ukraine ukraine what partisan hacks in biased media won't tell you is why ukraine has become part of america's political drama you'll only hear it here on crossfire. cross talking some real news i'm joined by my guest dmitri bobbitt she's a political analyst and editor at innocent me internet media project and in london we crossed alexander material he is a writer on legal affairs as well as the editor in chief of the duran dot com all right gentlemen crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciate alexander let me go to you in london i'm so pleased to have you in on the program here just the 2 of you because it gives you more time to talk about a story that is much more complex and longer than audiences in the west are being given by the mainstream media everyone is talking about the 2016 election well i would go a little bit further back and the very least i'd go back to 2014 would be illegal overthrow of a democratically elected government with the support of the e.u. and the united states now the predicate of all of this the larger th

but it wasn't quite so simple for ukraine the truth is ukraine has never been a united country. when world war 2 broke out a large part of western ukraine's population welcomed the german soldiers as liberators from the recently forced upon them soviet rule and openly collaborated with the germans. the real scale of collaboration was not announced for many years after the war but we now know that whole divisions and battalions were formed by ukrainian collaborators such as s.s. c. and not to go and roll into battalions. just in the beginning of the war more than $80000.00 people from college cina region voluntarily enrolled into division s.s. galad seen in a month and a half notorious for their extreme cruelty towards the polish jewish and russian people on the territory of ukraine. members of these military groups came mostly from the organization of ukrainian nationalists b o un founded in 1929 this organization had an ultimate goal of creating an ethnically pure independent ukraine and considered terror an acceptable tool for achieving their ends their official flag was black

in ukraine gate. and we're going to be a mother we had great people paul martin for good point you know when we crossed arad scandalous articles about him in the washington post by and have a warm august basically they all forgot to mention that he didn't do anything in russia he did everything he knew graeme and so did the d n c and he was i'm sorrier but at least he walked on his specialty he was a political consultant he got millions for that but the bidens look millions for something he didn't understand here showing him because his father's name but he was his father son he didn't understand anything in their street or in energy where did you come to buy them get education in energy star gets you know so the 4th story isn't what i'm going to run into and break from what i understand. knew a lot about pharmaceuticals if you know what i mean we're going to go to a short break here and after a short break we'll continue our discussion and some real news stay with our team. live. oh. please. please.

more clashes in ukraine's capital kiev. there is absolutely no you shall start to go with your heart caricature everybody. now on the brink of a civil war at least 70 dead so far and the death toll rising it you can allude you . a new music. hall we saw here today was a revolution. to. get invested over $5000000000.00 to assist ukraine in knees and. nato has expanded into 13 countries up to the borders of russia 13 countries. focus . on not allowing buy into hot wall between ukraine and russia. that the. city would. the the the low the to. elude . police. are little. plug 11 . ukraine. it's an ancient and proud land. with a rich history filled with much beauty heroism and sacrifice. ukraine is a border land. a place where east meets west. this is the flag of ukraine the blue represents the sky the gold its seemingly endless fields of wheat. ukraine is a prize many have sought. and much blood spilled in the quest to possess it. ukraine has been the pathway for western powers as they attempted to conquer the east. in world wa

into hot for between ukraine and russia. ukraine. it's an ancient and proud land. with a rich history filled with much beauty heroism and sacrifice. ukraine is a border land. a place where east meets west. this is the flag of ukraine the blue represents the sky the gold it's seemingly endless fields of wheat. ukraine is a prize many have sought. and much blood spilled in the quest to possess it. ukraine has been the pathway for western powers as they attempted to conquer the east. in world war one. and world war 2. and every time the ukrainian people ended up paying the highest price for these grand games of power. history doesn't repeat but it surely rhymes said mark twain. if one looks closely at the history of ukraine one will notice many rhymes. being surrounded by stronger powers ukraine has needed a lot of cunning to survive and the art they truly mastered with time is the art of changing sides. in the middle of the 17th century ukrainian leader. broke a truce agreement made with poland siding more powerful russia. just over 50 years later as the russian swed

