lawyers were to really make full arguments. i think they still haven't decided if they are arguing the president did do it or he didn't do it and it doesn't matter. i would be shocked if they have 24 hours of arguments to make before the senate. >> very interesting. and i know you have to go. thank you so much, senator we'll let you get back. we're just under five minutes away from the senate reconvening but they have run late but we'll go to them as soon as it reconvenes. the panel stays with me. but another new voice, robert costa from "the washington post" and moderator of washington week on pbs. good evening. >> there is breaking news at the senate. senator ted cruz who is in formally part of the legal team just told reporters that testimony from hunter biden is, quote, now critical and directly relevant. so just hours after minority leader chuck schumer drew a line in the sand and said no deal, biden for bolton, you have ted cruz making that demand.

>> so give us your interpretation of the strategy we're seeing. there is the legal background and then what this all means in a political brawl. if you want, bob, i'll do the legal and you could do the washington reporting. i've told viewers in normal legal trials you don't trade relevant witnesses for irrelevant ones as chuck rosenberg and i were discussing. if you have the bank teller who said they saw something, you don't let in the cocker spaniel who took a walk. you have to stay relevant. but this is not just a traditional trial. this is something where the senate could come up with whatever works for 51 votes. when you see cruz coming out tonight and saying that, what do you see it sets up in terms of the battle lines? >> i see the shadow of president trump hovering over everything. senator cruz is in close touch with president trump's legal team and with the president himself and the president is telling allies tonight, i want this trial over with. he knows there are is at least 45 votes for dismissal according

to senator rand paul and now saying if we are going to do witnesses and have any agreement it is tit-for-tat regardless of relevancy. they see it as political war, not as a legal trial. >> you say regardless of relevancy, many people would see that as a tell but the reporting is matching, the new white house lawyers and the tv lawyers saying, look, this is all about debates over due process, fair treatment of the president and what is abuse of power. anything more you want to add before i lose you, sir. >> real quick, talking to senator cruz' allies and they believe they could get the democrats to buckle and try to make a deal because they feel the democrats need more witnesses to make their case but at this point it's a political standoff and there is no break for mcconnell. senator romney and collins are not speaking up in opposition to senator cruz at this time. >> bob costa with news and perspective. thank you, sir. back to our panel here as we await the senate reconvening.

claire mccaskill, that is the ted cruz line. it is not the entire gop. i also want to say our control room which is following everything so everyone knows what is happening, has alerted my that jay sekulow was asked about this and he did not publicly endorse it yet. so if you are looking at trial balloons and where the energy is, it is not yet part of the white house arguments. your interpretation. >> well ted cruz has demanded a lot of things during his time in the senate. and typically he's not been particularly affective at getting them done. famously calling mitch mcconnell a liar on the floor of the senate, reading green eggs and ham and shutting down the government. trying to boast that he's better than all of the -- he's trying to be not one of the guys. he wants to be the outsider. so for him now to be this i'm demanding, he can't demand. he can't demand anything. and frankly if ted cruz wants hunter biden as a witness, then he needs to get his buddy lindsey graham who was melting down today to call him in the

judiciary committee as a witness. they control the senate. to act like somehow they can't get -- hunter biden in front of the senate is just b.s., frankly. >> you just said something -- >> not a political term. >> i've heard about that. bartholomew simpson. you just said something so clear but again not everyone, we're not all tracking how it works all of the time, lawrence for folks coming home after work watching the senate trial and seeing ted cruz make noise, what do you think of moik's clear point that it doesn't rise or fall or wait for these deals. >> the idea that ted cruz is a key player, this is the first time. if he's the key player in this, that is the first time in his life. here is why the republicans and mcconnell do not want hunter biden. the truth is they don't want any witnesses. when you don't want any witnesses, that means zero witnesses. let's say you got hunter biden. let's say he was the only witness with you were going to get. tell me what day you're going to

get him? where is he on the planet right now? how do you serve him? how do you subpoena him? how do you physically get him there? how many days does that take? and how many days does this the deposition take before there is any kind of public testimony. so if you want to get to hunter biden, you're probably talking about adding a week to this. donald trump wants it over tomorrow. so they all have an incentive, all of the republicans have an incentive not to bring in hunter biden. >> and why he's doing this is very simple. he wants them to vote for no witnesses and no documents. so he's looking for a peg for them to put their hat on. well the only reason we didn't vote for witnesses or documents is because they wouldn't give us hunter biden. that's what he's doing. he's trying to give the senators an out to shut this thing down without it being a trial. >> you know, ari, you said earlier and you're absolutely right you don't trade relevant witnesses for irrelevant witnesses but let me add one thing, you don't trade relevant

