and at his watch, at his wrist in any case. i was sitting behind him and basically said it's been really great to see you. i'm afraid i've got another meeting. >> and did ambassador sondland say who his agreement on this white house meeting was with? >> in that particular juncture, i don't believe so. it was later, which i'm sure you'll want to talk about, which he did say more specifically. >> what did he say later? >> that he had an agreement with chief of staff mulvaney that in return for investigations this meeting would get scheduled. >> and was he specific at that point later about the investigations that he was referring to? >> he said the investigations in burisma. >> did you have discussions with ambassador bolton after this meeting? >> i had a discussion with ambassador bolton both after the meeting in his office, a brief one, and a meeting after the subsequent meeting. >> the subsequent meeting or after both meetings when you

spoke to him and relayed to him what ambassador sondland said, what did ambassador bolton say to you? >> i just want to highlight, first of all, that ambassador bolton wanted me to hold back in the room, a meeting after the meeting. i was sitting with a colleague. >> in that second meeting what did he say? >> he was making a very strong point that he wanted to know exactly what was being said. when i came back and related it to him he had some very specific instruction for me, and i'm presuming that's what you're asking. >> what was that? >> the specific instruction was that i had to go to the lawyers, to john isenburg, senior counsel for the national security council to basically say -- you teld isenburg, ambassador bolton told me, that i am not part of this drug deal that sondland and mulvaney are cooking up. >> what did you take that to mean? >> i took it to mean

investigations for a meeting. >> did you go speak to the lawyers? >> i certainly did. >> and you relayed everything that you just told us? >> i related precisely. and the more details of how the meeting had unfolded as well, which i gave a full description of this in my october 14th deposition. >> mr. holmes, you have testified that by late august, you had a clear impression that the security assistance hold was somehow connected to the investigations that president trump wanted. how did you conclude -- how did you reach that clear conclusion? >> sir, we've been hearing about the investigations since march, months before. and we had been -- president zelensky received a congratulatory letter from the president, saying he would be pleased to meet him following his inauguration in may.

and we hadn't been able to get that meeting. and then the security hold came up, with no explanation. and i would be surprised if any of the ukrainians we discussed earli earlier solicited people for when they received no explanation for why that hold was in place, they would have draw that conclusion. >> because the investigations were still being pursued and the hold was remaining without explanation? >> correct. >> this, to you, was the only logical conclusion you could reach? >> correct. >> sort of like two plus two equals four? >> exactly. >> chairman, i yield. >> that concludes the majority questioning. we are expected to have votes, i think, fairly soon. this would be an appropriate time to break and we'll resume with the minority 45 minutes. people, before they leave, could allow the witnesses to leave first, and if committee members could come back promptly after votes.

monitoring the ongoing impeachment inquiry. we had dr. fiona hill and david holmes, very profound perspective on key events. it's a little different than the ordinary format. this could be a little bit longer. don't worry about that. there's so much for us to unpack with a complete panel of experts here that cover everything from the facts to the journalism issues, to the polishes and, of course, the legal issues. jeffrey, the idea of my setup there, that hill and holmes are speaking to specific context of key events in a way that i didn't even foresee in their openings. >> who knew this would be so dramatic and fascinating? i'm telling you. david holmes was -- i mean, that

guy should be a journalist if he's not going to be a foreign service. >> he has the hair for it. >> he does have impressive hair, as do you. >> like i said. >> but his story of how the relationship between the trump administration and the ukrainian government evolved from the perspective of our embassy in kyiv. that, which i've learned to pronounce over the course of the week. that was riveting. and then this meeting, this now famous lunch meeting where, you know, the president was on the cell phone. you know, if anyone has any doubts about what president trump wanted out of the ukrainians, how much more proof do you need? i mean, how many more witnesses have to say that he didn't care about the ukrainian people, he didn't care about the geopolitical situation.

all donald trump wanted out of ukraine was the investigation of burisma and the bidens. it's what started this investigation with the partial transcript and witness after witness has come forward and told the story. >> you jumped in while we were almost at the end of the testimony. did you hear the part where counsel for the democrats was with fiona hill going through the meeting with bolton? >> i didn't catch that. >> she did him a very big favor. she previously testified she was told to go to the nsc lawyer but he was missing a step and she literally kept interrupting him to fill it in. when bolton bolted back, excuse the pun. they had an argument that bolton had to go. bolton had other meetings. bolton didn't bolt because he

was upset. he had to leave. she must have anticipated that and said no, no, no, forget about the second meeting for a second. he sat back like this. he looked at the clock. he left. but he instructed me, you must say in that room and you must take notes and you must note everything that happens in that room. communicate i communicating that this wasn't just about leaving for another meeting. it was not liking what was in that meeting. and then he said to her, you go and deliver this message. i'm not part of sondland and mulvaney's drug deal, key distinction. >> and, of course, she reported back after the follow-up meeting that what she heard and what she interrupted was clearly she sensed his disquiet with what was going on and took action to try to interrupt it, not totally successfully, but obviously sondland knew he was on bad

footing as far as the national security council was concerned. >> john and dana, let's get a better sense of this substance. >> if you connect the dots, mr. holmes and fiona hill are critical for trying to make the case of corruption. republicans are going to argue this is trump being trump, he was working outside the system. maybe you question rudy giuliani, but he wanted his guy, hands on the policy. you may not like it. maybe it got ugly but it's not an impeachable offense. that's where the republicans are going to get us. mr. holmes saying look, we warned from the very beginning that the people giuliani was working with were known corrupt actors. in he comes, working with the criminals. you have giuliani working with corrupt people. and then the drug deal line, that they knew it was wrong. fiona hill is tell iing you in e west wing of the white house a man with the stature and standing of the national security adviser knew this was wrong. not just outside the lines, not just a policy that he didn't like, that it was wrong. so go to the lawyers and say i

am not, we are not part of a drug deal. they need the corrupt intent to take it from trump being trump, trump being disruptive, trump being different to trump competing an impeachable offense. >> we had such dramatic testimony from gordon sondeland. as we all know, he is a compromised witness in some respects because he has given different stories, okay? this is so different today, right? these are two people, one of whom has given his career to the united states of america, for people of both parties, apolitical. he made that clear in his words and in the content of what he said. and the alarm with which he wanted the committee and the country to know that he felt, as he watched firsthand what was happening. as you said, as this administration he saw pushing the opposite of what should be happening, but in the name of fighting corruption. and then second, fiona hill.

i mean, that was -- i know we keep saying bombshell. that was so powerful. this is a -- yes, she's historically with the foreign service, but she is somebody who was, number two, a republican appointee, effectively. and she was clearly so upset by this. and then more broadly, this is about the corruption and the drug deal, but more broadly how outraged she was and others were that the president of the united states was basing american foreign policy on what his own intelligence community said was a conspiracy theory. the ukrainians did not, you know, infiltrate american democracy in 2016, it was the russians. and, in fact, it is a russian talking point to claim that it is the ukrainians. >> we have these things that keep getting called bombshells but the reason they keep come something because the people inside the bunker are not

feeling the reverberations. >> shocking, people at foggy bottom don't like the president, right? career foreign service people -- >> who said they don't -- >> no, no, jeff's part about they were upset with policy decisions, right? >> that's not what they said at all. >> what i'm saying is what jeff said earlier, talking about his testimony and things. listen, i have no doubt that fiona hill or holmes or any of these folks who were working, doing their best job, thinking they're taking the policy in the right direction, disagree with the policy direction or where the president wanted to go in ukraine, right? that's not an impeachable offense. nobody today i heard talking about the president withholding aid, even withholding the meeting. they're talking about we didn't like the president's direction. we think the people he was

dealing with -- rudy was going in a bad direction of this stuff. i've heard nothing new. >> have you been listening? >> i have. i have. talking about ukrainians, this is a political article, 10,000 words, really well researched by ken vogle. just to read it. it's really important. this starts out. the headline is, you know, ukrainian efforts to sabotage the president backfired. >> when was that? >> 2017, right after the election. ken vogle, 10,000 words. ukrainian officials tried to help hillary clinton undermine trump by questioning his fitness for office. >> hold on. why would you read something that you know has been debunked by your own intelligence? >> no, no. i'm not saying that they did not -- the russians did not interfere. >> you're reading something that undermines the finding of the intelligence community. >> no, i'm not. chris, hold on. >> to distort a reality. >> can i chime in here? david i have heard --

>> the testimony, there was nothing new. >> there was nothing else. >> you haven't seen the intelligence report. >> no, i haven't. >> none aye haven't. none of us has. i have talked to people who have, who say it is not just looking at the computers and so forth. it is a real intelligence report with the sources and methods that they can't talk about, which fiona hill alluded to there. >> sure. >> which completely debunks the fact that the ukrainians were involved this isn't a john brennan, obama administration thing. these are real people. >> so, you're holding up a single political article as the findings of your intelligence community? come on. >> chris, i'm not saying that the russians did not have a major role to play. i'm saying there's to say there was nothing going on with the ukrainians, nothing. >> yes. >> is completely false, too. >> it's not completely false. >> the ukrainians had nothing to do with it. >> ukrainians were critical of candidate trump after he said in the campaign that maybe russia should just keep crimea.

so, ukrainian -- they were very critical of him. no question. >> let's get to the report. >> reporting is not garbage. that's an ant, first of all. russian intervention is -- >> let's not forget you are defending an administration that calls news fake whenever it dob doesn't like it. so let's not play those rules. you defend it all the time. you defended the president calling things fake news all the time. >> chris, i haven't. >> you're not going to do it today. let's get back to the facts. >> can we talk about david holmes testifying to -- >> those are expectation from one piece debunked by your intelligence community and you know it. >> and holmes had facts there? it's all testimony -- >> he's telling you what he saw and what he heard. >> speculation. >> that's not speculation. what you see and hear is direct testimony. >> he sat across from sondland and said i only heard part of the conversation. just so happens the only part of the conversation i heard was the part relevant to this.

>> that's called drepth direct testimony. not speculation. it's not hearsay. >> he said the only part of the conversation that i heard -- >> then that's the only part that he can be a factor to. >> amazingly. one sentence. >> let's get back to the substance. >> what david holmes actually testified today. so david holmes actually testified, based on his firsthand knowledge that the president, in fact, had knowledge that senior officials were using the levers of our diplomatic power to induce the new ukrainian president to announce the opening of a criminal investigation against president trump's political opponent. that's from david. that's not from a news article. let me finish, please. that's not from a news article. that is from david holmes, a career foreign services officer sworn testimony in front of congress today. he also testified, based on his firsthand, personal knowledge that when he was in a meeting listening to office of management and budget officials

describe why the foreign aid was when would, that the omb official said that the money being on hold came from the president of the united states. he said today, quote, from the president of the united states via his chief of staff mick mulvaney. and david holmes also testified today that he understood throughout the events that were going on that when people were talking about burisma, they were talking about an investigation of the bidens. and this is somebody who presented in all sorts of questioning today that he had extraordinarily detailed, personal, firsthand knowledge that he took notes about. >> fiona hill said about the same thing about burisma. >> so he's -- you're saying it's so credible because he said an omb official told me that he was told by somebody that the president and mick mulvaney said to withhold the aid?

that's his testimony. >> no. >> the omb official. >> told minimum. >> and the president has not allowed the omb official to testify. >> we could clear this up easily. >> that the information came from mick mulvaney. and that came from the president. mick mulvaney is the president's chief of staff. mick mulvaney refuses to testify in this proceeding. >> right. >> so the only people willing to testify are the individuals who are taking their oath seriously and understand the gravity of the hearings that are going on and who are appearing under subpoena to testify before the proceeding. >> firsthand knowledge, he was told by someone who was told. >> to get to the mulvaney point, fiona hill said sondland said he was told by the chief of staff. he had a deal with the chief of staff in return for the investigations this meeting will be scheduled. >> right. >> okay. >> sondland's testimony is completely different. i agree.

>> so as a supporter and defender of the president, wouldn't it be easier to clear this up if mick mulvaney would testify? >> absolutely. >> i agree. >> it's not totally different. it's consistent. they have different reference points for how he knows the information. they don't have different testimony. why don't you want the big shots in here with all the firsthand knowledge? >> i don't think the president has to prove himself innocent. does he have to prove himself innocent that he didn't do anything? >> your party is saying we don't have people with the firsthand information. >> president doesn't have to prove himself innocent. >> that's not about -- >> i'm stating facts. >> the house is trying to impeach him. they need to put forth the evidence. the president has a presumption of innocence. everybody does in this country. maybe donald trump doesn't. >> do you think he owns these people? >> what do you mean does he own -- >> does he own mick mulvaney? >> no. >> is he the property of him? >> no. >> when congress says they need something for oversight, do you think it's in your discretion

whether they give it to them? >> i think -- >> that's a yes, no. >> no, no. i think there's an absolute executive privilege that needs to be exercised and examined. not just because of the president but the institution. i do believe that's actual and needs to be examined here. if the house wants to wait until the court plays it out, they could wait until the court plays it out. if they compel them to testify, they should go testify. >> just as a political operative, as you have been, and a policymaker, somebody who wants a president to win pennsylvania again, for example. >> sure. >> which you helped deliver for him last time, isn't it in your interest on the raw politics to have people, if he feels he is totally innocent and this is all not true, to have people go up there and say they're talking about me, i was in those meetings. not true. >> i think that would be a great thing. i don't think that they would ever get a fair shake. >> they've got half the room doing nothing but trying to defend them. get in on this. >> dave, i've been here before in a different context.

>> john, don't get me started. >> i heard the same kind of arguments about what nixon knew, when did he know it. i knew, my limited knowledge, had to make some presumptions based on conversations and the feel of a conversation. what's this man really understand, what doesn't he understand? i'm seeing the same thing go on right now. in this instance, however, we start with the smoking gun tape, which is the transcript of the call out or the readout of the conversation. didn't have that with nixon. that comes at the end. what we're arguing about are the events that happened before or around that conversation. that conversation resolves virtually all the questions. >> well, as ross garber correctly pointed out this morning, i watched his show this morning, chris, it goes to the mens rhea. >> state of mind. >> big case on governor mcdonald of virginia. interestingly, sondland's

testimony yesterday talked about a meeting because a meeting -- not the aid, because a meeting, believe it or not, is not considered an official act. >> the meeting of mcdonald was not considered an official act because it's nondetermine active. >> the meeting that -- >> i believe bribery will turn on that. >> that's not a court of law. that's the united states government. >> exactly right. >> that's why i ask you responding to congress. if we were at a trial you don't want to help out the prosecution if you don't need to. this is different. wee need to take a break. there's plenty to discuss, plenty of perspective on it. i'm happy to be with all of you. when we come back, you'll have testimony resume once these votes take place i think it's fair to say more came out this morning than at least i was expecting from reading the opening statements. so we'll discuss what came out that was surprising. this now infamous phone call and how the president is now responding to it. stay with us.

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cnn's special live coverage of the impeachment hearings. moments ago, david holmes described in great detail how it is this that he came to overhear this now infamous call that eu ambassador gordon sondland had with the united states president. now it's important because this isn't hearsay. it's not something he heard from someone else. it's called direct testimony, which means he heard it. he saw it. he spoke to the principle. here is how he explained it. >> well, ambassador's phone was not on speaker phone i could hear the president's voice during the ear piece of the phone. the president's voice was loud and recognizable. ambassador sondland held the phone away from his ear for a time because of the loud volume. ambassador sondland was in ukraine, he replied yes, he was in ukraine and went on to state that president zelensky, quote,

loves your ass. i then heard president trump ask so he's going to do the investigation? ambassador sondland replied that he's going to do it, adding that president zelensky will do anything that you ask him to do. after the call ended ambassador sondland remarked that the president was in a bad mood, as ambassador sondland stated was often the case early in the morning. i then took the opportunity to ask ambassador sondland for his candid impression for the president's views on ukraine. in particular, i asked ambassador sondland that it's true that the president did not give an expletive about ukraine. ambassador sondland agreed that the president did not give an expletive about ukraine i asked why not? the ambassador stated that the president only cares about big stuff. i noted that there was big stuff going on in ukraine, like a war with russia. ambassador sondland replied that he meant big stuff that benefits the president, like the biden investigation that mr. giuliani was pushing. >> all right. now, this kind of testimony

about this kind of phone call is damaging, and when something is damaging, with one thing is for sure in this political environment, the president is going to respond. let's go to kaitlan collins at the white house. what are we hearing in terms of the fight back? >> chris, clearly the president has been watching this morning. it didn't take long to push back on that account of david holmes, overhearing the president's call. he tweeted shortly thereafter, talking about the fact that he has great hearing, even despite that fact he said he has never been able to overhear someone's conversation when it wasn't on speaker phone. you hear him saying there. never have i been watching a person not on speaker and be able to hear or understand a conversation. said, quote, i've even tried but to no avail. of course, that comes as you watched holmes really lay out in detail there, hearing that and exactly what it was exactly what the president was saying, how gordon sondland, the ambassador to the european union was responding in all of that. the president is essentially trying to undermine that account, saying it wasn't

something that he heard. there is when i should note that when bill taylor testified, first revealing that this call had happened and his aide, david holmes, sitting there, had overheard it, the president was asked about this and he said he didn't recall any conversation like that with gordon sondland, the ambassador and essentially said he didn't recall any conversation like that. now he's pushing back, saying he didn't think david holmes would be able to overhear it. this also comes as we're being told by officials inside the white house that the president is going to have a lunch today, inviting republican senators over. chris, who is on that invite list is pretty notable. mitt romney and susan collins have been at the center of what it will look like itf it does go to the senate for trial. the president has feuded with mitt romney, a few months ago he was calling him pompous and in return mitt romney has said he

believes the president asking for help from a foreign government for his political rivals, he believes, is deeply troubling. susan collins, there's also been a question about what kind of decisions she would make it it did come down to that. she's been pretty coy about indicating anything that she would do. it is pretty notable that the president is inviting them over. >> notable indeed. he needs to see who is with him and who isn't. very interesting theory from our president that he has really good hearing, some would say, the best hearing ever, and he has never been able to hear a phone call when it wasn't on speaker phone from anybody. so, let's just play with that for a second. mom, can you hear me? all right. so if i were holding the phone here, i'm with dana bash. i always let her talk because she's so smart and i shouldn't say so much. can you just say hello? mom? she probably can't hear me. mom, can you hear me?

