they were storming the gates. but she testified to questions at the pentagon at least about the legality of holding up military aid. i mean, to your point about how everyone gets dirtied up by what trump wants them to do, there were questions in real time about whether or not it was legal to hold up aid that had been appropriated by congress and that had met the pentagon's anti-corruption checklist for its dispersement. >> absolutely. which puts people in a terrible position because so they are looking on the one hand, they're saying this is illegal. they're saying ukraine really needs the aid. the president wants this thing, you know, is there just -- is there some way we can make this work? we can make it go away. give the president what he wants. i think that some people in the bureaucracy, not all of them, kind of think they don't take the president that seriously on some level. they think he wants this ridiculous thing. if we can just tell him that we've sort of done this, you know, create a facade of action,

punt this down the road to another day, we can conduct american policy per, you know, normal. per the way we've always done it. but, again, that's incredibly periless. >> to hear you stand in there and talk about creating a facade to fool the president is just stunning. is there any sense -- >> surreal. >> -- from the people behind that door. right over your right shoulder is the door to the press office where the press office staff sits and works all day and by design, they're inches away from all of you. do they have any idea what happened today? and do you pick up anything on the mood around there? >> well, it would be easier, nicolle, to talk about the mood if the podium behind me were -- were used on anything like even a semiregular basis for press briefings. we simply don't get them. so, of course, there is contact with the press staff. but, you know, i think this is a moment standing here in the briefing room to illustrate that

the new white house press secretary has not had a briefing and her predecessor basically stopped them for several months before she, sarah sanders, departed. also, the state department was a little bit of an oasis in this regard. there were some briefings for a while and then when this, you know, impeachment came up and ukraine situation, the briefings have basically shriveled up there. although, secretary pompeo does take questions from time to time from reporters to his credit. but basically, you know, the mood is harder to judge these days because there's -- they're -- they're kind of in the turtle shell. >> michael crowley. it's worth pointing out, though, of this conversation that the white house press secretary or communications director, whatever title she's chosen, is on the record i think in the last few days saying that from time to time her statements are true. so we've got that. all right. michael crowley, thank you for spending time with us. >> thank you. >> let us reset for all of you. it's a little after 5:00 in new york. we're watching capitol hill on a whirlwind day of testimony in

the impeachment inquiry of donald trump. after this hour, a second round, a whole round that hasn't started yet about to get under way. pentagon official, laura cooper who we've been talking about. she has testified to in her depositions the actual mechanics of withholding that military aid in anticipation of or at the request of the president for those investigations he sought. david hale also expected to testify alongside her. he's number three in mike pompeo's state department. it's been a doozy for mike pompeo's state department today to say the least. both this afternoon's witnesses witnessed the alarm behind the scenes over donald trump's pressure campaign against ukraine and the inexplicable, seemingly, withholding of military aid that's now at the center of the scandal. both witness the machinations of top officials who tried to get that aid released, their testimony follows a morning of bombshells from donald trump's eu ambassador gordon sondland

who acknowledged and testified to a quid pro quo conditioning military aid on the announcement of investigations into donald trump's political rivals and who pointed the finger at almost everyone. here's some of that testimony. mr. giuliani's requests were a quid pro quo for arranging a white house visit for president zelensky. i tried diligently to ask why the aid was suspended. but i never received a clear answer. still haven't to this day. as a presidential appointee, i followed the directions of the president. we worked with mr. giuliani because the president directed us to do so. was there a quid pro quo? as i testified previously with regard to the requested white house call and the white house meeting, the answer is yes. everyone was in the loop. it was no secret.

he had to announce the investigations. he didn't actually have to do them, as i understood it. >> we've been watching together all day long. i -- i have now heard that three times, including when i heard it live. and it still rattles me. this is so far from normal. this is so far from ethical. i think it's an open question about whether or not it's illegal. but i know having spent my career on campaigns that it is something of value to have -- and the fact that it wasn't the actual investigation, that is supposed to be secret and that could have been done stateside. but that it was supposed to be public, that is the only part of value in terms of dirt. >> absolutely. and it makes the point you made earlier, nicolle, which is it erases any defense that donald trump's motivation was corruption in the ukraine. because if your motivation, if your intent, is to stop corruption, you wouldn't be satisfied solely with announcement from the ukrainians that they were opening these

investigations. the -- the other thing is sondland -- >> because you'd actually want to -- >> because you'd actually want to root it out. it goes back to the point about burisma. if you're actually interested and your intent is corruption, you're not only interested in one company. and that's what lieutenant colonel vindman testified to yesterday, right? not to mention the department of defense, which i don't think we heard enough of in the past few days. the department of defense certified ukraine as having met its benchmarks. but if you go back to what sondland then tries to do later, he -- when he's being questioned by republicans, he kind of tries to clean it up and say, well, it's -- it's not -- we wanted them to announce it because we wanted to hold their feet to the fire. >> box them in. >> box them in. and it's like once you couple that with the evidence around trying to get agreement on the language of the statement, it kind of explodes that, well, it was just about boxing them in

because if it was just about boxing them in, you don't have to have what he calls a negotiation around what the actual language is. and just one small but i think important legal point here. prosecutors can try -- can charge bribery and extortion. you know, this idea that somehow it's either bribery or it's extortion and, therefore, democrats just keep hopping all over the place. both same time, same acts, happens all the time. >> and just two points here as we're waiting cooper and hale, which will be a whole new round of testimony. one, to maya and the lack of credibility that trump was explicitly and only interested in domestic ukrainian corruption, he had publicly attacked the foreign corrupt practices act, which goes after foreign bribery. he said it was a horrible law tha that should be changed. that was in 2012 on cnbc. donald trump sometimes plays a more naive person than he actually is when it comes to hiding your tracks.

