tweet and propo kbgate the idea that interference by russia was a hoax. and we all remember the debacle in helsinki, i wish i had heard just some of the righteous indignation that we had heard in the committee today when the president questioned that fundamental conclusion of our intelligence agencies. but of course they will silent when the president said that. they will 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. it certainly wasn't unexpected i could not tell was very

interesting for this reason. they didn't really question anything colonel vindman said. after all what he said is what you said. he was in that july 10th meeting. he heard the same quid pro quo, the same comments by sondland. if you want this meeting, ukrainians, and we have an agreement about this, you got to announce you're going to do these investigations. they heard the same quid pro quo that you did. so why are they smearing him? mr. holmes, you testified just as vindman said, colonel vindman said that he warned zelensky about getting involved in u.s. politics. they don't question that. they didn't take issue with that. so why smear this purple heart recipient? just like the smear of ambassador yovanovitch, it's just gratuitous. they don't question the facts. it's just gratuitous the attack on you, mr. holmes, that you were indiscreet in mentioning this conversation to others.

well, i think you are quite right. the indiscretion is when the ambassador calls the president on an unsecure line on a country known for russian telecommunications and eavesdropping. that's more than indiscretion. that's a security risk. but why attack you, mr. holmes? they didn't question anything you said. they didn't question what conversation you overheard. ambassador sondland, indeed, didn't question what you said. he acknowledged that the one thing the president wanted to know the day after the conversation with zelensky is is he going to do the investigations. and sondland said, yes, he will do anything you ask. they don't question that. so why attack you? they didn't question your testimony when you said -- and i think you asked ambassador sondland -- does donald trump give a blank, and i would like to use the word here about

ukraine. and he said he doesn't give a blank about ukraine. he only cares about the big stuff. and you said, well, there is some big stuff here. ukraine's at war with russia. that's kind of big stuff. and his answer was, no, no, no, he cares about the big stuff that matters to him, his personal interests like the biden investigation that giuliani wants. i mean, one question posed by your testimony, mr. holmes, is what do we care about? do we care about the big stuff like the constitution, like an oath of office, or do we only care now about party? what do we care about? but let's go beyond your testimony today. let's look at the bigger picture. what do we know now after these depositions, these secret depositions? now people watching at home might not know that in these secret depositions, which apparently no one else is

allowed to hear, no members are allowed to participate, it's just secret apparently. it sounds like it's just me and the witness. only over a hundred members of congress are able to participate in those secret depositions. and the minority was just so unable to participate. they got the same time they got in these open hearings. it was the same format that was the secret star chamber that you've been hearing so much about. so what have we learned through these depositions and through the testimony? because so much of this is really undisputed. we learned that a dedicated public servant named marie yovanovitch, known for fighting corruption, widely respected throughout the diplomatic core, was ruthlessly smeared by rudy giuliani, by the president's own son, by their friends on fox prime time and a whole host of

other characters. her reputation was sullied so they could get her out of the way, which they did. and you're right. it was gratuitous. the president could've gotten rid of her any time he wanted. but that's not enough for this president. no, he has to smear and destroy those that get in his way. and someone fighting corruption in ukraine was getting in his way. so she's gone. she's gone. and this makes way almost immediately thereafter she leaves the three amigos come in. the three amigos. two of whom never made the connection that burisma means biden. it took tim morrison all of 30 seconds on google to figure that out. but we're to believe i guess that in all the companies in all the world that rudy giuliani just happens to be interested in this one? that's absurd.

the interest of course was in an investigation of donald trump's rival, the one that he apparently feared the most. and they were willing to do whatever was necessary to get ukraine to do that dirty work, to do that political investigation. and so it began we are not going to set up a phone call until you would make certain commitments. the first quid pro quo was actually just getting on the phone with president trump. and then there was the quid pro quo involving the white house meeting. and witness after witness and none of my colleagues can attest to this, talked about just how important that meeting was to the president of ukraine and why they're at war with russia, and their most important ally is the united states, and most important person in the united states for that relationship is the president of the united states. and if president zelensky can show that he has a good relationship with the president of the united states, it means

to his people that this new president has the support of their most important patron, and it means to the russians that we have their back. this new president who is negotiating with a far superior power that has invaded his country is going into negotiation with putin over how to resolve this conflict whether he has good leverage or lousy leverage depends on whether the russians think he has a relationship with the president. and the president wouldn't give him that, not without getting something in return, wouldn't give him that official act, that white house meeting without getting something in return. and that return was investigations of his rival that would help his re-election. an official act for something of clear value, and something very important. the big stuff, as sondland explained to you, mr. holmes, to help his campaign. now we also heard abundant

