proceedings, and friday the american revolution, american history tv features all week at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span3. >> joining us from florida is former deputy national security adviser and ambassador, nancy soderberg, who also served as former ambassador as well representing united nations in 1997. looking at the transcripts which have been released of the telephone call between president trump and the president of ukraine, how often do you sit in on something like that with president clinton? guest: hundreds of times. in the oval office, air force one, and it is fairly normal to have one at least, but usually several people sitting down, and

the situation room is also wired to take notes and translators. when a president is on the phone with a foreign leader there are a lot of people who take notes and basically send it around the government so everyone knows what was happening. in this case it was put into a secure server so it was not handled in the normal process. of course now it has come out. secrecy does not work in those situations. host: dozens of people listening in, how many people are involved for the preparation of a typical phone call between a president and another head of state? guest: the national security council staff will talk to the pentagon and state department, and other cabinet officials and their staff on any issues that might come up. if it is commerce, then a business deal might be involved. if it is a trade deal might have

a u.s. trade representative or the treasury. it is a big process that the security council runs, so you have a memo to the president that reflects a government approach. i assume that happened with the president with his phone call last summer. in this case there was an unusual second outside of government process run by rudy giuliani and some former russian oligarchs trying to have a second agenda to make sure that president did not follow the career memos, rather this outside effort to try and use the president's power to get the ukrainians involved in efforts to get reelected. that is where this controversy blew up. host: the transcript of the phone call, a summary of the transcript released late in the summer. when you read that, what were your thoughts? guest: it was stunning. i could not believe they had released it.

it was a smoking gun that led to impeachment. as nancy pelosi has said, the question will be put forward for the vote to impeachment and sent to the senate, is it appropriate for the president of the united states to hold up hundreds of millions of dollars in aid, which frankly the president and increased and clearly needed to have a buffer with the russian incursions into ukraine. that was held up and the president asked the ukrainians for a favor to investigate his political rivals, and that is what is going to go before the american people. i think the country is divided on if it was appropriate or not, and that is what the impeachment will decide. it looks like the votes are there in the house to impeach the president. i think the senate is divided on this question and that is where the drama is going to unfold.

host: former deputy security advisor and ambassador nancy soderberg is here to talk to us about the national security implications about the impeachment process, in particular about the phone call between president trump and the ukrainian president. 202-748-8000 is our democrats line. republicans, 202-748-8001. independents and others, 202-748-8002. you are now also a foreign policy advisor for the organization foreign policy for america. tell us about that. guest: that is a group of individuals who want to make sure that we have a responsible foreign policy. it is a bipartisan group and tries to inform the public on what is happening and make sure that the candidates that it endorses for congress have very

straightforward, middle-of-the-road foreign policy that puts america's interest first. i would encourage everyone to read their information, the briefings, enjoying and create art and try to conversation based on facts and our interests. i am proud to be one of their advisors. host: "the wall street journal" saying that the impeachment inquiry is set to release transcripts. they were part of the diplomatic channel pressuring ukraine. the transcripts of the former ukraine ambassador and michael mckinley were released yesterday. what were your thoughts when you read some of that? guest: first of all we have to pay tribute to our career foreign policy officials. these are men and women who have dedicated their lives to public service and swore an oath to the constitution that every day they

try to uphold. i think you see two very accomplished individuals saying this is just wrong, and in the case of the ambassador she was shunted to the side when giuliani brought people to put pressure on the ukrainian. it is former russian/ukrainian oil magnets who made billions and are on the out because the pro-russian government lost an election. what they have been trying to do is get back into the oil money flow back to the ukrainians, and giuliani for some reason had gotten involved in that. it clearly seems to have been, let us pressure the ukrainians to put forward this ridiculous story that ukraine was the one who meddled in our elections at hillary clinton's behest,

