vladimir putin in february of 2017 president putin said 2nd as we all know during the presidential campaign in the united states the ukrainian government adopted a unilateral position in favor of one candidate more than that certain oligarchs certainly with the approval of the political leadership funded this candidate or female candidate to be more precise 600 hours g.m.t. here on al-jazeera that is 11 am in washington d.c. live continuing coverage of the impeachment hearings against u.s. president donald trump this is the house judiciary committee and we're listening to daniel goldman right now who is the legal team for the democrats laying out the evidence that has been presented so far in the case for impeachment not only from intelligence community experts but from his own national security team that russia not ukraine interfered in the 2016 election for the benefit of donald trump president trump still pressed the ukrainian government to announce an investigation

into this conspiracy theory and why because it would help his own political standing president trump even sought to withhold an oval office meeting from the president of ukraine until he fell in line with president putin's lies the leader who had actually invaded ukraine the 2nd demand that president trump made of president selenski during the july 25th call was to investigate the front runner for the democratic nomination for president in 2020 former vice president joe biden and his son hunter president trump stated the other thing there's a lot of talk about biden son biden stop the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great if i didn't went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it it sounds horrible to me. witnesses

unanimously testified that there was no factual support for this claim rather they noted that vice president biden was acting in support of an international consensus and official u.s. policy to clean up the prosecutor general's office in ukraine despite these facts by the time of the july 25th call mr giuliani had been publicly advocating for these 2 investigations for months while also using back to analysts to press ukrainian officials to initiate them in support of his client donald trump ambassador son and understood mr giuliani's role very clearly he testified mr giuliani was expressing the desires of the president of the united states and we knew these investigations were important to the president to others mr giuliani was working at cross purposes with official policy channels toward ukraine even as he was working on behalf of president trump according to former national security

adviser ambassador john bolton mr giuliani was a quote hand grenade was going to blow everybody up unquote near the end of the july 25th call president selenski circled back to the pre-cooked message that ambassador volker had relayed to president selenski top aide before the call president selenski said i also wanted to thank you for your invitation to visit the united states states specifically washington d.c. on the other hand i also wanted to ensure you that we will be very serious about the case and we will work on the investigation in other words on one hand is the white house visit while on the other hand he would agree to pursue the investigations. this statement shows that president selenski fully understood at the time of the july 25th call the quid pro quo between these

investigations and the white house meeting the president trump required and that ambassador sunland had testified so clearly about numerous witnesses testified about the importance of a white house meeting with the president of the united states specifically a meeting in the oval office an official act by president trump as david home senior official in the u.s. embassy embassy in ukraine said it is important to understand that a white house visit was critical to president selenski president selenski needed to show u.s. support at the highest levels in order to demonstrate to russian president vladimir putin that he had u.s. backing as well as to advance his ambitious anti-corruption reform agenda at home in other words the white house visit would help selenski anti-corruption reforms and that support remains critical as president selenski meets today

with president putin to try to resolve the conflict in the east now the day after this phone call president trump sought to ensure that president selenski got the message on july 26th u.s. officials met with president selenski and other ukrainian officials in kieve and president selenski mentioned that president trump had brought up some quote very sensitive issues unquote after that meeting ambassador sunland had a private one on one meeting with andrea yarmuk president selenski top aide during which ambassador sunland said that they probably discussed the issue of investigations at lunch right after that with mr holmes and 2 other state department officers ambassador sonnen pulled out his cell phone and called president trump. somewhat shocked mr holmes recounted the conversation that followed i heard ambassador sunline greet the president and explain he was calling

from keefe i heard president trump then clarify that ambassador son was in ukraine ambassador song and replied yes he was in ukraine and went on to state that president selenski quote loves your ass unquote i then heard president trump ask so he's going to do the investigation ambassador respond son replied that he is going to do it adding the president selenski will do anything you ask him to do after the call ambassador son told mr holmes that president trump did not give a bleep about ukraine and only cares about the big stuff that benefits the president himself like the biden investigation that mr giuliani was pushing to repeat and this is very important ambassador sun spoke to president trump before the july 25th call with president selenski and relayed to ukrainian officials