witnesses for relevant witnesses. you don't trade. when you are a prosecutor, you call who you need in a particular trial to prove your case. if you're a defense attorney, you call who you want to rebut. if you so choose to rebut. the prosecution's case. i've never heard of trading for witnesses. i think any sort of deal is nonsensical. >> i want to get, donna, your view on the other piece setting this up which is the way the white house basically pushed hard on what we call the der shing when i think people have seen. alan dershowitz the fundamental first reason people get impeached, abuse of power is no longer impeachable which is an opinion and that was quoted today and that tells us the impact of that in this fight even if people find it to be empty. adam schiff today, quoting something i could read to it, it says a president is answerable for any abuses of discretion and subject to the judgment of congress through the impeachment

process. you see that language there on the screen. abuse -- i'm reading from a very recent 2018 memo by none other than bill barr. what is your understanding of why the house managers are leading with that, pushing that on day one? >> i think that they have to. because i think that there has been a rebuttal of that as a basis for impeachment. and i think the other thing that you saw adam schiff do is he went right to hamilton and said an abuse of the public trust is impeachable. and what is an abuse of power if it is not an abuse of the public trust. and i think democrats have to shoot that because between that and the -- and the article on -- on obstruction of congress, i think the toughest nut to crack is abuse of power. it is so amorphis. what is that.

and they have to define that as a high crime and misdemeanor. >> and it is true that high crimes and they have a abuse of power and when you look at the history and say what happened in the past when the senate held impeachment trials. well you presided over the last one. >> i did. >> was there disagreement over the parties that this judge, if he abused his office to enrich himself, was there debate had a might not be impeachable. >> i'll never forget in the opening statements of the trial against judge portous, orrin hatch was the minority member that ran their side and i remember that the opening statement used the words "lap dances." and he leaned over to me and said this is going to be some trial. >> did he know what that meant? >> i think he did. but the point is there was all kinds of conduct alleged in the portous trial not charged as a crime.

it was inappropriate behavior by a federal judge. and the interesting thing about this is there were witnesses in that trial and, guess what? the house had their witnesses, and the judge had his witnesses. so if, in fact, the republicans wanted hunter biden as a witness, why didn't mitch mcconnell offer an amendment last night to call hunter biden? right? they don't want hunter biden as a witness. they just want an excuse. >> so for people who are zeroing in on this, you say why is it that something which was not even contested in the last impeachment trial is now suddenly the end -- the end of the spear for the white house with alan dershowitz and others coming in to do history and i add on top of that, lawrence, and because we watched so much of this and it is interesting to step back and read and i noticed in "the new york times" and other outlets one of the things observed about the president's defense yesterday was how little they discussed anything donald

trump did. good or bad. they just didn't want to talk about it. >> they are not talking about it. and the reason they don't want the witnesses because the witnesses are going to swear under oath in the u.s. senate in front of the chief justice of the supreme court that what happened really happened. they're not going to come in there and lie. i don't believe mick mulvaney would do that. i certainly know john bolton wouldn't. so they don't want those witnesses there. so they are twisting this process beyond recognition, doing permanent damage to the checks and balances of our constitution in order to protect this guy in the white house. >> and it was evidence versus rhetoric yesterday. the house managers were presenting evidence 90% of what they were talking about was the actual evidence. and the proportions were dramatically reversed, what the president's defense counsel, the defense counsel almost never mentioned any of the evidence in the case. and so that's the challenge for

them. if you were defending the president in this case, what package of evidence would you grab? what would be the most effective evidence you could get up and present? and i'm sitting here and telling you, i don't know. i haven't seen anything in the evidence file and i was defending the president i would run up to that podium and say look at this evidence. >> i'll play mock trial with you but i think it is difficult for them. the best argument for any president, this one or any other is, commander-in-chief power, military power, your mindset, the calls you make when it comes to defending this country, you're the only one elected to do that because the members of congress weren't. but let me play for you, congressman schiff has a rebuttal to that. which is certainly if you do put out a reason, because you are not a king, your reason better add up and this idea that the president, this president was concerned about internal corruption in ukraine, hasn't always added up.

let's listen to adam schiff and then get lawrence's response. >> if the president was fighting corruption, if he wanted the europeans to pay more, why would he hide it from us? why would he hide it from the ukrainians and the rest of the world? why wouldn't he be proud to tell the congress of the united states, i'm holding up this aid and i'm holding it up because i'm worried about corruption. why wouldn't he? because of course it wasn't true. >> yeah, so this is still mostly in the area of argument. and what you presented before schiff is mostly in the area of argument not evidence. argument is this is my role, i could do it, right. >> right. >> evidence, i think the one piece of evidence to submit is to say, look, gordon sondland says that the president said no quid pro quo. like, that is really the only piece of evidence that i could think of that the president's defense counsel can try to use. but the managers have knocked that down saying, well of course