instead of the russians which all of our intelligence agencies all 17 of them, including mike pompeo agree that it was the russians, and then to try and get the bidens investigated with ukraine. and, the career civil service, foreign service officers at the national security council knew that this was wrong, that was why you got the account. i think that the country should be grateful for these men and women who are doing a service to all of us, and i think it is reprehensible that some of the political circles are trying to question their loyalty, and that is un-american to do that. these are patriots we should be grateful for. i am hoping that they get time, persons of the year, for

instance, to make sure we pay due tribute to them. but we will see today the transcripts are going to be released from volker and sondland. volker is a career foreign service officer who said why are we holding up aid. he was part of the effort and said no this is not right. sondland is the puzzle, he was a political donor, not an experienced person and he was given the portfolio as ambassador to the utility the efforts to pressure the ukrainians. i think his testimony will be very interesting, because he was at the center of trying to push this debunked conspiracy theory. it was the tip of the spear of pushing the quid pro quo through the u.s. government. he is the one at the most legal peril for his testimony. was it accurate. is it going to be contradicted? i understand that he will be

going back to testify. when they go through the public stages he will be one of the most scrutinized officials there. host: we have calls waiting for nancy soderberg. we go to tom, hollywood, florida, democrat. caller: i have a couple of things i want to say. it is despicable what trump and mike pompeo have done to our foreign service. they decimated our foreign service and we lost so many of our good career professionals and it will take years to replace them. i find it incredible that republicans keep whining about closed-door hearings, and they are the ones that set the rules up in 2015. guest: it is interesting because the republicans do not want to talk about the facts. they attacked the process, and they had the show of storming the hearing room when some of the people storming it had the access to be in the room. i think the democrats have set

up a methodical process, gather information in the private hearings and will now release the transcripts and have public hearings. all of the people who have been questioned in private will be questioned in front of tv cameras. the republicans have been in the rooms. there are three committees and republicans have full access and equal time. it is deflection, and it is led from the president who does not want to talk about what happened. what happened is that the president held up aid to ukraine in exchange for pressure on having them help him get elected, and that is what the fundamental question. republicans do not want to talk about that. ultimately they will have to vote on it and i think will break down along the party lines like the vote to the other day. host: let us hear from alan, from little rock. caller: good morning.

i was just thinking, i hope paula jones is listening she might appreciate this call. an kind of clarify, we oftennt, i think describe it as opposing rhinos, opposing democrats, and the corruption in both parties. that is really how i define a sense of independence. and a sense of honesty that we need to see from our government in washington. what all of this is showing us is the depth of corruption. i was not calling exactly about but since you looked it up, i looked it up, did a search, and their younger brother is deep in business dealings with ukraine and he had a twin brother who is a targeting expert, limiting targets that we were trying to get, jihadi targets.

there was a mess with all of that. people can look that up on their own. but i tried to get in on the previous guest talking about the clinton impeachment and comparing this quid pro quo, but since your guest now can speak to that since she was there, he mentioned that this was about illegality of the testimony, the fraud and lying to the court involving paula jones, and not about monica lubinski, but democrats wanted to shifted to her as if it was her and some involvement with an intern. remember, she was given a job. she had been transferred over and given a job for what she was doing to hide her, but was working in the pentagon. there is a quid pro quo that is so corrupt it is unbelievable, but you do not hear that

discussed often. host: any response to that? guest: hello from little rock. i spent a lot of time from there in the 1992 campaign. i absolutely love it and visit regularly. they have a great presidential library there. the clinton impeachment, he was impeached and not convicted in the senate. that has been aired over and over. what has happened there is fully in public record. he was impeached for lying and not quid pro quo. i believe that the two are pretty separate issues. one is a private affair with an inappropriate relationship. today, one is an inappropriate use of presidential power. i think that rather than focus on these conspiracy theories and clinton did something wrong and

it is ok for trump. the question before the country right now is is it appropriate hill take you to capitol for testimony from fbi director christopher wray. you are watching live coverage on c-span. good afternoon.

this hearing will come to order. we want to thank our witnesses for service to your country and taking the time for your testimony. way,was not planned this but this marks the 10 year anniversary of the shooting at fort hood. it underscores what we