>> yes, i hear you. when you talk to me, i hear you. >> i'm talking to you. say hello to dana bash. >> hi, mrs. cuomo. how are you? >> all right. i can't hear your mother, chris. >> this is not on speaker phone. >> i'm sitting across the table. it's two feet away from dana. i'm not sure mom can hear us. thank you very much. thank you for not saying anything that will get me in trouble. i'll call you back. >> can i offer direct testimony? >> sure. >> it did say mom. >> yes. it's definitely my mom. although she does constantly tell people i'm a mistake. >> how did he know it wasn't on speaker phone, though? >> whether he did or not -- >> accidentally you can hit your ear and make it go on speaker phone. >> he said he had an ear piece in and he was moving the ear piece. ear piece is a magnifier sound. i was giving the president the

best benefit of his own analysis, which i would probably argue is nothing more than a distraction to try to undermine actual direct testimony. this iphone, without an ear piece, on regular phone mode, trying it live, literally on live tv, dana could hear my mother. i'm just happy she didn't take me down a couple of notches. >> me or your mother? >> you can do it, when my mom does it hurts a little deeper. the point is this, dave. the president wants to undermine the case. there is a balance as our highest elected official. we only have one president. when you call everybody a lier and they know the guy is not lying, sondland was there and remembers the phone call, remembers holmes hearing it. holmes has impeccable recitation of the fact. when the president tweets something like that, why doesn't he understand or why don't good people like you tell him, you're undermining the credibility of the truth and the truth matters.

it doesn't mean it's worthy of removal. why lie about it? >> sondland yesterday had different testimony about the call and the recollection of the call, how the call went down. right? holmes and sondland's testimony is not necessarily overlay one another, right? >> yes, they do. >> what difference? >> okay so -- >> he said he didn't recall saying the bidens. >> right. and holmes has much more specificity about it. as to whether the call occurred or not -- >> nobody disputes that the call -- >> that's my point. >> this is what i don't get. everybody weigh in, except mom. i hope i hung up. did i? good. what happened here really can't be a reasonable dispute. the facts, the truth of the matter as asserted is clear. you have this whole company of people that were freaked out by the same things.

none of them has been demonstrated as partisan. you can't have the big shots come in to explain their actions, but what happened that the aid was delayed, that it was a pressure campaign? it all happened, david. why do you just argue it's not worthy of removal? >> that's part of it, too. there are lots of instances on the aid part. it all gets kind of, you know, wrapped in one, right? there's a meeting request, the aid request. there was a huge issue. you may remember this. it was in the news briefly. the president when would $2 to $4 billion u.s. aid funding. >> it's not apples to apples. >> it is apples to apples. nobody knew. foreign aid committee, usai. >> here they did know why. >> nobody knows. >> the office of management and budget guy told them it was up held because of this. >> let's get the office of management and budget guy in here. >> he won't let him testify.

he won't let him testify, dave. >> was it russ voight that called him? they're saying someone -- >> they won't let the omb guy testify. >> they won't let russ testify is who they're talking about. >> why won't they let these people testify if it's all perfect? >> because again -- >> come on. >> there's no presumption that the president -- >> you want to defend the president of the united states holding up aid to investigate a conspiracy theory, go after a political opponent -- >> chris. >> -- their only argument is that it's not -- you can't argue the fact. >> there's no fact here. >> tell me what's not a fact. >> show me direct testimony where somebody said the president told me to withhold aid. mick mulvaney told me to withhold aid. >> i can't get mulvaney. >> amazingly, all these people have come forward. >> you're so disingenuous about your statement. you cannot require somebody to prove something with information

that you explicitly withhold. >> that's right. >> it is true. if you were to say to somebody the one information i need to have are the following statements. i'm not going to give you access to statements, i'm not going to allow those people who would have those statements. even gordon sondland said i would have beenv benefitted to having more holistic testimony had i had access to the state departme department, et cetera. >> wait. he had action ex- cess. >> i'm going to finish my point. you cannot say i'm going to withhold information and then hold you to that standard. that is circular. it might ultimately be the senate says there's insufficient evidence, as chris' point was, to ultimately convict, but you can't be the reason you withhold information and not have an adverse inference drawn as to why. >> you're telling me not one person in this chain that all these people have testified that said i talked to mick m. lvaney, i talked to somebody at

omb. give a name, give a date. they told me to withhold the aid because of this issue? >> i don't know that they can't provide that testimony. >> not one person has testified to that yet. i would think that if this firsthand witness testimony is coming forward about the president told me to withhold aid, it has to be transmitted to somebody. somebody has to be willing to testify before the democrats. >> white house acting chief of staff said in the briefing room. he later took it back. >> right. >> what you're describe something a quid pro quo. we do that all the time. did he also mention the corruption related to the dnc server? absolutely. no question. that's it. that's why we held up the money. >> mick mulvaney has to testify for himself. >> they won't let him testify, david. >> again, you know, i hear what he said. i've got no answer for that. >> no, no, no. >> that is the testimony. >> i will say this. he was telling the truth. what happened here was wrong. it was obvious.

but you don't see it worthy of removal. you lose your credibility. >> he walked it back. >> when a bunch of guys like you yelled at him. >> the president did. >> come on. >> what's important about gordon sondland's testimony yesterday was that finally, now that he was in open session and he was under oath, he said that everybody knew what was going on. he said that everybody that was involved in this from himself, kurt volker, he named names, mike pompeo, mick mulvaney. he named names in his statements and went farther than that. he described emails he sent to secretary pompeo and described how the aid prints off the emails and takes them to the secretary and repeatedly, time after time after time, in his testimony yesterday, he said everybody knew what was going on and the fact that aid was being held up, he realized later, but the fact that the meeting was being held up. >> they want me to take a break. we have more time to talk about

this. look, eventually you will get to the point in a debate here, in congress, where the facts are as they are assumed by congress, from their development and then they'll debate the consequence. it will happen in the judiciary committee. by the way, that's when all these arguments about representation from each side starts to become more relevant. it's never happened that the stage of the game. so, we'll take a break. when we come back, testimony will resume in a few minutes. members of congress are taking votes. there's still plenty to unpack about what's already happened this morning. stay with cnn. you wouldn't do only half of your daily routine so why treat your mouth any differently? listerine® completes the job by preventing plaque, early gum disease, and killing up to 99.9% of germs. try listerine®. need stocking stuffers? try listerine® ready! tabs™.

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all right. so, we're waiting for testimony to resume. this is a little bit of a different type of break. we had the democrats have their 45 minutes. now we're moving to the republicans for 45 minutes. but congress can walk and chew gum at the same time, as they keep saying. so, they're take some votes. now, moments ago, we heard from speaker of the house nancy pelosi maintaining the stance that the president abused his office for personal gain. take a listen. >> the evidence is clear that

the president, the president has used his office for his own personal gain, and in doing so undermined the national security of the united states by withholding military assistance to the ukraine to the benefit of the russians. that he has undermined the integrity of our elections by what he has done. again, the russian interference being ignored by him. and third, he has violated his oath of office. >> all right. for some context, let's go to manu raju on capitol hill. we're listening to speaker pe pelosi there, talking about the inquiry timeline. what are you hearing? >> yeah. it's significant what she is saying. she is making it very clear that they are not going to fight it out in court to get some of those key witnesses that the democrats have wanted to speak to, but who the white house has

made sure they cannot speak to, mick mulvaney, white house chief of staff, secretary of state mike pompeo as well as the former national security adviser john bolton. she was asked by haley bird whether or not they would fight, do everything in court to get these witnesses to come forward and she said they're not. in her statement just now, they keep taking it to court and no, we're not going to wait until the courts decide. she said that might be information that could be available to the senate in terms of how far we go and when we go, but we can't wait for that, because it's a technique. she is calling it obstruction of congress. some of the most explicit language yet from the speaker. it's been circulating for some time they would not go down that route to get these key witnesses. where the key phase at the end of the public hearings before the house intelligence committee, next they're going to draft a report by the house intelligence committee that will turn this over to the house judiciary committee that would consider articles of impeachment

in its own committee before house votes could occur before christmas to impeach this president. chris, what she's saying here, that's not going to be delayed, that timeframe because she does not want to wait in court to get witnesses that could provide more details and democrats i've spoken to agree with her because they believe they have more than enough evidence to link the president to both withholding the security aid as well as this key meeting in exchange for this announcement by ukraine to look into the president's political rivals, help the president politically. they believe they have enough evidence to move forward and pelosi making clear here, this crucial moment of this inquiry that they're ready to move ahead. they will not get dragged down by this court fight, even though she claims they've not made a decision yet, by all indications, democrats are plowing ahead and trump could almost certainly be impeached before the end of the year, chris. >> there are calculations in this, right? there are matters of politics. how fast do you go, what does that cost you in terms of completeness? what does the timing do for you?

i was checking with jeffrey toobin. on the litigation side, people make the assumption if they win one case to compel somebody to testify, it compels everybody. it doesn't. they're making a judgment there, too, about whether it's worth the fight. the question becomes whom does it help or hurt more to not have mulvaney, pompeo and these other people being held back. manu raju, thank you for keeping us up-to-date, as always. we're waiting for testimony to resume. members of congress are taking votes. when they do, it will be the republicans' turn at bat. we'll be right back. managing lipids like very high triglycerides, can be tough. you diet. exercise. but if you're also taking fish oil supplements, you should know, they are not fda-approved, they may have saturated fat and may even raise bad cholesterol. to treat very high triglycerides, discover the science of prescription vascepa. proven in multiple clinical trials,

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sitting prime minister faces criminal indictment. in the largest of these cases known as case 4000 or the bezik affair, they intend to charge benjamin netanyahu with bribery and mistrust, which is a smaller of the charges. netanyahu will face a charge of fraud and breach of trust in each case. we are expecting a statement in about half an hour. an hour and a half beyond that, we'll get a statement from benjamin netanyahu himself. i don't think it will be surprising what we hear if him or his angle. from the beginning, he was proclaiming his innocence, using his catch phrase, there will be nothing because there is nothing. as to the investigations, netanyahu claimed he insisted upon his innocence, and as we near his indictment, his allies, including the justice minister, sharpened their allies, even accusing the prosecutors of having a state prosecutor's office within the state

prosecut prosecutor's office that acted to unseat netanyahu. the jury there is a deadlock even with these charges, and the deadlock may continue for months. we're live at the capitol now. this is day five of the impeachment hearings. it offered a second witness who directly ties president trump with pressure to ukraine in announcing investigations involving his political rival joe biden. career foreign service officer david holmes testified he overheard the president's voice in a phone call with the ambassador to the european union gordon sondland asking the ukranians if they would do investigations. he also made a point in his opening statement to call out

the role that the president's personal attorney rudy giuliani played. here's a sample. >> over the following months, it became apparent that mr. giuliani was having a direct influence on the foreign policy agenda that the three amigos were executing on the ground in ukraine. in fact, at one point in the preliminary meeting of the delegation, some wondered aloud why rudy giuliani was so active with respect to ukraine. my recollection is sondland stated, quote, damn it, rudy. every time he gets involved he goes and fs everything up. and fiona hill began her statement by debunking the conspiracy theory and said it was ukraine, not russia, that interfered in the 2016 election. >> based on questions and statements i have heard, some of you on this committee appear to believe that russia and its

security services did not conduct campaign against our country, and that perhaps for some reason ukraine did. this is a fictional narrative that is being perpetrated in propaganda by the russian securities themselves. the unfortunate truth is that russia was the foreign power that systemically attacked our democratic institutions in 2016. this is a public conclusion of our intelligence agencies confirmed in bipartisan congressional reports. it is beyond dispute. even if some of the underlying details calcifies. >> okay, let's get some legal analysis on this. jeffrey, the idea of the defense on this is, well, he believes it, so it's okay for him to pursue it, versus, if he really believes this debunked conspiracy theory, he's more of a national security threat than was expected even by the democrats. how does it play? >> the most important thing to

remember about impeachment is it's a political process, not a legal process. so parsing what constitutes the elements of bribery in a courtroom is a very different thing from deciding what members of congress decide is an impeachable offense. i think the issue of what the president's state of mind is is not as relevant as what actually happened. and i think that's why david holmes' testimony is so interesting and so important, because what you have is a conversation between sondland and the president overheard, and what does he say about the relationship between the united states and ukraine? he says one thing. i want to see investigations. i want to see investigations, and we know from the context, he means investigations of his political rival, the biden family. that's what the country has to

decide. is that acceptable as a way for the president to behave, or is it simply something that the president is allowed to do in his discretion? but i think -- the facts are so overwhelming at this point. when you combine all the witnesses together, they give you an unmistakable conclusion that the president wanted to use the leverage of his office, meetings, almost $400 million in aid to damage his political opponent. that's what happened. now, what the implications of that are -- >> right, the consequences. just to get the analogy, dave, i don't know why you want to be susceptible to this ukraine conspiracy theory, but the idea of denial over reality, imagine if the president was not giving aid to a country because he wanted them to find out if obama was a citizen or not once and for all. wouldn't you see that as an abuse of power itself? >> let's unpack this. jeff didn't hear the whole

column? he heard one sentence, is what he said. let's be clear about this. he heard one sentence. we don't know that's all he talked about on the call. >> i don't know if he heard one sentence. >> he did, he said, i only heard one portion. the only thing i said, i didn't thans part. what about the conversation after he got off the phone? >> fair. he said, i only heard one portion of it. let's complete everything and make it. he heard the president say that. >> all he heard was the president saying i want the investigations and people kept saying the president doesn't know anything about the investigations. the two things don't go together. but just on this, it's okay because he believes ukraine did

it, isn't that grounds for impeachment all by itself? you're going to not give aid to an ally in russia because it's a conspiracy theory? >> it's one thing to undermine the community's assessment. if you are truly going rogue and using conspiracy theories as your guide as opposed to well articulated financial position, yes, that's a problem. but the argument here for me is the phrase "impeachable." is this notion of political rival, his argument is going to be not only that you didn't hear the comment but the notion that, i wasn't trying to investigate my political rival and that wasn't my goal. my goal are my views on corruption in general with the statement about burisma and other things. if that is the course of action

he'd like to take, then perhaps there could be more arguments made to support it. but also speaking here, i think one of the problems they're going to have in the evidencery phase of this whole thing is trying to unpack the loaded statement of wasn't the reason the president did this because he was going for political rival as opposed to, well, he was doing it because he had to fight corruption, and he simply had dirt on someone inviting someone into our national interests. he denied saying it, he denied anybody could have heard him say it. >> to borrow the president's own words, read the transcript. he says "biden" three times. you're right, and mr. holmes didn't hear the whole conversation, that's exactly

right. republicans, smartly, political. . >> if you just add up what we've heard, the cumulative effect of what these witnesses told us, it all comes together. they got annoyed, some thought it was illegal, they started asking questions and couldn't get good answers. then they read the transcript. take the president's advice when he tells them, investigate biden. >> this building of potential article of obstruction, while that is not a particularly popular item in congress, they voted favorably -- it was a very close vote with nixon, same with clinton. so it's not a powerful case except for the fact it tells us he doesn't want this evidence out. that leads us to the belief he

has a very guilty mind about what's going on, which supports all these inferences that are being drawn. >> can i ask him a question? >> please. >> during your era which changed the testimony in the nixon situation, if that was happening today -- let me ask it this way, actually. looking at the way the republicans, our friends david urban and, more importantly, all the republicans on this committee and more broadly on capitol hill, could you see the republican party of your time doing what they're doing now? does it surprise you? because impeachment is, and at that point, the push to convince a president to resign is inherently political. >> no. what happened -- the republican party has changed dramatically from those days. it's moved further and further to the right. >> there's changing and there's

dealing with the facts presented before them and ignoring them. >> there is also the fact of social media fox which do change venues for the arguments. but what i see is more of an ability today to deny reality. that didn't happen back then. >> would nixon have had to resign in today's times? >> it's a close question, because when people look at nixon today through the lens of all we know about him, which was so much more than he resigned on, it was much worse than everybody thought. so i'm not sure he would have had to resign. >> interesting about that point you raised, had they known then what they know now, was a common refrain from the witnesses of sondland and volker alike this week and their notion of, listen, i didn't realize rudy giuliani was doing all that he was doing. i didn't realize also perhaps

two by two equals four, but apple didn't equal biden. the notion here that that is the only available defense in the, one, cia mode. and two, trying to distance himself from being implicated in this overall scene. that is going to be repeated right now. what is going to the senate remains to be seen, but it can't be the idea of, oh, if i only had been privy to information we're seeing in testimony was available at any reference point. it was corroborate rated. >> you made a key point about

where we're going sheer the the shus going to impeach the president of the united states? but theish sue -- the issue, are they going to impeach the president today? no. but they're going to get up and say to partner with rudy giuliani was a big mistake. this is bad. i don't like this. this is ugly, this never should have happened. we have an election in 11 or 12 months, i'm not going to impeach over this. he keeps tweeting saying, don't do that. defend me. defend my conduct. again, i'm not saying they're going to convict the united states. tlifsd yo from that.

but it will a different conversati conversation. >> you had a couple on this vote do it, but that would be one angle. david, do you think there's noo noorn -- any chance he would y say, is there any way out? >> do i think rudy giuliani was doing things he didn't know about? would the president say that's the case? no. >> do i agree with you in the short term? the answer is no. lots of history, lots of dedication to secrets.

"access hollywood." he was the only guy to come out after the "access hollywood" video and defend him. i'm not saying loyalty is a two-way street for him, but that was. >> i actually disagree that that's the motivation. >> i'm not saying it's the motivation but it's a factor. >>. for one sf i agree that he's never going to sell rudy out, but the president never retreats. he never acknowledges he made a mistake. >> to john's point, that's a clear path to nonconviction quickly. look, it's a mistake, i shouldn't have done it, it's not

impeachable. the vote would be pretty overwhelming. collins, gardner, all these people on the fence would say, sure. >> let's play it out, though. say giuliani is the consummate fall guy, for lack of a better term. what would be wrong about that? up until now, he's been saying he's the president's lawyer. even though we have reason to believe he's not acting as lawyer counsel, there should be a privilege about what the conversation should have been. number one -- remember, trump's issue is a political issue, but there is an olc opinion protecting the sitting president. there is nothing to protect rudy giuliani if there were a criminal court. but for the notion of the privilege, he would actually

have to say what he's doing and michael cohen is in jail. >> he had two ukranian americans he was dealing with who were peddling these conspiracy theories, and they were working with him at the same time. >> i think rudy giuliani did everything right by this president. roger stone thought what they found in these communications would be true or bad for this president, and he literally turned the wheel of chance and went to jail. the president, not a word to stave his longest time adviser. i have to take a break.

we're moments away from testimony continuing. when we come back, i'm going to speak to fareed zakaria. remember, he was mentioned several times in this hearing, not that he did anything wrong. but because that's who the big interview was supposed to be with many. . no signal reaches farther or is more reliable. and it's built 5g ready.