he said that. because by then he already knew there was a whistle-blower complaint saying quid pro quo. so the president already knew when he was on the phone call with gordon sondland that he has to fight this image of quid pro quo and then in the same phone call the president in effect repeats his quid pro quo after saying he doesn't have one. i'm just giving you example of what a struggle it is when -- if you're the defense counsel for the president, if you touch the evidence, if you pick up one piece of it, and think there is something to defend the president with in that piece of evidence, i guarantee you on the other side of that coin there is something to condemn him with. >> you just described why legally and thus in a real trial this president makes for a difficult clients. because no rational for this stuff would have been better than this rational. if you never walked out to the white house lawn and said i did it because i want a biden investigation and if he does

believe this stuff that the own intelligence said is not true and worse is russian putin propaganda and if he said nothing he would be better off than this. >> yes. so think where would this case be tonight if you go back to 2016 and the president never said russia, are you listening. let's pretend that didn't happen. but once this thing becomes public, and the president is the center of this controversy, imagine if he had just had the tiny amount of brain power it would take to not say, china will you please do the same thing and then to publicly in the driveway repeat again i want ukraine to do this. imagine if he didn't say that. and you were left with trying to devine what the president really meant just from the transcript, i think it is in the transcript. but you would have a slightly more difficult prosecutorial time with that transcript if the president didn't go in the driveway and say what transcript

means. >> and you just put your finger on something senators might like, even though it is hard not to talk, these rules that prevent them from speaking, prevent them from having to explain themselves and their deference to this president thus far which is pretty striking. let me tell everyone where we're at and chuck rosenberg has an update for us abuse of power. it is 7:15 ear on the east coast and the senate is 10 minutes over the return time and they'll be returning from dinner soon and sometimes the breaks are a little longer. with we had seen hakeem jeffries close up a barn-burner of a demonstration where he went through everything that the democrats say donald trump has publicly said, done, and then base ily proven to have done under the evident regarding shaking down ukraine to get election help. that is an abuse of power and they say the evidence is overwhelming. we were talking about how the rebut is not so much he didn't do it, maybe nothing is impeachable. maybe impeachment isn't in the

constitution and nobody should read it. chuck rodenberg an independent and neutral observer on the verdict has been fact checking some of the law and you wanted to add something about abuse of power. >> i do. and lawrence articulated perfectly why good lawyers tell their clients not to talk. because every time they talk they narrow their options for defending the case. you're now in a sort of a box and there may not be a way out if you continue to give false excuses. on abuse of power, so in the united states federal crim law is codified. by that i mean it exists because congress has passed statutes that criminalize certain conduct. like bank robbery or tax evasion or espionage, it is codified. we did not have codified federal criminal law at time the constitution was drafted. the bribery came along decades

later. 60, 70 years later. we didn't have codified federal crim law. so the notion that you hear from some of the president's defenders that in order to be impeached you have to commit a crime or a crime-like offense is utter nonsense. >> it is false. >> it is completely false. we did not have codified federal criminal law so high crimes and misdemeanors doesn't mean crimes as we understand it today under codified federal crim law, it means an abuse of power, public misconduct, using the powers of the presidency in some way that is against the interest of the united states. >> and for viewers, we're looking at the hallway shot here just outside the entry to the united states senate. we are not yet looking at the floor of the senate because as mentioned the senate actually controls those cameras and when they are in recess they turn it off. we see another senator entering. we saw senator mcconnell walk in which is a clue even though

they're slightly over the dinnertime they're en route to reconvening and you'll see that as soon as they do. donna edwards, your colleague hakeem jeffries finished up his presentation, it is one of the more wholistic, telling the story on abuse of power and obstruction a separate matter. when you see the democrats now leaning into prime time, tell us when you are on the house floor, you usually have a keen sense of when it is obscure and when everybody is watching and it would seem that these house managers know tonight, prime time, no rebuttals for two more days, this is a big moment for them tonight. >> well, it is. and i think that democrats also know that they can't count on holding the audience for another day or two. and so tonight really is it. and i was struck in lawrence's comments about corruption, we have to remember and hakeem pointed this out, the president

undercut his own argument because the administration had already checked the box for ukraine having passed the bar to open the door to the aid that was promised them. and so i think what hakeem did is that he started from the beginning to the end of the story. and he used the testimony, he used documentary evidence, and he wove that into why it is that we have to focus on the president's behavior. >> and, lawrence, as we look at -- at the point that donna makes which i think is certainly the case, that although many people who will watch much of this tonight is the big night, the first night of substantive opening arguments, you do see that the democrats, as house managers, have been forced to work with what they have. mitch mcconnell has run the rules in a way as claire mccaskill has emphasized where there might be one all in vote later unlike tradiggal trial

you'll see this person say x, they can't count on that. i liken it to cooking on chopped. where you have to make the best meal you can out of the carrots and you don't know if you'll get a protein later. how do you think they're doing under that challenge? >> i think they've been doing a flawless job so far in the hand they've been dealt in the way they have to present this. and they have challenges that really don't exist in any other legal proceedings. there is no such thing as a 12-hour argument or a 12-hour presentation in any courtroom in america. and even final arguments in cases that take six months, the long version of that would be two hours, two and a half hours. >> now you're tempting me lawrence. is there such a thing as jurors who say they'll violate their oath who stay on the jury in a normal trial? >> that happens too. yes. that happens sometimes. but so they've got an incredible challenge. and, look, there is also a very complicated television challenge here. viewers in maine will have a