he didn't like that. he was always against going after foreign bribery. so there isn't really a consistent thing. now, that's number one. number two, something we have not gotten to much at all in our entire day of coverage is asap rocky. now, in all seriousness, this was an individual, musician, who is very popular in the united states. who was incarcerated abroad and donald trump famously tweeted and engaged on the issue and made a big deal out of it. mr. sondland brought up asap rocky repeatedly today to say that he initially had not remembered this incriminating foreign phone call when he saw other people's accounts, he then remembered it. and this came up almost in a comical or reverent way in the committee. it matters, number one, because it shows that the other people had very good contemporaneous notes and information. they weren't just remembering, if you want to be skeptical, bad things about donald trump or things that implicate him in the plot. they were just remembering a bunch of specific things that you could only know if you truly overheard the call.

so i -- i would be interested in what our other prosecutors at the table think. but that strikes me as highly credible information. number two, asap rocky himself has famously said shout out to having a game plan. shout out to having an escape plan. and that applies to sondland as well because he began with a private deposition with a game plan. split the difference. cooperate a little. defend donald trump. deny bribery. today, the man quoting asap rocky and citing him in the hearing was doing an asap rocky because he also had shout-out to an escape plan. reject and forget all these other defenses. implicate his boss donald trump. >> okay. you lost me on the music front and the legal front. let -- let me do lawyering for dummies here. i mean, when did -- donald trump basically runs a corrupt enterprise himself. his kids are out slocking condos like the white house seal on the brochures. the -- the -- the president has

never even pretended to care about good governments. he harassed the mueller prosecution. he smeared you and everybody. who are we joking? how do we even with straight faces say the defense says he was after corruption? he doesn't care about krum corruption. he's more comfortable in corrupt enterprises. >> typically, the defense is he's ignorant. he didn't know. so when we look at the campaign finance violation, andrew, your team put him on notice that a thing of value, opposition research from a foreign government, counts as a violation of campaign law. mr. mueller said he wasn't sure he could prove corrupt intent. mr. trump certainly knows it now. but when we think of the thing of value, even to call the opposition research i think is a little grand. it wasn't the research or the investigation. it was the announcement that trump wanted. and, in fact, if there had been a legitimate investigation of burisma or the bidens, it would have exposed the bizarre

conspiracy theory. a legitimate investigation would have proven that the bidens had nothing to do with anything illegal and that what started the 2016 investigation of trump's campaign were legitimate concerns that the russians had interfered with the election, not ukraine. russians. that every member of our intelligence committee has corroborated. so bottom line, he didn't want an investigation. he wasn't concerned about corruption. the announcement, as ambassador sondland testified today, was the thing. >> you know, andrew, there's so many things that we sort of pile on because he does such a volume business. but way, way, way back -- actually, not that far back -- he was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the campaign finance case that ultimately landed michael cohen in jail. >> individual one. >> individual one. >> beneficiary. not technically unindicted

co-conspirator. >> thank you. >> just saying. >> do i get credit somewhere? like phoenix.com or something? but so -- so in that investigation, he's -- he's -- he's an unindicted co-conspirator. in the pages of the mueller report, no matter the -- the final result, it's hundreds and hundreds of pages of conduct unbecoming of any elected official, especially the president of the united states. in this instance, in this scandal, if you're being your most conservative, if i'm being my most conservative analyst, i would say what he's admitted to in his own transcript is saying i need a favor, though, before a meeting of military aid would be released. and the ultimate flowing of military assistance for ukraine is authorized by congress with the witness that we're going to hear from in a few minutes saying there were questions about it being illegal to withhold it. it only flowed when they got caught. what does the portrait look like? just as an individual. take away the fact that because of a doj memo, he can't be

indicted. >> so i -- i really try and look at this in the lens of watergate. i think that's the last time there was a president who did something that i think, you know, now certainly the whole country, you know, absent some small percentage, thinks is wrong. and he resigned. and there you have a president who is -- had people break in to get dnc documents because he wanted to know the game plan of his opponents. so he was cheating on the election. and when you think about what's happening here, the entire democratic theory of what's going on is that he wanted the public announcement without, obviously, ever announcing to the american public that he bought it for $400 million. he wanted to make it appear that the ukraine just decided on their own this was something worth looking at. and the difference here is he was using public funds for a private purpose. so it's -- to me, it's far worse than just burglary. in terms of what he was trying

to do. you're getting foreign assistance in doing it which is, again, unlike watergate. so the means that he was willing to stoop to is far, far worse than just a bungled burglary. and the one other way i think that watergate is a useful analogy is you've heard a lot today about, well, it didn't happen. he got caught. well, you know what, in watergate, the burglars got caught. is it really true that it's okay to try to steal the dnc playbook but if you get caught, it's okay. if you're bad at it, it's okay. only if you are good at it and successful in stealing that, then it will do something about it. so i don't really buy the did it work out or not as a defense. >> and no -- i mean, attempted murder is also a crime. i mean, there is no category of crimes where trying is not also a crime. right? >> well, conspiracy will always be a crime. sometimes -- some crimes attempt is criminalized. sometimes it's not.