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hearings. they're set to resume with two key witnesses in ukraine on pressure issues. manu raju, you're hearing from representatives in that room. what are you hearing? >> democrats think they have more than enough to move forward with impeachment hearings in the copping days and weeks. even though some of the firsthand witnesses, including mick mulvaney, mike pompeo, as well as john bolton, why they have not come forward, because the administration has essentially prevented them from coming forward with key documents from that committee, they say they're not willing to wait this out in court that could potentially strengthen their case. i asked jackie speier, who sits on the house intelligence committee, why don't they wait. if they waited, wouldn't that make their case strong enough to the american public? she said their case is strong enough right now. >> i think we have been hampered

in our ability because the white house, the state department, the department of defense have all withheld documents from us. but even with our hands tied behind our backs, we've been able to present to the american people a compelling argument for moving forward with a review of whether or not we should have articles of impeachment brought to the floor of the house. >> it would be the risk of fighting this out, so you're trying to make it clear to the american public that the president a vubused his office. shouldn't you fight it and get that clear testimony so there's no shadow of a doubt what the president did? >> actually, the president helped us out immeasurably by releasing the summary of his telephone call. we have the whistleblower complaint file that was an effort to prevent us from accessing that. he had released a summary of his conversation which establishes the elements of bribery where

someone in office requests from someone else something of value, the investigation, and then withholds the white house meeting and the military aid. >> reporter: and that's what the democratic message has been right now, that they believe they have a strong case, and nancy pelosi also making clear she would not fight this out in court. she said that's going to be an issue for the senate. if they want to get some of these witnesses, that's something they can worry about on the senate side. on the house side, she feels fine with the case they have now, her strongest mood yet that they're ready to move forward. next week expect the committee to write their actions that could historically lead to that historic vote on the floor of the house before christmas, and it's likely the president could be impeached before christmas.

chris? >> it's interesting, manu, because so much of this has the flavor of a trial, but it isn't a trial. this isn't a prosecution. so they feel good, but by what measure? the democrats won't have an effect if there are articles of impeachment? manu raju, thank you very much. great for you to get that interview of jackie speier. jeffrey toobin, yesterday i scared everybody saying, what, there's testimony on monday? no. but monday there is a big ruling expected involving don mcgahn. what is the ruling and what would it be? >> just step back. when democrats took control of the house representatives in the midterm elections, they began to try to do oversight of the trump administration, and they have been met with a great deal of resistance. some cabinet members, some white house officials have refused to testify, and the democrats have gone to court to try to force them to testify. william barr, the attorney general, has been found in contempt of congress.

don mcgahn, the former white house counsel, the democrats have gone to the house of representatives to get a ruling on whether he can cite executive privilege and refuse to testify. that's the ruling that will be due on monday in the district court. but the key point to remember is whatever the evolution is of the don mcgahn case on monday and the district court judge there, it's going to be appealed. and what the democrats have said, and jackie speier said moments ago, if the democrats decide to go to court to get bolton or mulvaney or pompeo, they feel, i think correctly, it will be months of delay. now, it may be worth it, but they've decided to proceed that anyone who has refused to testify, they're not going to go

to court. i think it's only going to be on election day that we learn whether that was the right strategy or not. i don't know. >> and add that to the obstruction charge on the articles of impeachment. >> thank you for that. john, i want you to weigh in, but will you fill in that question with damages put out there? thank you for that. is it worth taking an article of impeachment for obstruction of process in order to keep mulvaney, pompeo, bolton or mcgahn out of the chair? >> no. first of all, that was the weakest vote for articles against nixon. they didn't even carry all the democrats on the committee. it was a 21-17 vote on the obstruction of congress. for some reason, congress doesn't really get excited and try to defend stuff. on jeff's point on the mcgahn

case, the white house and the administration made over-the-top arguments. they said there is absolute immunity. witnesses don't even have to appear. a very strong, well laid out opinion, i think, could influence some of these decisions as to whether some witnesses appear or don't appear. >> but it's over. but that's the thing. the hearing is over as of today, as far as we know. >> no, there is the judiciary committee might decide to call witnesses. >> they could. >> i would just say this. you're going to have a two-week break coming up here, all right? today is the last hearing. the house doesn't come back until december 3rd. they'll go home, trump in one district will hear a lot from folks. they'll come back and move the senate. i was a chief staffer in the

impeachment of bill clinton. by the time it got to the senate, there was a lot of fatigue. >> i bet you were making the same arguments you're making now. >> no, i wasn't. the republican senators, they just want to get off the plate. there was so much antipathy amongst the american people, they just want to move on. during an election year, it's going to be even bigger, i think. >> that's why we need to look at the strategy here. the elephant in the room for all of this is about whether this has been an exercise in futility when it comes to the removal of the president of the united states. so much in the house has been about whether someone is truly going to be added. it's also about here's the story, these are the facts. no one has a clean-cut punch to these things to attack it, then

how much do we need to present to know that they saw the light red when you went through it. if this isn't going to end up in a conviction and perhaps removal, then the biggest thing they had was to say congress does take issue with people and they're undermining their power. >> we'll see how the break goes. i can't imagine how many turkey legs will fly through the room of families with different ideas. we'll take a quick break. we're awaiting the resumption of testimony. it's taking a little longer than we thought -- there's no drama -- members of congress were taking votes and they're now coming back. when we come back, as we're waiting for it, we'll reset what was going on before the break. (people talking) for every dollar you spend at a small business, an average of 67 cents stays local. shop small and watch it add up. small business saturday by american express

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all right, back with our special coverage of the impeachment hearings. one name mentioned several times today, our own fareed zakaria. why? because witnesses say the ukranians were set to do essentially what the president wanted them to, announcing an investigation into the bidens. how? an interview on cnn. take a listen. >> on september 8th, ambassador taylor told me, quote, now they're insisting zelensky commit to the investigation and interview with cnn, which i took

to refer to the three amigos. i was shocked their requirement was so specific and concrete. while we advised our ukranian counterparts to voice a commitment to following the rule of law and generally investigating credible corruption allegations, this was a demand that president zelensky personally commit on a cable newschannel to a specific investigation of president trump's political rival. on september 11, the hold was finally lifted after significant press coverage and bipartisan congressional expressions of concern after tbout the holding political assistance. even though we knew the hold was lift, the ukranian president had the request for an interview. we thought the interview would appear. there was a meeting in kyiv and

fareed zakaria was one of the moderators. on september 10, they had received a phone call from a colleague who worked for ambassador sondland. sondland said his zelensky interview was supposed to be today or monday, and they planned to announce that a certain investigation that was on hold would progress. sondland's aide did not know if this was decided or if sondland was advocating for it. also on september 13, ambassador taylor and i ran into mr. yermack. he said he hoped we would stay out of the political office and he knew of no interview that was planned. he shrugged his shoulders to indicate he had no choice. in short, everyone thought there was going to be an interview and the ukranians thought they had to do it. the interview ultimately did not occur. >> fareed zakaria joins us now.

remind people -- i've asked you about this before, so many have now. you didn't know what was going on at the time. you had been in contact about getting this interview because it was an important time of political transition in ukraine. what reason were you given, fareed, about why the interview wouldn't happen? >> we weren't given a reason. once the whistleblower report came out -- now i'm obviously looking at it in retrospect, but if you do the timing, once the whistleblower report came out, once a shift was demanded to be made public, when essentially the story breaks open, the ukranians we had been dealing with in president zelensky's office who had been very cordial throughout just went quiet and in a few days we were told the interview was not going to happen and that happened around the time the "new york times" broke the city wide open. so we didn't know if president

zelensky was planning to say anything about the investigations on the interview. it wouldn't be unusual for a political figure to have, in his or her mind, to say some things in an interview. of course, they wouldn't tell cnn. but the cancellation of the interview does time pretty closely with the point at which the story broke wide open. >> well, they're going to keep mentioning your name because two things happened where that sequence of events will keep coming up a little bit more with the hearings today, but really the argument is to come. and the first one is, why did they release the aid? what's the good reason for them releasing the aid if it wasn't just for them being exposed? the second one is why didn't president zelensky do the interview which is true what the aide said, well, they wanted to do the investigations. they were cleaning up

corruption. so why didn't they go ahead with it after they got the aid? let's go with something you can answer. the idea of what happened here in ukraine jeopardized the national security of the united states. how so? >> i'm not sure. what exactly do you mean? >> the idea that, hey, what the president was trying to do here, this jeopardizes america's national security. we keep hearing that from witnesses. how? >> it jeopardizes it in several ways. first of all, what you're doing is denying an ally crucial aid in an ongoing war with russia. but the much more bigger deal, i know that has been it is thithee witnesses have talked about. to me it rocks the stability of the u.s. around the world. they are told not to persecute their political opponents, not

to have a selective prosecution. we tell it to countries in the middle east. we tell it to countries like chain, like latin america. here the president of the united states specifis specifically as for a politically motivated investigation. all of a sudden, the entire edifice of america, human rights of foreign policy, come crashing down when countries start saying, what about you? you guys are doing exactly what you said you wouldn't do. >> we're hearing that in the testimony, where allegedly puff president zelensky's handlers or staffers said to an american diplomat, oh, so you don't want us to be investigating our own, poroshenko, but you do want us to look into the bidens, and then fiona hill gave a warning about conspiracies and investigating any credibility

that russia was to blame in the 2016 interference, knowing russia loves conspiracies because they achieve their end of political division. >> this is so important, and i'm so glad fiona hill made this point. this gets to the idea that there is no such thing as facts, everything is opinion, people can believe whatever they want. republicans are embracing this wild conspiracy theory that really makes no sense, that it was ukraine that interfered in the 2016 election, then blamed it on russia. it comes out of, i think, russian propaganda, and it seems to come out of president trump's frustration with ukraine over an entirely separate matter, which is that it was the ukranian government in a sense that outed paul manafort as being

corruptive. this is the beginning of the downward spiral in ukraine in terms of corruption charges. paul manafort would have been taking a lot of money from the pro-russian oligarchs of the president. so trump has never forgiven the ukranians for outing his campaign and his campaign manager on that front, and this is payback. and in order to achieve that, republicans have embraced this bizarre conspiracy theory is so bizarre that the deputy secretary, george kent, only knew about this when he read the transcript. he wasn't aware this was a conspiracy theory and nobody believed him. >> fareed, thank you so much. it's always interesting to have this kind of role in this historic setting. your name comes up, it's great to have it explained, and we'll see how it all winds up and

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we are awaiting testimony. the congress members are taking votes. we're told they were going to be back. they're not. we're going to listen now to dr. fiona hill, one of the key parts of her testimony describing john bolton's growing concerns about rudy giuliani with the former national security adviser, comparing giuliani to a hand grenade. >> i had also brought to ambassador bolton's attention the attacks, the smear campaign against ambassador yovanovitch

and expressed great regret about how this was unfolding, and in fact, the shameful way in which ambassador yovanovitch was being smear smeared. i asked if there was anything to do about it. ambassador bolton basically indicated with body language there wasn't much we could do about it. then in the course of that discussion, he says that rudy giuliani was a hand grenade that was going to blow everyone up. >> did you understand what he meant by that? >> i did, actually. >> what did he mean? >> i think that he meant, obviously, that anything rudy giuliani was saying was explosive in any case and he was continually on television making incendiary remarks about anyone involved in this. he was clearly pushing forward issues and ideas that would probably come back to haunt us. in fact, i think that's where we are today. >> so let's talk a little bit about how powerful the witnesses

have been from a credibility standpoint. john, i think fiona hill is in yovanovitch territory, solid as a rock and has no problem answering questions. we'll see in the cross examination when the republicans come, but how do you rate this? >> they have not been partisan, they have tried to tell them the way they saw it, the way they understood it, straight down the middle. the star witness, sondland, i didn't think he went as far as he could have gone. as i described yesterday in the watergate vernacular, because they were talking about it as a john d. type appearance, meaning that he was pointing the finger at others, he was protecting the president and protecting himself. i think he did not go as far --

for example, when i testified, i didn't spare anybody including myself. so i think that was missing in the greater picture. although he was a very important witness. he did move the story much further and give us a lot of information. >> anything for the republicans to say, this is a deep state right here, this person hates trump. >> mr. holmes is less known in washington. he's been a career official around the world, and i think the republicans will say, you didn't hear the entire conversation, you think you heard the president, but come on, a cell phone conversation? you could see, again, he adds to a narrative. if you add up the other witnesses, he's very compelling from the democrats' perspective. >> which is fair. et cete that's not a credibility point, it's an efficiency point. but in terms of whether or not he's spinning a tale because he doesn't like the president, that's what the president is alleging. >> that's a tougher argument.

in fiona hill's case, she is so well regarded in the republican party as a russian hawk, as a vladimir putin. she is saying i saw john bolton. john bolton has refused to testify so far, but john bolton, for those in washington, know how to connect with the news media if he so chooses. >> if you beat up on hill, you may get something from bolton. >> if he thought she was misrepresenting him in any way, we would know it. >> can i just make a point about credibility? at one moment sondland's testimony and dr. volker's testimony, both of them claim that they did not know that burisma, this company, employed hunter biden, the former vice president's son. that to me, to this moment,

seems just bizarre, if not outright false. that was not an obscure fact. people who don't follow these issues carefully knew that the vice president's son worked there under, frankly, suspicious circumstances. it was a controversy that wasn't new to this moment. i mean, the fact that hunter biden, who appears to have no qualifications for that role other than being the vice president's son, that was a story. >> correct. >> and the idea that volker and sondland, sondland just didn't know that, is -- it just seems bizarre. >> looks unethical now, looked unethical then. we just saw dr. hill reentering, confident, candid, as she has been this morning. that is as good an indication as any, that this is about to resume. as they take their places, let's take a break before we resume and hopefully get the timing

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all right, we're waiting on the resumption of testimony, but why should today be any different? whatever you expect, you should always prepare for disappointment when it comes to process in d.c. we watched dr. fiona hill walk into the hearing room, and then she walked back out. let's go to manu raju who is there. what did you do, manu? how did you scare them all out

of the room again? >> reporter: we're not entirely sure what happened, but we do expect this to reconvene in just a matter of moments. the witness has reentered the room. they saw the members hadn't returned, they left. they had votes just now. we caught up with a number of them. the democrats, of course, believe this case is a slam dunk against the president. it's time to move forward with impeachment in their eyes. the republicans are disputing with fiona hill who said ukraine did not interfere in the 2016 elections and that theory, in her words, said that actually helped russia. i talked to several republicans and they are rejecting that notion altogether, saying that's her opinion. they said ukraine had some development and that needed to be investigated. they are taking a line with the president because this is center in the inquiry and president zelensky raised that issue with

russia and president zelensky wanted to have that meeting that never materialized. someone expected in the establishment, someone who is talking about ukraine's involvement in the 2016 election, the impact it could have, they're saying they don't believe her. it will be interesting from the republicans' next round of questioning for the next 45 minutes. that questioning will try to undercut her assessment that ukraine had no involvement in 2016, chris. >> really. manu raju, thank you, appreciate it. that's good food forethoug thou. the republicans are going to come out assuming that ukraine had nothing to do with the

election of 2016. >> she literally pinned the ears back on counsel as she went down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories. she's very strong on this. this is going to be a really interesting set of exchanges if they go this route. >> do you think they'll have better than that political article you ripped out? >> i have read it, two years ago when it came out. >> exactly, two years ago. it doesn't discount russian involvement. it just says ukraine played a role as well. >> listen, the president heard from rudy and others that people in ukraine went after them and tried to help clinton and he wanted to see if he could flush them out before this next election and he held up congressionally -- >> that's the jump, because it's going to expire end of the year, fiscal year. fiscal year, the money expires.

it's a reality, chris. >> you can't go from the world of denial into reality that easily. >> you can't assume that that's the reason. you have to give me another reason other than everything that makes sense. because when you are flagged and people are asking you questions about what you've done and all of a sudden you release the aid -- >> i point to the $2 billion of aid that was held around the same time with no reason given. >> because there was no big kabal a foot. >> you've got nothing every time he says it. >> i have nothing. >> he did take it back. >> which made it worse, by the way. >> he said he didn't say what he said. >> then we played back his words and he was like, see, i'm right. that's where we are in terms of truth. gop, what do you think? there's mr. holmes walking in, but we know that means nothing. >> the single hardest thing to

do for any member of congress in my experience is to sit the hell down and shut the hell up. i think that would be good advice for most circumstances. now, certainly one thing republicans will want to do, particularly with holmes, is point out that it was difficult to hear the other side of the phone call in the restaurant. that is a perfectly legitimate form of cross examination. >> he will not get full benefit of what he believes he heard. >> right. and he will say what he heard, but i think it's just -- you know, it is an odd thing to hear the side of a phone call that you're not on when you're not on speaker. >> but you have to remember, it does exist in a vacuum. then he has a conversation with someone right after the phone call who recalls what happened with a fresh mind.

dr. hill has not sat down which gives me a minute to reflect on the gop. which way do they go? >> i think we heard an opinion from our friend david over there. all week this week and last week was to say the president never asked for this, the president never asked for an exchange jur just, you can't prove it. that is a classic examination, but it doesn't exonerate the president on the fundamental question that most people have testified that the president held up the aid and he did it for political gain. >> this happened, get out of the denial mode and go to the rationale, and that is not worthy of removal. >> that is the only clear course you can take because you cannot land a punch on the substance. >> here's the chairman bringing us back.

>> -- their counsel for the first round of their 45 minutes of questions. >> i thank the gentleman. i want to get a few basic facts on the table of individuals that were involved in the 2016 election, just to see who you know and who you've met with. i'll start with you, mr. holmes. have you met with or do you know alexander chalupa? >> mr. holmes, could you put your microphone on? >> no. >> do you know ellie orr? >> no. >> bruce orr? >> no. >> glen simpson? >> no. >> same questions for you, dr. hill. do you know or have you met alexander chalupa?

>> no. >> ellie orr? >> no. >> bruce orr? >> only when he presided over some of the meetings i presided over. >> years ago? >> that's correct. >> glen simpson? >> no. >> dr. hill, in your testimony you said that -- in your deposition, excuse me, that christopher steele was your counterpart at one time, is this correct? >> that's correct, yes. >> you testified that you met with christopher steele in 2016. i assume that's still correct? >> that's correct, yes. >> and the only thing we didn't get on that is do you know about when that was in 2016 and how many times? >> i'm afraid i don't. i actually had met with him -- you asked me, actually, in the deposition the most recent time i had met with him in 2016, and he retired from the british intelligence services in 2009, which is the same time --

>> right. i'm asking about 2016. >> 2016 i don't recall, but i did meet with him two times before 2016. >> but you don't know when? >> i don't remember the date, no. >> you stated in your deposition that a colleague had shown you the steele dossier before it was publish published. who was that colleague? >> that was one of my colleagues at the brookings institution. >> who was that? >> that was the brookings institution who had been sent a copy of this. >> and he shared it with you? >> that was the day before it was published in "buzzfeed." >> you mentioned in your deposition also that you thought it was a -- get the exact quote -- the dossier was a rabbit hole? is that still your testimony? >> that's correct. >> do you know who paid

christopher steele to generate the steele dossiers? there were several of them. >> at the time i did not know. i was told that it was gps fusion. i don't know if that's correct. >> there was a law firm involved, but did you know who the source of the money was? >> i didn't at the time. now i've read parts and i see our colleagues as well, but it was the dnc, i believe. >> and the clinton campaign? >> i don't know that for sure. >> mr. castro. >> good afternoon. welcome back from lunch. i hope you had some sandwiches or something delicious. >> i hope you did, too. >> dr. hill, thank you for your service and also thank you for your participation in the deposition on october 14th, columbus day. we were with you most of the day, so i appreciate that. mr. holmes, thank you as well. you're a late entrant into this situation. things sure did escalate

quickly. we spoke to you last friday night about what we thought was going to be a 30-second vignette about a two-minute phone call, and it turns out with your 40-minute opener today you have a lot of information to share, so we appreciate you being here. dr. hill, your last day at the national security council was july 19th, is that correct? >> that's correct, yes. >> you were involved with the july 25th call and you weren't involved with any of the relevant activities related to the pause in the aid? >> i was not, that's correct. >> as of july 19th, duid you believe a call was going to be scheduled for the 25th? >> i personally did not believe it would be scheduled that day, no. >> what was the thinking at the nfc on july 19th about such a call? >> i've learned from other depositions, to be clear here, that perhaps there was some awareness that there might be a call. ambassador sondland, if you may

recall, showed an exchange with the person who was taking over for my position, tim morrison, in which she indicated there would be a call coming up. i was not aware of that. the differences, let's just say, and understanding about that call. >> were you in favor of such a call as of the 19th? >> actually, i did not, and i said something about that at the opening of the session today. >> how about ambassador sondland, to your knowledge? >> i know ambassador sondland said in that email that bolton was in agreement. to my knowledge, bolton was not in agreement at that particular juncture. to my knowledge. >> do you know what the accusation was? >> it was based on the fact that he didn't feel like the call was properly prepared, and i said we wanted to make sure there would be a fully bilateral russian agenda, and is usual with these calls. >> were you surprised that a call ultimately was scheduled? >> i was when i learned about it, that's right. >> did you have any communications with anyone back

at your old staff about how that came to be? >> i did not, no. >> you did learn about the pause in the security assistance aid? >> i learned about it on july 18, the day before i left. >> there were several meetings about this i believe you testified to? >> i said i knew there was going to be a meeting in that time frame. there was one put on the schedule for the following week. of course, i had just heard that. >> at that time there were significant reviews of foreign assistance going on? >> yes, there was. >> what can you tell us about that? >> about the foreign assistance review? it was my understanding there would be a full-scale review of our foreign policy assistance

and the ties between our foreign policy objectives on the assistance. this had been going on, actually, for many months. in the period when i was wrapping up my time there, there had been more scrutiny than specific information in the overall review. >> at this time ambassador volker, ambassador sondland, they had become a little more involved with ukraine policy? >> well, ambassador volker was always involved in ukraine policy, at least since the beginning of his appointment as the special envoy for americans toward the wall of dunbass. >> what can you tell us about ambassador volker? >> he is a very distinguished diplomat. i've worked with him previously. his bio, he is ambassador to nato. he has a number of positions in the state department.

the truth we're trying to get at is with him. >> when did you first learn of ambassador sondland's involvement? >> well, it came in different ways. ambassador sondland does the ambassador's eu and had some involvement in the ukraine portfolio. we worked very close with the european union on matters related to ukraine. the ukranian ndiadialogue with russia was in a format known as the minsk process, which was led by the french and the germans, and ambassador volker was trying to find out ways in which he could work closer with the french and germans, and it moved along in the revolution of ukraine and russia. obviously the european union was the umbrella organization for europe in terms of funding and

assistance and was heavily active and offered financial assistance to the ukranian government as well as humanitarian assistance in the conflict. so it was perfectly natural that ambassador sondland would play some kind of role as ambassador of the european union. >> were you surprised when he introduced himself to you as somebody with a major role? >> i did at the time he presented it to me. this is at the time yovanovitch was pushed out of her position. it was at that juncture that ambassador sondland's role seemed to grow larger. >> did you express any concerns to him directly? >> i did express concerns to him directly. >> what were those concerns? >> i asked him quite bluntly in a meeting we had in june of 2019 -- this is after the presidential inauguration -- when i had seen that he started to step up in more of a proactive role in ukraine, what was his role here? and he said that he was in

charge of ukraine. and i said, well, who put you in charge, ambassador sondland, and he said the president. >> did it surprise you when he told you that? >> it did surprise me. we talk no directive. ambassador bolton had never indicated in any way that he thought ambassador sondland was playing a leading role in ukraine. >> i believe you used the term "a large remit," that he characterized he had been given a large remit from the president? >> i'm not sure what he said. he characterized he had been given a bright portfolio from the president. i listened to his testimony yesterday very carefully as well. he said anything that had to with the eu itself and the european union member stats, he

was okay with. >> he stuttered when he said it was okay that the president gave him that role and the direction was coming from the secretary of state. was that role ever mentioned to you? >> at different points. he talked about chief of staff mick mulvaney and mike pompeo. there weren't many people in the room when he asserted this to me, but it was the president who put himself in charge. >> were you encouraged of your last day in the office that u.s. policy toward ukraine. >> well, i was concerned about two things in particular. i will say for the record that they were able to move any

ambassador for any reason. i was concerned about the way her reputation had been maligned repeatedly on television. if the president wanted to remove an ambassador, which he's done quite frequently, there are many who were not fazed by that. and then there was, let's say, a different channel in ukraine. it was very different from the channel or the loop that i and my colleagues were in when we were focused on bilateral relations and u.s. foreign policy towards ukraine. these two things had diverged at this point. >> in the run-up to ambassador yovanovitch's separation from post, did you have any communications with officials at the state department about your concerns? >> i did.