president trumps requirement of political investigations in exchange for a white house meeting and during that call president trump asked for the favor of these 2 a meeting of these 2 political investigations immediately after the ukrainian president brought up u.s. military support for ukraine which president trump had recently suspended or put on hold and at the end of the call president selenski made a point of acknowledging the link between the investigations that president trump requested and the white house meeting that president selenski desperately wanted and then the following day ambassadors on them confirmed to president trump on the telephone in person that the ukrainians would indeed initiate the investigations discussed on the call which were the only which was the only thing about ukraine that president trump cared about. now it's very important to understand that this investigation revealed that the july 25th call was neither the start nor the end of

president trump's efforts to use the powers of his office for personal political gain and you have to look at all of the evidence in context as a whole prior to the call the president had removed the former ambassador marie of on of it to clear the way for his 3 handpicked agents to spearhead his corrupt agenda in ukraine secretary perry ambassador sunline an ambassador volker all of whom attended president selenski inauguration on may 20th all political appointees they proved to be more than willing to engage in what dr hill later described as an improper domestic political errand for the president on april 21st president selenski won the ukrainian election with 73 percent of the vote and he had 2 primary platforms to resolve the war in the east with russia and to root out corruption that same day president trump called to congratulate him on his win even

though the white house press release following the call stated that president trump expressed his shared commitment to quote root out corruption unquote president trump in fact did not mention corruption at all on this call just like he did not mention corruption on the july 25th call shortly after this call president trump asked vice president mike pence to attend president selenski inauguration but on may 13th president trump did an about face and directed vice president pence not to attend an advisor to vice president pence testified that the inauguration had not yet been scheduled and therefore the reason for the abrupt change of plans was not related to any scheduling issues. so what had happened in the 3 weeks between april 21st and may 13th when vice president pence was originally invited and then disinvited ordered or removed from the delegation

a few things 1st on april 21st 25th vice president biden formally announced his bid for the democratic nomination for president then about a week later on may 3rd president trump spoke with president putin on the telephone one senior state department official testified that the conversation between president trump and president putin included a discussion of ukraine 3rd on may 9th mr giuliani told the new york times that he intended to travel to ukraine on behalf of his client president trump in order to quote meddle in an investigation unquote but after public backlash and apparent pushback from the ukrainian mr giuliani canceled his trip the next day claiming that president celebs he was surrounded by enemies of president trump at a critical may 23rd meeting in the oval office president trump said that ukraine

was corrupt and tried to take him down in 2016 the same false narrative pushed by president putin and mr giuliani and in order for the white house meeting to occur president trump told the delegation they must talk to rudy to get the visit scheduled these comments from president trump were the 1st of many subsequent indications that in his mind corruption equals investigations in the weeks and months following mr giuliani relayed to both ukrainian officials and the government officials that president trump had designated at the may 23rd meeting to take and to take a lead on ukraine policy the directive from president trump that a white house meeting would not occur until ukraine announced the 2 political investigations that president trump required. and well before the july 25th call ambassador sonnen invoker also relayed this quid pro quo to the ukrainians

including to president selenski himself ambassador volker conveyed the message directly to president selenski at the beginning of july urging him to reference investigations associate associated with the giuliani factor with president trump and in meetings at the white house on july 10th ambassador sun told other u.s. officials and 2 of president selenski is advisors including mr yarmuk that he had an agreement with acting chief of staff mick mulvaney that the white house visit would be scheduled if ukraine announced the investigations one witness testified that during the 2nd of the meetings ambassador sohn began to review what the delivery deliverable would be in order to get the meeting referring to an investigation of the bidens witness told the committee that the request was explicit there was no ambiguity and then ambassador sunline also mentioned a major ukrainian energy company that 100 biden sat on the board of the witnesses

that testified before the committee references to barry sma was shorthand for an investigation into the biden's ambassador bolton as well as his staff members objected to this meeting for investigations trade and ambassador bolton told dr hill you go and tell eisenberg john eisenberg the legal advisor for the national security council that i am not part of whatever drug deals online and mulvaney are cooking up on this and you go ahead and tell him what you've heard and what i've said. yet this was not a rogue operation by mr giuliani an ambassador sonnen and volcker as ambassador son testified everyone was in the loop including mr mulvaney secretary pompei o secretary perry and their top advisors on july 19th ambassador susan lynn e-mails mr mo veiny secretary perry secretary pompei o.