testimony about the other quid pro quo. the withholding of security assistance which no one can explain. there is no debate among my colleagues. everyone in the nsc, in the state department, the defense department, everyone supported us. everyone, all the reviews that needed to be done to make sure that ukraine was meeting its anti-corruption standards had been done. they had found to meet the criteria. the aid should've been released but it was withheld, and no one could understand or get a clear explanation for why until it became clear to everyone it's all about the investigations, it's all about the leverage. if there was any doubt about it, the man closest to the president who meets with him every day mick mulvaney erased all doubt. you're darn right, yes, we talked about the 2016 election investigation. and, yes, this was in the

context of holding up the military aid, and just get used to it or just get over it or whatever it was he said. because that's how we role. those are my words, not his. but that's the import. yeah, there's going to be politics and just get over it. well, if we care about the big stuff, we can't just get over it. now, my colleagues have had a lot of defenses to all of this evidence, which has piled up day after day after day and it's amazing they hear you testify, mr. holmes, that it was clear that the security assistance was being withheld. it was clear to all of the americans. it was clear to the ukrainians. you testified the ukrainians felt pressure. they still feel pressure to this day. and what do my colleagues say in the same hearing? i guess they are not listening. the ukrainians felt no pressure, there is no evidence they felt pressure, which gets into their

next defense, which was it's all hearsay, it's all hearsay. now, most of my colleagues i guess are not lawyers. lawyers out there understand just how wrong they are about what hearsay is. but let's just discuss this in terms that all people can understand. the impression they would have you take from it's all hearsay is because we in this committee were not in that room with you, dr. hill. we were not in that meeting earlier with dr. bolton. that because we are not in the room it's all hearsay. after all, you are relating what you heard and you are saying it, so it must be hearsay, and therefore we don't really have to think about it, do we? we don't have to consider that you have direct evidence that this meeting in the white house was being withheld because the president wanted these meetings, these investigations. we can't accept that. well, if that were true, you could never present any evidence

in court unless the jury was also in the ward room. that's absurd. they don't accept the documentary evidence, all the text messages about quid pro quos and are we really saying and that's crazy and if my worst nightmare is the russians will get it, i'll quit, they don't accept the documents, the few documents that we have from the state department that weren't produced by the way from the state department where sondland communicates directly with the secretary of state about this investigative interest of the president. they don't accept the documents either. i guess the documents are also here. now, might be a little more convincing if they were joining us in demanding that the documents be produced. but of course they're not. and we know why not. because the documents are like that one we saw on the screen. they implicate others including secretary pompeo. so of course donald trump and

secretary pompeo don't want us to see those documents. but apparently it's all hearsay. even when you actually hear the president, mr. holmes, that's hearsay. we can't rely on people saying what the president said. apparently we can only rely on what the president says. and there we shouldn't even rely on that either. we shouldn't really rely on what the president said on the call record. we should imagine he said something else. we should imagine he said something about actually fighting corruption instead of what he actually said, which was i want you to do us a favor, though. i want you to look into this 2016 crowdstrike conspiracy theory and i want you to look into the bidens. i guess we are not even supposed to rely on that because that's hearsay. well, that's absurd. that would be like saying you can't rely on the testimony of the burglars during watergate because it's only hearsay or you

can't consider the fact that they tried to break in because they got caught. they actually didn't get what they came for, so, you know, no harm, no foul. that's absurd. but the other defense besides it failed the scheme failed they got caught. the other defense is the president denies it. well, i guess that's case closed, right? the president says really quite spontaneously it's not as if he was asked in this way. no quid pro quo. what do you want from -- no quid pro quo. this is the i'm not a crook defense. you say it and i guess that's the end of it. well, the only thing we can say

is that it's not so much that this situation is different in terms of nixon's conduct and trump's conduct. what we've seen here is far more serious than a third-rate burglary of the democratic headquarters. what we are talking about here is the withholding of recognition in that white house meeting, the withholding of military aid to an ally at war. that is beyond anything nixon did. the difference between then and now is not the difference between nixon and trump. it's the difference between that congress and this one. and so we are asking where is howard baker? where is howard baker? where are the people who are willing to go beyond their party to look to their duty? i was struck by colonel

vindman's testimony because he said that he acted out of duty. what is our duty here? that's what we need to be asking, not using metaphors about balls and strikes or our team and your team. i've heard my colleagues use those metaphors. this should be about duty. what is our duty? we are, and this gets to mr. heck's point. we are the indispensable nation. we still are. people look to us from all over the world. journalists from their jail cells in turkey, the victims of mass extra judicial killing in the philippines, people wanting a representative government, people in china who are uighurs,

people in ukraine who want a better future. they look to us. they are not going to look to the russians. they are not going to look to the chinese. they can't look to europe with all its problems. they still look to us and increasingly they don't recognize what they see. because what they see is americans saying don't engage in political prosecutions. and what they say back is, oh, you mean like the bidens and the clintons that you want us to investigate? what they see they don't recognize. and that is a terrible tragedy for us, but it's a greater tragedy for the rest of the world. now i happen to think that when the founders provided a mechanism in the constitution of