>> who did you relate those concerns with? >> i related those concerns with my counterpart, who you have spoken to. i also spoke with david hale in the context of other issues. i covered a broad portfolio myself. we often would talk about individual items, and i had private discussions with deputy second sullivan, and he has appeared before committees here and the dos of. you advocated to all those about ambassador yovanovitch. >> i did, yes. >> they provided lethal assistance to the ukraine. are you aware of.

i wrote an opinion piece with a colleague at the buckings institution at the time a ukranian military its. and i worry that there was not a long-term sustainable plan given the other. however, when i came here in ghovt 2017 and started acting for my people in the pentagon, it became obvious that there was a clear and consistent p. >> wrur the only one that's

providing the javelins sochlt, and their job was to provide the javelins that they were not provided. were you aware of this back then? >> i was, and i think there were concerns this would provoke the russians. depending on how this was presented, we were very mindful of that also when there were discussions internally about the lethal weapons available inside the administration. >> ms. hir. sondland, you were e ground. what's the effective field as far as the javelins? >> they're an important peaceful deterrent. that the ukranians would have this capability deters them from

doing so. there was also a weapon that they had access to. they also offered to buy some with their own funds. they've now offered to spend their own money to buy more, so i think they're important. in fact, this is the consensus of the interagency providing the javelins. in your experience working with ambassador taylor, is he also an advocate for this? >> yes. >> mr. holmes, i want to go back to some americans. now i want to talk a little bit about ukranian government officials. >> uh-huh. >> are you familiar with

serhiy leschenko? >> yes. >> he was in the parliament? >> was. >> were you aware that when he was in the parliament, he provided information to an operative named nellie orr? i'm not aware of nellie orr. i know as a journalist he was provided information. >> this is in the 2016 campaign. he was provided the well-known black ledger, do you know about the black ledger? >> yes. >> the black ledger is credible?

>> yes. >> bob mueller did not find it credible. do you recall what bob mueller's findings were in the report? >> i am not aware bob mueller was credible? >> i have no knowledge of that. >> so the idea was to go after a trump candidacy official. were you aware of that? >> if you mean by release of the black ledger, that would be it. >> he said he had no part in it.

>> if he said that, i'll take your word for it. >> and your testimony about the steele dossier that contained that initial information that was protected by the fbi, are you aware that the democrats had paid for that information? >> i never had any direct involvement. >> not even if you knew at the time, but you now know today that the democrats have paid for that information. >> i do want to be clear that all of that happened before i arrived in ukraine, so i don't have any -- z >> i have read about those issues but i'm not an expert on them. >> you're not disputing that the democrats and hillary clinton were the source of those emails?

>> i have no knowledge of that. >> do you think it's appropriate for political parties to pay operatives to dig up dirt on their opponents? >> no. >> dr. hill, do you think it's appropriate for political parties to pay operatives to dig up dirt on their opponents? >> i do not. >> ambassador volker testified that he was very pleased with the size of the delegation, although the vice president was unable to make the trip. secretary perry, ambassador volker and ambassador sondland, i understand, dr. hill, you were involved in some of the actions and putting that dedication together. what can you tell us about the vice president's role in attending or not attending? >> well, i know you've had the testimony of jennifer williams from the vice president's office, and i defer to her being much closer to the decision making about the vice president's attendance.

i will say that i and many others hoped the vice president would be able to attend. what i know from my perspective, because i was not involved intimately in discussions with the vice president or his immediate staff, was that there was some questions about the schedule. as you all know, the president and vice president cannot beout of the country at the same time. there was some questions about presidential travel in the same time frame, and there was quite a bit of back and forth about whether it would be feasible for the vice president to go. that's what i was aware of. i wasn't aware of the discussions ms. williams was involved in. >> the vice president's office, according to ms. williams, provided four days at the end of may, may 28th, 29th, june 1st, and as it turned out, the ukranians decided -- i believe

it was on may 16th -- and by this point in time, the vice president had been rerouted about a trip to canada from the u.s., and i wanted to ask you that you don't have any evidence that the vice president was encouraged not to attend for any other reason, do you? >> i personally do not, but again, i defer to ms. williams. >> miss williams' testimony was that she heard from the chief of staff's assistant that the vice president was not able to go. the reason for that was related to any of these investigations. i just want to note for the materials you provided for your

deposition, there is note that the institution or vaughn may have interfered in that that day. do you remember what the meeting was for? >> may. -- >> to be honest, usually these meetings are around lunchtime or the midpart of the day. i just can't be sure. and i want to make it clear i cannot speak about head of state engagements. >> okay. jennifer williams testified that she learned about 11:00 or 11:15 that the testimony of president erdogan was not set to testify until 3:00 p.m.?

>> late in the day, when it's time for a nap. it depends on when lunchtime is, i guess. let me make a point that we don't try to make these delegations large. this is on the taxpayer's dime. we try to keep them small. if we had a longer yield time md. and secretary perry was the leader? >> i actually recommended that secretary perry be the leader, among others. >> what did you make of secretary perry's involvement? >> he had a deep knowledge of the industry, and secretary perry is an extraordinarily good

advocate of interest. a lot of times an achilles heal. it remains a point for oil and gas to europe. this has been manipulated repeated repeatedly, in the reagan era, there would be -- whether it would make sense to build pipelines in the soviet union to bring gas to european markets. >> mr. holmes, what do you make of your delegation? do you think it was the right sized group to signal that the u.s. stands behind them. >> i think it was fine in that

regard. . >> since we're on the topic of ukraine energy, i think it's a good way for us to segue into burisma which i assume both of you are familiar with. you've heard about it for many, many years. you were on the ground at the time, but jeffrey pyatt, an obama-appointed career ambassador. you know him? >> yes. >> a successful ambassador, i'm sure. he talked him into an investigation of burisma. are you familiar with that? >> yes. >> did you know about deputies' assistan assistant george kent sitting on

the board of burisma? >> i would defer to george, too. he was involved at the time on those issues. >> did you know that the financial records show that this man donated $1 million to biden's campaign? >> i did know that. >> did you know he met with officials a day after the firing of the country's chief prosecutor? >> no. >> did you know that burisma's american lawyers tried to secure a meeting with the new state prosecutor the same day where his deposition was announced? >> shortly after the president

was raided in thifr home by the state prosecutor's office. he was introduced to the situation shortly after the raid on burisma? >> no. >> i also did not know, that's correct. >> okay. >> so you obviously know that the president had concerns about burisma, had concerns about 2016 election meddling by the ukranians. when you were in there as the head of the ukraine desk, did

you ever brief the president or raise it up to ambassador bolton about any concerns through 2017 and '18 that concerned 2016 election meddling or burisma concerns? >> the whole briefing process really didn't work in the way you're suggesting there, so if the president had asked about any of this information, it would have been provided for him. just to be very clear, ukraine was not a top foreign policy priority in this period in the same way that many other issues that we could talk about from syria or turkey and others are. so there weren't that frequent briefings on ukraine. the briefings would take place when there was a scheduled meeting with a ukranian head of state. as we know, there haven't been too many of those. >> so just to -- as far as you know, you did no briefings, no papers, answered no questions as it relates to the 2016 election

or burisma during your time there? >> i did not know. >> dr. hill, you told us during your deposition that, indeed, there are perceived conflict of interest troubles when a child of a government official is involved with something, that that government official has an official policy ruling, correct? >> i think any family member of any member of the u.s. government, congress or the senate, is open to all kinds of questions about anything if they take part in any community of fundamental works. so yes, i think that's the case. >> ambassador sondland, you testified that every now and then he made a habit of name-dropping his interactions with the president? >> that's what i told you, yes.

>> and there might be any day on camp campus. he said there was no testimony? >> that's correct. >> he testified there was a coffee he had with you on the last day, and i guess when the deposition transcript was released, your counsel indicated that that was completely fabricated on ambassador sondland's part, and i just wanted to give you an opportunity to address that. >> unfortunately -- this is the federal government, we don't have copy machines in the office. the best i could offer you was a cup of water from the fountain outside my office. so the coffee ambassador sondland and i shared, we ran into each other, or he found out i was going to be there and asked me to meet him for coffee in jackson hole, wyoming in 2016

in august. this was a full year before i left. it was a very nice coffee. the meeting he is referring to, he was coming to meet for that. as i was in the office for a brief period before going into another meeting, and it was my last week in the office, we agreed to sit down with the director on the european union that ambassador sondland had brought with him. we had four of us in that meeting, and unfortunately, it wasn't over coffee. there were five of us, excuse me. i can't do math. i'm sorry. >> you indicated you were upset.

you said that was an entire fabrication? >> there was a blow-up with ambassador sondland. one was on june 18 when i said to him, who put you in charge of ukraine? i'll admit i was a little bit rude. that's when he said the president, which shut me up. this other meeting was about 15 or 20 minutes as he depicted there was. i was actually, to be honest, angry with him many times, and he deflected that on other people. what i was angry about was he wasn't communicating with us. i realized reading his deposition that he was absolutely right. he wasn't communicating with us

because we didn't agree with what he was doing. so i was upset when we didn't hear about all the meetings he had. i talked to ambassador sondland. who else did i have to deal with? it includes mr. holmes, it includes the ambassador tarlz, it included a whole bunch. these were the people he wanted to know were absolutely right. we were involved in national foreign policy and those two things had just diverged. so he was correct. i had not put my finger on that at the moment, but i was irritate with him and angry that he wasn't fully cooperating. i did say to him in ambassador

sondland's garden, i think this is all going to blow up and here we are. -- trying to coordinate this after i had left the office. his answer was the national security council was always trying to block him whachlt -- that was precisely what i was trying to do. but ambassador sondland was not wrong that he had been give iin instructions that he had been instructed to carry out and we were doing something that we thought was just as, or perhaps even more, important but it wasn't in the same channel.

>> dr. hill, i want to drill down on this a little bit. the president of the united states was concerned about meetings. he had his personal attorney working these issues because he was under investigation by robert mueller's special counsel, partly beginning with an investigation that started with the steele dossier that we've already established that the democrats had paid for by the fbi. so the 2016 election meddling by ukraine. you earlier testified you weren't aware of that, but if that was the concern of the president to many, and it was a

concern of ambassador sondland trying to set up meetings to ensure that meetings occurred to strengthen the relationship, i understand people at the nfc, people at the state department, if they had issues with that, but at the end of the day, isn't it the commander in chief that makes these decisions? >> my point is we here at the place where we're supposed to be on these issues. when we were talking about 2016 and ukraine. i've sent him plenty the. he was told very clearly to stay out of domestic politics. >> for a timeline, i think as of

july 19th, they hadn't even engaged with rudy giuliani yet. i don't believe that happened until a little bit later. so you believe by july 19th they were already engaged in those types of activities? >> we had already had the discussion with kurt volker that it was in the assistance of his assistant and they had made comments. as you know, in the may 23rd, they had been instructed to meet with rudy giuliani, and he was also saying on the television that he was koordly. >> understandable. many. the president dismissed ukraine and said, if you want to work on

it and just go talk to him. i believe master volker was primarily the interlocateur and it didn't start until mid-july. >> i only learned that when i learned ambassador volker's position, so at that time i wasn't aware of that. in fact, ambassador sondland did refer to rudy giuliani, and he was told not to meet with rudy giuliani in a meeting. >> mr. morrison told us in his deposition in a public hearing that you had relayed concerns about colonel vindman? >> it was a very specific point that was made, and again, these

are personnel issues. i'm sure nobody else here would like to have their information investigated. he was taking over the position which he held for three months. i had worked as the senior director for europe and eurasia for more than two years at this point, and many, i sat dwoun mr., who they referred to as john, who is also to stating. we talked about everybody's strengths and weaknesses. and i used that time to talk about what i would like to learn, too.

i said i was concerned about the way things were trending in ukraine policy. so colonel vindman is a highly distinguished decorated military officer. he came over to us from the chairman's office and the joint chiefs of staff. we were evaluating and looking at him in the context of what his future positions would be in the context of the u.s. army. i was concerned if, for example, colonel vindman might decide to lea leave, i didn't feel he had the political tenor to deal with something that is straying into politics. it's not for everybody. however, i was not questioning his moral judgment, nor was i questioning his professional actions. he had been in charge of the

russia campaign, thinking through at the chairman's office and in the pentagon. this was a very specific issue because by june, we saw that things were diverging. we needed a completely different sensitivity. some people in my office have worked at the highest levels of adviso advisorily. we were concerned about how he would manage what was becoming a highly charged and potentially par partisan issue which it had not been before. >> colonel vindman related in our deposition that he was sort of cut out of all the sdigs involvements with the embassy and ukraine. was that somethingly. we're very fwernld.

colonel vindman had just sounded the alarm when he realized there was this highly political aspect of the meeting that we were looking for with president zelensky. >> mr. holmes, i want to -- at the end of august, we understand that ambassador taylor was engaged in obtaining some information from the president about alice buren sharing in the information when the aid was being debated. after the hold was placed on the security systems, maybe buren was trying to discover why. maybe she had said she was concerned about her sharing crops as well, so to try to determine when this happened, we were looking at what the

russians have provided, what we have provided. united states have provided military assistance to ukraine of about 30 billion there are. so just over $3 billion. to the tefl. my understanding is we provided more to ukraine? >> and you were trying to get that back by mid-august? >> and do you think that was the information the white house was looking for? >> we don't know. if others weren't spending as much as we did, then that shows a different story. the pause on the aid was lifted a short time thereafter.

it was early september, mid-september. that concludes the 45-minute rounds. we'll now go to member questioning. i'll recognize myself for five minutes. >> i want to say to the witnesses a bit cautious when members present, are you aware of this fact, are you aware of that fact? did you testify in that case. let me just clear the record on one of the things that was vice president canceled his trip because of a complicate being. her testimony was, i asked my colleague or why the president of the united states decided not

to attend? i was told miss mcqueen. >> that he's not royal to america, what you think about those types of accusations when leveled against colonel vindman or other americans. >> i think it's important. this is the pinnacle of accusations. everyone emigrated to the united states in their form of person here, but for me this is the absence. i think it's unfair to fr.

i'm glo american pops, i'm a british american, i'm a naturalized sit glen. this is my country and the country that i serve, and i know for a. i think it's deeply unfair. >> i thank you. you mentioned something in your testimony, and i don't have this exactly right, that i think ambassador sondland at one point told you his role is to make deals, is that right? >> that's correct. he told other people that as well, to be clear. >> i want to ask you about one of those deals, the one that ambassador bolton described as a drug deal. i had the suggestion or the indication, rather, when mr. goldman was asking you about two meetings, one with ambassador volker's presence and another one in the ward room, that there was more you wanted to say about

that. do you want to walk us through that in more detail? >> the reference ambassador volker made is when i returned from the skproroom and i indica what i had heard. i know there's been some question about the sequence here and the order of some depositions. what happened immediately after the meeting that ambassador bolton caused a little shot that he. i guess they wanted to take a quick photograph outside his office. i know secretary perry and others have standing outside ambassador's office. at that point already moving to the board room on the way out of

ambassador sondland's office, review for a quickly of next steps. quite unusual. you don't usual huddle in a white house to discuss next steps with foreign delegations, because we took it to be next steps on setting up the meeting which already, as i'd say, ambassador bolton wasn't prepared to do. when ambassador bolton came back in to the office he gave me the strong instruction to go downstairs, find out what was being discussed and back up and report it to him. as i came into the boardroom, colonel vindman and ambassador sondland when in an exchange when i noticed colonel vindman looked quite alarmed. i know that ambassador sondland was asked yesterday, because, again, i watched all of his testimony and watched it very carefully there were have questions about yelling and shouting. i said he never said is that in

respect was no yelling or shouting, that crept in how people like to retell the stories and add things to them. when i came in, ambassador sondland was in an exchange with colonel vindman along the lines of, well, we have an agreement to have this meeting. and i came in, and i asked, what's going on here? and he said, this is, again, the ukrainians are there, ambassador volker there but at this point secretary perry had left, not in the board room as i came. when i came in secretary perry was leaving he has no recollection of the meeting because he was not in it. so when i came in, gordon sondland was basically saying, look, we have a deal here there will be a meeting, i have a deal here with chief of staff mulvaney there will be a meeting if the ukrainians open up or announce these investigations into 2016 and br 116 and barism.