different hour of consuming this than viewers in colorado. because of our time zones. and they're trying to get viewers in both of the states to influence senators in both of those states. utah, for example, in romney's case, so it is a very tricky play for them on how to deliver what on television. >> and let's listen into congressman schiff as they reconvene. >> we expect to go about two to two and a half hours. i'll make a presentation, representative lofgren from california will make a presentation and i'll make a final presentation and well bee done for the evening. as an encouraging voice told me, keep it up. but don't keep it up too long. so we will do our best not to keep it up too long. i'm going to turn now to the part of the chronology that picks up right after that july 25th call. and walk through the increasingly explicit pressure campaign waged on ukraine in

order to get president trump's deliverable, the investigations meant to tarnish his opponent and help his re-election. now remember by the end of july ukraine was aware of president trump's requests for investigation to help his political efforts and had come to know that president trump put a freeze on security assistance. so this is by the end of july. they also clearly understood that president trump was with holding an oval office meeting. until those investigations were announced. both were very critical to ukraine as a sign of u.s. support and as a matter of their national security. and they're national security, of course, implicates our national security. in the weeks after the july 25th call, president trump's hand picked representatives escalated efforts to get the public announcement of the investigations from ukraine. so let's go through this step by

step because the three weeks following the july 25th call tells so much about this pressure scheme. let's start with july 26th. on july 26th, so this is the day after the call, ambassador volker sends a text message to giuliani. and that text message says, hi, mr. mayor. you may have heard the president had a great call with ukrainian president yesterday. exactly the right messages as we discussed. please send dates when you'll be in madrid. i'm seeing yermak tomorrow morning he'll come to you in madrid, thanks for your help, kurt. so here we are the day after that call. as my colleague demonstrates, this same day, so july 26th, the date of that second infamous call between president trump and

gordon sondland that you heard the diplomat david holmes describe. so that is same day, july 26th that we're talking about right now. where there is this text message. in the july 25th call the president wants to connect rudy giuliani with the president of ukraine and his people. and so and this is a polyp where ambassador volker is saying to giuliani, it is a great call with ukraine president, exactly the right messages as we discussed. and we know of course those messages were the need to do this political investigation. please send dates when you'll be in madrid. i'm seeing yermak to you tomorrow. here is one of the three amigos following up to arrange this meeting between giuliani and the ukrainians. giuliani replied, setting a meeting with in europe with the top aide for the very next week. quote, i will arrive on august 1

and until 5. he wrote, now remember on july 22nd, so a few days before this and before the call, ambassador colver had connected giuliani with yermak and they agreed to meet. so this is a poll -- this is a follow-up. you have the rangement made by volker and now the call and the follow-up to meet up in madrid. and they do meet in madrid. and this is august 2nd and flew to madrid and meets with rudy giuliani who they know represents the president's interests. both giuliani and yermak walk away from the meeting in madrid clearly understanding that a white house meeting is linked to zelensky's announcement of the investigations. in separate conversations with giuliani and yermak after this mad rit meeting, volker said he learned that giuliani wanted the ukrainians to issue a statement

including specific mentions of the two investigations that the president wanted. according to ambassador volker's testimony, yermak told him that his meeting with giuliani was very good and immediately added that the ukrainians asked for a white house meeting during the week of september 16th. yermak pressed volker saying he was waiting for confirmation. maybe you know the date. ands in a recurrence theme that we've seen through the text messages and other documents and that is the recurrent request for this meeting. the pressing for this meeting by the ukrainians because it was so important to them. giuliani's objective was clear to ambassador's volker and sondland who took over communications with with yermak. here is ambassador sondland. >> i first communicated with mr. giuliani in early august, several months later. mr. giuliani emphasized that the president wanted a public

statement from president zelensky committing ukraine to look into the corruption issues. mr. giuliani specifically mentioned the 2016 election, including the dnc server, and burisma as two topics of importance to the president. >> giuliani exerted significant influence in this process. in fact, when on august 4th yermak inquired again about the presidential meeting and ambassador colver turned not to the national security council staff or to the state department to arrange it and follow up, he turned to giuliani again. volker told yermak he would speak with giuliani later that day and call the ukrainian president's aide afterwards. volker then text giuliani to ask abo about the madrid meeting and set up the call. giuliani replies that meeting with yermak was excellent and he would call later. phone records obtained by the committee show a 16-minute call

on august 5th between ambassador volker and giuliani. ambassador volker then text yermak, hi andrey, had a good long talk with rudy, call any time. kurt. separately volker told ambassador sondland, giuliani was happy with that meeting and it looks like things are turning around. a reference to volker's hope that satisfying giuliani would break down president trump's reservations concerning ukraine. but things had not turned around by the end of that first week of august. by august 7th. the aid was still on hold. and there had been no movement on setting a date for the white house meeting. ambassador volker then reaches out to giuliani to try to get things moving. ambassador volker text giuliani to recommend that he report to the boss, meaning president trump, about his meeting with yermak in madrid. specifically he wrote, this is