and others after speaking with president selenski the subject was i talked to selenski just now and then besser sandlin wrote he is prepared to receive potest his call as the president of the united states will assure him that he intends to run a fully transparent investigation and will quote turn over every stone unquote both secretary perry and chief of staff moving any quickly responded to the e-mail noting that given that conversation a date would soon be set to schedule the white house telephone call the evidence also unambiguous li shows that the ukrainians understood this quid pro quo and had serious reservations particularly because president selenski had won the election on an anti-corruption platform in fact a few days before the july 25th call ambassador william taylor the acting u.s.

ambassador to ukraine and the former permanent ambassador to ukraine texted ambassador sohn and volker rather he stated in his testimony on july 20th i had a phone conversation with mr donnelly uk during which he conveyed to me that president selenski did not want to be used as a pawn in a u.s. reelection campaign. but president trump's pressure campaign on president selenski did not relent just 4 days later president selenski received that message via kurt volker that he needed to convince president trump that he would do the investigations in order to get that white house meeting and as i have described president does that selenski tried to do exactly that on the july 25th call with president trump in the weeks following the july 25th call president selenski he did president trump's request sending his top aide mr year moch to madrid to meet with

mr giuliani in coordination with mr giuliani president and the president trumps handpicked representatives they continued ape this pressure campaign to secure a public announcement of the investigations now according to ambassador sandlin and this is very important president trump did not require that ukraine actually conduct the investigations as a prerequisite for the white house meeting instead the ukrainian government needed only to publicly announce the investigations it is clear that the goal was not the investigations themselves or not any corruption that those investigations might have entailed but the political benefit that president trump would enjoy from an announcement of investigations into his 2020 political rival and against a unanimous assessment that showed that he received foreign support in the 2016 election for that for that reason the facts didn't actually matter to president

trump because he only cared about the personal and political benefit from the announcement of the investigation. over the next couple of weeks ambassador sohn lynn and volker worked with president trump's aide mr yarmuk to draft a statement for president selenski to issue when the aide proposed a statement that did not include specific references to the investigations that president trump wanted. an investigation in the 2016 election investigation mr giuliani relayed that that would not be good enough to get a white house meeting and here you can see a comparison on the left of the original statement drafted by mr yair mock the top aide to president selenski and on the right to revise statement with mr giuliani requirements and on it says we intend to initiate and complete a transparent and unbiased investigation of all available facts in episodes and

here's the critical difference including those involving barista and the 2016 u.s. elections which in turn will prevent the recurrence of this problem in the future the only difference in the statement that giuliani required and the statement that the ukrainians had drafted was this reference to the 2 investigations that president trump wanted and told president selenski about on the july 25th call now ultimately president selenski administration temporarily shelved this announcement though efforts suppress ukraine would remain ongoing by mid august ukraine did not make a public announcement of the investigations the president trump required and as a result no white house meeting was scheduled by this time the president was pushing on another pressure point to coerce ukraine to announce the investigations hold on the vital military assistance that the president had put in place for more than a month still without any explanation to any of the policy experts our investigation

revealed that a number of ukrainian officials had made quiet increase to various u.s. officials about the aid as early as july 25th the day of the phone call. increased by ukrainian officials continued in the weeks and that followed until the hold was revealed at the end of august but this is important it was important for the ukrainian officials to keep it quiet because if it became public then russia would know that the u.s. support for ukraine might be on this so by the end of that month the evidence revealed several facts one the president demanded that ukraine publicly announce 2 politically motivated investigations to benefit is reelection to a coveted white house meeting was expressly conditioned on ukraine announcing those investigations 3 president trump had placed

a hold on vital military assistance to ukraine without any explanation and notwithstanding the uniform support for that assistance from the relevant federal agencies and congress ambassador taylor testified that this quid pro quo between the investigations president trump wanted and the security assistance that president trump needed was crazy and he told ambassador sunland as i said on the phone i think it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign now in an effort to move the white house meeting and the military aide along ambassador sunline wrote an e-mail to secretary pompei oh on august 22nd he wrote mike should we block time in warsaw for a short pull aside for potest to meet selenski i would ask selenski to look him in the eye and tell him that once ukraine's new justice folks are in place parentheses mid september see president selenski should be able to move forward publicly and