trump was up to in ukraine.they represented that bipartisan policy and it's not a surprise to me that they're the first people who are going to testify in front of that impeachment inquiry. the last thing, rachel that's really important is the republicans used to be more hawkish about this. the criticism we got in the obama administration from people like lindsey graham was we weren't doing enough to support ukraine. now republicans have done a 180, saying there's nothing wrong with this call transcript. it's a window into the cynicism of the republican party. how much they flipped on this issue just to protect trump. >> and ben, as we go forward and head into these next couple of days with mike pompeo essentially threatening that he's going to try to block those officials you were just describing from speaking to congress, we don't exactly know how this is going to go with these depositions and when they're going to happen and who exactly is going to show up and how much the state department is going to do to t

special envoy to ukraine. former special envoy because last friday he abruptly resigned after he was named in the whistle-blower complaint that has given rise to this impeachment investigation. and really, even with the seemingly nonstop flow of breaking news about this whole impeachment scandal, there is a ton we don't know. it is unclear whether u.s. special envoy kurt volker may have been part of this scheme to pressure the ukrainian government. he showed up meeting with the ukrainian government right after president trump pressured them in a phone call to hand over dirt on biden as a condition of getting military aid. was volker part of this scheme, part of enacting that pressure campaign by president trump? or was he not part of this scheme but rather an important witness to it who might be able to shed light on what was done wrong? we may be about to get some answers. the house of representatives as part of their impeachment inquiry announced they'll be deposing five key state department officials named

william taylor is an expert on ukraine. he served as george w. bush's ambassador to ukraine. and after donald trump forced out marie yovanovitch as ambassador, william taylor is serving as acting ambassador to ukraine. he testified for ten hours today under oath about what rudy giuliani and donald trump have been doing with ukraine, yes, william taylor delivered testimony devastating to president trump. one freshman member of the committee hearing his testimony today said after the first couple hours of william taylor's testimony that it was, quote, my most disturbing day in congress so far. that congressman will join us in a moment. william taylor's testimony could make the impeachment of donald trump bipartisan. his testimony could turn some republican votes in the house of representatives and it might be the testimony that convinces republican senator mitt romney to vote to convict and remove donald trump from office. donald trump's very rich and totally incompetent and unqualified ambassador to the european union, gordon sondland, could face perjury charges after william

western oriented ukraine and those who i wouldn't call it a pro russian ukraine i would say a truly independent ukraine having an autonomous its own vision of its own foreign policy and you call that i mean there's we have to get away from this false dichotomy. but these a pro western forces have a very tenuous relationship with the west because. it's all about what is the west doing for ukraine which is at the forefront at the the ball work of and he russian. and anti russian policy to the extent that the west and i think it's clear is not going to support that kind of long term anti what anti russian initiative these forces in western ukraine are going to be disillusioned with the west and one already sees this in. the statements of current members of parliament for example that maybe we should rename the party servant of the people which is their party into servant of the i.m.f. because the i.m.f. really has us by the throat and is never going to let go and this is just one example of the of the true attitude of the west toward the would be but you know we would have predict we predicted thi

in ukraine gate. and we're going to be a mother we had great people paul martin for good point you know when we 1st arrived scandalous articles about him in the washington post by and have a warm august basically they all forgot to mention that he didn't do anything in russia he did everything in ukraine and so did the d n c and he was i'm sorrier but at least he walked on his specialty he was a political consultant he got millions for that but the bidens or chameleons for something he didn't understand creation in because of his father's name but he was his father son he didn't understand anything in gas trade or in energy where did we come to buy them get education in energy studies you know so the 4th story isn't what i'm going to write or break for but understand. knew a lot about pharmaceuticals if you know what i mean we're going to go to a short break here and after a short break we'll continue our discussion and some real news stay with our team. just. in this context i'm almost a last chance

love for ukraine. lovely as they are, right? there isn't some terrifically spiritual bond between our countries that supersedes the bonds we have with other countries the only reason we've been supporting them is because they were freaking invaded by russia, right, which is a very unusual thing. up until now on a bipartisan basis, we, the yierkts helped support that country because they were invaded by russia and russia is occupying part of them. we have been helping them keep their country intact while russia is trying to take it. so to the extent we are now no longer supporting ukraine or we are making our support for them contingent on these political favors for president trump for his re-election campaign, it's a radical change in a short period of time in terms of what the u.s. is doing and what are when a our attitude is toward that world-changing event from 2014. and i think now it's becoming clear why or at least it's becoming clear how this all fits together. the "new york times" this weekend