in this case, you don't have to worry about it. in this case, you have a conspiracy. if the defendants -- if the democrats are correct in what they're saying. >> in one sentence, prison is full of ineffective criminals more than really good ones. >> and a lot of them have donald trump's number in their cell phone. two big events we are watching. there is a second round. we're only whalfway there in terms of today's public impeachment hearings. two witnesses about to take their places at a table in front of the house intelligence committee. also, four of the most gifted journalists on the beat will be moderating tonight's democratic debate. we're going to look ahead to that as well. don't go anywhere. there's so much more to talk about. they're america's biopharmaceutical researchers.

pursuing life-changing cures in a country that fosters innovation here, they find breakthroughs... like a way to fight cancer by arming a patient's own t-cells... because it's not just about the next breakthrough... it's all the ones after that.

i'm a regular in my neighborhood. i'm a regular at my local coffee shop and my local barber shop. when you shop small you help support your community - from after school programs to the arts! so become a regular, more regularly. because for every dollar you spend at a small business, an average of 67 cents stays in the community. join me and american express on small business saturday, november 30th, and see how shopping small adds up.

i know that members of this committee frequently frame these

complicated issues in the form of a simple question. was there a quid pro quo? as i testified previously with regard to the requested white house call and the white house meeting, the answer is yes. >> and i'm old enough to remember when that yes was the red line that republicans were waiting to see if the evidence showed donald j. trump had crossed. that was the witness in these proceedings who, so far, is the most closely aligned politically and idealogically and it would seem by telephone conversation, in terms of the frequency with which he was able to reach donald trump on the phone, he testified today to speaking to donald trump by phone 20 times since he's been in that post and about six times as far as he remembered. told us he's not a note taker about ukraine. in terms of how that landed with the president, he took a sharpie to a piece of paper and that was the sum total of the high-tech pushback. joining us with more on that,

chief white house correspondent peter baker. peter, we have this picture on our screen where my son's in second grade and i don't think he's had to write anything on a chalkboard yet but this is what i would imagine it would look like. i want nothing. i want nothing. i want nothing. your thoughts? >> yeah. really striking to see that. the fact that you had to remind yourself three times just in case you forgot it the first couple times was, you know, caused a lot of chuckles obviously. look, the president was seizing on the one piece of evidence, testimony today from gordon sondland that he finds helpful to him, which is that the recollection that they had a phone conversation on september 9th of this year in which gordon sondland asked him what do you want with ukraine? president, according to sondland, said i want nothing. you know, i don't want a quid pro quo. they're going to talk about that again and again and again because they find that the most exonerating piece of testimony they can. of course, it came after the whistle-blower had already been, you know, filed his complaint or her complaint.

it came even as the congress is about to press him into releasing the suspended ukrainian security aid. and you could -- you can -- you can ask questions about whether or not that was a genuine reflection of what he did want at least in may and july and august and other times when he had been talking to his advisors about what to do with ukraine and president zelensky. >> peter, i love talking to you because you are in the same job you covered the white house in which i served. but can you imagine, i mean, what happened today, trump does a volume business and i have this worry that we may gloss over it. but one of trump's appointees today sat before congress and testified to this. that donald trump directed an operation to use a foreign leader to cheat in the 2020 election. in the words of andrew weissman, it's about cheating. it's about getting dirt on a domestic political rival from a foreign country. and he didn't just ask for the favor. he held up military assistance and you know better than me in this part of the world, that could be the matter of life and death for a company -- for a

country on russia's border. in that plot, he implicated the president of the united states, saying he directed it. rudy giuliani, who was one of his operators. the secretary of state and said the vice president had knowledge. what -- what's the impact of testimony like that? >> obviously, it's a big day and it's a big day because gordon sondland had not testified to a lot of this in his prior close-door deposition. he came forward and basically offered a new version of events only after other witnesses had basically offered theirs, conflicting with his account. and he felt that there was no choice at this point but to, you know, offer this fuller version. now, he'll say his recollection was -- was refreshed, if you will. that's what witnesses say when they offer new information. but it's a big deal. you're right. it's appointee. someone who given a million dollars to his inaugural fund. not somebody who was an enemy. who is now said look, here's what was going on here behind closed doors and i didn't support it but i felt like i had no choice. that the president had made

clear what i had to do and i went along with it. now, it's not quite the same thing as michael cohen who completely turned on the president. said he was a bad person. gordon sondland wasn't, you know, denouncing the president or anything like that. but he's a credible figure and even the president today did not take issue with gordon sondland's credibility. he simply focused on the one part of the testimony he thought was helpful and basically tried to ignore the rest. >> well, it was six hours long so i imagine there will be questions about some of the rest of it. let me ask you about his description of just one channel because i think a lot of the testimony that was so dramatic last week was about an operation to get dirt, to hold up the meeting with zelensky and to hold up the military aid, that felt off book. that felt like the dirt y op. that felt like the thing happening outside normal channels. sondland's testimony contradicts that. i mean, he testified was that the regular channel was all in. they were all briefed on it. they all knew about the dark op, which was political in nature. it was to ask zelensky to go to

