve them i'm barely with you then when they told me well they told you and so then you decided to. continue to put that forward even though you

had no i don't know make you i you know back i'm sorry chairman if i could answer. there was a man that's incorrect a doctor who told. others in the n.s.c. raised concerns about alex those concerns were noted i didn't take them for face value i did i treated them as representations of others i was on a work but i form my own judgments i took no action because of the statements of someone else that i couldn't independently doubt it stuart. thank you gentlemen and welcome to impeach a palooza 29. which is the democratic plan to compel america to impeach president donald trump through the sheer force of boredom because it's been a long day and it turns out impeachment is very boring if you don't have any compelling or any condemning evidence good news and bad news

a good news is i'm going to be very very brief we're going on and plus hours of this i will yield back some of my time the bad news is most of my colleagues after me won't so he's still got some time to go ambassador volker very quickly do you think that someone should be immune from investigation of suspected ethical or criminal activity just because they are a candidate for office even for office of the president of the states i don't think anyone should be above the law or course not that would be absurd to suggest that and i and i was certain that's how you would answer that question what if some of these are alleged ethical or criminal allegations occurred overseas occurred in another country would it be improper to seek the host countries help such as we do with interpol or any other law enforcement agency there are channels for doing that for american citizens who may have committed crimes abroad and again you need to seek the host nation to their government help is not unusual at all it is that is

correct and you often have treaties for that thank you again that's painfully obvious and to me that's exactly and the only thing that the president was doing that mr morrison. i wonder for just briefly to lieutenant colonel didn't mince testimony where he described the 6 people i believe as 5 or 6 people that were in the situation room listening to this phone call between the 2 presidents curled in and described these individuals as exceptional he stated that there was no reason to question their integrity or professionalism this was an exchange that he and i had in the closed door testimony do you agree with the description of this national as national security staff as exceptional people or they're patriots yes people of great integrity and professionalism. yes or do any of these i'm sorry did any of these exceptional individuals people of unquestioned integrity and professionalism indicate to you that they had thought that the president of the united states

didn't get engaged in any illegal or unethical behavior as a result of this phone call not that i'm aware of congress what did any of them suggest to you in any way that they thought the president was involved with bribery or any such thing associated with not that i'm aware of congressman you know it's only that only leaves 2 possible explanations either these individuals of what we've described as a great integrity either that's not true which i don't believe or they just interpreted an ambiguous conversation very differently than did colonel didn't and i haven't i seen just as an aside as an air force officer i've never understood why president obama was against providing lethal aid to ukraine ambassador do you have the some insight into why they were refused to do that i would only point to the statements from the administration at the time there was a perception that our allies would oppose it that germany would oppose it there was a perception that germany should be in the lead there was a perception that it could be provocative to russia or escalate the conflict that

as i've said extensively at the time and as pressure representative i don't agree with those arguments and i believe that the record has borne out that providing those legal defense of arms was actually very important i agree with the ambassador i think that you got it right and i think president trump got it right and with the idea i yield back this quickly and this term. and bastard i want to direct your attention to a meeting you had with ambassador taylor and mr your mac so pember 14th in key the we call this meetings are a believer we had dinner is around the time of the yes conference ok and you remember discussing with this year mackey cranes. intent to investigate their former president mr poroshenko. i remember raising the issue of the possibility of prosecutions they were on it up is that korea ways didn't they i talked about their intent sure it is because i'm sorry to be clear that there was

a lot of talk in kiev at that time about whether the new team would be prosecuting the former president and i had met with president poroshenko met with others in the opposition as well and i wanted to call mr chairman ics attention to the potential problems of this i'm very familiar with other examples of countries in the region that have gone for prosecutions of the former government and these have created deep divisions in society and so i cited present zilinskas inauguration speech i'm sorry his national day speech from all his 24th that was all about unifying the country and i cautioned mr chairman to say that pursuing prosecution of president poroshenko risks deepening the divisions in the country exactly the opposite of what president. has said he wants to do so it's fair to describe it you

discouraged him from such action i wrote you i discouraged him i raised concerns about what the potential impact would be and what was in mr your mox response i believe that i refreshed in this by seeing the testimony of others mr taylor mr taylor's testimony basser teller and mr kent right and i but i believe based on that testimony that mr yamma said what you mean like asking us to investigate clinton and biden. so this was something along the lines of it's ok for you to ask us to investigate the manner in which you are these so-called investigations but you don't want us to investigate our own president is that fair way to describe this well i didn't quite understand what he was referring to because to my knowledge we weren't asking to investigate clinton or biden and so i was kind of puzzled by the remark and that's why i didn't respond did you go and investigate what he might have men or ask anybody you know i thought or i took it