impeachment, they might who are what would happen if someone took the offihighest office in land and didn't care about the big things that should matter like our national security and our defense and our allies and what the country stands for. i happy to think that's why they put that remedy in the constitution. and i think we need to consult our conscience and our constituents and decide whether that remedy is appropriate here, whether that remedy is necessary here. and as you know, not withstanding what my colleagues said i resisted going down this path for a long time. but i will tell you why i could resist no more. and it came down to this. it came down to actually it came down to timing. it came down to the fact that the day after bob mueller

testified, the day after bob mueller testified that donald trump invited russian interference, hey, russia, if you're listening, come get hillary's emails, and later that day they tried to hack her server. the day after he testified that not only did trump invite that interference but that he welcomed the help and the campaign. they made full use of it. they lied about it. they obstructed the investigation into it. and all this is in his testimony and his report. the day after that donald trump is back on the phone asking another nation to involve itself in another u.s. election. that says to me this president believes he is above the law, beyond accountability. and in my view there is nothing

more dangerous than an unethical president who believes they are above the law. and i would just say to people watching here at home and around the world in the words of my great colleague, we are better than that. adjourned. [ applause ] >> you just watched the closing statement of the chairman of this committee chairman adam schiff. that was the most emotional, most emotional sustained set of remarks from the chairman of this committee on this, the last day so far of scheduled public testimony in the impeachment proceedings into donald j. trump. chuck rosenberg, you and i have been watching this all day and

all week. chairman schiff really underscoring there the case that democrats feel that they have made brick by brick by brick. and it's fair and irrefutable that today two more bricks in the wall in terms of fact witnesses to what became clear to everyone was a quid pro quo, the conditioning of military aid and a meeting for the new leader of ukraine on those investigations that in the words of fiona hill were domestic politics squarely, investigations that would damage the bidens, investigations into what ambassador mcfaul called cockamaney. >> i know we are going to talk about the details. but so is the context. so for people who are watching pieces of this or may not know a little bit of the history, may

i? >> please. >> so in 2014 russia invades ukraine. they are still there. we learned from ambassador taylor a couple of days ago last week. >> last wednesday. >> that russia occupies about 7% of ukrainian territory, an area the size of turkey. imagine if russia held 7% of american territory. moreover, since 2014, about 14,000 ukrainians have died in conflict with russia on ukrainian soil. and in this context, there was a corrupt bargain that the president tried to strike to withhold security assistance for the ukrainians, an ally of ours, an important ally of ours, in return for political favors. you know, without being mello dramatic, to me this is heart breaking. we are a beacon of light and hope for democracy, struggling

democracies around the world. ukraine is a struggling democracy. they're very pro-american. they love our country. they have got to be mystified, dumbfounded by what we are seeing. the details matter but so does the context. >> well, and it's important context as we reset a little bit for anyone just joining us. the two witnesses scheduled today on the last day of public testimony in the impeachment proceedings in the house into donald j. strum just leaving that hearing room, they began right at 9:00 a.m. this morning. it's # 2 minutes past 4:00 in new york. we have been watching, as we said, today's impeachment testimony. and it's underscored the extraordinary significance of the entire inquiry and what it has turned up into donald j. trump evidence and witness after witness testifying to the evidence of a pressure campaign against ukraine for political investigations into his rivals. don't take our word for it or

theirs. republicans on this last day didn't even try to dispute any of the facts that have been laid bare by 17 witnesses, eight of them who testified in this public phase. getting back to today witnesses fiona hill, a former senior trump white house official, and david holmes, a current u.s. diplomat who works in ukraine delivered urgent and unimpeachable testimony connecting president trump directly to that pressure campaign and dispensing with any republican contention that trump's ukraine conduct was motivated by anything other than his own political ambitions. and in what might have been the moment that would come to epitomize these entire public impeachment proceedings, a fiery declaration from fiona hill about a tense exchange she had with e.u. ambassador gordon sondland. he has implicated most of the flash points at the heart of the ukraine scandal, and the instant he will realize sondland's

orders were coming straight from the president was something she spoke to today. let's listen to that. >> i was upset with him that he wasn't fully telling us about all of the meetings that he was having. and he said to me but i'm briefing the president. i am briefing chief of staff mulvaney. i am briefing pompeo and bolton. who else do i have to deal with? but it struck me yesterday when you put up on the screen yesterday ambassador sondland's emails and he said these are people who need to know that he was absolutely right because he was being involved in a domestic political errand and we were being involved in national security 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 irritated with him and angry with him that he wasn't fully coordinating. and i did say to him i think this is all going to blow up. and here we are. >> here we are.