a microphone and announce publicly that he would investigate the 2016 election meddling, which is a theory that his own homeland security advisor basically called whack-a-doo. talked about efforts to change the president's mind. to disavow him of his conspiracy theory and the president wanted an investigation into burisma. this was run through the regular channel, not the irregular channel. >> yeah. yeah. that's right. he was rejecting the idea that there was a rogue operation. this was not just a, you know, a lieutenant colonel in the basement if you will. this is a person who was talking to the president of the united states, who was talking with the president's personal attorney. who was deeply involved in this, and as you point out, had kept a abreast secretary of state, vice president, national security advisor, chief of staff at various points along the way. he wasn't going to be singled out as he clearly feared as sort of a rogue operator doing things on his own. his point is i was doing exactly what i was told to do and this was not exactly -- this was not

a shadow operation. this -- this was the operation. that's a big, big deal. now, again, what the republicans are going to point out is his actual conversations with the president himself seem to be more limited. that -- that the one real quote he -- he attributed to the president on this is talk with rudy. but what ambassador sondland said is, i understood that to mean that rudy was, therefore, conveying what the president wanted when he said let's push the ukrainians to get these investigations into democrats. really, giuliani's words were in effect the same as the president's. >> peter baker, thank you for spending some time with us. we are now heading up to capitol hill where all of the action is about to resume. our own garrett haake has been talking to members all day long. other than cargo loading and hydrating and running to the bathroom, what's going on up there? >> they've just finished up the vote series now so we'll be resuming for the second hearing tonight, which should be much shorter than the first. you're not going to see one of those long extended staff questions. they're going to get right into

the member questions. and i want to -- >> garrett, that's me hugging you through the microphone. thank god. >> well, i think we're all willing to take that here after a 13-hour or so day here yesterday. i just want to build on something that peter was saying. i think democratic members in particular were very satisfied that gordon sondland did link all of this back to the president. that the idea that orders from giuliani or conversations with giuliani were the same as orders from the president. they felt like that really got through. i want to play for you a brief bit of my conversation with jackie speier during the break. >> there is no question in my mind that donald trump has directed every act that any of these people have undertaken. and that's why some of them were going to turn out like michael cohen. >> the michael cohen reference is interesting. nicolle, i think i heard you say something about this earlier today. it harkens back to the cohen hearing where he said this president isn't someone who gives direct orders in that way.

he makes these oblique suggestions and expects things to get done. we have heard that from cohen. so it's not surprising to hear it applied in this same way. i think the other takeaway from my conversations with democratic members is, based on the sondland hearing, is they're not going to take the bait on trying to draw this out and call in some of these bigger-name witnesses. i was very curious to see if all the references to pompeo, if gordon sondland's allusions to giving john bolton rudy giuliani's phone number would be enough that some of these democrats might say it's worth it to draw things out even a little bit longer if necessary to get those folks in. and all of the democrats i talked to either deferred to adam schiff's judgment on this or said, you know what, we've got enough. we have what we need. the case is being made just fine without getting into this protracted legal back and forth in the court system or trying to fight things out further to get those folks to appear in hearings further down the line. >> i trust you have more and better sources than i do. i want to ask you something,

though, what you're describing and what you played with -- played there with the congresswoman is so reminiscent to me not just of michael cohen but of jim comey who testified i think shortly after he was fired. and i think donald trump was taunting him by saying lordy, i hope there are tapes. and he was asked if he viewed it as a direction when he was asked to see to it to let michael flynn go. i guess the question here is how many more examples do people need of how donald trump rolls? he makes what he wants abundantly clear to everyone that works for him. whether it's a political rookie, like gordon sondland, to really someone who's been in and out of law enforcement his entire career like jim comey. >> well, nicolle, i suppose that depends almost entirely on which people you're referring to, right? i mean, the degree to which some of these folks are willing to accept no suggestion that the president might have ordered something wrong or not versus people who might be more open to seeing the pattern here of the president's behavior. going back to his testimony, you

know, as a private citizen, which is the way michael cohen describes it, right? you know, i will also say just in talking to republicans, you know, there was almost a watch list of folks who could conceivably be seen as someone who might vote in favor of impeachment on the republican side. it was a short list but you're looking at members who are retiring. members who are not especially aligned with this president. and one of the people i've been watching very closely is will hurd, who is on the intel committee. former cia officer. you know, very serious individual. nothing in his questioning of any of these witnesses or in conversations he's had with other reporters that i'm aware of has suggested anything to me that -- that he is being convinced by any of this information. i think when this is all said and done, you are still going to have a united republican conference here on the house side at least. unless something so beyond the pail of what we've already seen comes out in the next couple of days. >> garrett haake, my friend, i'm sorry to say i think you're probably right about that. always grateful to have you.