i cut it off there, seeing on the television, everything asserting, clear barisma was code for the bidens because giuliani was laying it out there and could see why colonel vindman was alarmed and said this is inappropriate with the national security council we can't be involved in this and learned since from mr. holmes rendition here today colonel vindman had already warned the ukrainians, in fact, president zelensky to stay out of american politics. so i cut off this line and i said to ambassador sondland, look, we need procedures for here. ambassador bolton just made it clear we can't set up the meeting right now we have is to properly prepare this through the process process, we have national security procedures to do this. it sounds very boring but we

shouldn't be talking about this in front of our colleagues from ukraine, completely inappropriate to thrush this out front of him. he agreed and asked the representatives to move out the boardroom. this isn't a deposition sand awkward, shouldn't have been standing around in the corridor in the west wing at this particular juncture. that's when i pushed back on ambassador sondland and said, look, i know there's differences whether, one, we should have this meeting, trying to figure whether to have it after the ukrainian democratic, sorry, parliamentary elections, which by that point i think had been set for july 21st. must have been. this? july 10th at this point. and the ambassador wanted to wait until after that to see whether spread zelensky gets majority in the parliament to form a cabinet and we could move forward. ambassador sondland then said, okay. fair enough. realized he wasn't going to be

able to push this further. ambassador volker didn't say anything at this particular juncture. then he said he has another meeting, and they all left. and i went back up and relayed this to ambassador bolton which swh he gave me the specific instruction we've already been through to go to talk to mr. eisenberg, john eisenberg in the embassy counsel's office. >> thank you. mr. nunes. >> i assume we're eight minutes there? >> mr. nunes, i don't cut off a witness in the middle of their answer. you may proceed. >> sorry. that was a long answer. >> mr. jordan, mr. holmes, why didn't your boss talk about it? >> what is that? sir? >> your boss bring up the call you overheard? the reason you're here today. you're their closing witness yet their star witness, first witness, ambassador taylor didn't even bring it up. when we deposed you you said it was an extremely distinctive

experience described it, after the call happens i immediately told deputy chief and others at the embassy about the call. then you said you went on vacation, told several friends and family about the call. then come back on august 6th and you tell ambassador taylor about the call. and then in your deposition you said no your statement today, i repeatedly talked about the call where the situation in ukraine was relevant. repeatedly referred to the call in meetings and conversations where the president's interests in ukraine was relevant. sounds like government speak. you told everybody. yet their star witness, their first witness, ambassador taylor, when he came here he related 13 different conversations he had between july 18th, aid frozen, september 11 released. 13 different conversations never once mentioning this call. and told taylor what sondland told them. july 19ble, sondland told taylor about the upcoming zelensky call.

july 20th, what was told to tell trump. july 28th, morrison tells taylor wha what happened on the zelensky call. august 21, brechbuhl talks to tailor, august 29, yermak and morrison tells taylor what danyluk told and morrison tells taylor what sondland told trump september 8th and sondland tells taymor what trump told sondland. nowhere, nowhere is there in holmes tells taylor what the president of the united states told sondland. >> may i answer the question? >> i'll give you a chance in a second. but 13 conversations? 13 conversations from there star witness? you're their closing witness and he can't remember a call from a guy he works with every single day? why? >> yes, sir.

so immediately when i went back to the embassy after this lunch on the 26th i told my direct supervisor the deputy chief of mission, i would have told ambassador taylor immediately except he was on the front lines that afternoon. i then went on, as i've testified, my vacation on saturday, back the following monday. tuesday back in the ambassador's office where i referred to the call in that week plus i was away, it was my assumption the deputy chief of mission would have informed other people about the call as well. so my recollection is when i did refer to the call in that meeting that ambassador taylor nodded knowingly as though he been briefed on it. so i referred to the call and i mentioned some of my takeaways from the call and at the time the main takeaway from the call was the president doesn't care about ukraine. we're going to have a tough road ahead to convince him that's important enough for him to schedule an oval office meeting for president zelensky and

ultimately release this hold on security assistancethat was the takeaway. that's what i referred to repeatedly in the coming weeks, whenever it became relevant. remind you that -- >> sir -- >> one more important point. throughout this time as i testified, we were trying to find a formula, things we could do with ukrainians to convince the president that they were worth talking to. >> maybe -- maybe, mr. holmes, the takeaway was he thought it was no big deal because he already knew? he didn't remember, because we already had the transcript. >> no, i -- >> he didn't remember the -- we had the -- the trump/zelensky transcript out for two months. >> sir, i believe that -- >> you're repeatedly bringing this conversation up as you said to everybody when anytime there's talk about ukraine you recalled this conversation. maybe it was the transcript, the call happened on the july 25th. four months ago. transcript's out two months.

maybe the ambassador thought this is nothing new here, but shazam, last week you come forward with supposed new information? nothing different there than on the transcript. maybe that's the reason the first witness, star witness, didn't bring it up but they had to have something but you're the closing witness because you yaever heayaev overheard the ambassador talking to mr. sondland. >> you may take as long as you need. >> i believe the ambassador didn't already know when i briefed him on the 6th. it was not news to him the president was pressing for a biden investigation. >> that's not what i askeded. i asked why he didn't share it with us. >> please, do not interrupt the witness further. >> exactly what -- gentleman's time expired, yours has not. you may answer the question. >> exactly my point. i briefed the call in detail to the deputy of mission, went away, a week come back referred to the call and everyone's

nodding. of course that's what's going on. of course the president is pressing for a biden investigation before doing the things the ukrainians want. nodding agreement. did i go through every single word on the call? no. everyone at that point agreed. obvious what the president was pressing for, ambassador taylor you just outlined had all -- >> he didn't share it with us. >> please don't interrupt. >> but sir my vivid recollection of an event i was involved it was a touchtone experience to me validated. >> please. >> what was believed. ambassador taylor was nos in that call. >> all of a sudden last week you got -- >> mr. jordan -- allow the witness to answer the question. >> i'll finish with this. >> thank you. >> he was involved in a number of other interactions as you've outlined that brought him to the same conclusion. it is quite possible that -- >> he doesn't share that -- >> mr. jordan -- you may not

like the witness' answer. >> there wasn't an answer. >> mr. jordan we will hear the witness' answer. have you concluded? >> i have. >> thank you. mr. himes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. dr. hill, mr. holmes, thank you for your testimony. dr. hill you made a fairly dramatic comment in your opening statement to which the ranking member too exception. i'm more interested in the ukraine piece of this but you said some on the committee appear to believe russian security services did not conduct against our country and for some reason ukraine did. much more interested in the krrn cynthia pie -- ukraine piece but i want to defend you briefly. i don't know what my colleagues believe but i have a pretty good sense what the effects are ofam clarity and conviction around the russian attack on the election of 2016. in response to your commen offe

report varying in material respects from the report created by the 17 agencies of the intelligence community. a day does not go by in which ranking member nunes does not speak of the russia hoax, and this is an area in which context is pretty important. dr. hill, let me read you a comment by another senior official. why did democratic national committee turn down the dhs offer to protect against hacks? it's a big dem hoax, all caps. why did the dmc refuse to turn over its server to the fbi? it's all a big dem scam. dr. hill, do you know who said those things? >> i don't. >> it's the president of the united states, donald john trump. >> i missed that. >> you didn't miss much. an pain to name and shame the russians for the 2016 campaign

is not an abuse of national security? >> it's not. >> return to ukraine. dr. hill, you characterize the idea ukraine interfered in the election as a functional narrative. have you seen evidence at all that ukraine interfered in the 2016 election? >> well, i brought with me two exhibits i was pointed to and brought by our colleagues during the deposition i gave on october 14th and actually am quite dreadful they pointed me in this direction. i was presented during my deposition with two articles, or at least two pieces of information. one was an op-ed that the ukrainian ambassador charlie wrote in 2016 in the "hill" during the presidential campaign, when president trump was then the nominee for the republican party. and this is, ambassador charlie, then still the ukrainian ambassador to the united states

being critical of president trump who was then the nominee for the republican party for making comments about ukraine, crimea and russia. >> may i interrupt you there? let me be very specific about what those comments were. the president, when he was a candidate said, "the people of crimea from what i've heard would rather be with russia than where they were." so ambassador clare is harlie i responding? >> correct. the whole article is actually about ukraine. this is classic, standard for anyone who wants to write an op-ed. i've written plenty myself. pick a peg by something you or something else might have sandy proceed to say what you want to say. what ambassador charlie does is talk about ukraine's position vis-a-vis russia and russian aggression against ukraine. >> it's worth hearing what this severe attack on candidate trump

suggested that the crimeans would rather be with russia. ambassador charlie writes even if trump's comments are speculative and do not reflect a future foreign policy they call for appeasement of an aggressor and support the violation of a sahr rin's country territorial integrity and another's breach of international law. da, da, da, that's the attack on candidate trump. does that sound like election interference to you? >> i would say it's probably not for an ambassador, because you - never know who's going to win and i think the second piece that was presented to me at length and i want to thank mr. castor for making me go back and read it again. when you asked me the questions about it i did remember the piece, a well known you pointed out extremely good journalist. i remembered reading this back in the, january of 2017, been a long time between then and october. you gave me a copy and i went back and read it again, because

i think it actually is extraordinarily important and gets to this issue here. mr. vogel points out the ukrainian government, again, wouldn't have done well at the bookies picking up the issue i pointed out beginning of today, they bet on the wrong horse. they bet on hillary clinton winning the election. and so, you know, they were trying to curry favor with the clinton campaign. it's quite evident here. he relates to some extent individuals on some ukrainian officials, like the interior minister and a number of other people that he names here, he named at various points, and talks how they were trying to collect information, ranking member nunes said on mr. manafort and on other people as well. however, i do want to point out that the crux of the article here by mr. vogel is he said there was little evidence of a top-down effort by ukraine. he makes a distinction between

the russian effort personally directed by russian president putin and involved the country's military and foreign intelligence services. now, i don't think that those two things are exactly the same. i also mentioned in my deposition of october 14th, that in fact many officials from many countries including ukraine bet on the wrong horse. they believed that secretary clinton, former secretary clinton and former first lady clinton was going to win and many said disparaging things about president trump and i can't blame him for feeling aggrieved about them, and when we were setting up visits, and i have a portfolio, 50-plus countries plus the european union, we thought it prudent to collect as much as possible about comments people might have said about the president during the campaign when he was either one of the candidates to be the

nominee for the republican party or when he was actually the candidate running against hillary clinton. sorry to say perhaps a lot shouldn't name here, a lot of senior ish tos in many governments including our allied governments said some pretty hurtful things about the president and i personally would take offense if i were the president. the difference here, however, is that hasn't had any major impact on his feelings towards those countries. not that i have seen. but i have also heard the president say, and he said it in public so i'm not revealing any executive privilege here that ukraine tried to take me down. well, i have seen it some ill-advised to ukrainian officials, ambassador charlie removed as ambassador from here. made some pretty unpleasant statements and ill-advised op-eds but i could lend a whole host of ambassadors from allied countries who tweeted out public

comments about the president as well and it did not affect security assistance having meetings with them. if it would, there would have been a lot of people he wouldn't have met with. >> thank you, dr. hill. >> mr. chairman, i seek n unanimous consent to add russia accuses ukraine of sabotaging trump outlining russian senior officials making allegations that there was ukrainian interference in the 2016 election. >> without objection. mr. conaway. >> thank you. i yield for five minutes. >> thank you. i want to pick up where my colleague across the aisle congressman himes left off earlier. respectfully, dr. hill, he was not defending you, he was defending himself and democrats. make sure the record is very clear. ranking member nunes was correct. he correctly noted in his opening that republicans, not democrats on this committee,

were the first ones, the first ones, to raise the issue of russian interference in the 2016 election. the disagreement wasn't about russian meddling. the disagreement was about whether or not president trump conspired with russia, a false allegation peddled by the democrats generally and specifically by some democrats on this committee. with that, i want to turn to you, mr. holmes and the part of the conversation, your testimony where you said you heard president trump say, is he going to do the investigation? and ambassador sondland said he's going to do it. he'll do anything you ask him to. is that right? >> yes, sir. >> what did president trump say next? >> he said -- he said what about sweden? >> he said what? >> sir, he -- sorry. i need to look back where we are in the middle of the conversation here, where we -- the testimony.

>> exactly. then they turned to the sweden conversation. >> what did president trump say next? >> good. what about sweden. >> good, what about sweden? good. what about sweden? why isn't that in your statement? >> it's no an every single word in the conversation. >> but the most important part of the conversation. >> then they turned to sweden. they turned to the other topic. >> respectfully, mr. holmes, this impeachment inquiry is based on the call the day before where president trump as part of a bribery scheme is part of an extortion scheme, as part of a quid pro quo, according to the democrats demanded investigations in exchange for either military aid or a white house meeting and the next day you were witness to president

trump receiving word that the bribery scheme was successful. the extortion scheme was successful. and his response, his response was, good. what about sweden? >> yes, sir. the ukraine portion of that conversation was extremely brief. >> what was the first thing the president said on the call? >> this was -- a. clear recollection of this conversation. >> yes, sir. >> please allow mr. holmes to answer. >> sondland greeted the president. >> how? >> he said, hello, mr. president. i'm in kyiv, and the president said are you in ukraine. >> you think he said, i think you're in ukraine? he said what? >> he said, are you -- ukraine. >> what did you hear president trump say about asap rocky? i did not hear president trump's

side of the conversation about asap rocky. >> you said, how did we go from the conversation was very loud and his voice recognizable to -- as you say -- here when the conversation shifted i could only hear ambassador sondland's side of the conversation. >> yes, sir, as i've testified. the nirinitial part of the call president on the call, winced, held the phone away from his ear initial point of the calm at some point in the call stopped doing that. i don't know why. if he turned down the volume or the president spoke quietly, got used to the volume. i don't know what changed. >> what did change. it's important. this was memorable. >> i don't, sir. ambassador sondland stopped moving the phone away from his ear. >> that's what it was? >> yes. >> okay. >> how did the conversation end? >> i only heard ambassador sondland's side of the conversation, sir, and at the end of the conversation he said, he said, this -- he's giving the

president advice ho to deal with his asap rocky situation and should have released him on your word and tell the kardashians you tried. >> to be clear, when president trump received word that president zelensky had agreed to the investigations, he said, good. what about sweden? >> yes. >> okay. when exactly did gordon sondland ask president zelensky about the investigationing? >> i'm sorry? >> when did he ask about the investigations? >> when did gordon sondland ask zelensky about the investigations? >> yeah. >> you ask, in which meeting did he raise the investigations? >> raised the day before on a call and the next day gordon sondland said the answer to that was he's going to do the investigation. so when did he ask about the investigations? >> my assumption, in a closed dord meeting with yermak.

>> time of the gentleman expired. >> i appreciate that but the record needs to be clear yesterday ambassador sondland testified the topic of conversations did not come up on that day. >> gentlemen's time's expired. >> thank you. i thank both of our witnesses for being here today and turn our discussion to the campaign to remove career diplomat ambassador yovanovitch. both of you in your various capacities had to work with her and both witnessed what i would call a smear campaign. i wanted to know your thoughts, dr. hill. what was your view of ambassador yovanovitch's experience and quality of her work in the ukraine and do you consider it to be a smear campaign? >> i have the highest regard for ambassador yovanovitch, both in terms of her integrty and high

standards of work carried out in ukraine aacross her entire career. i do believe it was a smear campaign and for the record i think it was unnecessary. it there was a decision to have is a political ambassador put in place in ukraine that would be perfectly acceptable. it's exactly the right of the president to be able to do that. i just did not see why it was necessary to malign ambassador yovanovitch to such an extent. >> mr. holmes, would you agree with that? and can you talk about the character, integrity and performance of professor, ambassador yovanovitch, both in ukraine? >> yes, ma'am. she is extremely professional, respected in ukraine by ukrainians also by visiting american senior officials including members of this committee sand of the congress who would visit. she, extremely dedicated, hard working. >> did you see it as smear campaign as well? >> i did. yes. >> and what was the effect it

had on the morale of other professionals that you worked with in the ukraine? >> it was a very confusing time, as i've said before. the president has the right to remove an ambassador for any or no reason at all. it was not clear why this was happening. or why people weren't standing up for her. >> i'd like to now turn dr. hill to your boss. your boss was ambassador bolton. right? >> that's correct, yes. >> and did your boss, ambassador bolton, tell you that giuliani was "a hand grenade? >> he did, yes. >> what do you think he meant by his characterization of giuliani as a hand grenade? >> what he went by this was pretty clear to me in the context of all the statements mr. giuliani was making publicly. bupt the investigations he was promoting, the story line promoting, the narrative of he was promoting was going to backfire. i think it has backfired.

>> was that narrative inclusive of falsehoods about ambassador yovanovitch? >> at the particular juncture that ambassador bolton made that comment absolutely, because that was in the context of my discussions with him about what was happening to ambassador yovanovitch. >> i was particularly struck by your testimony, dr. hill, about receiving hateful calls and being accused of being a source of mold in the white house. are you a never trumper or have you been true to your profession and remain non-partisan? >> i honestly don't know the desk, of a never trumper as many of my colleagues are feeling the same way. it is a puzzling term to be applied to career or non-partisan officials. and i chose to come in to the administration. i could easily have said, no, when approached. >> yes, but you didn't sign up to have hateful calls and the like. >> i guess unfortunately where we are today in america, that's

coming with the territory. they're continuing honestly. we are constantly having to block twitter posts of my name and address and on the internet doing this over the last couple of days. >> i think that -- >> as i said in my deposition this could happen to any single person in this room. be it members of the press, the congress and the staff. we have to find ways of combating this and gets back subtly to things our adversaries can almost exploit. >> exactly. you would agree with me this shouldn't become the new normal. would you agree? >> it should not. >> i also think that this kind of behavior instead of keeping you down would make you undeterred. are you more determined to continue to do your work and to do it professionally? >> i amened i think all my colleagues are as well just as you said we can't let this stand and i don't think anyone wants to let this stand. i actually don't believe this is a party initiative. i don't think anybody wants to come under personal attack. >> yes. i unfortunately think this is

the new norm held by the very top of the food chain, our president which is unfortunate. i'm especially disheartened by his treatment of women and i think that the fact of the matter is that there's a long line of strong talented women who have been many part smeared and victimized by this president and we can either choose to ignore it or do something about it. and, frankly, i think whether you voted for him or supported him or not, that doing so is wrong. you could simply just remove someone. you don't have to smear them. thank you, and i yield back my time. >> mr. turner. >> right. i just want to echo that sentiment and lament the attacks that have been levied against our kalil, vile and hateful, ms. stefanik. those keeping score at efforts of coercion or extortion coming to the closing session of this,

basically break down as follows. we have kent and ambassador taylor who spoke of hearsay. their hearsay of these matters they said they had heard. all statements heard from other whose also testified in front of us. no one missing, no one out there. kent and taylor basically said heard it from morrison and sondland. morrison indicated heard it from sondland. sondland testified yesterday he's heard it from no one on the planet. vindman and morrison both have direct testimony of the phone call with the president of the united states. beyond that, they only had contact with sondland and again sondland indicated he had contact with no one on the planet. volker testified he did have direct contact both with the ukrainians and with the president of the united states and indicated the president of the united states did not condition either a phone call, a meeting or aid upon ukraine undertaking investigations and also testified that the

ukrainians did not believe that either. also we have the direct statements from the president of ukraine and the foreign minister they did not feel any pressure to undertake investigations and we also have the evidence of we're all very much aware of, they did not undertake any investigations. we also have yovanovitch and dr. hill. yovanovitch obviously left before the time period, dr. hill, appreciate your being with us today and mr. holmes. dr. hill, you have provided me probably the greatest piece of evidence that's before us to illustrate the problem with hearsay. you said, based on questions and statements, i have heard some of you on this committee, that be us, appear to believe that russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country. perhaps somehow for some reason it was ukraine. this is the, was held up by devin nunes. report on russian active pleasures voted on by all of us that begins with this sentence. in 2015 russia began engaging in

a covert influenced campaign aimed at the u.s. presidential election. every one of us, little small, like -- effort on your part, dr. hill, and you would have known it what you just said was not true. what you had heard, but you felt the no ed to put it in your eight page statement before you went on to tell us a bunch of other thishgs you heard about other people no matter how convinced you were of also which were not necessarily true. one of which was that you said that ambassador sondland met with giuliani. actually, ambassador sondland testified here he had not as ambassador met with giuliani. briefly met him in his lifetime changing his hand and giuliani's statement they had never met either. the problem with no matter how convinced we are, dr. hill, no matter how much we believe we know that what we've heard is true, it is still just what we've heard but so far in this hearing, this series of hearings the oath thing we have is volker saying i spoke to the president and spoke to the ukrainians

neither of which believed that aid was conditioned, neither of which believed that the president was requiring it, and ambassador sondland which said, no one on the planet told him that was the case. that's the sole evidence. i got to tell you, interesting is ambassador sondland did say it's his belief that a meeting with the president was conditioned upon investigations. ambassador volker i think is a man of very significant integrity said that was not the case. even if ambassador sondland is correct, that somebody, dr. hill you testified, again it's hearsay, you don't know, supposedly mulvaney told him that. he didn't testify to that. say somebody beshiides the president told him that you guys want to be the laughing stalk of history to impeach a president because he didn't take a meeting? oh, god, please, undertake that. mr. holmes, i got to tell you. >> is there a question for dr.

