on al jazeera. hello i'm adrian finighan and this is al jazeera live from doha we're bringing you special coverage of the impeachment hearing into president donald trump but we've got some live pictures to show you here from capitol hill in washington where the public impeachment hearing is set to resume in just a few minutes now golden sambal and will be in the hot seat he's the u.s. ambassador to the european union and caused controversy the 1st a fairing appearing before congress behind closed doors he's changed his testimony to say that the president did withhold military aid to ukraine unless the ukrainians investigated his political rival joe biden and his son for corruption on

tuesday 3 other witnesses appeared before the house intelligence committee they overheard the controversial phone call when trump allegedly pressured ukraine's lot of ms lewinsky to investigate the biden's. visit was a white house correspondent is following developments at the white house will be speaking to her in just a moment but 1st let's go to heidi joe castro who's outside the chambers where that hearing is about to be held heidi what can we expect today. hadrian some court in song linda is a witness that everyone is watching not sure what to expect he is important reasons 1st of all he has been the closest of any of the witnesses to that play to testify to the president himself with direct conversations with trump in regard to ukraine and secondly someone has a bit of a wild card as you just mentioned he has reversed. in the past he has been the

source of perhaps the most solid defense of trump as well as the most damning evidence against trump and what does that mean well worth and solomon at 1st said that the president directly did not have there being a quid pro quo but then days after giving that testimony behind closed doors he said his memory had been refresh he said that actually he remembered he did resume that the security aide that the u.s. had promised to give to ukraine was being withheld by the president in exchange for a statement from ukraine that they would investigate trump's political rival joe biden so he revise his testimony saying in fact this quid pro quo he did presume to have existed and not only that but he remembered that he was the one who delivered the message to the ukrainians saying that this is what had to be done in order for that aid to be unfrozen so remarkable reversal that people have been

really scratching their heads about and wondering what else may suddenly not have said in his previous testimonies there is another specific conversation that we are sure to hear investigators 0 in on and that is a previously reported telephone call also between trump and some limb that came the day after trump asked the president of ukraine for the favor into besta getting his political rivals and on this july 26th call between someone in trouble there was other there were other people in the room in court including a staff member of the kiev embassy of the u.s. who has told investigators behind closed doors that he overheard disturbing them on minutes that the phone call was so loud he heard the president himself say on the phone to saleh that he wanted those investigations from. ukraine and later when

this staffer asked on land was it true that the president didn't care about ukraine in fact to use an expletive in describing how little he cared about ukraine sol and agreed that it was indeed the case and said that the president only cared about quote the big star us what was that chord in the song and things that would help the president personally like the biden investigations all right heidi many thanks indeed let's bring in our white house correspondent then kimberly how it could with us live at the white house given all of you we just heard kimberly how worried is the white house about saddam's testimony today. what you think that given some of the testimony that we've heard that this would be concerning to the white house but just the opposite at least that's the public face the u.s. president is trying to project onto today's news cycle he's tweeted that in fact the white house confidence is growing as hearings wear on he goes on to say this is

an attempt to take down the republican party by democrats it will never work now why is the president projecting confidence or at least trying to set that narrative it has a lot to do with some of the testimony that place on capitol hill on tuesday afternoon that the white house is taking away they believe was helpful to the president and other words it did not bolster the case for democrats that there was a quid pro quo that the president abused his political power and office to get an investigation on a political adversary former vice president joe biden so as this is sort of slogs on it is a difficult hearing process to watch its way to at times the feeling is that right now in terms of public sentiment that there has been no sort of movement of the needle that republicans are still firmly entrenched on their side democrats on their side and as a result this is something that the white house sees as a positive sign

a mess of the song. campbell has taken his seat in the committee room just take us through if you can with more with what's likely to happen in the next few moments. well what we're likely to hear it's a pretty standard format on capitol hill the democrats are in control of this chamber so they will be in control of the questioning that means that adam schiff the chair of the house intelligence committee will be the 1st one to set the agenda set the tone and really make this sort of long opening statement it will be followed by devon unos who is the ranking republican that will be there and then we will hear from the witnesses as you point out it will be the u.s. ambassador to the european union gordon somnolent a very prominent donor to donald trump's campaign and then we will have an opportunity to hear from both sides there will be a question and answer session that will take place each gets roughly 5 minutes of