if anything else happens, you know i'll be here in front of those cameras and bring it to us. let's look ahead to these witnesses that we're about to hear from. i mean, they really get into the mechanics of how government works. and they will expose -- i mean, i think something that donald trump doesn't understand and you were part of investigation that -- that -- that certainly had to take into consideration what he does and doesn't understand. that -- that was referenced in different sections of the report. but getting away with it was probably the hard part if his idea was to extort ukraine for these -- this public commitment of investigations. because holding up military aid that's already been approved by congress, you have to tell a lot of people. and -- and that's what laura cooper is. she's one of the people you'd have to tell if you wanted to hold up military sources. >> it's hard to hide $400 million of congressionally-mandated funds that are needed where you have bipartisan support for this money going to ukraine. and this is not a controversial issue. you've had every single witness say this money should go.

i'm sure this is the one area where you'll see in congress people saying this money should be there. >> right. >> this has been -- this has been a staple of americans' policy with respect to ukraine for decades. for democrats and republicans. it's really important. in fact, i would say republicans are even more vociferous about the fact that you need to support ukraine. so it's hard to just do this. and one of the things i think we will hear this afternoon or evening is you will hear a number of people saying what happened? how did it magically stop? and the republicans really need to come up with an answer because i sort of -- this is not like the immaculate conception. this is something caused the money to stop and something caused the money to go forward. and so there needs to be a reason for why that happened. and you have a lot of people, worker bees, trying to figure

out how did this happen? why is it being stopped? and there is -- i mean, here, this is really the two plus two. i mean, we're adults. >> what made it go -- i mean, i don't know what made it go but it went on the day that the whistle-blower complaint became public. >> exactly. and, you know, if the republican theory is that it was being withheld because of concern over general corruption and leave aside all of the great arguments as to why that's -- that's ridiculous. let's assume that was the real motivation. did that disappear on the day -- on the 11th? i mean, in just a few matter of weeks, ukraine managed to clean up decades of corruption and that's the reason it suddenly was released? did the eu suddenly come up with so much more support for ukraine? so one of the things that prosecutors do when a defendant comes up with a defense as to what they did is you sort of say, okay, if that's true, let's take it to the next level. what -- does that work?

so here, if the defense is these were the two reasons, there's no evidence to corroborate that. it doesn't make any sense. >> and so let's -- let's -- laura cooper. she works at the pentagon. when her transcript was released, it was of course released in the 4:00 hour so i had to read it stabbing myself in my eye with my glasses. but what jumped out at me reading it like that was that there were questions at the pentagon about the law. there were questions about whether or not it was illegal. so you talk about that which is impeachable. there were questions about -- at least questions about what was legal. >> so after congress appropriates money, there's a big question about whether the president can -- can then stop that. so i think that cooper will be important, one, in tying the halting of a directly to the white house. but remember, she is the deputy secretary of defense. so she also understands how vital this aid is to ukraine. so i think she will also establish that this shakedown was extremely effective because

ukraine had to have this money. and they expressed their concerns to the department of defense. >> you know, ari, some of the most compelling testimony is around what people with expertise in this part of the world, which is what laura cooper has. they're able to do some of the storytelling about what it's like when you're in ukraine. i'm thinking when ambassador taylor talked about being in ukraine and talking about how ukrainian soldiers had died in ukraine at the hands of russian actors. and that this is, you know, this is consuming our domestic political conversation. it's likely to come up at tonight's debate. but there are not lives on the line in this country. not so in ukraine. >> absolutely. and if you care about the world, that goes to the life and death issues you just gestured. if you care about the alleged abuse of the powers of the united states by the most powerful person, the president, it goes to why this alleged extortion was so strong. because people in ukraine were over a barrel worried about

losing to russia, losing in the battlefield, being injured or killed. so that's the stakes of why the extortion plot was so strong. and donald trump is someone who is often underestimated. i think by now, americans have learned not to underestimate his sense of how to find people's weakness and exploit it. now, in strategy and politics and business, that can be legal up to a line. in other ways, it has been alleged as potentially over the line. but that's what this is about. donald trump's not an expert on the appropriations process or on the names of ambassadors. he doesn't claim to be. he certainly figured out there was a pressure point of weakness here, as you -- as you state and as these witnesses as we watch the room fill, as these witnesses will further testify in detail and he exploited that. that's number one. number two, just to build on mr. weissman's legal analysis, the o.j. version of this is, if you didn't kill her, who did? right? that's the question about the money. sometimes you have to take a step back and look at this as a case. oh, we know the money was

frozen. that's been proven. we know there was an extortion and bribery plot. that's been alleged by a lot of people who were involved in it. >> and admitted to by trump and rudy. >> and donald trump admitting to key elements of it. mr. weissman said earlier if a governor had done this, you'd indict on it. so what's the alternative defense? well, you have to have a reason. so who killed -- who killed the decedent? who killed the person that you're on trial for, if not you? who froze the money and why? and at this late stage, we are way into this. we are way, way into this now. they haven't come up with a public defense to that. it just tells you how desperate, how bad the situation is over there and how probably they don't have enough lawyering going on. i mean, we said that when mulvaney came out and gave a -- what can only be described as an assist to the other team. the last thing i want to mention is we've been tracking responses as we look in this committee room tonight filling up for the next hearing. we are three hours and 23 minutes away from a debate about