here with us former republican congressman now an independent david jolly. eugene robinson, columnist for "the washington post." and chief public affairs officer from moveon.org karine jean-pierre, plus frank figliuzzi, former assistant director for counter intelligence. and former ambassador to russia michael mcfaul. let me start with you, ambassador mcfaul. i have been saying this for two weeks now. we look at the trees, we miss the forest. the forest today was the glorious testimony. fiona hill was like a warm knife cutting through cold butter in terms of laying bare that she was there as an advocate for u.s. national security, u.s. national security policy, and the defense of an american ally who was threatened by russia. and what she described there as a political errand, a campaign being run for donald trump for domestic political purposes, a devastating corroboration of

sondland's testimony yesterday that he was answering to donald trump when it came to the extortion campaign of asking for those investigations before military aid and a meeting would be granted. >> you just summed it up. and i actually think that quote and that clip might be the summary of the entire proceedings. it just captures in a minute what was going on here. there was one policy towards ukraine. and fiona hill is the top white house adviser on ukraine, all of europe but especially ukraine. there for two and a half years working for president trump, running that play. and next to it, what you call this domestic political errand that ambassador sondland and the other people, the three amigos, are running next to it. and it has everything to do with president trump's re-election efforts. now the story starts earlier. i want to remind everybody, right? the forest from the trees. story starts months earlier when mr. giuliani shows up engaging with ukrainians to try to seek

an investigation interacting with this corrupt prosecutor general mr. lutsenko. and that fails. remember it fails because a new president is elected, president zelensky. and that's when they discover, ah-hah, now we have some new leverage, this new guy needs an oval office visit. we heard that time and time again including today. we are going to use that leverage to reopen our request for the investigations of two crazy things, right? the crowdstrike dnc server on the one hand. but more damningly an investigation of burisma, a company that hunter biden served on the board. that's when they had new leverage. then they upped the ante one more time by withholding military assistance. and that only ended on september 9th when he said i didn't want anything. well, that's because the whistle-blower had outed this whole thing. i just think the facts are as clear as day.

and nothing today did anything to refute any of those basic facts of the case. >> and, in fact, frank figliuzzi, the facts were repeated over and over and over again, another sharp distinction from what was a completely different operation, the mueller investigation took place by design behind closed doors. but there was no ability for the american people to see all of these nonpartisan, nonpolitical, most of them living and working at points abroad where it's sort of the right, left, frankly the cable news battles that take place in the right and the left of our politics, are not always known to lifelong diplomats. they have not been thrust in the middle. and i wonder what you make of fiona hill placing john bolton in the center of the alarming conduct testifying on a couple different occasions to what he had her do when investigations were brought up. one, he described them as a drug

deal. two, he sent her straight up to the white house counsel's office, which if they haven't moved too many offices, is on the second floor of the west wing to report her concerns about what he described as a drug deal to mr. eisenberg in the white house counsel's office. >> yeah. there are many reasons why dr. hill's testimony was so powerful and impactful today. but one of them clearly was invoking the mindset of bolton. here is a man who by anyone's notion is about right of atilla the hun. he looks at this channel that smells corrupt to him and he says you've got to go tell the lawyers and he refers to the entire transaction as a drug deal. when america turns on their evening news tonight and sees the summaries of dr. hill's

testimony tonight, they were going to see a woman who was calm, professional, can kill you with kindness, eviscerate you with the facts, and then disarm you with her calmness. she never lost it today. quite honestly the people who lost it today were the gop members who couldn't figure out what to do with her. so we heard them invoke hillary clinton, the electoral college, the steel dossier. they had nothing but deflection and distraction in the face of a woman who just kept coming at them with the facts and with her professionalism. >> the facts and just the facts. here's that moment we've been talking about where fiona hill describes ambassador bolton sending her to the white house counsel's office. >> the specific instruction was that i had to go to the lawyers to john eisenberg our senior counsel for the national security council to basically say that i am not part of this whatever drug deal that mulvaney and sondland are cooking up. >> what did you understand him

to mean by the drug deal that mulvaney and sondland were cooking up? >> i took it to mean investigations for a meeting. >> did you go speak to the lawyers? >> i certainly did. >> investigations for a meeting in her lovely accent that i won't even try to replicate, quid pro quo. >> john bolton needs to testify. not simply for the congress, not for adam schiff but for the american people. he was at the center of the president's national security power. it is clearly corroborated from the witnesses over the past two weeks that john bolton himself had concerns about the president's behavior. this is an unusual case that is being made. it's intriguing, counter intuitive because we actually have the confession at the front end. donald trump on september 22nd said to the american people i wanted to make sure the bidens, he named them by name, weren't contributing to corruption in the ukraine. what we've heard the last two weeks isn't leading to a

culmination of a climactic confession. we had that at the beginning. now we have the corroboration. john bolton can put it all in context and frankly can say to his fellow republicans, yes, the president did wrong. wise political words of about ten years ago were said that it is not one's patriotic duty to advance the political interest of a politician whose principles are adverse to yours. that is not the calling of patriotism. those words were uttered by john bolton. the calling of patriotism in this moment is to lay down his loyalty to the president of the united states and remember that he has served a country for his entire career. some may agree or disagree with what he's done. put the nation first. >> you always stop me in my tracks, my friend. >> you wouldn't know it came from bolton, would you? >> no. i thought you were going to say lincoln or something.