hill? >> mr. holmes, in your testimony you said that sondland said he loves your ass, and also said, he'll do anything that you want. mr. holmes, that information had nothing whatsoever to do with the subject matter of any of these hearings. it was anecdotal, extraneous, your interests are protecting ukraine are dubious when you embarrass president zelensky by making those statements. you didn't have to make. who cares ambassador sondland said that? and you know you didn't embarrass ambassador sondland you embarrassed zelensky. you know he was asked this in his country and people are hearing that and totally dubious of you. >> your time is up. yield back. >> thank you both for your service. dr. hill i'd like to talk more in-depth about chief of staff mick mulvaney's role in the

matter of these investigations. you testified they were both involved, sondland, and with a letter said to the ukrainian president may 29th, congratulating him on his inauguration. do you recall that, ma'am? >> i did. yes. >> and towards the end of that letter president trump closed with "i would like to invite you to meet me at the white house in washington, d.c. as soon as we can find a mutually convenience time." dr. hill, was this gratly letter drafted beaux the no-- by the norm normal -- >> the first part was, except the last paragraph. >> you also testified that ambassador sondland told you that he had dictated that line to the president, and that mr. mulvaney, he told mr. mulvaney to add that to the letter's is that correct, ma'am? >> that's correct. >> you said that you were nervous about that. why were you nervous? dr. hill? >> because at this juncture it

become quite apparent the president wasn't very keen on having a meeting with mr. zelensky for all the reasons that we've been trying to lay out today. and we were once upon putting a letter like that, you raised expectation of a, an invitation coming shortly. >> dr. hill, you also testified, ma'am, that ambassador sondland was frequently meeting with mr. mulvaney. mr. giuliani's campaign of lies ultimately led to ambassador yovanovitch being recalled from her post in april 2019. also you testified, ma'am, her removal was pretty disparaging and a turning point for you. explain why, ma'am? >> again, as we've we've all made clear, the ambassador yovanovitch is a person of great integrity. she's one of our finest foreign service officers, career foreign service officers, and being a decision to remove her, to

replace her with a political appointee, again that was perfect lit within the right of the president. sometimes highly advisable, in fact, to emphasize to a country exactly how close the relationship is likely to be to have an appointee who is close to the president, if it's an important relationship. but what was disparaging was all the accusations that were being fired at ambassador yovanovitch leading her to be tweeted including by members of the president's family, we all firmly believe that mr. giuliani and others including the people who were recently indicted, the ukraini ukrainian-american gentlemen had for some reason decided ambassador yovanovitch was a personal problem for them and they decided to engage and the kinds of things we've discussed about, in fact was an easy target as a woman and sorry to hear what's happened to congressman stefanik and this illustrates the point and the

problem that we're dealing with here today. >> certainly. also i was struck by your testimony that you were also the target of false accusations during your time in the trump administration. you testified, ma'am, about receiving hateful calls and being accused of being "a mole in the white house." you testified about death threats and the calls to your home. is that right? >> correct. in 2017. >> sorry you've had to go through all this, ma'am. you don't strike me as a woman who is easily deterred. you're not easily deterred. are you, dr. hill? >> i'm not, no. >> thank you both for your service. i yield back to the chairman. >> thank the gentleman for yielding. another fak check. again, my caution to both of you that representations about what prior witnesses said or you have even said may not be consistent with the facts. this was from ambassador sondland's opening statement. after the zelensky meeting i also met with zelensky's senior aide andre yermak. i don't recall the specifics of our conversation but i believe

the issue of investigations was probably a part of the, that agenda or meeting. now i recognize dr. wentstrom. >> thank you both for being here. in 1998 i voluntarily joined the united states army reserve because i saw our country under attack time and time again. bill clinton was the president. i didn't vote for bill clinton. but he was my commander in chief. it didn't matter that i didn't vote for him. i'm grateful to live in a country that gets to legitimately elect our leaders. and i've been to places where people don't get to. and it's not pretty, and i respect our system and i accept the results that are determined by the american people. i deployed to iraq 2005-2006 as an army surgeon with soldiers from many backgrounds. most important thing was we were all americans. that was first and foremost. in our mission, we treated our

troops, treated the enemy, winning over hearts and minds of people that never knew us, because of their dictator, saddam hussein. who told them we were responsible for all of their problems and that was his narrative. speaking of narratives, dr. hill, i'm sorry. i have to say this. you said based on statements you've heard some in this committee believe russia did not conduct a campaign against our country is false. that's mr. schiff's narrative, where you've heard it. we did a whole report on it. and we agreed that russia has done this since the soviet union. and they've actually gotten better at it. that's a problem. but at the same time, certain ukrainians did work against candidate trump. some with the dnc, and if that's debunked why is it mr. schiff denied dnc operative alexander chalupa from testifying to come forward and debunk it? i ask america, was it good for the country for the dnc and the

clinton campaign to pay chris fer steele to dig up dirt with other foreign service sources? on their political rival? good for america to claim having evidence of the president colluding with russians when he did not? costing the taxpayer millions? and being debunked by special counsel? i'd say the false narrative got kpaut. caught. good for the country and foreigners alike to entrap members of the united states campaign, specifically the trump campaign? sadly i've come to believe through all this some in power do think it's good. think it's okay. now we're here in an impeachment proceedings certainly a right congress has and apparently even with very partisan rules. but i'm curious. this impeachment inquiry was announced by the speaker before the whistle-blower complaint was even out. i'm curious how, why the lawyer for the whistle-blower announced

that the coup to impeach the president -- he announced that right after trump won. that's pretty damning. i know it hurts after losing an election especially as americans. we usually get over it. and i imagine it would hurt even more if you were promised the position and the next administration and lost. and your hopes and your dreams are dashed. you know, i've seen hatred for political reasons. specifically on june 14, 2017 acat a ball field in virginia. and i've seen hatred in war. and i know that hatred blinds people. i've been in war and i've studied war. and coups create division. and it's time for this phase of the publicly announced and proclaimed democrat coup to end. thank you for your service.

thanks for being here, and i yield back. >> could i actually say something? because we've had three -- >> i was going to ask you if you'd like to respond there, but -- i -- i -- gentleman will suspend. dr. hill you may respond. >> i think what doctor winstrom said was powerful about the importance of overcoming hatred and certainly partisan division. and it's unfortunate that congressman turner and ratcliffe both left as well. because i think all of us who came here under legal obligation also felt we had a moral obligation to do so. we came as fact witnesses. when i was referring to questions that i heard it was in the context of the deposition that i gave on october 14th. because i was very worried about the term in which some of the questions were taking. the turn. i understand the point is being made about individuals as you

just said, dr. winstrom and these articles lay out taking different positions in our elections. i don't believe there should be any interference of any kind in our election. i think it was unfair for people to already call the election and to make attacks also on candidate trump and on president trump. and i know that this has put a huge cloud over this presidency and also over our whole democratic system. that's actually why as a non-partisan person and as an expert on russia and an expert on vladimir putin and on the russian security services i wanted to come in to serve the country to try to see if i could help. i heard president trump say he wanted to improve relations with russia. we have to. we can't be in this unending confrontation with russia. we have to find a way to stabilize our relationship and to professionalize that relationship. as well as stop them from doing what they did in 2016 again in

2020. this is really the crux of the issue. that i and others are trying to -- of course you've put across egg consequently. the other matter is related to this inquiry. we're here just to provide what we know and have heard. i understand for many members think may be hearsay. talked about things i heard with my own ears. i understand that ambassador sondland has said a lot of things. i told you what he told me and what others told me. a lot of other people have said ni things to me as well again and also mr. holmes around nd re re what we heard, saw and did. to be of some help to all of you in really making a very momentous stigs ledecision here. we do not make that decision. i do, again, want to underscore what you said here, dr. winstrom, very eloquent and moving about your service, and trying to bring us all together again as americans.

we need to be together again in 2020 so the american people can make a choice about the future and about make their vote in a presidential election without any fear that this is being interfered in by, from any course whatsoever. thank you for making what i think was a very eloquent and heartfelt defense. >> thank you, dr. hill. >> thank you. dr. hill and mr. holmes, thank you both for being fact witnesses. we are here at fact finders, and we appreciate very much your presentations. dr. hill, i want to verify this story. i understand when you were 11 years old there was a schoolboy and were you taking a test. you turned around with your hands snufred out e justified out the fire and proceeded to finish your test.

is that a true story? >> a bit surprise to see that pop up. it is a true story. unfortunate consequences afterwards. my movie gave me a bowl haircut. so for the photograph later in that week i looked like richard iii. >> i think it underscoring the fact that you speak truth. that you are steely, and i truly respect that. let me move to your testimony in your deposition. you had indicated you were deeply troubled by ambassador yovanovitch's, the attacks on her, and you underscored again today that all ambassadors serve at the pleasure of the president and certainly the case of ambassador yovanovitch, she could have just ask edasked-he could have just asked her to come home but it didn't happen. instead a character

assassination went on from 2018 if i'm not mistaken. you say in the most obvious explanation at this point, it has to be said, seemed to be business dealings of individuals who wanted to improve their investment positions inside of ukraine itself. you were then asked, who do you understand was responsible for her removal? and you said, i understand this to be the result of the campaign that mr. giuliani had set in motion in conjunction with people hoop were writing articles and you know, publications that i would have expected better of. also, you know, just the constant drum beat of these accusations that he was making on the television. so -- rudy giuliani was playing fast and furious in ukraine, it would appear. is that correct? >> that's correct. >> and he had to official tanking within the administration. is that correct? >> not that i had been told of. >> and he frequently met with

ukrainian officials to request that they open an investigation? >> i was led to understand, yes. >> you testified that mr. giuliani's involvement was "a massive complication in terms of our engagement with ukraine." >> that's correct. >> would you like to explain that? >> well i think i already laid that out in -- other part of response to some of the questions. we were actually conducting, which, you know, a lot of american people might seem to be a boring, standard bilateral policy towards ukraine pushing them on issues parn in the energy sector more boldly concerned obviously about corruption in the ukraine. trying to help ukraine regain its sovereignty after the attack bice russia. >> how did mr. giuliani's involvement affect? >> we basically worked out of a course of two years and innen conjunction, close conjunction with the embassy in kiev and

interagency agreed action plan. things that in fact colonel vindman and others were working on basically moving forward on the various issues on the list of items. rg prg really rudy giuliani and others didn't care about this. boring for the press and kind of routine everybody moves forward on. >> mr. holmes, you talked about the extraordinary power that russia tries to assert against ukraine. so since president zelensky never got his white house meeting, doesn't that make ukraine look weak and doesn't that benefit russia? >> absolutely. >> all right. so promoting putin's false claim of ukraine intervention into the u.s. election, also benefits russia. doesn't it? >> it does.

>> so when president trump meets privately with vladimir putin at the g-20 summit who does that benefit? >> it doesn't help ukraine t. doesn't help ukraine. by president trump calling ukraine corrupt and not north korea, for instance, does that accrue to russia's benefit? >> again it doesn't help ukraine. >> ausht. i thank yall right. and i yield to you the rest of my time. >> yielding me three seconds. not even i can make uses of three seconds. mr. stewart. >> thank you. dr. hill, mr. holmes thank you for being here. i actually have no questions for you that haven't already been asked or made points that haven't already been made. and i guess i'll just conclude by something i've said before. this impeach apalooza tour finally gums to an end. a year of resistance, two and a half years of absurd accusations against the president of russian

collusion. we've gone from quid pro quo to bribery to extortion. seven weeks of hearings, 16 secret closed door sessions. 12 public hearings now of which you are the last. hundreds of hours of testimony. and i really think for those who hate the president they haven't changed their minds, but a lot of americans look at this and think, is that it? really? you're going to impeach and remove a president for this? now, like i said, if you don't like the president you've already come to that conclusion. many people wanted this three years ago. but for a lot of americans they really look to that and they can see this. no evidence, zero evidence, of any bribery. zero evidence of extortion. zero evidence firsthand of any quid pro quo. and yet impeachment is almost inevitable. and why? because leadership of this committee has been unfair and dishonest. i know we hear these crocodile tears from someone of my

colleagues heartbroken, because they finally have to impeach this president, and we know that's absurd. there's no heart broken. there's no prayerful tears over this. they're giddy over this and there's not a person in the country who doesn't know that. everyone know kwhas they'what's going to do next. impeach the president and send it on to the senate. but that's the. >> news. that's good news. we've all been to a concert's the warm-up band and then the main act. what we've seen here is a warm-up band. this is kind of like the sioux city crooners, a band no one's ever heard of, but the warm-up band is over and now we go on to the main event, the u.s. senate and in the u.s. senate there won't be secret testimony. there's not going to be dishonest leadership for a chairman who refuses to let us ask appropriate questions or deny a defense. where in the world, where in the country, do you have a trial

where the prosecutiecution pres their case and the defense isn't able to? we'll finally be able to seek the truth. talking to colleagues in senate. these are witnesses you need to call and questions you need to ask. first, you have to hear from the whistle-blower. now, they can choose to do that in closed session if they want. i leave it up to them, but you can't initiate an impeachment of the president of the united states and not have to answer some questions. who did he get his information from? did he have the classification or clearances to get that information? what's his relationship with vice president biden? who has he shared that information with including some members of the committee here? i think our own chairman needs to be called. what interactions did he or his staff have with the whistle-blower? did they help to coordinate or in any yeah facilitate the complaint? did he coordinate and

facilitatedown what about hunter biden? how did he get his job? how did, what did he do to earn his salary? the key to this, look, if he goes there and makes money noxioknock yourself out. i don't care. i want to know did he have conversations with government officials and was government policy changed? at a particularly high level because of some of those. devon archer, former board member from barisma. alexandria chalupa, admitted she presented anti-trump information to the dnc and to hillary clinton. niemi ore, lepped create the ridiculous steele dossier. and i would like to remind us what i said yesterday. the american people expect a lot in politics and understand the tussle, the fight, the debate, but they expect basic fairness also and these proceedings have been anything but fair. the senate has an turopportunito fix that. i am confident they will and look forward to them completing the job that we could have done

here. with that, i yield back. >> mr. quigley. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you both for being here. dr. hill when we last left july 10th, i believe ambassador bolton said to you, you go and tell eisenberg that i am not part of whatever drug deal sondland and mulvaney are cooking up on this. you go tell him what you heard and what i said. is that correct? >> that's correct, yes. >> and john eisenberg, chief lawyer for the fasch security council? >> he is. >> you went to see him. >> i did. >> what did you say to him that day. >> i basically gave him the same summary i gave you on the 10th july. >> of what took place. >> correct. including details i shared with you as well, the sequencing and what transpired as i was walking in. >> one or two meetings with him? about that? >> he didn't have a great deal of time on the 10th.

i gave him the quick summary and we agreed that we would meet again on the 11th on july 11th the flex day. also i wanted to bring in with me my colleague willing griffith, seethier director of energy sittinging with me on the sofa for the first portion of the meeting. also i suggested that he speak to colonel vindman, separately as well, because colonel vindman was in the room when i arrived and had been engaged in discussion as i got there. because as i got into the room they were clearly in the course -- sorry with the microphone, clearly in the course of conversation and i thought it was important for john eisenberg to hear from colonel vindman himself or his recollections of the meeting what they were. >> did you raise concerns that ambassador bolton had raised to you to mr. eisenberg? >> i certainly did. the first thing i related was exactly and precisely what ambassador bolton had asked me to. >> in the course of those two meetings what was mr. eisenberg the response?

>> mr. eisenberg took it all very seriously. he said for example, that colonel vindman should feel free, he said this to me, go and bring any concerns to him about these meetings. similarly, myself and any others, subsequent follow-up in terms of these issued raised against withly in parties in the future. >> he didn't say anything in response about how he took that meeting? how he would describe it or if he had, did he raise any concerns about what you told him that took place? >> no, he did not. he's listened carefully to all the information we imparted. >> now, back to that july 10th meeting. the second meeting that's in the ward room. correct? >> correct. >> who's in that meeting besides yourself? the two ukrainians? >> mr. danyluk, mr. yermak, mr. yermak's aide, ambassador sondland and a couple people i

think from the state department. wondered if one of secretary perry's group was there too. i honestly cannot remember. >> ambassador volker was there? >> he was but didn't actually speak very much dpuring that meeting and i heard his deposition and i read his deposition where he didn't really recall that encounter. again, he didn't really speak. ambassador sondland was doing most of the speaking. >> and i think you described it as, you came in, ambassador sondland was talking about how he had agreement with chief of staff mulvaney for a meeting with the ukrainians if they were going forward with the investigations. while this was taking place and afterwards, how were the ukrainians reacting to what was being said? >> at the time mr. yermak was quite impassive. he had an aide with him i said and his aide was sitting next to him in the original meeting with ambassador bolton, and was from time to time actually on this side, whispering to him. i wasn't sure myself because i

hadn't met him before, yermak, how good his english was and wasn't sure, perhaps he might be able to reflect on that, mr. hom m m -- holmes having points of clarification from the aide? i wasn't entirely sure if he was following all the back and forth. mr. danyluk looked quite alarm and speaks very good english. more alarmed about a back and forth with ambassador sondland about the meeting. very much wanted the ple-of-mee and here are u.s. officials arguing about the meeting in front of him and that was obviously very uncomfortable for him. >> did you have follow-up to that, sir? >> add that danyluk speaks perfect english and yermak can get by in meetings but often asks for clarifications. >> given the time i yield back. >> ms. stefanik, before i turn to witnesses to my democrat

colleagues not a single republican member of this committee said russia did not meddle in 20916 elections. as ranking member stated we published a report focused on russian active measures in 2016 with policy recommendations how we would strengthen our cyber resiliency and election security to counter russia. i myself have worked with members of this very committee on this issue, but also on the house armed services committee. to have our democratic colleagues say these untruthful statements just wreaks of political desperation in their continued obsession to manipulate main stream media coverage. good news, the american people understand that this has been a partisan process from the start. the democratic coordination with the whistle-blower, the incessant and astounding leaks. the unprecedented closed door process, closed to majority of memberance, closed to the press, closed to the people. starting this inquiry without a vote and finally forced to take a vote the vote was with bipartisan opposition. now with four minutes left i turn to our two witnesses.