time there will be more democrats asking more questions the republicans because they are in control they have more members that's what allows going to do that but the opening statements can be rather lengthy so expect that both sides will use that as an opportunity to set their narrative as democrats continue to build the case for impeachment or it can really just bring in very very briefly here it is about thank an associate professor of american studies and political science at george washington university and is about to may have to interrupt you when things get on the way but to what extent is some of the most crucial witness of all. well someone is the one witness who has direct contact with trump the other people who have had direct contact with trump about this issue have been barred from the white house from testifying and they have followed that a so someone is unique in that we know that he has had conversations with trump especially as they've come out in the last few days that he even had this phone call with trump about the investigation that other people will witness to so he is

the one person who can say whether or not trump definitively ordered a new about the quid pro quo with ukraine so in this sense this is very heightened and especially because he had initially said he did not have this contact so his testimony is really up in the air as to what he will say in how he will say it today ok. he's changed his story of course sunderland to what extent could could he . be facing perjury accusations of perjury actually which is which you could have a news just to to begin any minute now elizabeth i may have to interrupt you ok. sure he you know what both sides have wondered where he's going to go with this the republicans have said that if he doesn't stick to his earlier testimony his closed door testimony where he said he didn't know about the quid pro quo they said if he doesn't stick to that that he might be under you know he could be referred to the justice department for perjury but the democrats have said that if he's going to revise his testimony and now tell the truth that they would certainly support him

telling the truth in a public forum and if he doesn't tell the truth or at least if he sticks to his original story then they will be challenging him on that on that score so he is really in a difficult place because no matter what he says he's going to be under serious attack from the other party for him for whether he is truth telling and whether he might even be obstructing justice of course it's adam schiff i'm waiting for actually to start things off mark my apologies you heard what our white house correspondent is saying a few minutes ago oh hang on a sec if we go but let's listen. holding as part of the house of representatives impeachment inquiry without objection the chair is authorized to declare recess at any time there is a corm present we will proceed today in the same fashion as our other hearings i'll make an opening statement and then ranking member nunez will have the opportunity to make a statement and we will turn to our witness for an opening statement and then to questions audience members we welcome you and respect your interest in being here

in turn we ask for your respect as we proceed with today's hearing is the intention of the committee to proceed without disruptions as chairman i'll make all necessary in appropriate steps to maintain order and to ensure the committee is run in accordance with house rules and house resolution 660 with that i now recognize myself to give an opening statement in the impeachment inquiry into donald trump the 45th president of the united states this morning we'll hear from gordon's on line the american ambassador to the european union we are here today as part of the house of representatives impeachment inquiry because president donald trump sought to condition military aid to ukraine in an oval office meeting with the new ukrainian president volodymyr selenski in exchange for politically motivated investigations that trump believe would help his reelection campaign the 1st investigation was of a discredited conspiracy theory that ukraine not russia was responsible for interfering in the 2016 election 2nd vesta geisha in that trump by demanded

into was into a political rival that he apparently feared most joe biden. to weaken biden and to refute the fact that his own election campaign in 2016 had been helped by russian hacking and dumping operation and russian social media campaign directed by vladimir putin to help trump trump scheme undermine military and diplomatic support for a key ally and undercut u.s. anti corruption efforts in ukraine. trump put his personal and political interests above those of the united states as a bastard son and would later tell career foreign service officer david holmes immediately after speaking to the president trump did not give a expletive about ukraine he cares about big stuff that benefits him like the biden investigations that rudy giuliani was pushing investors on and was a skilled dealmaker but in trying to satisfy

a directive from the president himself increasingly embroiled in an effort to press the new ukrainian president that deviated sharply from the norm in both terms of policy and process in february a baster sonnen traveled to ukraine on his 1st official trip to that country while in kieve he met with then u.s. ambassador to ukraine marie avant of edge and found her to be an excellent diplomat with a deep command of ukrainian internal dynamics on april 21st zelinsky was elected president of ukraine and spoke to president trump who congratulated him and said he would look into attending his alinsky inauguration but pledged to send someone at a very very high level between the time of that call and the inaugural on may 20 trumps added toward towards attitude towards ukraine hardened on may 13th the president ordered vice president mike pence not to attend lewinsky's inauguration opting instead to dispatch the self the 3 amigos energy secretary rick perry and