something of a deflection from the point i was making about unifying ukraine but in all this time i mean. mr giuliani in this time in that made september he mentioned the biden investigation he mentioned biden over 50 times and 20 something times and in relation to crane now that stirred your curiosity. as will finally come to this point you know as i testified i met with mr giuliani once and he did bring up vice president biden and i pushed back on that and i maintained a very clear distinction that ukraine investigating its own citizens and corruption would be fine going beyond that to say we're an investigative 'd vice president is not fine did you have any discussions with anyone in the state palmer or anywhere else in the administration about concerns about the investigation in the portion co yes so i know that i raised this with ambassador taylor in advance of that we had

been in some of the same meetings some of the country team there. i don't remember whether i had raised it with george canterville recorder not i may well have done. that but it was something that we had discussed as part of our meetings in that time to the chairman. so master when you have this conversation and you are just koreans not to investigate to prosecute the former president per person and go their response was oh you mean like you're asking us to investigate the clintons on the bidens that was their response that's what i recall now from seeing ambassador taylor's testimony and you didn't understand that at the time but then at the time had you read the call record you know now that you've read the call record that makes a lot more sense doesn't yes. you know i was curious was something you said earlier when you said that the 2016 conspiracy theory of lewd sankoh

had no merit but you didn't see any harm in ukraine investigating it if they want to investigate it is that right yes. don't they have enough legitimate corruption to investigate without spending time investigating. a debunk conspiracy theory there is all kinds of corruption to investigate in ukraine but nonetheless you propose that they go ahead and do this investigation of something you thought without merit because this was part of an effort to fix the problem the giuliani was creating i did not propose it well i think you said you were ok with it or you amended statement as we've seen to include it because well if it would help fix the giuliani problem is that the thinking yes that's right that's correct if threads the needle between what is reasonable for ukraine to do and if it resets the the negative perceptions held by mr giuliani and then the president then then why not this is part of what you described in your opening statement as your effort to when you see a problem to fix it is a clear do now investor volcker. based on the september 25th call you were not able

to fix it based on the transcript that was released on the 25th i can see now that there were a lot else going on that was about vice president biden that i knew at the time and i 'd the efforts that i was making were clearly not in the context of what had already been discussed by the president july 25th so it's fair to say you were not able to fix the giuliani problem that's correct. this to fund it. thank you ambassador volker and mr morrison for your years of service and your professional expertise and leadership on national security issues and i want to particularly think mr morrison for his great work on the house armed services committee on which i serve i wanted to start with the july 25th call between president trump and president selenski mr morris and you were on that call and there was no mention of withholding aid on the call correct. and there was no quid

pro quo correct correct no bribery correct no extortion correct and ambassador voltar volcker i presume you got a readout of the call is that correct very terse read all posts in this terse 3 readout of the call ambassador from the u.s. participants was there any reference to withholding aid you know there was not any reference to bribery now there was not any reference to quid pro quo no there was not any reference to extortion no there was not and i presume you also got feedback from your ukrainian counterparts as to how the call went did they mention the withholding of aid you know they did nor did they mention any quid pro quo no they did not and did they mention any bribery no they didn't and in fact the day after the call you met with president selenski this would be on july 26th that's correct and in that meeting he made no mention of quid pro quo no he made no mention of withholding the aid you made no mention of bribery no so the fact is the ukrainians

were not even aware of this hold on aid is that correct that's correct and in the coming weeks you were in touch with the ukrainians as part of your official duties and this included talking to ukrainians over the phone in person on text and the ukrainians never brought up an investigation into the biden's is that correct that's correct they never brought up the withholding of the 8. that's correct they never brought up quid pro quo or bribery let me bring up the they did bring that up after the political or tickle appeared on the i'm going to get to that but until the political article and they did not bring it up and you said in your closed door deposition quote it never came up in conversation with them and i believe they had trust in me that they would have asked if that was really what they were worried about that correct it is correct and as you pointed out the ukrainians never even knew their foreign aid was on pause until the article was published in politico in august that's correct so they didn't know during the call that's correct and in

