of congress dole is to venezuela. when the political crisis hit the streets many politicians exploited public frustration and transformed caracas into a battlefield. thoughts of the opposition resorted to extreme violence. he had to get off you had a bad. mistake mechanism responded cruelly and indiscriminately dozens were killed on both sides and many ended up in prison. when independent un expert alfred desireless visited caracas. he persuaded the government to release 80 prisoners are. just black he insists though that some should be in prison and should be considered political prisoners. on the subject of political prisoners he said we should look at europe as well. they are 4 persons. got a lot of politicians who are. in jail. now these 4. politicians are clearly political prisoners. whereas in venezuela many of the detainees were detained because acts of violence. they were. detained because they were just expressing their. desire to be independent. to be sure that they're all political prisoners in spain i went

just to bring people up to speed, the office of management and budget, just so you know, doles out money congressncies don't overspend but they also make sure that the money that is approved is spent. that's why this agency is coming into focus, because it's the agency where this aid for ukraine was frozen. mark sandy, as you mentioned, is the first omb employee to testify behind closed doors. i want to show that graphic we have of all the other high-level trump appointees at omb who have ignored house democrats' request to testify. so that is why sandy's testimony today is so significant for that reason. now, he is a long-time career employee. he's worked under administrations of both parties. and so far we have very little visibility on the inner workings for how all of this played out. of course democratic investigators are hoping that sandy will shed some light on the internal conversations when the administration took this really unusual step of freezing that $400 million in aid, which by the way was already approved by congress. he will likely be asked whether the freeze raised alarm for hi

essentially for people who don't know, this agency doles out money that congress approves and make sure that agencies don't overspend and also make sure that the money that's been approved is spent. that's why this agency has become so central because this is where thine freezing of that aid occurred. mark sandy who just arrived on capitol hill for his closed-door deposition, he will be the first omb employee to testify behind closed doors. he's a long-time career employee. he's worked under administrations of both parties. and so far we have had very little visibility on the behind-the-scenes workings for all this all played out. democratic investigators are really hoping that sandy will shed some light on those internal conversations when the administration was taking this very unusual step of freezing this $400 million in military aid that congress, by the way, had already approved for ukraine. now, he will likely be asked several questions, including did the freeze raise any alarm for him. was he told why it was happening. how involved was he in this process or was he cut out of the

it was held up questioned whether it was legal to have money that was set aside by congress for this purpose not be doledy can speak in detail to that and help inform their conversation with the rest of the witnesses going forward. >> all right, garrett. let us know about when you specifically hear something from that closed-door testimony under way right now. we are also getting reaction from the president's defenders. let's go to mike viqueira at the white house with that. what's the latest, mike? >> reporter: alex, i think we can break down the republican defense of the president into a couple of different baskets. one is the process argument, that this has been unfair. we've heard that all along when they were in those secret meetings down in the basement, at least those closed meetings. and even after they emerged and seemingly gave the republicans what they wanted in terms of public hearings, they still are talking about the process and their inability to question the witnesses and raise some of the points that they want to raise and bring some of the witnesses that they want to raise. that's the f