with confidence on those issues of importance to post this and to the us hopefully that will break the logjam. ambassador someone testified that this was a reference to the political investigations that president trump discussed on the july 25th call which secretary pompei 0 ultimately admitted to that he listen to in real time ambassador sonly in hopes that this would help lift the log jam which he meant to hold on critical security assistance to ukraine and the white house meeting and what was secretary pump ale's response 3 minutes later yes after the hold on military assistance became public on august 28th senior ukrainian officials expressed grave concern deeply worried of course about the practical impact on their efforts to fight russian aggression but also in this goes back to

why it remain confidential also about the public message that it sent to the russian government on september 1st at a pretty briefing. with vice president pence before he met with president selenski ambassador sandlin raised the issue of the hold on security assistance he said i mentioned vice president pence before the meetings with the ukrainians that i had concerns of that the delay in aid had become tied to the issue of investigations vice president penn simply not in response expressing neither surprise nor dismay at the linkage between the 2 following vice president pence's meeting with president selenski ambassador sohn then went over to mr year mark again president selenski top aide and pulled him aside to explain that the hold on security assistance was also now conditioned on the public announcement of the very same abidin and the 2016 election interference investigations ambassador sun and then

explain to him bassett or taylor. and he had previously made a mistake in telling ukrainian officials that only the white house meeting was conditioned on a public announcement of the political investigations beneficial to president trump in truth everything white house meeting and the vital security assistance to ukraine was now conditioned on the public announcement president trump wanted president selenski in a public box a private commitment was not good enough nearly one week later on september 7th holds remained and president trump and ambassador sunland spoke on the phone the president immediately told ambassador sohn that there was no quid pro quo but this is very important president selenski would still be required to announce the investigations in order for the hold on security assistance to be lifted and he

should want to do it in effect this is the equivalent of saying there is no quid pro quo you know this for that before then demanding precisely that quid pro quo and immediately after this phone call with president trump this was the precise message that ambassador sunland passed directly to president selenski according to ambassador taylor ambassador sunland also said that he had talked to president selenski and mr year mark and had told them that although this was not a quid pro quo if president selenski had did not clear things up in public we would be at a stalemate and i understood a stalemate to mean that ukraine would not receive the much needed military assistance. needing the military assistance and hoping for the white house meeting president selenski finally relented to president trump's pressure campaign and arrangements were soon made for the ukrainian president to make

a statement during an interview on c.n.n. where he would make a public announcement of the 2 investigations that president trump wanted in order for president selenski to secure the white house meeting and for ukraine to get that much needed military assistance and although there is no doubt that president trump had ordered the military aid held up until the ukrainian committed to the investigations on october 17th acting chief of staff mick mulvaney confirmed in public that there was such a quid pro quo let's watch what he said oh that was those were the driving factors that he also mentioned to me in past that the corruption related to the d.n.c. server absolutely no question about that but that's it that's why we held up the money now there was a report that was there for an investigation into the democrats was part of the reason that the it was on and so with all of these you cry the the look back to

what happened in 2016 certainly was was part of the thing that he was worried about in corruption with that nation and that is absolutely a pro and. there you have it by early september the president's scheme was unraveling on september 9th intelligence oversight and foreign affairs committees announced an investigation into president trump and mr john giuliani's efforts in ukraine and later that same day the intelligence committee learned that a whistleblower had filed a complaint nearly a month earlier related to some unknown issue which the president and the white house knew related to ukraine and had been circulating among them for some time and then 2 days later on september 11th in the face of growing public and congressional scrutiny president trump lifted the hold on security assistance to ukraine. as with the implementation of the hold no reason was provided but simply president trump got caught so he released

a but even since this investigation began the president has demonstrated no contrition or acknowledgement that there is demand for a foreign country to interfere in our election is wrong in fact he has repeatedly called on ukraine to investigate by price president biden his rival these and other actions by the president and his associates demonstrate that his determination to solicit foreign interference in our election continues today did not end with russia's support for trump in 2016 which president trump invited by asking for his opponent to be hacked by russia and it did not end when his ukrainian scheme was exposed insta temper of this year president trump also engaged once this investigation began in an unprecedented effort to obstruct the inquiry and i look forward to answering your questions about that unprecedented obstruction but in conclusion i want to say that the intelligence committee has produced to us nearly 300 page report and i am grateful that you have offered me