thank you both for your service, dr. hill for your comments on the personal attacks. i wanted to ask you each fact based questions. dr. hill, you testified that you handed over your duties on the nsc to tim morrison on july 15th and that you physically left the white house july 19th. correct? >> that is correct, yes. >> so that means that by the time there was the july 25th call with president trump and president zelensky you were no longer on the nsc. correct? >> actually i was still technically on the payroll of the nsc until end of august, august 30th of 2019. but i was not physically in the building and i had handed over my duties to mr. morrison. >> and you were not on the call? >> i was not on the call. absolutely correct. >> and also correct you did not participate in the preparation of talking points or the specific coordination of setting up the call? >> not for that call, but let me just say for the record that there had been a long anticipation eventually there would be a call. so there was a call package that

was prepared in advance. i just cannot say how much of that call package is perhaps been prepared since, for example, the inauguration of president zelensky was then used as the basic material for that call. so i did take part in the preparation of that standard call package but did not take part in any preparation for the specific call on july 25th. >> the first time you actually read the transcript of the call was when it was released to the public? >> correct. >> mr. holmes, i a wanted to turn to you. good to see you again. thank you for mentioning the bipartisan delegation i led on behalf of the armed house services commit with ply friend representative anthony brown from maryland. we did have an extensionally informative visit highlighting the bipartisan congressional support for ukraine in particular the importance of countering russian aggression. and we discussed in the briefings at the embassy the importance of defensive lethal aid in the form of javelins, when you stated today is "an

important strategic deterrent to russia." i just want to highlight on the record, i know it's been asked, javelins provided by the trump administration and not the obama administration. correct? >> correct. and we discussed all security assistance fought just javelins. >> i strongly support. thank you for being host. dr. hill, the process of schedules a meeting between president zelensky and president trump. you testified that there was hesitancy to schedule this meeting until after the ukrainian parliamentary elections. correct? >> that is correct, yes. >> because there was speculation in all analytical circles both in ukraine and outside the ukraine that zelensky might not be able to get the majority he needed to form a cabinet. correct? >> that is correct. >> also you testified that another aspect of the nsc's hesitancy to schedule this meeting was based on broader concerns related to zelensky's ability to implement

anti-corruption reforms and this was in specific relation to ukrainian ole grasigarchs basic owner of the tv company mr. zelensky's program was part of's correct? >> that is correct. >> just distilling this down to the key facts, i wanted to ask both of you, three key questions. so the fact of the matter is ukraine ultimately did receive the aid. correct? mr. holmes? >> ultimately. >> dr. hill? >> correct, ultimately. >> and there was no investigation into the bidens. correct? mr. holmes? >> did not open a new investigation on the bidens. >> correct. dr. hill? >> correct. >> and there was, in fact, a et mooing between president trump and president zelensky ultimately at the u.n.? is that correct? >> the president invited zelensky to the oval office, at a date undetermined that has not yet happened. >> the meeting at the u.n. president trump and president

slvr zelensky met at the u.n.? >> they did but flot in the oval office. >> they did. >> thank you. i yield back. >> mr. swalwell. >> dr. hill, yesterday i think a lot of americans were scratching their heads as ambassador sondland testified that on september 9 he calms the president of the united states and just says broadly, what do you want from ukraine? and the president says, there's no quid pro quo. there's no quid pro quo. like being pulled over forespeeding and asked, do you know how fast you're going and saying, i didn't rob the bank. i didn't rob the bank. but your testimony today is that on july 10 of this year, you told one. president's lawyers that you had concerns that a white house meeting was linked to investigations. is that right? >> that's correct. based on what ambassador sondland said in the ward room. >> as early as july 10 the president's lawyers had knowledge that there was at least concern by a president's

employee about a linkage. is that right? >> that's correct. >> dr. hill, just like you, we are trying to account for all the presidents men. you had that same concern when you saw mr. sondland's emails and saw people who were outside the channels that you had been working on. so i want to walk you through something you told us earlier. you said that you have evidence that as recently as this year president trump believes someone named kash was the ukraine director. right? >> no the really evidence. i want to be very clear about this. i was asked a question about this in my deposition. i did not raise it, to be honest, i was surprised i was asked the question. >> but you heard that name kash. right? >> i did but, geagain in passin and i explained the circumstances in which it came up, but i was asked a question in the course of my deposition about this. >> and the only person at the time who worked at national security council was kash patel, right? >> the only person i could think of. >> kash patel prior to working

for the national security council from 2017 to 2018 worked for ranking member nunes. right? >> i actually only found that out after the fact. i wondered why i was asked about him so i went and looked this up. >> dr. hill, you cautioned us on the dangers of members of this committee perhaps peddling any ukrainian conspiracy theories that could benefit russia and i want to ask you if you heard the name lev parnas of ukraine, someone in this investigation who was influencing president trump and rudy giuliani about some of the debunked conspiracy theories referenced earlier? >> i heard his name. >> and are you aware he was indicted october 10 for making foreign contributions to republicans in u.s. elections? >> aware of those reports, yes. >> are you aware of yesterday's daily beast story reporting the indicted ukrainian lev parnas has been working with ranking member devin nunes on mr. nunes' overseas investigation? >> i'm not aware of that. >> mr. chairman i ask unanimous

consent to put in the record the daily beast story from yesterday. first two paragraphs reading, lev parnas indicted associate of rudy giuliani helped arrange meetings and calls in europe for rep devan nunes 2018 told the daily beast. and derek hartley participated in the meetings the lawyer said arranged to help nunes' investigative work. mcmahon didn't specify what those investigations entailed. >> without objection. >> you have been falsely accused by the ranking member being a quote/unquote fact witness. now if this story is correct, the ranking member may have actually been projecting and, in fact, he may be the fact witness working with indicted individuals around our inve investigati investigation, but i want to go to what this is really all about. first, it's your credibility,

mr. holmes, and can you tell us and confirm that's 2014 you received the william ripkin destructive consent award from the obama administration state dpe department. >> yes, sir. >> for what you brought up and thank you for speaking up in the way you did. >> yes, sir. >> and we're working on what you did in ukraine. look at the picture. who do you see in the foreground of that photo? >> president zelensky. >> that's a photograph may 2019 where newly elected president zelensky visited the region in eastern ukraine his first visit to the front lines of donbass as president. can you just tell taxpaying americans why it's so important that our hard-earned tax paying dollars helped president zelensky and the men standing beside him fight against russia in this hot war?

>> absolutely, sir. president zelensky was elected on overwhelming majority to defend ukrainian interests. at a time ukrainians are defending their sovereignty and territory integrity on ukrainian soil from rush-backed soldiers who are attacking them. as i said, 14,000 ukrainian lives lost in the war so far i mention add few this week already. and this is a hot war. this is not a frozen conflict. people are shooting each other and dies, injured every single week, and despite the ongoing war they're still trying to pursue peace. president zelensky even now trying to pursue a summit meetinging with president putin in order to try to bring this war to a conclusion so they can move on with all of the difficult things they need to do in terms of kbildi inbuilding ty and rebuilding, whatnot. add one other thing, sir, if i

may. mr. turner suggested earlier that somehow embarrassed president zelensky. i have the deepest respect for president zelensky. this is a guy, this is a guy of jewish background poefrt soviet industrial suburb of southern ukraine who made himself one of the most popular entertainers in the country and somehow got elected president, and he's not going to miss that opportunity. this is a ukrainian patriot. this is a tough guy. frankly, he withstood a lot of pressure for a very long time. and he didn't give that interview. i have the deepest respect for him. ukrainian people also, i have deepest respect for him, they've chosen him to help deliver the full measure of promise of their revolution of dignity and i think he merits all our respect. >> thank you. i ask unanimous consent to enter what's on the screen into the record. >> without objection. mr. president hurd. >> thank you. mr. holmes, for your years of service to this countries i

appreciate y'all being here today. throughout this process i have said that i want to learn the facts so we can get to the truth. so why are we here? because of two things that occurred during the president's july 25th phone call with ukrainian president zelensky. the use of the phrase "do us a favor, though." in reference to the 2016 presidential election, and the mention of the word "biden." i believe both statements were inappropriate, misguided foreign policy, and certainly not how the executive current or in the future should handle such a call. over the course of these hearings the american people learned about a series of events that in my view have undermined our national security and undercut ukraine, a key partner on the front lines against russian aggression. we've heard of u.s. officials carrying uncoordinated confusing and conflicting messages that created doubt and uncertainty in kyiv at a time which they knew reformist administration had just taken office and ready to

fight krungs and wocorruption a us. i disagree with this sort of bungling foreign policy. through the hearings many of my cleepgs unwittingly undermined the ukrainian government suggesting it is subservient to the united states and without the united states they wouldn't be able to function. the ukrainians as you stated, mr. holmes, is in a hot war with russia and they are holding their own. we could benefit from the experience of ukrainians not the other way around. well i thought the intelligence committee would actually be engaged in oversight of the intelligence and national security communities, unfortunately we are not. we're here talking about one of the most serious constitutional duty wes have as members of congress the impeachment and removal of a president of the united states. over the past weeks we've learned a few things. the official july 25th call has many different opinions whether the call was concerning or not

and just because vice president biden running for president does not mean corruption related to barisma, ukraine's largest company and american ties are not concerning. we've not heard from rudy giuliani or hunter biden. i'd like to know more about both of their activities why they talked to whom and to whom. we haven't heard particular from the whistle-blower, something that can occur in the closed setting without violating his or her identity. we need levels of coordination that happened prior to his or her submission of the complaint. the past few weeks and even today reiterated in 2017 the trump administration made the decision to provide lethal defensive aid to ukraine after the obama administration refused. ukraine receiving ought security assistance directed by congress. pret zelensky has undertaken significant anti-corruption efforts including eliminating

parliamentary for prosecution and mr. holmes under president zelensky's leader shship we've n progress ending the russian occupation in ukraine. where's does it leave us? an impeachab ablable offense she overwhelmingly clear and unambiguous and not taken light lie. i've not heard the president committed bribery or extortion also that this means supporting foreign policy choices we have been hearing about over the last few weeks. paraphrase tim morrison in the testimony this week every day the national conversation on ukraine is focused on impeachment not the conflict in donbass, the need for reforms in ukraine's economy and government, a day when we are not focused on shared national security interests with kyiv. i hope we won't let this very partisan process keep us from agreeing how a free and

prosperous ukraine is important to the security of ukrainian people, the united states of america and the rest of the world. mr. chairman before i yield back my time, a statement for the record that has this committee been given proper notice required by house rule 11 that a business meeting was to follow last night's hearing and mr. conaway point of order properly recognized i would have voted no on the committee's first nation to table during last night's impromptu meeting and yield back remaining time. >> thank you for your testimony today both of you. i want to say, shouldn't go unmentioned, that the characterization just a few minutes ago by one of my republican colleagues of this proceeding, i think was vile, irresponsible and dangerous. and i want to remind us why we're here. because somebody in government a

whistle-blower felt it was important enough to get other people in government's attention that the president may have commit add wrong act. we have now heard and seen substantial evidence that the president in fact tried to trade a political favor for official government resources. the most damning words come from no one else but the president himself. on that phone call with the ukrainian president. where he asked for a favor, he mentions investigations, he mentions the bidens, and barisma. however, as mr. holmes has testified, mr. holmes also overheard the president speaking to his hand-picked ambassador, ambassador sondland, about investigations. mr. holmes has also said that in the office everybody knew or many people knew, at least, that there was an, the president wanted investigation of the bidens. nipgs, although mick mulvaney and rudy giuliani have not come before this committee, mick

mulvaney and rudy giuliani have spoken publicly on the issue of investigations. mick mulvaney, the president's chief of staff, the person who usually works with the president the most day in and day out went in front of the white house press corps and basically admitted that an investigation had something to do with holding of the aid and at-odmitted this process was politicized. rudy giuliani the president's personal lawyer also essentially admitted that these investigations were at issue. he said that he thinks he did nothing wrong, because we was working at the direction of the president. so we have seen substantial evidence and heard substantial evidence of wrongdoing by the president of the united states. and this congress will have to continue to take up this very important issue to the american people. my concern today is also i feel as though the cancer of wrongdoing may have spread

beyond the president and into others in the executive branch. i want to ask you a few questions about that. before i do, i'd like chairman to enter two articles into the record if i could. one of them headlined "after boost from perry backers got huge gas deal in ukraine." the other one titled ""wall street journal" federal prosecutors probe giuliani's lynches to ukrainian energy projects." mr. holmes -- >> thank you, chairman. >> so moved. >> thank you. you indicated secretary perry in ukraine had private meetings with ukrainians. before those private meetings in a meetinging with others including yourself, i believe, he presented a list of american advisors for the ukraine energy sector. do you know who was on that list? >> sir, i didn't see the names on the list myself. >> do you know if alex cranberg

and michael blazer were on that list? >> i have since heard that michael blazer's on the list. >> was it, what it before secretary perry did this, we also heard in testimony before that ambassador sondland also had a private meeting with somebody. how unusual was it before these guys showed up for folks, diplomats so to speak, or u.s. government officials to have private meetings where they insist that nobody else be in the room? >> very rare, almost never. >> okay. and i want to ask you also -- about the precedent that we set both of you. i know you're here as fact witnesses but also public servants for this country. the precedent that this congress would set putting aside donald trump for a second -- if the congress allows a president of

the united states now or later to ask a foreign government, head of state, to investigate a political rival, what precedent does the that set for american diplomacy, for the safety of americans overseas, and for the future of our country? >> it's a very bad precedent. >> very bad precedent, and going forward, if that were ever the case i would raise objections. >> thank you both. i yield back. >> mr. ratcliffe. >> and chair return the favor recognize my, yield to my colleague congressman conaway. >> thank you, mr. chairman. dr. hill, i don't think there's a lot of questions that one of putin's primary objectives within the united states is to hone in unrest with our nation, to cause us to have lost confidence in our elections, results of elections, those kind of things. there is tension, though in

conducting our businesses the way we should and playing into putin's hands. as an example, while i disagree with what we're doing here today, it's under our constitution and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle believe they are functioning under that constitution. these hearings, this issue is very divisive within our country and the continuing to push that way. i think that plays into putin's hands inadvertently. may be nothing we can do about that but there are certain things we could do as individuals that wouldn't play into his hands. one is the loser in the 2016 election has for three years continued to argue that because she won the popular vote, she and her friends, won the popular vote smouf tomehow the election inappropriate, shouldn't trust it and the electoral resounding shouldn't be trusted. into the narrative he would like for us that our elections are somehow rigged and shouldn't be trusted? >> yes, it does.

>> so the r.t., putin's, would you agree the r.t. is putin's propaganda machine here in the united states? >> i agree, yes. >> so is it appropriate for the r.t. to be used to affect public policy in our nation? as an example, a long series of advertisements or programs on r.t. going against fracking that saying it's bad and trying to affect public policy in the united states? is that appropriate use, or should american be pay attention to that? >> in the fact that americans sould pay attention to r.t. and the outlets used to propagate this information pshgs abo, abs. i didn't understand. >> didn't away with fracking, play into strengthening putins hand -- >> correct.

i sat next to vladimir putin in a conference in which he made precisely that point. first time he actually done so to a group of american journalist ares and experts who were brought to something called a discussion club. he started in 2 ed ied in 2011 saw american fracking as a great threat to russian interests, struck by how much he stressed this issue and since 2011, since that particular juncture putin made a big deal of this. >> so that americans pay attention to r.t. and misguided by the propaganda is not in the nation's best interests. mr. holmes, in your role, you're privileged to a lot of stuff. official things, and things that are best kept between you and the official folks that you deal with. is there an expectation among the principles that you represent that you will exercise some discretion in what you share with others about what goes on? >> yes, sir. >> in your public -- in your deposition you made the -- first

off, had a hard time pinning down the number of people you've actually had this conversation with about the conversation you overheard. now, our ambassador had no expectation, privacy, you know, blustering around, whatever is done, but couldn't figure how many people you actually shared that information with, and i would argue that information is unflattering to the president, unflattering to the ambassador and that your discretion is, you know, at odds here. your testimony, deposition said you shared that with folks you thought would find it interesting. i'd argue everybody in the back row would find it interesting but i don't know it's necessary criterion. on a go-forward basis can you articulate in the future when privileged to certain circumstances that would be embarrassing to the principal, if it's official, you share with the ambassador, fine, but folks outside the embassy or within the embassy without a need to know you wouldn't reveal to them with your recounting of those

instances? >> sir, i think sondland showed discretion having that discussion. >> well. >> second thing is i -- >> allow the witness to answer. >> let me clarify the question. >> mr. holmes -- >> excuse me. >> lem himself answer. >> it's your question. >> exactly right and i can to clarify my question to get the answer and hopeful to get it in a few more seconds from the chairman. working hard to do irritate him but gailed again. the question is of you, mr. holmes, your discretion. gordon sondland did not expect privacy. got that. did not respect. you've been in a room 17 years where people trust when whatever went on in the room and left you kept it to official channels and didn't share all that information with folk. asking you to argue on your own behalf that interesting is not some soar of the try therrien to use when you share information from meetings. simple straightforward question.

>> sir, i shared the information i needed to share with the right people who needed to know it. i did not share any information that people didn't need to know. >> but you did use the word interesting. >> your time -- >> interesting, i would hate to think what i brought before this, this process, i shouldn't have done that, i've come here because you subpoenaed me to share what i know and i've done that. >> and cut off when talking about mr. sondland's indiscreti indiscretion. did you want to finish that answer? >> chairman, that's patently unfair. >> you bring this entire -- it's fair mr. conaway not to interrupt the witness. >> you're willing to interrupt me and my five minutes. the only person with unlimited time. absolute unlimited time and abused that power and continue to do that. >> by the way, the gentleman will cease. allow the witnesses to answer the question even if those asking the question don't want to hear the answer. mr. -- >> does that apply to you as well? >> mr. holmes, much made about

the use of regular and irregular foreign or diplomatic challenge. my reading of history is that american presidents have on occasion used irregular challenge. agree? >> yes, sir. >> generally speaking how those irregular channels closely coordinated with the regular ones or at least in furtherance of american foreign policy and our national security interests. would you agree? >> yes, sir. >> would you believe mr. giuliarudy giulia giuliani's efforts were in this way? >> no, they weren't. >> in furtherance of the american poemses as you understood it? >> no, sir. >> mr. holmes, if left unchecked, do you think that russia would either by means are force or other maligned means subjugate ukraine, attempt to render it a client state if not occupy it? >> absolutely, sir. it's been said that without ukraine russia's just a country,

with it, it's an empire. >> you know, i feel like i've been treated to a gatlin gun fire of myth propagation over the last couple of weeks, and it reminds me of that old expression about the big lie, if you tell it often enough, and keep repeating it, people will come to believe it. i think we've been subjected to some of that. here's a sample. the president didn't solicit campaign assistant from ukraine. in a clear violation of federal law. yes, he did. the president didn't withhold vital military assistance in furtherance of a subjective to obtain that campaign assistance. yes, he did. rudy giuliani was acting, just on his own, kind of as a rogue. no, he wasn't. that all this is business as usual. this happens all the time, and

stems from a principled interest. no, it isn't. and no, it wasn't. and that it's okay to attack patriotic diplomats in public service if they stand in your way and have the courage to speak out. and no, it isn't. those are just some of the big lies but here's the big truth -- the president did it. he did it. we all just came from the floor, and it's a majestic chamber. in the front of the chamber are two portraits, on the left looking forward, my favorite president, george washington. and on the right is the marques de lafayette who came to this country to help us stand up our fledgling democracy. here's another dig truth -- without his help, we probably

never would have gotten off the ground. and that assistance from many other countries, who are helping us to create something that had never been created before. it was an audacious idea, this notion of, of a democracy of self-governance, of freedoms, such as speech and press and religion and expression, and assembly, and most of all that it would be rooted in the premise of the rule of law. not monarchs. not military strongmen, but the rule of law. others helped us to get here. and we wouldn't be here without them. and i frankly feel like we're almost in a little bit of a pay it forward moment. so when the president did it, he put at risk the security of ukraine.

a strategic ally and a nascent democracy with their masses yearning to breathe free. six years ago this day when their government said we're not going to sign that memorandum of agreement with the european union, rose up and took to the streets, because he wanted, frankly, what we have. and when the president did it, he put our own national security at risk. but what he did most importantly was put at risk that idea that makes us exceptional, because i do believe america's truly exceptional. we are a country rooted in something that nobody has ever tried before. rule of law. he put that at risk. when he did what he did. the president did it. and the only question that remains is, what will we do?