volker writing to giuliani, hi, rudy, hope you made it back safely. let's meet if you're coming to d.c. and would be good if you could convey results of your meeting in mad rid to the boss so we could get a firm date for the visit. so giuliani met with the top aide to the president of ukraine in madrid and he wants giuliani to convey to the boss, to trump how good that meeting in madrid was about the investigations so they could get the president of ukraine in the door at the white house. think about how unusual this is. this is the president's personal lawyer who is on this personal mission on behalf of his client to get the investigations in ukraine, the president of ukraine can't get this the door of the oval office, and who are they going to? are they going to the security council? no. the state department? no. they're going to the president's personal lawyer. does that sound like a official

policy to try to fight corruption? why would you go sou-- go outsi of the normal channel to do that. you wouldn't. no, you go to your personal attorney, who is on a personal mission that he admits is not foreign policy, when you're objective has nothing to do with policy. when your objective is a corrupt one. now what does that mean? to have a corrupt objective. well, it means an illicit one. it means impermissible one, it means one that furthers your own interests at the cost of the national interest. the willingness to break the law like the impound control act by with holding aid is indicative of that corrupt purpose. the lengths the president would go not in furtherance of u.s. policy, but against u.s. policy. not even a difference on policy

at all. the mere pursuit of personal interest, the pursuit of an illegal effort to get foreign interference is the very embodiment of a corrupt intent. so here we are august 7th. and volker is saying, rudy, if you're coming to d.c., let's get together. it would be good if you could talk to the boss. because we can't get a meeting any other way. around that time ambassador volker received a text message from yermak who asked him asking volker, hi, kurt, how are you? do you have some news about the white house meeting date? and volker responds not yet. i texted rudy earlier to hake sure he weighs in following your meeting. gordon, meaning sondland, should be speaking with the president on friday. we are pressing this.

so there is gordon sondland pressing this, this is the man you've heard from already, ga gordon sondland who said there was absolutely a quid pro quo. and you asked about a quid pro quo. there was a quid pro quo about this white house meeting. this is what they're talking about right here. gordon will speak to the president on friday, we're pressing this. ambassador volker's contact with giuliani spurred called, from august 8th strongly suggest giuliani is attempting to call the white house to speak to a senior white house official. left a message. then had a four-minute call with that official later that night. we don't know from the call records who that official was but recall that giuliani has publicly stated that when he spoke to the white house, he usually spoke to president trump, his client. also on august 8th, yermak text volker that he had some news.

ambassador volker replies that he could talk then and ambassador volker updates giuliani in a text the next day. volker said to giuliani in the text, hi, mr. mayor, had a good chat with yermak last night and he was pleased with your phone call. mentioned, he's referring to president zelensky here, making a statement. can we all get on the phone to make sure i advise -- here he's referring to president zelensky -- correct lip as to what he should be saying. want to make sure we get this done right. so here, august 9th, there is an effort by volker to make sure that -- to get the statement right about the investigations. because if they can't get the statement right, he ain't going to get in the door of the oval office. it also makes clear who he's exactly in charge of this and that is rudy giuliani.

ambassador volker is checking with rudy giuliani about what to advise president zelensky. and we know that giuliani is taking his orders from president trump. text messages and call records obtained by the committee show that ambassador volker and giuliani connected by phone twice around noon on august 9th for several minutes each. following the calls with giuliani ambassador volker created a three-way group chat using whatsapp that includes himself and ambassador sondland and yermak. they initiated the chat around 2:20 that day and this is volker chatting with sondland, and yermak. and volker said hi, andre, we've all consulted here including with rudy. could you do a call later today or tomorrow your afternoon time. and sondland said i had a call scheduled for 3:00 p.m. eastern, ops will call. call records obtained by the committee show that on august 9th, ambassador sondland twice

connected with phone lines associated with the white house. once in the early afternoon for about 18 minutes and one in the late afternoon for about two minutes. we know that ambassador sondland had direct access to president trump. after all this activity ambassador sondland and volker thought they had a break-through. finally a break-through. minutes after that call, which was likely with tim morrison about a possible date for the who is meeting, ambassador volker and sondland discussed the agreement they believe they had reached. and starts with sondland in his text message. morrison ready to get dates as soon as yermak confirms. volker said excellent, how do you sway him. not sure i did. i think potus really wanted the deliverable. we know what that deliverable is. it is the political investigations. volker says, but does he know that? and sondland said, yep. clearly lots of con vos, meaning

conversations, going on and volker said okay that is good. it is coming from two separate sources. ambassador sondland told committee that the deliverable was a press statement from president zelensky committing to do the investigation into the bidens and the allegation of ukraine election interference that president trump mentioned on july 25th. but tim morrison testified that he didn't know anything about the deliverable. he was just involved in trying to schedule the white house meeting. which everyone wants to schedule as a sign of support for president zelensky and our ally ukraine. but trump's agents wouldn't just accept ukraine's word for it. ambassador sondland then recommended to ambassador colver that yermak share a draft of the press statement to ensure that the statement would comport with the president's expectations.