2020 as we look at investigation into cheating into 2020. we are three hours and 23 minutes way. on that stage, nicolle, as you know and you will be leading our coverage tonight and we'll be watching rachel maddow and others question these candidates on the stage, it is at this point probably nearly impossible for joe biden not to address this further. i would expect it through questioning or other candidates or his own desires as a campaign that joe biden and others are gonna weigh in on this tonight. both because it is the number one national issue of the day, what we're looking at in this hearing, this investigation. whether it raises the case for impeaching the president that they want to run against. and, two, because whether or not it does, new evidence has been provided today about an effort to go after joe biden and his son. how does he and other candidates not address that tonight? so, you know, we don't -- we don't always know, nicolle, you know well that nbc does not have a crystal ball months out for

how these things get scheduled in an intricate process with the dnc. but this is a national split screen momentous countdown three hours and 22 minutes here like we've never seen. >> well, and i don't have a track record of great debate performances for the politicians for whom i served under my belt. but i would say if i were giving advice, i would say it is not joe biden's job to respond to this by himself because if donald trump will ask the ukrainians for dirt on the bidens, donald trump will ask anyone for dirt on anyone. >> can i ask you a question? >> sure. >> i know you're in charge here and you've been leading us intrepidly. but given your expertise and you're leading our coverage, i am curious as we look at the debate part tonight which we haven't gotten to as much as we wait for the hearing to start. what would you say exactly to that, the other democratic candidates who as always in these primaries, they speak as wanting to be the nominee but they also speak to an audience of voting constituency that wants to see patriotism, unity. how would the other democrats in

your view address what's been unfurled today as the plot against biden? >> look, my position on this presidential election has been for months that i'll vote for the democratic candidate's automobile before i'll vote for repubness. b but i am shocked every democrat hasn't made it their mission to call out the corruption. joe biden happened to be number one in the polls when donald trump commenced his extortion strategy but this could happen to any one of them and i'm actually surprised and eager to see all of them take on these questio questions of donald trump proactively seeking to get a foreign government to meddle in the 2020 election. we're watching this room start to fill up. go ahead. >> just to your point and that's why it's a national security issue. and so as we're three hours and 20 minutes away from the debate, we're less than a year away from the election. and so the big question is why

not wait till the election? why not use that to let the american people determine whether trump should remain in office? is that really the responsibility, at this point, for the senate? and what the question -- questioning of sondland revealed is that the stakes are high. >> uh-huh. >> this is an urgent matter, as you indicated, if trump will do this with the ukraines, he will do this with any other country and any other person. and so every day that he remains in office is a threat to our security. >> adam schiff looks like he's ready to get under way. let's listen in.

the committee will come to order. good afternoon, everyone. this is the sixth in a series of public hearings the committee will be holding as part of the house of representatives impeachment inquiry. without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess of the committee at any time. there is a quorum present. we will proceed today in the same fashion as our other hearings. i will make an opening statement. then the ranking member, mr. nunes, will have an opportunity to make a statement. then we will turn to our witnesses for the -- for their opening statements, if they should choose to make one. for audience members, we welcome you and respect your interest in being here. in turn, we ask for your respect as we proceed with this hearing. as chairman, i'll make any necessary or take any necessary appropriate steps to maintain order and ensure that the committee is run in accordance with house rules and house resolution 616. with that, i now recognize myself to give an opening statement in the impeachment inquiry into donald j. trump, the 45th president of the united states.

this afternoon, the american people will hear from two witnesses who are both veteran national security professionals. one at the department of state. and the other at the defense department. david hale is the under-secretary of state for political affairs. the third-most senior official in the department and the most senior foreign service officer. laura cooper serves as deputy assistant secretary of defense for russia, ukraine, eurasia, and is responsible for a broad range of countries in the former soviet union and the balkans. between them, they have several decades of national security experience serving both republican and democratic presidents. and as we have heard from other dedicated public servants like former ambassador to ukraine marie yovanovitch, george kent, ambassador taylor, lieutenant colonel alexander vindman, their only priority has been security of the united states. secretary hill was witness to the smear campaign against

ambassador to ukraine marie yovanovitch and the efforts by some in the state department to help her. in late march, yovanovitch reached out to hale for assistance telling him in an e-mail that the tempo of social media and other criticisms of her were such that she felt she could no longer function unless there was a strong statement of defense of her from the state department. hale pushed to get the state department to put out a robust, full-page statement of defense and praise for ambassador yovanovitch. sadly, to no avail. that silence continues to today. in late april, we heard in riveting testimony last friday from ambassador yovanovitch, she was recalled to washington and informed that she had lost the confidence of the president. the secretary of state did not meet with her. his subordinates dealt with her instead. with the departure of yovanovitch, hale watched as three new players moved in to assume a prominent role in trump's ukraine policy. the three amigos were nominally led by energy secretary rick

perry but it would be ambassador volker and ambassador sondland presumably working with ambassador taylor doing the continual work here. in mid-summer, trump ordered a suspension of military aid to ukraine. despite the fact that the aid had been authorized and appropriated by congress and that the defense department in consultation with the state department had certified ukraine met all the necessary requirements to receive the aid. including anti-corruption reform. the aid was in the national interests of the united states and critical to ukraine's security. a country that had been invaded by russia. from her office in the pentagon, ms. cooper oversaw a significant amount of security assistance flowing to ukraine and was involved in efforts to understand and reverse the suspension of nearly $400 million in u.s. aid. cooper, along with others, learned about the freeze during a series of interagency meetings in the last two weeks of july. at the first meeting, on july