policy towards ukraine since ukraine's independent from the soviet union has been fairly consistent in pushing ukraine on anticorruption reform. that's been one of the corner stones of u.s. messaging in ukraine for decades, and that's been fairly consistent, both under barack obama and under president trump, and you know, under the obama administration this was very much carried by his ambassadors to ukraine who have long played a strong role in kiev in working with politicians there to try and convey the message of, look, you need to clean up corruption. >> what was then vice president joe biden's role? >> so joe biden was obama's point person in ukraine, and he really carried that message for the president. he also oversaw the u.s. response -- perhaps not the u.s. response but the u.s. messaging when it came to conflict in ukraine, the russian annexation of crimea, it was 2014 where you had russia lops off a chunk of ukraine, annexes crimea and then the war begins in eastern ukraine in the spring of that year. it was the first hot war in the region in an extremely long time, and you

so i got ukraine. and i remember going over, convincing our team, others to convince that we should be providing for loan guarantees. i went over i guess the 12, 13th time to kiev and i was supposed to announce that there's another $1 billion loan guarantee. i had gotten a commitment from porshenchingo and from yatsen that they would take action against the state prosecutor, and they didn't. so they said they were walking out and said, i'm not going to -- we're not going to give you the billion dollars. they said you have no authority. you're not the president. the president said. i said call him. i said i'm telling you you're not getting the $1 billion. i'm going to be leaving here, i think it was six hours, i'm leaving in six hours. if the prosecutor is not fired you're not getting the money. well, son of a --, he got fired. and they put in place someone who was solid. at the time. well, still so they made some genuine substantial changes institutionly and with people. but one of the three institutio

ukraine and then u.k. and the west has been pushing for that you know during the last 5 years but the point is that these last these very division because if you want to impose the same identity on many different people. here and you're you know you have excellent reading skills that's not really going that's all the time we don't hear many things like it's here in moscow and thanks for viewers for watching us here in our d.c. units remember. there are no official statistics in india concerning children who have been long still separated from their parents some are to estimate that every 30 minutes in the country the child goes missing. on up. or you are looking at. the national human rights commission stated that $44000.00 minors go missing every year while the police quoted. the united nations children's fund has described the situation as genocide and various sources suggest that in india there was several 1000000 missing women and children. facebook and google started with a great idea and great ideals

ukraine should be recognized. i don't think anyone is questioning ukraine's independence except for mr. putin, perhaps and people around him. a foreign policy success at ukraine's expense would not be a foreign policy success. i think the blowback from the congress, from the think tank, university community, everywhere , would be so severe that if the president tried to push some resolution that came at ukraine's expense -- i think that in order for it to be labeled a success, it cannot come at ukraine's expense. on crimea, turkey could make some claims on crimea since until mid- 18 century. in 54, it was given to the ukrainians. socialist republic. acknowledgment of agreement of that. ninety-four and 97 with the russia ukraine friendship treaty it is only mr. putin and those like him that want to eat erase all of that and claim that crimea actually belongs to russia. if we allow that to happen, then we are losing. in my view, the international community should never recognize crimea as part of russia. we never re

of ukraine. "the washington post" reported, for example, that it a former senior administration official who were people he discussed the issue with president trump said that the president thought "what we were doing in ukraine was pointless and just aggravating the russians." the official went on to say the president position basically is we should recognize the fact that the russians should be our friend, and who cares about the ukrainians? times" had a similar report, saying that president trump has had harsh words about ukraine, and they are terrible people, he is quoted as having said. they are all corrupt and they try to take me down. and it is this sense where the president and his personal attorney have been arguing that, in fact, it was ukrainian collusion with the democrats and the clinton campaign, not russian collusion with the trump campaign that should be the focus of investigation. in addition, mr. giuliani has been trying to push for further vista geisha and of former vice preside

with the ukraine. it would appear the trump administration has been trying to make headway on that front for russia too. "the new york times" made kind of an offhand reference to that this weekend when they reported that president trump has, quote, quietly been urging a deal that would pave the way for a removal of western sanctions on moscow over their ongoing conflict in ukraine. obviously the removal of those western sanctions is, quote, long a goal of president putin's. president trump himself said as much back in august when he was asked whether or not he planned to invite the ukrainian president to the white house. he said at the time, quote, i think he's going to make a deal with president putin and he will be invited to the white house. meaning, yeah, i would like ukraine and russia to make a deal, i would like the ukrainian president to go make a deal with vladimir putin. then that guy can come to the white house. why does the u.s. president want ukraine to make a deal with russia over russia