master sunland and a master kurt volker the special representative for ukraine negotiations after turning from the nod to ration members of the u.s. delegation briefed president trump on their encouraging 1st interactions with the new current ukrainian administration they urged the president to meet was alinsky but the president's reaction was decidedly hostile the president's order was clear however talk with rudi during this meeting a baster solid 1st became aware of what giuliani and the president were really interested in. this whole thing was sort of a continuum he testified at his deposition starting at may at the may 23rd meeting ending up at the end of the line when the transcript of the call came out it was a continuum he would explain it became more insidious over time the 3 amigos were disappointed with trump's directive to engage giuliani but vowed to press ahead and

best us on the testified we could abandon the goal of a white house meeting for president selenski which the group deemed crucial for us ukrainian relations or we could do as president trump directed and talk to mr giuliani to address the president's concerns we chose the latter path in the coming weeks and masterson and got more clearly involved in ukraine policy making starting with the june for us mission to the e.u. independence day event in brussels one month early secretary perry obrecht rectal and the state department counselor at the state farm counsellor and someone met with president selenski who saw him and had invited personally on the margins of the event on june 10th $21000.00 secretary perry organized the conference call with saul and then national security advisor john bolton volcker and others they reviewed ukraine's strategy with bolton and decided that perry solomon and volcker

would assist them bastard bill taylor the new acting ambassador in kieve on ukraine and discuss trump's desire for rudy giuliani to be somehow involved at the end of the call according to song and we all felt very comfortable with the strategy moving forward 2 weeks later on june 27th a baster song called taylor to say that quote zelinsky needed to make clear to president trump that he was not standing in the way of investigations. on july 10th the master solomon and other u.s. officials met at the white house with a group of u.s. and ukrainian officials participants in the meeting have told us that ambassador sonnen invoked acting white house chief of staff mick mulvaney and said that the white house meeting sought by the ukrainian president with trump would happen only if you crane undertook certain investigations national security advisor bolton abruptly ended the meeting upon hearing this undeterred someone brought the ukrainian delegation downstairs to another part of the white house and was more

explicit according to witnesses ukraine needed to investigate the bidens or barisan on the 26th the election interference if they wanted to get a meeting at all following this meeting in july bolton said that he would not be part of whatever drug deal saw minimal veiny are cooking up on this summit continue to press for a meeting but he and others were willing to settle for a phone call as an intermediate step on july 21 taylor text is silent that both presidents lenski is sensitive about ukraine being taken seriously not merely as an instrument of washington domestic reelection politics someone restored it responded absolutely but we need to get the conversation started and the relationship built irrespective of the pretext so that selenski and trump could meet and all of this will be fixed on july 25th the day of the trump selenski call overhead luncheon kieve with a senior aide to ukrainian president zelinsky and later texted the aide to say that

he had heard from the white house assuming president z. convinces trump he will investigate it to the bottom of what happened in 2016 we will nail down date for a visit to washington good luck. and masterson spoke to president trump a few minutes before the call was placed but was not on the call. during that now infamous phone call was alinsky trump responded to the ukrainian expression of appreciation for u.s. defense support and requests to buy more javelin antitank missiles by saying i would like you to do us a favor though from past olinsky to investigate the discredited 2016 conspiracy theory and even more ominously look into the bidens neither had been part of the official preparatory material for the call but they were in donald trump's personal interests and the interests of his re-election campaign and the ukrainian president knew about both in advance in part because of baster volcker and

a bass response efforts to make him aware of what the president was demanding around this time of master solomon became aware of the suspension of security assistance to ukraine which had been announced on a secure interagency video conference on july 18th telling us that it was extremely odd that nobody involved in making and implementing policy towards ukraine knew why the aid had been put on hold during august on that participated in conference calls and text messages with volcker and giuliani and said that the gist of every call was what was going to go in the press statement in august 9th text message with bogus on and stated i think potest really wants the deliverable which was according to song and a deliverable public statement that president trump wanted to see or hear before a white house meeting could happen on september wanted bassus on loan participated in vice president pence's bilateral meeting was alinsky in warsaw during which alinsky raised this is spent in security assistance following that meeting someone