18th, an omb representative relayed that quote, the white house chief of staff has conveyed that the president has concerns about ukraine and ukraine's security assistance unquote. and that a hold had been ordered by the president. no explanation was provided. all of the agencies responsible for ukraine policy supported security assistance and advocated for lifting of the hold. the only dissenting voice was the office of management and budget, which was following the orders of president trump. and still, no good explanation of the hold was provided. while the aid suspension had not been made public, word was getting out. katherine croft, special advisor for ukraine negotiation, worked closely with ambassador volker and who testified before this committee at a deposition, received two separate calls in july or august from officials at the ukrainian embassy who quote, approached me quietly and in confidence to ask me about an omb hold on ukraine security

assistance. croft was quote very surprised at the effectiveness of my ukrainian counterparts' dip l diplomatic trade craft. as to say they found out very early on, much earlier than i expected them to. the ukrainians wanted answer but croft did not have a good response. then in late august, she met with kurt volker with whom she had met many times in the past. during that meeting in which they were discussing the hold on security assistance, volker revealed he was engaged in effort to have ukraine issue a statement that would quote commit to the prosecution of any individuals involved in the -- if successful, hold might be lifted. unbeknownst to cooper, no such statement was forthcoming. but the aid was abruptly restored on september 11th, days after the three committees

launched an investigation into the trump/ukraine scheme. with that, i now recognize the ranking member. >> thank you. as we republicans have argued at these hearings, the american people are getting a skewed impression of these events. that's because the democrats assume full authority to call witnesses and they promptly rejected any new witnesses the republicans requested. so i'd like to take a moment to discuss a few of the people whose testimony has been deemed unacceptable for the american people to hear. the whistle-blower. the whistle-blower's the key figure who started this entire impeachment charade by submitting a complaint against president trump that relied on secondhand and thirdhand information and media reports. this began a bizarre series of events. although, the complaint had no intelligence component whatsoever. the intelligence community inspector general accepted it and even changed the guidance on the complaint forms to eliminate the requirement for firsthand information.

then his office back-dated the forms to make them appear as if they were published a month before. democrats then took the extremely rare step of pushing a whistle-blower complaint into the public. using it as the centerpiece of their impeachment crusade. we later learned that democratic staff had prior coordination with the whistle-blower. though, the democrats themselves had denied it on national television. following that revelation, democrats did a dramatic about face. they suddenly dropped their insistence that the whistle-blower testified to us and rejected our request to hear from him. then in a hearing yesterday, the democrats cut off our questions and accused us of trying to out the whistle-blower. even though they claim they don't even know who he is.

alexander chalupa. chalupa is a former operative for the democratic national committee who works with officials of the ukrainian embassy in washington, d.c. in order to smear the trump campaign in 2016. she met directly about these matters with then ukrainian ambassador chale, who himself wrote an article criticizing trump during the 2016 campaign. chalupa's activities were one of several indicators of ukrainian election meddling in 2016. all of which were aimed at the trump campaign. once you understand that ukrainian officials were cooperating directly with president trump's political opponents to undermine his candidacy, it's easy to understand why the president would want to learn the full truth about these operations and why he would be skeptical of ukraine. hunter biden. biden is another witness who the democrats are sparing from

cross-examination. his securing of an extremely well-paying job on the board of a corrupt ukrainian company burisma highlights the precise corruption problem in ukraine that concerned not only president trump but all of the witnesses we've interviewed so far. the democrats have dismissed questions about biden's role at burisma as conspiracy theories. yet, they're trying to impeach president trump for having expressed concerns about the company. if we could hear from biden, we could ask him how he got his position. what did he do to earn his lavish salary? and what light could he shed on corruption at this notorious company? this notorious company. but biden would make an inconvenient witness for the democrats, and so they've blocked his testimony. at these hearings, we've heard a lot of secondhand, third-hand information and speculation about president trump's

intentions, but in the end, the only direct order we've heard from the president is his order to our last witness, ambassador sondland, that he wanted nothing from ukraine. that is consistent with the testimony provided by senator johnson, who said that president trump angrily denied accounts that a quid pro quo existed. aside from rejecting our witnesses, the democrats are tried other petty tricks to shake public opinion. just this morning, they called a break in the hearing in order to press their absurd arguments to tv cameras. then for this hearing, they canceled multiple rounds of initial questioning they had earlier today with ambassador sondland and as they've had with all the previous witnesses, who they bizarrely consider as their star witnesses. when you look through the presumptions, assumptions and smoke and mirrors, you see the facts of this case are clear.