so here on august 9th, so we're still less than two weeks after the july 25th call, we're about to -- i guess we're about two weeks. sondland said in this message to avoid misunderstandings, might be helpful to ask andrey for a draft statement, pair an these he's, embargo. even though z, referring to zelensky, does a live presser, they could still summarize in a brief statement. thoughts and volker said agreed. at his deposition ambassador sondland said that he suggested reviewing a written summary of the statement because he was concerned that president zelensky would say whatever he would say on live television and it still wouldn't be good enough for rudy/the president, unquote. yermak was concerned the announcement would still not result in the coveted white house meeting.

on august 10th yermak texted volker to set up a meeting before the ukrainian president made a statement about the investigations into burisma and the 2016 election. so you could see what is going on here. the president and his agent, giuliani, they want this public statement of the investigations before they'll give a date. and the ukrainians want a date before they have to commit to making public they're going to do the investigations. and so you've had this standoff where each is trying to get the deliverable first. but this is no debate about what the deliverable is on either side. there is no debate about the quid pro quo here. you give me this, i'll give you that. you give me the white house meeting, i'll give you the public announcement of the investigation into your political rival. no, no, no. you give me the announcement of the investigation into my rival and then i'll give you the meeting. the only debate here is about which comes first. so august 10th, yermak text

volker, i think it is possible to make this decoration and mention all of these things which we discussed yesterday but it will be logic to do after we receive a confirmation of date. we inform about date visit, about our expectations and our guarantees for future visit. let's discuss it. ambassador volker responded that he agreed but that first they would have to iron out a statement and use that to get a date after which president zelensky would give the statement. the two decided to have a call the next day and to include ambassador sondland. yermak text ambassador volker, excellent, once we have a date we'll call for a press brief announcing upcoming visit and outlining vision for the reboot of u.s./ukraine relationship including among other things burisma and election meddling in the investigations. yermak was in direct contact with ambassador sondland regarding this revised approach.

in fact he sent him the same text message. ambassador sondland kept the leadership of the state department in the loop. on august 10th he told ambassador colver that he had reported to t brechbuhl, counselor of the department of state who sondland testified frequently consulted with secretary pompeo. and he wrote to volker, i briefed brechbuhl. so he is in the loop. sondland and volker continued to pursue the statement from zelensky on the investigations. the next day ambassador sondland emails brechbuhl and lisa kenna, the state department executive secretary, about efforts to secure a public statement and a big presser from president zelensky. sondland hoped it might, quote, make the boss happy enough to authorize an investigation, an

invitation. after being evasive on the topic, secretary pompeo has subsequently acknowledged that he listened in on the july 25th call. now since he was on the call, pompeo must have understood what would make the boss, that is the president, happy enough to schedule a white house meeting. again, everyone was in the loop. on august 11th ambassador volker sent giuliani a text message. this is volker to giuliani. hi, rudy. we have heard back from andrey again. they are writing the statement now and will send it to us. can you talk for five minutes before noon today. and giuliani said yes. just call. that is august 11th. on the next day, august 12th, yermak sent volker a version of the draft statement by text. notably as we saw earlier this, this statement there the

ukrainians doesn't explicitly mention burisma biden or 2016. so you could see what is going on here now. there was this game of chicken. you go first. no we'll go first. you give us the date. we'll give you the statement and no, you gave us the statement and we'll give you the date and now realizing they have to give the statement first ukraine tried to give them a generic statement that doesn't really go into specifics about the investigations and why, you can imagine why. ukrainians don't want to have go out in public and say they're going to do these investigations. because they're not stupid. because they understood this would pull them right into u.s. presidential politics. because it was intended to. which isn't in ukraine's interest and our interest either and ukraine understood that. so they resisted having to dot public statement and then make sure they get the deliverable

and when -- when they had to make the statement they didn't want to be specific. for one thing. for another thing, this was what zelensky camed on. he was going to fight corruption and end political investigations. so he didn't want to be specific. so he sends this statement that doesn't have the specific references. and ambassador volker explained during his testimony that was not what giuliani was requesting and it would not satisfy giuliani or donald trump. now presumably if the president was interested in corruption, that statement would have been enough. but all he was interested in was an investigation or an announcement of an investigation into his rival. and this debunked theory about 2016. now the conversation that volker referred to in his earlier testimony took place on the morning of august 13th when