[ laughter ] >> i also want you to pick up on something else you did that was really important. she defended vindman and she struped the republicans of their smear on vindman. and she did it in the way that she so artfully did everything. let me show it to you. >> i think it's very unfortunate. this is a country of immigrants, you know, with the exception, you know, perhaps of very few people still here. everyone immigrated to the united states at some point in their family history. and this is what for me really does make america great. i mean, i am sure that every single person here, some people perhaps came reluctantly. other people came by choice as i did. but this is for me, this is the essence of america. it's why i wanted to be here and why i wanted to stay here. and i think it's unfair to -- everyone has some kind of upper to anglo american, british american, i'm a naturalized citizen. i do not believe that my loyalty

is to the united kingdom. my loyalty is here to the united states. this is my country and the country that i serve. and i know for a fact that every single one of my colleagues and there were many naturalized citizens in my office and across the national security council felt exactly the same way. i think it's deeply unfair. >> i get chills listening to that. and, i mean, shame on all of the people who went on television and questioned the patriotism of colonel vindman. >> in the category of disgusting, that was the most disgusting thing we saw republicans do in this hearing inan in that way. i love the north england accent. and another point she working-class accent that she has. and she would have had fewer opportunities in class-stratified britain than she had in this country. and that's what america is about to her. she is definitely the person -- you said she was a warm knife through butter. i want her on my side in a knife

fight. she would slice you and dice you before you realize you had been cut. but to the bolton question, yes, we need to hear from john bolton. he is not the only witness we need to hear from. if the president did nothing wrong, he was wholly within his presidential powers, is only concerned about corruption in an ally like ukraine, and it was all innocent, then secretary pompeo, chief of staff mulvaney, all the other people who have been implicated in this drug deal -- >> by gordon sondland, a republican. >> exactly. either knowing about it or participating in it, allow them to come and testify and explain how everything was on the up and up. yet the white house will not allow them to testify. >> can you just underscore the significance of what she said there? she is almost describing, you know, like an ah-hah saying i was so mad at gordon sondland and she had this moment that i think women will be talking about for years that when women

are angry sometimes it reads wrong, and i'll officially nominate her to explain that to the world. not that you need it explained to you because you're very enlightened, chuck rosenberg. but she gets into the point. she makes a point so artfully saying i was so mad at gordon. i had heard this since sort of around her closed-door testimony. she was so angry at gordon sondland, angry at his conduct. then she realizes he's answering to the president. he's answering to the vice president. he's answering to mike pompeo. and he's on a domestic political errand. >> right. i was struck by a number of things she said. but when that realization hit her, it must have been a horrible feeling, right, to realize that the thing that that he had been working for, her area of expertise, this thing that we were doing for the ukrainians allegedly had been taken from her. and so it must've been incredibly difficult. can i just go back to one other thing she said?

because it resonates with me. when she was describing the fact that she's an immigrant and we are a nation of immigrants. she said this is what makes america great. because that is what makes america great. there is no need to make america great again. >> that's a good point. karine, i want you to pick up though on what she had to corroborate sondland's testimony yesterday by saying i realized in an instant this isn't a regular channel, there was the channel, it was directed by donald trump. gordon was answering to the president who had sent him on a domestic political errand. now this republican talking point that, oh, president set policy. this wasn't a policy he is set. this was a political hit job he ordered from his diplomatic core. >> yesterday we heard from gordon sondland who basically bought his way into power. today we heard from two witnesses who are experts in their field and they earned

their positions. they are not political. they are not partisan. they told their truth. and that is the difference between what we saw yesterday and what we saw today. and you had dr. hill who just brought facts. and even republicans, some of them they didn't even ask her questions. and when they did, they just yelled at her or, you know, used their soapbox. and when they did, they just presented fiction. and that's how they dealt with this. and i want to say one more thing about the vindman defense. i am an immigrant. and i got to work in the white house under the obama administration. when she said that, that touched i think so many of us who see ourselves as patriots, who see ourselves as the fabric of this country. and i thought that defense was one of the most amazing things that i've seen in these hearings thus far. >> i want to bring ambassador mcfaul and frank figliuzzi back because she started this morning many, many hours ago now with rebuke. a harsh indictment of the

spreading of conspiracy theories by people she didn't name names, but i will. people like devin nunes who have used his five minutes or ten minutes or whatever he gets to further the conspiracy theory that it was not russia but ukraine behind election meddling. i thought she set the tone for the entire day. i thought she fact-shamed the republicans by starting that way. and i wonder your thoughts on the significance of that, first frank figliuzzi. >> yeah. i just quietly cheered when i heard her call out the gop membership on this. and, you know, they try to speak with forked tongues. their response to this, as with most responses from liars and bullies, they kind of changed their tune. we saw them waving around their report saying, hey, hey, we have acknowledged before that russia had a role and was meddling in the election. but you can't have it both ways. you can't go out and say, hey, it was ukraine that did it, not russia, and then wave around a