here for example as ukraine's national and t. corruption bureau chief sit nick recorded bragging about how he helped hillary clinton during the 2016 election. not trump but hillary i help to hillary belongs to the co-hosts of politicians who comprise the her germany in the us both in the us and in the entire world for runs that is sort of better oh you could definitely film sensitive 3 with these guys but the audio is real confirmed by ukraine's attorney general it was mr sit nick by the way who published dirt on trump's campaign manager in 2016 in the real last anyway but the fellow tried so what if you don't have guns to sell or elections to win what if for example daddy wants to get in. is young boy a nice cushy job where he didn't have to do much well ukraine's the help booth john biden's son and john kerry's stepson landed executive jobs at the ukrainian energy company now strap yourself in hunter biden earned $50000.00 a month 50000 in a country where the average wage is a few $100.00 and you know what in the weird and wack

and issues of corruption in ukraine.s all we discussed. the simple truth is that those are the same issues that the president raised with president zelensky in their call. anyone who looks at the president's transcript will see that the president was raising issues that were appropriate, that were of genuine interest to the american people. >> greg miller is national security correspondent to "the washington post" i'm such a fan of all your reporting but this story jumps off the page, how is it going to land with the guy in the office with no corners? it seemed to me that pence did a little bit of dancing today. >> yeah, i mean, i think he's in a tough spot. he has so far in this presidency walked this tightrope where he sort of is supporting the president at every step but simultaneously keeping some distance away from him, enough distance that he hasn't been terribly tainted by all these scandals. i think in our story today we were trying to write about just how difficult it is to kind of accept that assertion of obje

military aid to ukraine. from the johns hopkins school of international study, this is an hour and 15 minutes. >> i'd like to welcome everybody to the russia-you're asia seminar. we do it every two weeks, as you know, and given the speaker that we have and the topic is going to deal with. we have the pleasure of welcoming c-span here which is broadcasting this event as far as i can tell live on c-span2. i'm charles gotti. i organize these seminars and i say very little because i want the speaker to have as much time as possible. just to give you a little background. he hails from massachusetts and the soviet studies at harvard, before that, he got his va also in soviet studies and political science from tufts university. at harvard he studied with the legendary adam olamb and in tufts with solitary and old friend of mine, indeed. >> he left washington after, ana professor at -- in florida, at -- at florida international university, and that's a move that is shrouded in mystery, because few people do that, but

ukraine ukraine what partisan hacks in biased media won't tell you is why ukraine has become part of america's political drama you'll only hear it here on crossfire. cross talking some real news i'm joined by my guest dmitri bobbitt she's a political analyst and editor at innocent me internet media project and in london we crossed alexander material he is a writer on legal affairs as well as the editor in chief of the duran dot com all right gentlemen crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciate alexander let me go to you in london i'm so pleased to have you in on the program here just the 2 of you because it gives you more time to talk about a story that is much more complex and longer than audiences in the west are being given by the mainstream media everyone is talking about the 2016 election well i would go a little bit further back and the very least i go back to 2014 with the illegal overthrow of a democratically elected government with the support of the e.u. and the united states now the predicate of all of this the larger the

we stood strong with ukraine. we are standing strong with president zelensky.the american people would expect, president trump wanted to make sure that ukraine was advancing the reform agenda, reforming and ending corruption. that our allies in europe were doing more. >> [indiscernible] -- the bidens was at least a part of the reason the aid was held up? >> i have never discussed the issue of the bidens with president zelensky. what i can tell you is that all of our discussions internally, when the president and my office with ukraine were focused on the broader issues of european support. >> you are interested in seeing the bidens investigated? [inaudible] >> that is your question. let me be very clear. the issue of aid and our efforts with regard to ukraine were from my experience in no way connected to the very legitimate concern the american people have about corruption that took place, about things that happened in the 2016 election or about the issue that former vice president biden had his son on the board of a major energy company in ukraine at a time w