approached the senior ukrainian officials to tell him that he believed what could help them move the aid was if the ukrainian prosecutor general would go to the mike and announce that he was opening the barisan investigation. someone told taylor that he had made a mistake by telling ukrainians that an oval office meeting was dependent on a public announcement of investigations in fact everything was dependent on such an announcement including security assistance but even the announcement by the prosecutor general would not satisfy the president on september 7th someone spoke to the president and told to morrison and bill taylor about the call shortly thereafter the president said that although this was not a quid pro quo if president selenski did not clear things up in public we would be at a stalemate or over announcement by the prosecutor general would not be enough presidents

alinsky must personally once announce personally that he would open the investigations someone told taylor that president trump is a businessman when a businessman is about to sign a check to someone who owes him something he said the businessman asked that person to pay up before signing the check the check referred to here was the u.s. military assistance to ukraine and ukraine had to pay up with investigations throughout early september of volcker and stalin sought to close the deal an agreement that selenski would announce investigations after taylor texted someone on september 9th 2019 that i think it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign 16 days later the transcript of the july 25th call was made public in the american people learn the truth of how our president tried to take advantage of a vulnerable ally now it is up to congress as the people's representatives to determine what response as appropriate. if the president abused his power and

invited foreign interference in our elections if he sought to condition coerce 6th order bribe an ally into conducting investigations to aid his reelection campaign and did so by withholding official acts a white house meeting or hundreds of millions of dollars of needed military aid it will be up to us to decide whether those acts are compatible with the office of the presidency finally i want to say a word about the president and secretary pompei as obstruction of this investigation we have not received a single document from the state department and as ambassador saw in linz opening statement today will make clear those documents bear directly on this investigation and this impeachment inquiry i think we know now based on a sample of the documents attached to investor silence statement that the knowledge

of this scheme was far and wide and included among other secretaries they pompei o as well as the vice president we can see why secretary pompei o and president trump have made such a concerted and across the board effort to obstruct this investigation and this impeachment inquiry and i will just say this they do so at their own peril i remind the president that article 3 of the impeachment articles drafted against president nixon was his refusal to obey the subpoenas of congress and with that i recognize ranking member noon as for any remarks that he would wish to make i think the gentleman as we learned last night storytime last night we get story time 1st thing this morning basser someone welcome

a jury here i'm really not glad you're here but welcome to the 5th day of this circus. as i've noticed noticed noted before the democrats on this committee spent 3 years accusing president trump of being a russian agent in march 2018 after a year long investigation intelligence committee republicans issued a 240 page report describing in detail how the russians meddled in the 2016 elections and making specific recommendations to improve our election security announcing the report as a whitewash and accusing republicans of subverting the investigation the democrats issued their own report focusing on their now debunked conspiracy theory that the trump campaign colluded with russia to hack the elections notably the democrats a valid at the time to brazil a further quote comprehensive report unquote after they finish their investigation

into trump's treasonous collusion with russia for some completely inexplicable reason after the implosion of the russia hoax the democrats failed to issue that comprehensive report we're still waiting this episode shows how the democrats have exploited the intelligence committee for political purposes for 3 years coleman ating and these impeachment hearings and their mania to attack the president no conspiracy theory is too outlandish for the democrats time and time again they floated the possibility of some far fetched malfeasance by trump declare the dire need to investigate it and then suddenly drop the issue and moved on to their next asinine theory a sampling of their accusations and insinuations includes these

trump is a long time russian agent as described in the still dossier the russians gave trump advance access to emails stolen by the d.n.c. and the hillary clinton campaign. the trump campaign based some of his activities on these stolen documents trump received nefarious materials from the russians through a trunk campaign aide trump laundered russian money through real estate deals trump was blackmailed by russia through his financial exposure with deutsche bank trump had a diabolical pound plan to build a trump tower in moscow truck change the republican national committee platform to ukraine and benefit russia the russians laundered money through the n.r.a. for the trump campaign trump son in law lying about his russian contacts while attaining his security clearance it's a long list of charges all false and i could go on and on and on. very you for