giuliani made clear that the specific investigations related to burisma and code for biden and that to be included in order to get the white house meeting. so the americans sent back to the ukrainians top aide a reviseds draft that includes now the two investigations and you have seen the side-by-side. this was then the essence of the quid pro quo regarding the meeting. and this direction came from president trump. here is how ambassador sondland put it. >> mr. giuliani's requests were a quid pro quo for arranging a white house visit for president zelensky. mr. giuliani demanded that ukraine make a public statement announcing the investigations of the 2016 election, dnc server,

and burisma. mr. giuliani was expressing the desires of the president of the united states and we knew these investigations were important to the president. >> now according to witness testimony, as you might imagine, the ukrainian officials were very uncomfortable with the draft that giuliani, volker and sondland were negotiating. they understood that the statement was the deliverable that president trump wanted. but yielding to president trump's demands, would in essence force president zelensky to break his promise to the ukrainian people to root out corruption because politically motivated investigations are a hallmark of the kind of corruption that ukraine has been plagued with in the past. mr. yermak tried to get confirmation that the requested investigations were legitimate. in response to the draft statement yermak asked volker whether any request had ever been made by the u.s. to

investigation election interference in 2016. in other words whether any request was made by any official u.s. law enforcement agency through formal channels as you would expect if it were a legitimate request. ambassador volker tried to find a satisfactory answer. on august 15th volker's assistant asked the assistant secretary george kent whether there was any precedent for such a request for investigations. at his deposition kent testified that, if you're asking me, have we ever gone to the ukrainians and ask them to investigate and prosecute people for political reasons, the answer is i hope we haven't and we shouldn't because that goes against everything that we are trying to promote in the post soviet states for the last 28 years. which is the promotion of the rule of law.

the next day, we're now on august 16th. in a conversation with ambassador bill taylor, the u.s. ambassador in kiev and ambassador taylor stepped in when ambassador yovanovitch was pushed out, taylor, quote, amplified the same thing. and told kent that, quote, yermak was very uncomfortable with the idea of investigations and suggested it should be done officially and put in writing. as a result it became clear to kent in mid-august that ukraine was being pressured to conduct politically-motivated investigations. kent told ambassador taylor that's wrong. and we shouldn't be doing it. as a matter of u.s. policy. ambassador volker claimed that he stopped pursuing the statement from the ukrainians around this time. because of the concerns raised by zelensky's aide. at his deposition, and despite

all of his efforts to secure a statement announcing these very specific political investigations desired by the president, ambassador volker testified that he agreed with the yermak concerns and advised him that making those specific references was not a good idea because making those statements might look like it would play into our domestic politics. without specific references to the politically damaging investigation, the agreement just wouldn't work. ukraine did not release the statement and in turn the white house meeting was not scheduled. as it it turns out, ambassador sondland and volker did not achieve the break-through after all. now let's go into what finally breaks the log jam. because that involves the military aid. with efforts to trade a white

house meeting for a press statement announcing the investigations temporarily scuttled, sondland and volker go back to the drawing board. on august 19th ambassador sondland told volker that he drove the larger issue home with yermak. president zelensky's top aide. particularly that this was now bigger than a white house meeting. bigger than just the white house meeting. and was about the relationship per se. the relationship per se. not just about the meeting any more. it's about everything. it's about everything. by this time in late august, the hold on security assistance has been in place for more that an month and still no credible explanation offered by the white house despite some, like ambassador sondland repeatedly asking. there were no interagency meetings since july 31st and the defense department withdrawn the assurances that it could even comply with the law which indeed

it couldn't. every agency in the administration opposed the hold. as the government accountability office confirmed, concerned dod and omb officials have been right that the president's holding the president's holding of the aid was an unlawful act, but president trump was not budges. at the same time, despite the persistent efforts of numerous people, president trump refused to cover the white house visit for president zelensky until investigations announced that would benefit his campaign. here is what amend said about the hold on funds and its link to the politically motivated investigations in ukraine. >> in the absence of any credible explanation for the suspension of aid, i later came to believe that the resumption of security aid would not occur until there was a public statement from ukraine committing to the investigations of the 2016 elections and

burisma as mr. giuliani had demanded. >> from the embassy in kiev, david holmes reached the same conclusion, a conclusion as simple as two plus two equals four. >> mr. holmes, you have testified that by late august you had a clear impression that the security assistance hold was somehow connected to the investigations that president trump wanted. how did you conclude -- how did you reach that clear conclusion? >> sir, we had been hearing about the investigation since march, months before, and we had been -- president zelensky received a congratulatory letter from the president saying he would be pleased to meet him following his inauguration in

may, and we hadn't been able to get that meeting. and then the security hold came up with no explanation. i'd be surprised if any of the ukrainians -- you said we discussed earlier sophisticated people. when they received no explanation for why that hold was in place, they wouldn't have drawn that clon collusion. >> because the investigations were still being pursued and the hold was still remaining without explanation. >> correct. >> so this to you was the only logical conclusion that you could reach? >> correct. >> sort of like two plus two equals four? >> exactly. >> sondland explained the predicament he believed he faced with the hold on aid to ukraine. >> as my other state department colleagues have testified, this security aid was critical to ukraine's defense and should not have been delayed. i expressed this view to many