i yield back, mr. chairman. >> mr. jordan. >> thank you, mr. chairman. dr. hill, during your deposition i asked you was christopher steele's dossier a rabbit hole? do you remember the answer you gave to that question? >> yes. i thought it was a rabbit hole. >> also you said a couple pages later in the deposition or in the transcript i have here of your deposition that you thought he got played. is that fair? >> that is fair, yes. >> i was struck by a number of things said in your statement. a number right on the target and one on page 7 you said this, president putin and the russian security services weaponized ltz our other political opposition research, and that is exactly what happened in 2016. exactly what happened. you calmed it. you knew it. you saw it. the dnc hired perkins couey who hired vision gps who hired christopher steele who talked to

russians, who gave him a bunch of dirt, a bunch of national enquirer garbage he guyed in a do dossier and our fbi used it as part of their investigation they hoped in july 2016 spied on two americans associated with the president's campaign. mip guess, probably never happened in american history and exactly what dr. hill talked about hanned in 2016. exactly what she talked about. for ten months, jim comey and his team did an investigation and after ten months they had nothing. because we deposed mr. comey, and he told us, after ten months, we didn't have a thing. that didn't matter. that didn't matter. we got the mueller investigation. 32 million dollars, 19 lawyers, 40 fbi agents, 500 search warrants, 2,800 subpoenas and they came back this spring and

what did they tell us? no collusion, no conspiracy, no coordination. the guys on the other side don't care. they don't care. they're doing what dr. hill said a number of important things in her opening statement. they're doing exactly what dr. hill talked about. the impact of a successful 2016 russian campaign remains evident today. our nation is being torn apart. torn apart. i've never seen it this divided and it is not healthy forks our culture, our country for our nation but that's what these guys are doing. no conspiracy, no coordination, no collusion, but they don't care. now this. this whole impeachment thing as the witness said yesterday, the witness said yesterday, without an announcement from zelensky about an investigation there weren't going to get a call with the president, weren't getting a meeting with the president or aid from the united states. guess what?

ukraine, they got the call. they got the meeting. and they got the money, and there was never an announcement of any type of investigation. this is, but they don't care. they're going to move forward. there's going to be some report, accepted -- i assume something to the judiciary committee, and the process will go forward, a trial in the senate, all based on some anonymous whistle-blower who came forward with no firsthand knowledge, biased against the president, worked with joe biden. now all of this. now all of this. this is -- dr. hill's right. she said it. we got to stop this. but they're not going to, and they're doing it all 11.5 months before the next election and i think maybe the most telling thing is what the speaker of the house said sunday. speaker of the house said sunday, this is scary. speaker of the house said sunday, national -- sunday morning tv show, she said the president is an impostor.

the guy that 63 million people voted for won an he electoral land slooid calmed the president of the united states an impostor. sad. is sad what the country's going through. i wish it would stop. unfortunately i don't think it is. mr. chairman, i yield back. >> mr. welch. >> i want to use my time to speak directly to my colleagues and to the american people. today's witnesses and the ones we've been politicrivileged to over the last few weeks provided and invaluable service to our country. not just in all of your careers but in having the courage arnold the patriotism to share your facts with the american people. and you do so at considerable risk to yourself, but have clearly stepped forward for the simple fact you believe it's your duty. in all your testimony rea firms

a fact. president trump kigsd conditioned our national security on getting a value benefit from ukraine. he wanted ukraine's new president to create ethical questions about joe biden by publicly announcing investigations and to pressure president zelensky to take that action that would benefit his personal political interests he withheld vital military aid to ukraine and refused to meet with president zelensky in the oval office. as we heard from mr. holmes and dr. hill today that meeting was extraordinarily important to ukraine, and extraordinarily important in sending a message to russia about unyielding support. the witnesses have made it absolutely clear what the president did. and it's equally clear that president trump has launched e cover-up and disinformation campaign to hide this abuse of power from the american people.

that's why the administration refuses to provide documents to this committee. it's why the white house has taken the unprecedented position that senior officials could ignore congressional subpoenas and refuse to testify. that's why acting chief of staff mulvaney, secretary of state pompeo and others have not testified. now the president and even some members of this committee are pretending this is normal. it is not. must never be. no other president has betrayed his office like this by putting his own small political interest above our national interest and our national security. you know, i asked some of our witnesses what would happen in any american city or town if the mayor stopped funding the police department and until the police of chief launched investigation into the mayor's political rival? or a governor or member of congress did that? the answer was clear.

it would be wrong it would be illegal and it wouldn't be tolerated. it would violate the most basic trust we have in public officials. if it happened with a military commander, a court marshal would follow, happened with a corporation, a ceo would be fired. we all know this kind of conduct is wrong but the president continues to say it isn't. says it's perfect and would do it again tomorrow. the same rules apply to mayors, governors, members of congress, ceos and everyone else in america. they apply to the president, too. whether you're a republican or a democrat, you like msnbc or fox, i think every american believes in one of our nation's founding principles, no person is above the law. not even the president. july 24 director mueller testified about russian state-sponsored systematic interference in our 2016 election. he expressed apprehension this could become the new normal. the day after, on july 25th,

president trump spoke to president zelensky and asked a favor. that favor was that ukraine interfere in our 2020 election. if we allow this to stand, to become the new normal, it will be the standard for all future presidents. in good conscience, none of us can do that. this conduct corrupts our democracy, it corrupts how our country conducts foreign policy, it threatens our national security and the secury of all americans. and. is in my view a clear betrayal of the president's oath of office. i yield back. >> mr. maloney? >> mr. chairman, two quick housekeeping matters asking consent to ender an abc news story entitled 70% of americans

say trump's actioning tied to ukraine were wrong, dated november 18, 2019. >> without objection. >> also unanimous consent to enter into the record a new yorker story entitled invention of the conspiracy theory on biden and ukraine how a conservative dark money group targeted hillary clinton spread the discredited story that may lead to donald trump's impea impeachment. >> without objection. >> good afternoon. thank you for being here. dr. hill, first of all i thought it was epic mansplaining forced endure by my colleague mr. turner and i want you to know some of us think it was inappropriate but appreciate your forbearance. let me ask you something. i'm fascinated by this meeting two meetings really, on july 10th. you have the meeting in mr. bolton the office, sondland said this thing about investigations, bolton ends the meeting.

photo. a follow-on meeting in the ward room and you get there a little late and vindman is talking to sondland and they're all going at it about sondland's desire to assert that the meeting's gob to happen. it there's these investigations. sum and substance what's going on? >> absolutely right. yes. >> what i want to understand is, is this isn't a policy disagreement. right? >> no. that's not, thets trect. >> that's correct. >> nots purely a proposal disagreement either, right? >> i'm sorry, yes, it's not correct. >> neither policy nor is it procedure that's bothering you or for that matter the national security advisers mr. bolton, right? >> right. >> not why he sent you down there to see how the meeting's going. >> correct. >> in fact, instructs you to go to the lawyer. ever been instructed to go report something to the nsc lawyer before?

>> that was the first time. i've self-instructed a couple times but the first time i had been instructed to go. >> and why did he send you to report this to the lawyer? >> well, he clearly wanted to have himself on the record as not being part of what was basically an agreement to have a meeting in return for investigations. and he wanted to make sure that i and colonel vindman were also not part of this as well. remember, there's a call to this about not get involved in domestic politics. >> i understand. did you concur with this concern that mr. bolton had? >> i did. because july 10th is really the first time that it crystallized for me there was basically a different channel going on here. >> and i think you -- >> a policy channel and a domestic policy channel and we're not in that part of are the channel. >> you described it a political errand doing national security policy is how you distinguish

those two channels, fair? >> right. >> is it fair to say that you felt it was improper what was occurring by mr. sondland in the ward room? >> it was improper and inappropria inappropriate. we said that in the time in realtime. >> and -- and here's my point. if -- if it was improper, and -- and you went so far as to report this to the lawyers, what was the nature of your disagreement with mr. sondland? who has come here and said he had no idea that barisma meant bidens until much, much later than july 10th? and we know he and ambassador volker amends statements for the ukraine january presideian pres

it, sent them out into the hallway, at some point did he ask, talking about investigation of corruption generally what are you getting so worried about? >> he didn't put it in that way and i think from listening to him and his depositions and in what i've read and what he deposed, he made it very clear he was surprised that we had some kind of objection. you may remember there in his deposition when he was here he actually didn't remember the meeting the same way. >> i thought you said it was pretty obvious to you -- excuse me. >> it was obvious to me, kreshgt. >> obvious to you that b barism meant bidens? >> it was. >> treefrted th etreated that a understand. is it credible mr. sondland was completely in the dark about this all summer? you had an argument about it. >> wasn't critical to me at all he was oblivious. not credible he was oblivious.

he didn't say bidens he said barisma. 2016, i took to mean elections as well as barisma. >> thank you both for your appearance here today. yield back, mr. chairman. >> ms. demings. >> thank you so much, dr. hill, and mr. holmes, for your service. i have no doubt after today that we are a better nation because of it. we all know by now that isn't july of this year president trump sent an order to the office of management and budget that congressionally approved military aid to ukraine be put on hold. both of you expressed that ukraine is the front, the first line of defense against russian aggression, and expansion into europe. that russia's priority is to undermine the united states. is that right dr. hill? >> that's correct. >> would you agree with that, mr. holmes?

>> yes. >> dr. hill, in your professional opinion, is it in the national security interest of the united states to support ukraine with the much talked about military aid? >> yes. >> mr. holmes? >> yes. >> we've already said it several times today, and you've already testified that ukraine is in war right now with russia. isn't it true, mr. holmes, that even though the security assistance was eventually delivered to ukraine, the fact that it was delayed to a country that is actively in war, a signal to russia that perhaps the bond between ukraine and the united states was weakening? >> absolutely -- absolutely. >> and even the appearance that the u.s./ukraine bond is shaky,

could embolden russia to act in an even more aggressive way? >> that's correct. >> you also testified that it was, and i quote, the unanimous view of the ukraine policy community that the aid should be released, because supporting ukraine is in our national security interests. dr. hill, why do you believe that the entire ukraine policy community were unanimously in agreement? >> well, we've had this experience before. i just want you to indulge me for a moment. in 2008, russia also attacked the country of georgia. i was the national intelligence officer at that particular juncture and we had warned in multiple documents to the highest levels of government that we believed that there was a real risk of a conflict between georgia and russia, and

in fact we also believed at that point that russia might attack ukraine. this was in 2008 which both georgia and ukraine sought a membership action plan in nato, and russia threatened them openly that if they proceeded with their requests for nato membership, there would be consequences. in the wake of the attack on georgia, president putin made it clear to the president of georgia, related to me at the highest levels of the georgian government, that putin had said directly to the president, your waer western allies promised a great deal. they didn't deliver. i threatened. i delivered. we've made all kinds of promises to georgia in that time frame and didn't come through. so putin is always looking out to see if there is any hint that we will not follow through on promises that we have made,

because he will also follow through on a threat as indeed he ultimately did. threatened ukraine in 2008 and it wasn't until 2014 when ukraine tried to conclude an association agreement with the european union he struck but threatening the whole period since 2008. >> thank you so much, dr. hill. mr. holmes, what kind of message does it potentially send to other allies of the united states when military holds or assistance are imposed with absolutely no explanation? what kind of message does it send to allies in terms of the good faith and good relationship with the u.s.? >> calls into question the extent to which they can count on us. >> policies change, but u.s. interests don't. at least fought nor those true public servants who are committed and dedicated to protecting our nation.

thank you both for being two of them. >> mr. krishnamoorthi. >> thank you for coming in and for your service. dr. hill you stated in your deposition you'd be accused of beal a mole for george soros in the white house. correct? >> that's correct. >> you said in your deposition specifically a conspiracy was launched against you by a convicted felon roger stone on the show "info wars" led by alex jones. right? >> i don't think it was a convicted felon at the time he launched this. i didn't use those exact words, but it was indeed roger stone, alex jones on "info wars" 2017 and more recently before mr. stone was, endured his trial, they were at it again reprising the same "info wars" video and adding embellishments. >> and what they said about you

i quote, we here at inforewars, this is roger stone speaking, first identified fiona hill, the globalist leftist george soros insider who clinton -- mcmaster's staff. you're not, correct? >> my co-workers would be very surprised to hear this. actually leftist perhaps not so much. the left in europe is a bit different than the left here. put it that way. >> i agree. interestingly, you say that in your deposition that a similar conspiracy theory launched against marie yovanovitch. >> that's correct. >> you said specifically, when i saw this happening to ambassador yovanovitch, again, i was furious, because this is, again, just this whipping up of what is frankly an anti-semitic conspiracy theory about george soros to basically target

non-partisan career officials. isn't that what you said? >> i did say that, yes. >> and i'm sure you've been watching with concern what's happened to other non-partisan career officials. we had alex, lieutenant corner alex vindman, american immigrant questioned for his, criticism of the president, and in a very unfair way. basically questioning his loyalty to the country. he's also of ukraine-jewish descent. would you say these different con speerps spiracies targeting by folks like mr. stone as well as fueled by rudy giuliani and others basically had a tinge of anti-semitism to them at least? >> certainly when they involved george soros they do. i want to point out in the early 1900s the secret police produced

protocols of the elders you can still obtain on the internet and buy it actually in times in book shons in russia and elsewhere. this is the longest running anti-submit imtrove we have in history. and the trove against mr. soros, george soros also was created for political purposes and this is the new protocols of the elders of zion. i actually intended to write about this before i was actually invited to come into the administration, because it's an absolute outrage. >> i'm sorry you've been kind of wrapped up in these crackpot conspiracy theories. let me turn to rudy giuliani. you became increasingly concerned about rudy giuliani's increasing role in ukraine between january and march of 2019. correct? >> that's correct. >> and i know you served in the bush and obama administrations and i presume george bush's personal lawyer and president obama's personal lawyers were never, you know, directing or

heavily influencing ukraine policy? >> i'm not even sure i know who they were so the answer is, no. >> and the concern for something someone like rudy giulian, having such a strong influence on american foreign policy is that, you know, basically that policy may be operating not in the best interests of america but perhaps in the best interests of rudy giuliani or his clients or business associates. right? >> i think that's correct and that's as i said in my deposition october 14th that's frankly that's what i thought it was at the very beginning when i first heard mr. giuliani making those statements. >> and folks, igor fruman and lev parnas? >> kreshgt. >> an interesting character now indicted mr. firtash indicted for federal bribery and another associate of mr. giuliani? >> i know of him from my work.

yes, that's kreshcorrect. >> the confquestion we're askin being fl run in their interests and not our to push these people's personal interest. >> thank you so much. >> that concludes the member questioning. i will now go to closing statements. mr. nunes, do you have any closing remarks? >> thank you. i have stressed in these hearings that the whistle-blower complaint was merely a pretext for donald trump's political opponents to do what they have been trying to do since he was elected, oust the president from office. a brief timeline will illustrate the wide range of extraordinary attacks his administration has faced. i'm going to start in june of 2016, when donald trump was just a candidate. on behalf of the democratic national committee and the hillary clinton campaign, fusion gps hires christopher steele to write the steele dossiers, a

collection of false allegations attributed to russian sources claiming that donald trump is a russian agent. fast-forward to january 6th, 2017, fbi director james comey briefs president elect trump on the steele dossier, the briefing is leaked to cnn and soon afterwards buzzfeed publishes the dossiers. january 20th, on president trump's inauguration day, "the washington post" runs a story headlined, quote, the campaign to impeach donald trump has begun. january 30th, ten days later, whistle-blower's current lawyer tweets, #coup has started, first of many steps steps, #rebellion, #impeachment will follow immediately. march 22nd, democrats on this committee falsely declare on national tv that they have more than circumstantial evidence that the trump campaign colluded

with russia. july 12th, an article of impeachment is filed against president trump in the house of representatives. november 15th, democrats file additional articles of impeachment against president trump. as you see, this was just in president trump's first year in office. he was subjected to a coordinated smear operation, designed to falsely portray him as a russian agent. as well as attempts to impeach him. this all occurred before now infamous call with president zelensky. in 2018, the attacks continued. often from executive branch officials charged with implementing his policies. on february 2nd, 2018, intell jens committee republicans release a memo revealing that

the fbi used fabrications of the steele dossier to get a warrant to spy on a trump campaign associate. september 5th, "new york times" prints a column by an anonymous trump administration official who explains that he and other senior officials are, quote, working diligently from within to frustrate parts of trump's agenda, unquote. december 7th, james comey admits to congress steele dossier was unverified before and after the fbi used it to get a warrant to spy on a trump campaign associate. the russia hoax continued to be the main focus of attacks going into 2019. but when that entire operation collapsed, a new impeachment pretext had to be found. may 4th, 2019, national television, a democratic congressman proclaims, quote,

i'm concerned that if we don't impeach this president, he will get re-elected, unquote. july 24th of this year, special counsel robert mueller testifes to congress about his report, which debunked the conspiracy theory that trump campaign associates conspired with russia to hack the 2016 election. july 25th, just the very next day, a new anti-trump operation begins as someone listens to the president's phone call with ukrainian president zelensky and leaks the contents to the so-called whistle-blower. september 13th, democrats on this committee take the extraordinary step of issuing a press release related to the whistle-blower's complaint. october 2nd, revealed that democratic staff on this

committee had contact with the whistle-blower before he submitted his complaint to the inspector general. contradicting democrat denials that such contact had occurred. october 31st, halloween, probably the most appropriate day, democrats in the house of representatives vote to open an official impeachment inquiry against president trump. what you see in this room over the past two weeks is a show trial. the planned result of three years of political operations and dirty tricks. campaigns waged against this president. and like any good show trial, the verdict was decided before the trial ever began. after all, after denouncing the president for years as a russian agent and a threat to democracy, how could the democrats not

impeach him? if they don't have to move -- if they don't move to overthrow him, it would indicate they don't really believe their own dire warnings about the threat he poses. democrats only needed a pretext, when their russian dossiers and investigations failed to do the job, they moved to plan b, the ukraine hoax. the spectacle with its secret depositions and midhearing press conferences is not meant to discover the facts, it was designed to produce a specific story line to be pushed forward by the democrats and their supporters in the media. ladies and gentlemen, as we approach thanksgiving, speaker pelosi has just made clear, just today, usmca, free trade deal with canada and mexico, will boost our economy, won't be signed this year. so i hope, mr. schiff will

clarify how much longer we will waste on this effort and what other vital legislation he's willing to sacrifice for this impeachment crusade. will there be even more secret depositions accompanied by the usual flood of democratic leaks? will we have more public hearings with democrat witnesses but not ours? minority are in the dark about what this committee will be doing when we return. and so is america. james madison warned us about the danger posed by the tyranny of the majority. to avoid that threat, our founders created a constitutional republic. but is there a better example of the tyranny of majority than the way this impeachment process has been run in the house of representatives? process that is grossly unfair, can only stem from a cynical majority that is willing to break long established

precedents, trample on legitimate minority concerns, and impose their absolute will on this body through sheer force of numbers. exploiting the intelligence committee as a venue for impeachment has one of the grossest abuses in the process filled with cynical manipulations, large and small. but this farce will soon move to the judiciary committee or impeachment rightfully belongs. i wish my republican colleagues well in fighting this travesty and defending the idea. which at one time received bipartisan support not long ago. but the american people's vote actually means something. i yield back. >> i thank the gentleman. first of all, i want to thank you both for your testimony. i want to thank you for your long years of service to the

country, you're not democratic witnesses or republican witnesses, you're nonpartisan witnesses and you have stuck to the facts and that is as it should be. first i want to make a couple of observations about the hearing today. and dr. hill you were criticized several times by my colleagues for your opening statement. i'm glad you didn't back down from it. you're much more diplomatic than i am, i have to say. anyone watching these proceedings, anyone reading the deposition transcripts would have the same impression that you evidently had from hearing my colleagues talk about the russia hoax. that the whole idea that russia had gotten involved with the 2016 election was a hoax put out by the democrats. and, of course, they're not alone in pushing out this idea trumpeted by no one other than the president of the united states who almost on a daily basis at times would comment and tweet and propagate the idea

that russia's interference in our election was a hoax. and, of course, we all remember that debacle in helsinki when the president stood next to vladimir putin and questioned his own intelligence agencies. i wish i had heard just some of the righteous indignation we heard in the committee today when the president questioned that fundamental conclusion of our intelligence agencies, but, of course, they were silent when the president said that. they'll show indignation today, but they will cower when they hear the president questioning the very conclusions that our intelligence community has reached. but we saw something interesting also today. my colleagues sought to use you, dr. hill, to besmirch the character of colonel vindman. and i thought this was very interesting, certainly wasn't unexpected, but very interesting for this reason. they didn't really question anything colonel