these moments clearly these little chris accusations don't reflect committee members who are honestly searching for the truth they are the actions of partisan extremists who hijacked the intelligence committee transformed it into the impeachment committee abandoned its core oversight functions and turned it into a beachhead for ousting an elected president from office you have to keep that history in mind as you consider the democrats' latest catalog of suppose and trump outrageous granted a friendly call with the ukrainian president wouldn't seem to rise to the same level as being a russian agent but the democrats were running out of time if they waited in the longer their impeachment circus would intervene with their own candidates 2020 campaigns so you have to give them points for creativity and selling this absurdity

as an impeachable offense all this explains why the democrats have gathered 0 republican support in the house of representatives for their impeachment crusade in fact the vote we held was a bar bipartisan vote against this impeachment inquiry. speaker pelosi chairmanship and chairman not a lot of the key figures behind this impeachment crusade all proclaim that impeachment is so damaging to the country that it can only proceed with bipartisan support are those dick declarations suddenly no longer true that impeachment become less divisive of course not they know exactly what kind of damage they're inflicting on this nation but they've passed the point of no return after 3 years of preparation work much of it spearheaded by the democrats on this

committee using all the tools of congress to accuse investigate indict and smear the president they stop the frenzy amongst their most fanatical supporters that they can no longer control. vasser sunline you are here today to be smeared they will make it through it and appreciate your service to this country and i'm sorry that you've had to go through this in closing the democrats have zeroed in on anonymous whistleblower complaint that was cooked up and cooperation of the democrats on this very committee they lied to the american people about that cooperation and refused to let us question the whistleblower to discover the truth . meanwhile the democrats lash out against anyone who questions or cast doubt on

this spectacle when ukrainian president selenski denies anything improper happened on the phone call the democrats say that he's a liar when journalists report on ukraine election meddling and 100 biden's position on the board of corrupt ukrainian companies the democrats label them conspiracy theorists. when the democrats can't get any traction for their allegations of quid pro quo they move the goalposts and accuse the president of extortion then bribery and at last resort obstruction of justice the american people sent us to washington to solve problems not to wage scorched earth political warfare against the other party this impeachment is not helping the american people it's not a legitimate use of taxpayer dollars and it's definitely not improving our national security finally democrats

fake outrage that president trump used his own channel to communicate with ukraine or remind my friends on the other side of the aisle that our 1st president george washington directed his own diplomatic channels to secure the treaty with great britain if my democratic colleagues were around in 1794 they probably want to impeach him too chairman. we have transmitted to us a letter exercising our rights under atra 660 to subpoena documents and witnesses we take this step because you have failed to ensure fairness and objectivity in this inquiry as such we need to subpoena hunter biden and the whistleblower for closed door depositions as well as relevant documents from the d.n.c.

hunter biden's firm rosemont zeneca and the whistleblower and the interest of some basic level of fairness we expect you to concur with these subpoenas and i'll submit that letter for the record and yield back the balance of my time i thank the gentleman we are joined this afternoon by ambassador gordon sunland i'm sorry this morning it was a long day yesterday. gordon someone is the u.s. representative to the european union with the rank of a bassett or before joining the state department ambassador sonnen was the founder and c.e.o. of providence hotels and national owner and operator of full service hotels also providers government service and best reason was engaged in churchill enterprises to final points before witnesses sworn 1st that witness depositions as part of this

inquiry were in unclassified were unclassified in nature and all open hearings will also be held at the unclassified level and the information that may touch on classified information will be addressed separately 2nd congress will not tolerate any reprisal threat of reprisal or attempt to retaliate against any u.s. government official or testifying before congress including you or any of your colleagues if you would please rise and raise your right hand i will begin by swearing un do you swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god let the record show the witness has answered in the affirmative thank you and please be seated the microphone is sensitive so please speak directly into it without objection your written statement will be made part of the record and with that investor sunland you are now recognized for your opening statement thank you mr chairman and thank

you ranking member newness i have the opportunity to speak again to the members of this committee. first let me offer my thanks to the men and women of the u.s. department of state who have committed their professional lives to support the foreign policy work of the united states in particular i want to thank my staff at the u.s. mission to the european union your integrity dedication and hard work. often performed without public acclaim or recognition served as a shining example of true public service and i am personally grateful to work beside you each and every day it is my honor to serve as the u.s. ambassador to the european union the u.s. mission.