report that says, no, we acknowledge russia did it. let's remember something. the president of the united states said it could be russia, it could be another country, it could be some 400-pound guy sitting in his bed. which is it? are the republicans saying we are with the president and there is this alternative option that we don't believe mueller and we think ukraine did it? or are you saying the president is wrong and now we are acknowledging it was all about russia? you can't have it both ways. fiona hill called them out on it, and it was beautiful. >> i want to play that for you, ambassador mcfaul. we will talk about it on the other side. >> 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 a campaign against our country and that perhaps somehow for some reason ukraine did. this is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated by the russian security services themselves. i refuse to be part of an effort to legitimize an alternative narrative that the ukrainian government is a u.s. adversary

and that the ukraine, not russia, attacked us in 2016. >> ambassador mcfaul, first of all you know her. where does that strength and that clarity of purpose and that toughness come from? >> she's been that way ever since i met her. i think we met in the early '90s, in fact in russia when we were both working on projects to promote democracy there. and i have known over the decades i have worked with her in the government she was at the national intelligence council responsible the nio, the national intelligence officer for russia and the former soviet union. when i had a job equivalent to the one she used to have for president trump when i was the senior director for russia and eurasia. and there's two things going on here. i don't want to connect dots i don't know exactly. i don't want to be in the hearsay business. but a couple of things. remember, she knows this portfolio better than all these people. she is one of our top experts on russia and putin, in particular

disinformation. number two, she has been working for a president that i know is not an easy decision for her to make to go work for president trump who also, let's be clear, plays in this disinformation stop. one of the things he has been propagating is that we need to go investigate crowdstrike and the dnc server and thank you for making the joke hours ago, nicole, that there aren't servers anymore, it's in the cloud. but remember she's in that constant place where people all around the president including mr. giuliani, including members of this committee are feeding this disinformation. and i think she just took her shot to say enough is enough, we have to stop playing this game, not just for this hearing but for the 2020 elections and moving forward. and i thought it was really quite eloquent. >> i've got one more for you, ambassador mcfaul. i tweeted this earlier.

i have covered politics, i have worked in politics. i've never seen or met anybody like fiona hill. and it was comments like this one that i want to ask you about. she said that she understood why donald trump would feel so offended by some of the things that other leaders and people that work for foreign leaders had said about him during the campaign, during the primary and the general election. she understood basically his grievances. but she made a really smart point. i hope it doesn't get lost in the blur of this week. she said no other foreign government had had military aid and definitely not any other foreign country at war had had their u.s. military aid held up because of in. that seems like a crucial, and if this were a republican party still in receipt of or open to facts it would seem like a devastating fact. >> i couldn't agree more. i saw your tweet on that, and i

underlined it myself. and it's an important point because, yes, there were op eds from other government. there is the bbc saying things, and our republican colleagues these days want to take everything like that and call it meddling. and i want to make one other point. none of that is in any way equivalent to what the russians did in 2016. and this false symmetry between russia and ukraine has to be a disabuse but never in response to all of that stuff. i think it was important that fiona said that. she is in a tough place. she is working for a president that sometimes spins out these conspiracy theories. she's trying to keep to the policy. by the way it happened to me personally when they were in helsinki and they spun out this conspiracy about me. and i went to see fiona at the white house and i could feel the tension between the policy and these theories. but she was not going to have any of it. when you withdraw military assistance to a country at war

with russia, that is wrong and she made that very clear today. so just when you call her fiona, like that you're on a first-name basis with her, i'm in awe of you. ambassador mcfaul, thank you for spending time with us. joining us from "the washington post," robert costa who's got news on what's coming next in the impeachment process. bob costa, what have you got? >> chairman schiff just hit his gavel to close that hearing. he referenced the late congressman elijah cummings who said this nation is, quote, better than this just before he died. and the question now facing lawmakers is what's next. and you have not only the house vote that's likely the articles of impeachment coming out of house judiciary but a senate trial on the horizon. "the washington post" my colleagues have just reported that senate republicans are now looking at a possible two-week trial which would be a narrow process, a shorter trial than many people expected. it lasted five weeks in 199 for

president clinton. and that came after white house talks from president trump who the "post" is looking for a shorter trial early next year. >> bob, any sense of what the start date would be for the senate trial? >> it looks like the house is likely to wrap up sometime in december after it moves from house tlegts to house judiciary to the floor. so you are looking at a two-week trial probably right before the iowa caucuses and new hampshire primary in late january or early february. >> i think all of us are doing some calendar calculations what, that means for our holidays. just weigh in on what we've been talking about, about fiona hill as a fact witness. i thought she was artful in showing grace toward republicans who didn't want to show much to her. but just indulging their anger and their frustration, she leaned into that. i think she was perhaps the most effective fact witness in terms of staying sort of open both in body posture and in terms of the