fact you had to correct chairman shift on this timeline in the closed door deposition the chairman of this committee ask you quote when they became aware that military assistance was being withheld for a reason you couldn't explain no one could explain weren't they under even greater pressure to give the president what he asked for on the call and you answered ambassador volcker quote to my knowledge the news about a hold on security assistance did not get into ukrainian government circles as indicated to me by the current foreign minister then diplomatic advisor until the end of august so that your testimony as students and chairmanship also got the facts wrong again when he asked you this quote at the point they learned their aid was paused what did they give then wouldn't that give them added urgency to meet the president's request on the bidens and you answered ambassador volcker quote i think the ukrainians felt like they are going in the right direction and they had not done anything they had not done anything on an investigation and quote isn't

the case and master volcker at one point chairmanship said to you when you were truthfully testifying what ambassador you're making this much more complicated than it has to be and quote it's page 127 from the depositions that correct i remember them. but the truth is the facts are indeed not complicated and i'm going to close out with 2 questions for the both of you did you crane open investigation into the bidens mr morrison to my knowledge graham ambassador volcker not to my knowledge either did either of you ever have any evidence of quid pro quo as marson no ma'am and mr volcker i did not any evidence of bribery. and the evidence of treason. no evidence of treason without your back so all thank you mr morrison did embassador bolton want the security

aid hold lifted as congressman who did you testify that ambassador bolton had a one on one meeting with president trump in late august related to ukraine security assistance is that right sir can you point to where i testified to that on page 266 you said ambassador bolton had a one on one meeting with president trunk in late august 21000 but the president was not yet ready to approve the release of the assistance to remember that there was this this is to 26 yes to 66 and to 68 but i'm asking you did that happen or did it not so i just want to be i want to be clear characterizing it ok. and you testified to that what was the outcome of that meeting between ambassador bolton and president trump ambassador bolton did not yet believe the president was ready to approve the assistance did ambassador bolton inform you of any reason for the ongoing hold that stem from this meeting those are

mr morse and do you consider yourself loyal to the president yes or and the president executes the foreign policy of the united states is that right . to say he decides to pull the foreign policy yes or and as a staffer on the national security council and even someone who serves in the military it's your job to faithfully execute the foreign policy priorities of the president is that right from my oath is to obey all lawful orders. on july 25 you listen to the president united states talk to the president of ukraine is that correct on june 5th yes sir and regardless of what you had prepared as far as talking points for that call for the president you heard the president the united states ask the president of ukraine to investigate the bidens is that correct yes or you made a request and after the july 25 call between president trump and the ukrainian

president fair to say that you talked to your ukrainian counterparts a number of times yesterday how many times when you talk to your ukrainian counterpart counterparts as you asked them to investigate the bites never sir why not sir it was it was not a policy objective that i was aware of but with all due respect mr morrison you're not in the white house to carry out your policy objectives you just testified that the president sets the foreign policy objectives for the united states and the one call that you listen to between the president united states and the president of ukraine the president of the united states priorities were to investigate the bidens and i'm asking you sir why didn't you follow up on the president's priorities when you talk to the ukrainians. did not understand it as a policy objective mr morse and i know that you

put that conversation in the server because as you said you feared the political consequences and some other reasons that you gave but you also chose to defy the president's request to not come here as others have liked mr milvain ian mr bolton and you have come here and you've been truthful i appreciate that and mr morse and whether you acknowledge it publicly or not i believe that you knew that what the president asked ukrainians to do was wrong and as you just described your duty. is to follow the foreign policy priorities the president but to also only follow something that is a lawful order and i don't think you believe that was a lawful order and that's why you did not follow up on those priorities mr volcker we've heard a lot today about this president being such an anti-corruption president really cared about fighting corruption is russia corrupt country. there's

a we're talk about presence alinsky no president from president is russia corrupt country yes it is and president trump has met a number of times in person with president putin is that right yes a few times and he's had a number of phone calls with president putin is that right this is turkey a corrupt country yes i believe so and just last week despite their corruption at the white house president aired a long had an audience with the present united states that correct as he did finally. mr giuliani on may 9th told the new york times president trump basically knows what i'm doing as his lawyer are you familiar with that statement to the new york times or not but you agree that someone has a lawyer sitting next to you at a lawyer x. on a client's behalf and only on a client's behalf is that right i believe that a lawyer acts on his client's behalf i.