the opportunity today to walk you through some of the evidence underlying it admittedly it is a lot to digest but let me just say this the president's scheme is actually quite simple and the facts are not seriously in dispute it could be boiled down to 4 key takeaways 1st the president trump directed a scheme to pressure ukraine into opening 2 investigations that would benefit his 2020 reelection campaign and not the u.s. national interest 2nd president trump uses official office and the official tools of u.s. foreign policy and withholding of an oval office meeting and $391000000.00 in security assistance to pressure ukraine into meeting his demands 3rd everyone was in the loop his chief of staff the secretary of state. and vice president and 4th despite the public discovery of the scheme which prompted the president to release

the aid he has not given up he and his agents continue to solicit ukrainian interference in our election causing an imminent threat to our elections in our national security members of the committee president trumps i will order mr chairman room in time as a lapse point of boredom as time has expired. mr chairman i have a motion and was that his motions i mean the committee shall be in recess subject to the culture a move to be able to move to table the motion is a privilege motion it is not debatable or those who favor the committee which says i see the record low here to say i know i have it most of the committee. will call. mr now or mr now there but i'm a soft miss often but i miss jackson lee. miss jackson leave us i'm mr cohen mr cohen verse i'm mr johnson of georgia mr johnson georgia votes i am mr deutsch i

mr joyce but i miss bass as bass votes i miswrote mr richmond mr richmond va hi mr jeffries mr jeffries mr sisson hi mr sisson events i am mr saul i mr swallow of a time mr low i mr livers i mr rascon i mr bascomb but i miss jaya paul mistry a puppet i am miss deming's miss deming suppose i am mr cram mr cravats i miss cameron i miss cannon but i miss garcia i miss carsey haven't i mr nagus mr niggas but i must make back his make baskets i'm mr stanton i mr stanton the time misty and i miss stevens i miss my car so powell i guess because of how over time miss escobar i miss ask of a time mr collins. mr collins votes no mr sensenbrenner mr savage. mr sensenbrenner votes now mr savage mr shabbath it's now mr gohmert

mr gohmert but it's now mr jordan mr jordan that's now mr bach mr radcliffe mr rackley 1st now mr robey mr b. that's now mr gates no this is so they can have a press conference it means half seriously chance on the robot you know nobody asked for the straight i don't mean just spent the rope was in progress mr johnson of louisiana oh mr johnson the easy end of votes no mr banks mr big bets now mr mcclintock mr mcclintock that's now miss lescott miss let's give us now mr rationale or no mr rush entire votes now mr klein mr klein that's now mr armstrong mr armstrong that's now mr stevie mr stevie votes now is everyone voted the wish to vote cook will report. much mr chairman there are 24 eyes and 16 nose motion to. read to recess and to call the chair is a long way to spend to receive yes and how long to be out and we will suspend i

just know how long it will be will suspend its until they're not there presently will suspend the committee will stand in recess for 15 minutes i will announce also that we've been in session about 2 and a half hours after the conclusion of the testimony of the cross exams will be about another 2 and a half hours will probably stay the recess then before the commencement of the 5 minute. round of question that. i would ask that people remain in their seats while the 2 witnesses are given an opportunity to leave i would remind people in the audience that if they leave they may not have the seats back when we reconvene the committee will we will stay to the system will reconvene in 15 minutes. and there we have it recess for 15 minutes as you heard mr nablus say the chairman of the house judiciary committee it has been intense it has been testy there have been a lot of motions tabled you can hear the republicans complaining that the democrats

just want to take a recess so that they can hold a press conference outside this is partisan politics in play the house judiciary committee we're hearing legal statements today from why should say statements from the legal teams from both sides essentially summing up everything we have heard in the last at my count it's been 76 days since the impeachment inquiry began or the process began and one line that stands out for me from today certainly from the democratic lawyer who said it simply the facts are clear donald trump put his own political and personal interests above the nation while steve castor the republican lawyer talked to the democrats obsession with impeachment saying they believed if they didn't impeach then president trump would simply be reelected heidi joe castro our correspondent up on capitol hill today just the tone of the whole event today

heidi i mean i know we've seen plenty of conflict in the hearing so far but it feels like it's coming to a head today between the 2 sides.