things she was saying in her exchanges with republicans. what do you think was her impact of her testimony today? >> the picture that that's emerging on capitol hill among my top sources is that ambassador sondland painted a picture about president trump and his conduct, his pressure campaign and rudy giuliani on ukraine. but you have fiona hill talking about the republican narrative and countering it in essentially and offering fact after fact about how she was operating about foreign policy and national security. and she created real problems today. in the eyes of republicans privately behind the scenes about how they are trying to frame this all because she was so cool in how she interacted with them. >> let me ask you one more. she brought john bolton into the room again. i know you are on the bolton beat. you are in contact with him. i know his position hasn't changed as far as i understand in terms of not being eager or

willing to testify. but she certainly brought him in the room. and it seemed more urgent after gordon sondland yesterday seemed to contradict the carefully crafted narrative that was out there that john bolton, he really comes off almost as the white knight relatively speaking calling it a drug deal being run by mulvaney and sondland. sondland yesterday trying to say, hey, everybody up and down the chain of demand knew. john bolton came out and took pictures. if this meeting was so bad why would he have done that. fiona hill bringing john bolton right back into the room giving us a lot more of a tick-tock about his conduct in and around that july 10th meeting where she made clear he sent her straight up to the counsel's office about the investigations being tied to the meeting and the aid. >> house democrats know his testimony. the question is how do they get it. they have a tight frame fryitry

to move this to the house floor. there are discussions right now about how they could try to compel bolton to testify in a senate trial. the house democrats would be able to be the prosecutors of sorts during a senate trial. and there is a hope that maybe they could ask the chief justice of the supreme court john roberts to compel bolton to come forward despite ongoing court proceedings about executive privilege to compel bolton to come in that -- whether it's two weeks or five weeks to speak in a senate trial. that they believe could be the ultimate closing argument. but for all it's up in the hands of the courts and the chief justice likely on the horizon once a trial begins. >> that is a remarkable scenario. that is really dramatic. thank you so much for spending some time with us. i want to show you, fiona hill, in her own words describing herself, not as an advocate for any particular outcome but as a fact witness. let's watch. >> i think all of us who came

here under a legal obligation thought we had a moral obligation to do so. we came as fact witnesses. when i was referring to questions that i had heard, it was in the context of the deposition that i gave on october 14th because i was very worried about the turn in which some of the questions were taking. the other matters related to this inquiry. we are here to provide what we know and we've heard. i talked about things i heard with my own ears. i understand that ambassador sondland has said a lot of things. i have told you what he told me and what others told me. a lot of other people have said things to me again as well and also to mr. holmes. and we are here to relate to you what we saw, and what we did. and to be of some help to all of you in really making a very momentous decision here. we are not the people who make that decision. >> it was powerful, and it only

enhanced her credibility, and every fact witness has corroborated six, seven, eight, nine, ten times over every charge in the whistleblower complaint. >> that's right, and the nation would largely agree today that fiona hill would make a much more qualified secretary of state than our current incumbent. >> a more qualified president. >> that's exactly right. her use of the term fact witness is very important because if you study the republicans' behavior over the last two weeks, this was not a hearing where they were interested in getting to the facts. they weren't behaving like members looking for the facts. they were behaving like defense attorneys already, which is not their job in this series of hearings. i think what we heard and what we will continue to see is the rabid conspiracy theories and thing a very powerful deceitful line of arguments from republicans which i categorize as misdirection. misdirection is powerful because in isolation, it's true, but in context, it's false. so when elise stephonic presses

her and says can't the president dismiss the ambassador at his own will. she says yes, and she says aha, it exonerates the president. it doesn't because if the president is behaving with corrupt intent, it's impeachable.jordan says, but th aid was released, the doesn't release the corrupt scheme. when they say the president didn't -- when nunes says this about the whistleblower, in the end, i think we got an indication of what republicans will hand over to republican senators. wehurd, which is i don't see enough evidence to convict, which is different than saying it's wrong but not impeachable. they can't say it was wrong because donald trump will lose his mind and go berserk, but they can say democrats didn't make their case. maybe they can make that argument to the american people. >> not being able to say, look, this clearly was wrong. look at all these facts. this was wrong. and then perhaps argue, but it

doesn't reach the level of impeachment. or we can't prove, you know, textbook corrupt intent, although i think you can with lev and egor and rudy, but make that argument. but this republican party cannot. it's not a party anymore. it's a cult of personality. you know, donald trump is the dear leader, and so they can't say that he did anything wrong ever. it's just -- this is extraordinary. this is the united states, but they can't. >> will hurd got the closest. he was the last republican to speak. people may have already tuned out. >> he's retiring, too. >> i wouldn't agree with it, it was improper, but you haven't proven there were impeachable acts. >> i'm going to say it, it's pathetic. jim comey, i think, when he met his trump crowd in january of 2017, right after trump had been elected, described them as a mob family. and that was when they were briefing them, chuck rosenberg,