president trump was skeptical of foreign aid generally and especially skeptical of aid to countries like ukraine. he wanted to discover the facts about ukrainian meddling in the 2016 election against his campaign. a brief hold on ukrainian aid was lifted without ukraine taking any steps they were supposedly being briebd to do. president zelensky repeatedly said there was nothing improper about president trump's call with him and he did not even know about the hold in aid at the time he was supposedly being extorted with it. so what exactly are the democrats impeaching the president for? none of us here really know. because the accusations change by the hour. once again, this is impeachment in search of a crime. mr. chairman i would urge you to bring this to a close, to adjourn this hearing and move on, and get back to the work of

the intelligence committee. that, i yield back. >> i thank the gentleman. today, we are joined by ambassador david hale and ms. laura cooper. david hale serves as the undersecretary of state for political affairs with the department of state, a position he has held since august 30, 2018. mr. hale joined the service in 1984 and holds the rank of career ambassador. he previously served as the ambassador to pakistan, ambassador to lebanon, special envoy for middle east peace, deputy special envoy and ambassador to jordan. ambassador hale also served as deputy assistant secretary of state and assistant to secretary of state. laura cooper is a career member of the senior executive service. miss cooper previously served as a principle director in the office of the assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense and global security affairs.

prior to joining the department of defense in 2001, miss cooper was a policy planning officer at the state department in the office of coordinator of counterterrorism. two final points before witnesses are sworn, first witness depositions as part of this inquiry were unclassified in nature and all open hearings will also be held at the unclassified level. any information that may touch on classified information will be addressed separately and second, congress will not tolerate any reprisal, threat of reprisal or attempt to retaliate against you or any of your colleagues. if you would both please rise and raise your right hand, i'll begin by swearing you in. do you swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you god? let the record show the witnesses answered in the affirmative. thank you and please be seated.

the microphone is sensitive. please speak directly into it. your written statements will be made part of the record. ambassador hale, if you have an opening statement, you're free to give that. immediately after, ms. cooper, you are recognized for your opening statement. >> mr. chairman, i don't have a prepared opening statement, but i would like to just comment, of course, as you said, i've been undersecretary since august 2018, foreign service officer for over 35 years and ambassador three times, serving both republican and democratic administrations proudly, and i'm here in response to your subpoena to answer the questions of the committee. >> thank you, undersecretary. ms. cooper? >> mr. chairman, ranking member, members of this committee, i appear today to provide facts and answer questions based on my experience as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for russia, ukraine and eurasia. i would first like to describe my background as well as my role and vantage point relevant to

your inquiry. i bring to my daily work and to this proceeding my sense of duty to u.s. national security, not to any political party. i have proudly served two democratic and two republican presidents. i entered government service through the presidential management internship competition, joining the state department in 1999 to work on counterterrorism in europe and the former soviet union. inspire inspired by working with the u.s. military on a department of defense rotational assignment, i decided to accept a civil service position in the policy organization of the office of the secretary of defense in january 2001, where i have remained for the past 18 years. my strong sense of pride in serving my country and dedication to my pentagon colleagues were cemented in the moments after i felt the pentagon shake beneath me on september 11th, 2001. my office was scheduled to move into the section of the pentagon

that was destroyed in the attack, but a construction delay meant that we were still at our old desks in the adjacent section on that devastating day. after we had wiped the black dust from our desks and tried to get back to work, i found meaning by volunteering to work on afghanistan policy and would give my next four years to this mission. i later had the opportunity to move into the leadership ranks of my organization and have had the privilege to manage issues ranging from defense strategic planning to homeland defense and mission assurance. i accepted the position of principle director for russia, ukraine and eurasia in 2016, and was honored to be appointed formally to the position of deputy assistant secretary of defense in 2018. in my current role i work to advance u.s. national security with a focus on deterring russian aggression and building strong partnerships with the front line states of ukraine and

georgia, as well as ten other allies and partners from the balkans to the caucuses. defending ukraine against russian aggression is central to my teams a mission. providing ukraine with security assistance because it is in our national security interest to deter russian aggression around the world. we also provide security assistance so that ukraine can negotiate a peace with russia from a position of strength. the human toll continues to climb in this ongoing war, with 14,000 ukrainian lives lost since russia's 2014 invasion. these sacrifices are continuallcontinual ly in my mind as i lead dod efforts to provide training and equipment, including lethal assistance to the ukrainian armed forces. i've also supported a robust

ukrainian ministry of defense reform to ensure the long-term sustainability of u.s. investments and the transformation of the ukrainian military from a soviet model to a nato interoperable force. the act requires the department of defense to certify defense reform progress to release half of the ukraine security assistance initiative or usai funds, a provision we find very helpful. based on recommendations from me and other key dod advisers, the department of defense in coordination with the department of state certified in may 2018 that ukraine had, quote, taken substantial actions to make institutional reforms for the purposes of decreasing corruption, increasing accountability and sustaining improvements of combat capability, unquote, meriting obligation of the entire 250 million in usai funds. this brings me to the topic of

today's proceedings. i would like to recap my recollection of the timeline in which these events played out. i testified about all of this at length in my deposition. in july, i became aware of a hold being placed on obligation of the state department's foreign military financing or fmf, and dod's usai funds in a series of interagency meetings, i heard that the president had directed the office of management and budget to hold the funds because of his concerns about corruption in ukraine. let me say at the outset that i have never discussed this or any other matter with the president, and never heard directly from him about this matter. at a senior level meeting i attended on july 26th, chaired by national security council leadership, as all other interagency meetings on