marie yavonovitch, ambassador to ukraine, and mckinley. we learned that yavonovitch reached out to the secretary of the interior in late january or early february to talk about vice president biden and the 2016 election. that's certainly long before the phone call and before president zelensky's election. at that time around february, avicov expressed concerns to yavonovitch that getting into u.s. politics would be a dangerous place for ukraine to be. here is the testimony. question: what were his concerns as expressed to you? yavonovitch: he thought this was -- so he thought it was very dangerous that ukraine since its independence has had bipartisan support from both democrats and republicans all these years, and to start kind of getting into u.s. politics and u.s. domestic politics was a dangerous place for ukraine to be. question: why did he think he would be getting into u.s. domestic politics by speaking with mr. giuliani? and marie yavonovitch said, well, because he told me that, but because of what you had mentioned before, the iss

, but the summary of what these two transcripts represent is mostly about the effort to oust marie yavonovitch in her role as ambassador of ukraine. remember, there were discussions about an irregular channel, individuals who were working to target yavonovitch because they thought she was anti-trump, that she was tied to democrats. this is testimony going through the details of that. the three chairs running this investigation on the democratic side said, quote, the transcripts of yavonovitch and bromley talk about the smears of yavonovitch's character and support of her policy and corruption goals. this is just two of the transcripts. we're expecting several to roll out over the course of the next several days, and this represents moving to the public sphere of this investigation that for the past month has been all closed door depositions. through each of the release of these testimonies, what's going to be interesting to look at is the different facets. this one very clearly, according to democrats, focusing on the ouster of marie yavonovitch. there will be details as well of william taylor

i want to go back to marie yavonovitch. she lays out the timeline of, oh, i'm getting a sense of what rudy giuliani is up to. she's the ambassador. normally you would go through the ambassador. she's told by ukranian officials looking to hurt her standing back in the united states, looking to undermine the u.s. ambassador to the united states, the president's personal lawyer. an official tells her to watch her back because giuliani and his associates are angling for her to be pushed from her job. in a tweet, the president tweets for her removal and then she's pushed out. again, in a normal world, if there is a change in policy or an important policy, the ambassador is looped in. she finds out giuliani is going around her behind her back. >> and it's not just that giuliani is going behind her back, there is a whole, as has been detailed in the testimony of other witnesses, a whole shadow campaign by giuliani who is the president's personal lawyer, not a member of the u.s. government in any sort of diplomatic capacity, to run

ambassador to ukraine, marie yavonovitch. we have their transcripts to the private depositions. all of them worried that the president was putting political vendettas ahead of u.s. policy goals. the president is very aware of the mistakes and taking this week to warn his republicans. don't be led into the tools trap of saying it was not perfect, but it is not impeachable. no, it is much stronger than that. federal courts are closed for veterans day, yet judges will hear if an active chief of staff can join a lawsuit asking them to rule on whether congressional impeachment rules must be honored. john bolton and mick mulvaney, of course, have firsthand knowledge of key impeachment inquiry events. lauren fox joins me live up on capitol hill. lauren, normally a day off for veterans. is it quiet or busy up there? >> reporter: there is a sense of ca calm, and this is in a blockbuster week of public hearings on wednesday and then on friday where america will hear testimony of bill taylor, george kent and marie yavonovitch. one democratic senior aide told me it was even bigger than what

then friday it's marie yavonovitch.y will try to show that the president of ukraine never understood what president trump wanted. they say that's ludicrous and they can detail the conversations that trace all the way back to the west wing. that fight about facts is one big part of the impeachment drama. the presentation of the case, though, is also critical. and the three lead witnesses are hardly household names or voices. >> i think we should support ukraine very strongly financially. i think we should support ukraine very strongly militarily. >> regardless of the outcome in the upcoming elections, our commitment to ukraine and its people will remain unwavering. >> ukraine must continue to pursue economic reforms in line with european standards and fully keep up with its institutions. i say this as a friend and as a representative of a country that i believe is ukraine's best partner. >> i wanted to show that, to add it, because i assume most americans -- i don't mean this at all disrespectfully. unless you watch c-sp

. >> was marie yavonovitch trying to combat corruption in ukraine, sir? >> she was doing a good job stopping corruption in ukraine. >> so you and your superiors in the state department asked the ambassador to extend her time in the ukraine. correct, sir? >> that is correct. >> did you support her extension? >> i asked her to extend until the end of this year to get through the election cycle in ukraine and then secretary hale in march asked her to stay until 2020. >> someone in ukraine asked her not to promote corruption? >> you can't promote anti-corruption without pissing off corrupt people. >> fair enough. some of those people helped giuliani smear her, did they not? >> they did. >> so ultimately that smear campaign pushed president trump to remove her, correct, sir? >> i cannot judge that. what i can say is giuliani's smear campaign was ubiquitous in 2016 on fox news. >> in all your combined decades at the state department, have you ever before seen an instance where an ambassador was forced out by the president following a smear campaign of misinform