on the russian attack on our democracy in 20 can'16. not one question about protecting america, not one question about getting russia. the only question was about protecting the spin. the parallel is so striking because even the investigations he sought from the ukrainians were about announcing on cable tv that investigations were going to happen that would hurt the bidens because he wanted the political hit. >> one of the things that president trump asked the fbi director comey for, as you recall, nicolle, was loyalty. and what jim comey said he could promise was loyal and faithful service. >> to the country. >> to the country, to the constuesday, to the oath of office, but not to an individual. that's not who we pledge our allegiance to. you have to imagine that the people who have survived this administration have given that pledge. i don't believe, for instance, that the only person the president ever asked for loyalty was the fbi director. that just doesn't strike me as logical. if i may, i also want to talk about one thing david said.

i think it's a really important point. during the cross-examination by the republicans, we hear about heresy and we hear about process. so let me try logic, which may prove to be wholly illogical. in federal criminal trials, a judge instructs the jury at the end they can rely on their experience, on their common sense, on their judgment, on their logic. you don't need any precipiant witness to connect every dot. in fact, dot connecting is often much more difficult than it sounds. you need jurors to just take a step back and say, what happened? >> right. >> what's going on here? logically, we know what happened. the conditioning of military assistance to an ally under attack by russia in return for political advantage. just logically, put aside process and heresy. and just focus on what you as a citizen of this country understood to have happened.

>> i was just going to say, i think democrats presented an abundance of evidence. facts after facts after facts. we haven't even talked about david holmes, who was a damning witness. he was able to say he heard the president commit the crime of asking a foreign government to interfere in our elections. that was damning as well. the thing is, it doesn't matter how much evidence democrats present. republicans have already made up their mind. >> isn't that bananas that republicans started this process saying, because i have -- i used to say it off camera, i'll say it on camera. during the mueller probe, i said it's going to take a dead russian hooker at the bottom of the rudson river before republicans wake up. i think you could find a dead body and they would be like, she died of natural causes. they don't care about anything. now they also don't care about foreign interference in domestic elections. here's the moment i'm waiting for. what's going to happen when it

happens to them? when the foreign intervention helps the democrat and not the republican? >> and that's always the question, right? because donald trump, there's going to be another donald trump. that's never going to go away. you're right. we don't know. the next time, it could help democrats. they have made their beds and now they're lying in it. they have decided already what side they're on. and it doesn't matter the amount of evidence that's presented to them. >> frank figliuzzi, if that were the case with our judicial system, our law enforcement system we would be no different than a banana republic. that is -- i have heard that from reporters. i have heard it from karine, from others, and i saecht that that is the case, that the republicans are immune to any facts, the corroboration of facts, the testimony of fiona hill, the testimony of colonel vindman, the testimony of gordon sondland who said this was a regular channel run by donald trump to extort the ukrainians to hold up their vital military

assistance to get dirt on a domestic political rival. irony being he's not at the top of the polls anymore. what does it say that we're a country where at least one branch of government is fact immune? >> it is not overdramatic, nicolle, to say we may be watching the reshaping of our democracy, and if we're not attentive to it and vigilant and fight like hell against what's happening, we may be seeing the erosion of rule of law, three equal branches of government, and we'll look back in history, scratch our heads and wonder how we let this happen. the other thing i'm going to forecast as we move forward, because of the powerful success of these proceedings, what we're going to see is an unprecedented level of deflection and distraction and disinformation coming from the gop in the days ahead, and they're going to be aided and abetted, but what -- by what i predict will be an unprecedented level of russian social media propaganda. it's starting right now with bots and trolls.

you're going to see the witnesses attacked. you're going to see the ukraine did it, not russia theory expanded upon. and we have got to remain vigilant. when i say we, it's not just all americans. the media has got to step up the game and call it out when they see it happening because it's going to happen in droves in the next couple weeks. >> and the irony, frank, just button this up for us, that's how the day began, with fiona hill warning we were playing right into russia's hands. >> putin is happy. smiling, loves the division. loves the discord. and we are a vulnerable nation because of it. >> unbelievable. we heard that laid out in stark terms by today's last two witnesses in the impeachment proceeding into donald j. trump. fiona hill, her words, her warnings. frank, your words, your warnings will be on all of our minds as this goes forward. my thanks to all of you today for getting me through my last hour of coverage.

this marathon week. thanks to frank, david, eugene, chuck, karine. ari melber and maya and claire and everyone who was with me all day and all week. that does it for this hour. "mtp daily with chuck todd" starts now. >> welcome to thursday. "meet the press" daily, and good evening, i'm chuck todd in washington where there's been another day in dramatic testimony in the house impeachment inquiry and it capped off a dizzying week of public hearings. the house intelligence committee chairman adam schiff closed today's hearings with what sounded like the democrats' closing argument. leaving a lot of us here in washington with the impression democrats are finished with this phase of the inquiry. here he is speaking in personal terms about why he's