during this period, but my goal at the time was to do what was necessary to get the aid released, to break the logjam. i believed the public statement we had been discussing for weeks was essential to advancing that goal. you know, i really regret that the ukrainians were placed in that predicament, but i do not regret doing what i could to try to break the log jack and to solve the problem. >> on august 22nd, amend sondland tried to break that g logj logjam, as we put it, regarding both the security assistance hold and the white house meeting. amend sondland described those efforts in his public testimony. let's listen to him again. >> in preparation for the september 1 warsaw meeting, i asked secretary pompeo whether a face-to-face conversation between trump and zelensky would

help to break the logjam. this is when president trump was still intending to travel to warsaw. specifically on august 22nd, i emailed secretary pompeo directly, copying secretary ed ken know. i wrote, and this is my email to secretary pompeo, should we block time in warsaw for a short pull-aside for potus to meet zelensky? i would ask zelensky to look him in the eye and tell him that once ukraine's new justice folks are in place in mid september, that zelensky, he, zelensky, should be able to move forward publicly and with confidence on those issues of importance to potus and the u.s. hopefully that will help break the logjam. the secretary replied yes.

>> sondland also explained both he and secretary pompeo understood the issues of importance to the president were the two sham investigations the president wanted to help his re-election efforts, and that reference to the logjam meant both the security assistance and the white house meeting. at the end of august, national security adviser john bolton arrived in ukraine for an official visit. david holmes took notes in ambassador bolton's meetings and testified about amend bolton's message to the ukrainians. >> shortly thereafter on august 27th amend bolton visited ukraine and brought welcome news that president trump had agreed to meet president zelensky on september 1st in warsaw. amend bolton further indicated the hold on security assistance would not be lifted prior to the warsaw meeting, where it would hang on whether president

zelensky was able to, quote, favorably impress president trump. >> let's think about that for a minute -- let's think about that for a minute. bolton further indicated that the hold on security assistance would not be lifted prior to the warsaw meeting where it would hang on whether president zelensky was able to favorably impress president trump. what do you think would favorably impress president trump? what were the only two things that president trump asked of president zelensky. what are the two things that rudy giuliani was asking president zelensky and his top aides? what would favorably impress donald trump? would donald trump be favorably impressed if president zelensky would tell him about this new corruption court or new legislation or how negotiations with the russians were going or

how they're bringing about defense reform? had any of those things ever come up in any of these text messages, any of these emails, any of these phone calls, any of these conversations? of course not. of course not. there was only one thing that was going to favorably impress president trump in warsaw and that's if president zelensky told him to his face, i'm going to do these political investigations. i don't want to do them, you know i don't want to do them, i resisted doing them. i'm at war with russia and i can't wait anymore. i can't wait anymore. i'm sure that would have impressed donald trump. but the meeting between the two presidents never happened in warsaw. president trump canceled the trip at the last moment. before bolton left kiev, amend taylor asked for a private meeting and explained that he

was extremely concerned about the hold on security assistance. he described the meeting to us during his testimony. >> near the end of amend bolton's visit i asked to meet him privately during which i expressed to him my serious concern about the withholding of military assistance to ukraine while the ukrainians were defending their country from russian aggression. amend bolton recommended i send a first-person cable to secretary pompeo directly relaying my concerns. >> now, in the state department, sending a first-person cable is an extraordinary step. state department cables are ordinarily written in the third person as amend taylor testified at his deposition, sending a first-person cable gets attention because there are not many first-person cables that come in. in fact, in his decades of service in the diplomatic corps, he had never written a single one until now.

taylor sent that cable on august 29th. would you like me to read that to you right now? i would like to read it to you right now, except i don't have it because the state department wouldn't provide it. but if you'd like me to read it to you, we can do something about that. we can insist on getting that from the state department. if you'd like to know what john bolton had in mind when he thought that zelensky could favorably impress the president in warsaw, we can find that out, too, just for the asking in a document called a subpoena. taylor sends the able august 29th. the state department did not provide that cable to us in response to a subpoena. but witnesses who reviewed it described it as a powerful message that described the folly, the folly of withholding military aid from ukraine at a time when it was facing incursion from russian forces in eastern ukraine.

that cable also sought to explain that u.s. assistance to ukraine was vital to u.s. national security as well. now, why don't they want us to see that cable? why don't they want us to see that cable? maybe they don't want you to see that cable because that cable from a vietnam veteran describes just how essential that military assistance was, not just to ukraine. maybe they don't want you to see that cable because it describes just how important that military assistance is to us! to us. the president's counsel would love you to believe this is just about ukraine. you don't need to care about ukraine. who cares about ukraine? how many people can find ukraine on a map? why should we care about ukraine? well, we should care about ukraine. they're an ally of