. >> on friday, we'll also hear from marie yavonovitch. she was the former ambassador to ukraine, and, you know, she has not held back even though the white house had to encourage former state house people from testifying, she did it, anyway. >> she seemed more than happy to tell her side of the story, because her side of the story has been suppressed. . her allies in the media have spread rumors against her that she was in the deep state, that she was nonpartisan. she went to the lawmakers and said, those are lies. they're not true, they're a big. >>> how the president's gop allies plan to counter testimony from witnesses during this week's testimony. the doctor's office might mejust for a shot.o but why go back there when you can stay home with neulasta® onpro? strong chemo can put you at risk of serious infection. in a key study neulasta® reduced the risk of infection from 17% to 1% a 94% decrease. neulasta® onpro is designed to deliver neulasta® the day after chemo and is used by most patients today. neulasta® is for certain cancer pat

and then we have marie yavonovitch who was forced out. think it's important to understand they are officials and they're coming out to provide testimony. >> those are the witnesses that the democrats who are in charge have officially called. we know that's going to happen. the rules of the road are such that republicans can say, wait, we want our own witnesses. it has to be a full committee vote which means it's doubtful they'll actually be successful. jim jordan, the congressman involved in this, says they could call the whistleblower. is there any chance that they could be successful? >> they could try, but you're really playing with fire here. in the corporate world, there are laws like sar baines auxley who provides protection for whistleblowers. >> do government whistleblowers have those same protections as corporate whistleblowers? >> you have protection with retaliation. you don't have protection against getting subpoenaed, so they could try this. but i think they're really playing with fire because the perception could be that the

a smear against marie yavonovitch, lifelong career diplomat, and the extortion of military aid trying to defend itself against russia. what is the sort of, you know, with the cameras off, mindset about what's going to start tomorrow? >> i think we should just set aside that memo because it's basically an 18-page press release. no member of congress -- i can pretty much guarantee you not one member of the committee has read that in total or in part. it's just a way to get their message out to a broader audience. that's number one. number two, i can't tell you what we said in "politico," remember when we started? what would politicians say if we put them on truth serum? what members of the committee and house republicans tell me over and over again is that they don't want to talk about the substance because they don't understand the totality of the substance, so they talk about other issues. that's important to keep in mind because that's what they were doing here. first it was process, then it's questioning the motive of witnesses, then it's questioning whether they have firsthand know

and we'll see marie yavonovitch who was removed at the urging of rudy giuliani. she said behind closed doors that she was told by ukranian officials to watch her back. meanwhile, the republicans are trying to use a host of explanations to defend president trump saying they don't have the smarts to orchestrate a quid pro quo, but there is one thing they won't accept by saying the phone call was improper but not an impeachable offense. in the meantime, one of rudy giuliani's indicted associates seems to be turning on the president and reportedly corroborating key testimony from witnesses in the process. according to the "new york times," the attorney for parnas says rudy giuliani instructed parn parnas, warning if ukraine did not announce an investigation into joe biden, then the u.s. would freeze military aid and vice president mike pence would not attend zelensky's inauguration. "the times" says parnas believed he was acting on behalf of president trump when he carried that directive out. i want to bring in cara snell to talk about all this. cara, how is rudy giu

diplomats that are going to be testifying this week, if you look at the record of william taylor, of marie yavonovitch, of george kent, these are diplomats who have spent their whole careers fighting corruption, and their own president is trying to pull them into a corrupt scheme. and to their credit, i have to say they're raising a red flag, they're pushing back, and they're saying, this is not right. and they're doing everything they can -- you can see that from the testimony -- to make sure that that kind of a trade will not happen on their watch. but they're under tremendous pressure. i think when the public sees and hears the testimony from these professionals, they will see that these are folks that are playing it straight, that wanted to represent the interests of the united states, not the interests of russia or anybody else, the interests of the united states, and that's why we can have such confidence in the testimony they're going to be delivering. >> and ever ly, evelyn, that's be one of the challenges in the committee's reputation to get the balance of the specifics of what the president

ambassador to wille, marie yavonovitch testify. find the transcripts at c-span.org/impeachment. announcer: earlier today as he departed for atlanta, president trump met with reporters on the white house lawn. he spoke about the transcripts of the first and second calls to ukraine and whether or not he will endorse jeff sessions who is running for u.s. senate. this is about 25 minutes. >> i just told them i have to come over and see the fake news. [indiscernible] >> the deposition and are you concerned. >> i'm not concerned about anything, the testimony has all been fine. for the most part i've never even heard of these people. i've have no i? they are. there are some very fine people. you have some never trumpers.

rudy giuliani also smeared the employment of marie yavonovitch. he told her although she had done nothing wrong, the president had lost confidence in her. the stage was set for an irregular channel in which giuliani and others, including gordon sondland, a donor to the president's inauguration, could advance the president's personal and political interests. yavonovitch's replacement in kiev in ambassador bill taylor is a west point graduate and a vietnam veteran. as he began to better understand the scheme through the summer of 2019, he pushed back, informing deputy assistant secretary kent and others about a plan to condition u.s. government actions and funding on the performance of political favors by the ukranian government, favors intended for president trump that would undermine our security and our elections. several key events in this scheme took place in the month of july. on july 10, ambassador sondland informed a group of u.s. and ukranian officials meeting at the white house that according to chief of staff mick mulvaney, a white house