nancy pelosi took money from ukraine lobbyists. they have no problem with it when it salacious of their campaign and jobs for their benefit when asking ukraine for dirt and when it's funding a dossier to bring trump down. in any case, elected leaders always wear their government hat and that of a politician. every conversation, every meeting there thinking about politics. the idea that donald trump can make an abuse of power is a joke. they all do it. i thought myself with president obama and david cameron. today, the impeachment fanatics recite dirt on the protocol arrival but with ukraine and biden it's not just any rival. if he was asking them to look for andrew yang who worked on one of his startups that would be different. we will laid out for you in detail in tonight swamp watch. is the former vice president and his family acted correctly in another country. [inaudible] the reason there so up in arms about it is that it's exposing a central feature of their swampy business model. what's not okay is using government policy and

a secure and prosperous and democratic ukraine. starts in a city in the world it will slowly new democracy just go to. the with. some of them but obviously the funds had to keep coming and the conflict had to keep going again. and more bloody and deadly. so mayst. as parties from both sides were using more sophisticated and lethal weapons. that's why do you. want. us. to do. you know. the world seemed too busy welcoming this new democracy in kiev. to notice what was being done as it spread its wings over the country. many in southern ukraine had been viewing the revolution with concern. and an anti mind on movement formed in the city of odessa in early january 2014 the protesters set up their camp in front of the trade union house a building which would soon become a monument to a massacre of its own it's difficult to overestimate the importance of odessa it is strategically located on the black sea and it's ukraine's largest seaport it's not surprising that ukraine's new authorities were watching the situation unfolding there with

all of a sudden, ukraine. we go from russia to ukraine. how did that happen? the democrats, nancy pelosi and six committee chairman, i call them her pullet bureau are running rough shod trying to, issuing letters they call subpoenas if they were not replied to in a certain given time, they claim that to be obstruction of justice, it is not a court. they mean obstruction of the house. they are trying to set up the president and set up the administration, the demands are onerous. the process, you see, is ahistorical. and president's counsel wrote a letter to the members of the house, they said, you deny the president the right to cross-examine witnesses, to call witness to receive transcript of testimony to have access to evidence. to have counsel is present, in other words basic due process, even though this is not a criminal matter, cereal murdersl murder -- serial murderers get more due process, terrorists get more due process than president of united states coequal subpoena power, i did some research. and i found something, look at this. what in the world is

involving ukraine and joe biden. >> did you ask the ukraine to investigate joe biden?tually found facts that are true. >> shut up, moron, shut up -- >> just be careful about what you say. i asked you did you look at joe biden? >> you don't know what you're talking about, idiot. >> let me finish. >> keep your lying mouth shut. >> you did ask ukraine to look into joe biden? >> of course i did. >> you just said you didn't. >> giuliani's theory was based on one fact, that biden, as vice president, had used his authority to push for the removal of ukraine's prosecutor general, victor shokin. but giuliani went on to claim that biden got rid of shokin in order to protect his own son, hunter, and the burisma energy company. >> when giuliani says that vice president biden removed shokin to protect his son, hunter biden? is he right? >> it's [ bleep ]. from first word to the last word. >> did people here in ukraine, investigators like yourself, anti-corruption activists, think that shokin was doing a good job that he was effective? >> absolutely not. shokin was corrupt, ineffect

ally, ukraine.nd so coming out of this meeting, the sources i've been talking to say that this sort of solidifies this narrative that democrats, you know, have been investigating, that this investigation in what trump did with ukraine really infringed on u.s. foreign policy and caused a lot of problems. >> rachel, did volker tell the lawmakers how giuliani responded when he gave him that warning not to go with all those wild accusations? >> reporter: to be answered. i don't know at this point. i'm sure he was probably asked that question. we're still learning details as they come out. clearly, giuliani continued to pursue this matter, right? clearly, giuliani continued to pursue this. >> you are also reporting, rachel, that volker handed over documents to these members of congress. what do we know about that? >> i've seen some other reporting that he has turned over some text messages right now. we saw a text message exchange where he expressed concern about the u.s. holding this financial military

the presidents communications with ukraine's president.e pres. pence: president zelensky said there was no pressure. his words were no one published. a clear reading of the transcript shows there was no quid pro quo in the president's call. the american people should read the transcript. and they do well to do that. the chairman of the intelligence committee manufactured a version of the transcript and read it into the record. we also see the chairman of the committee misrepresented his context with the whistleblower in repeated interviews. the american people need to look no further than the plain reading of the transcript. there was no pressure, no quid pro quo, our focus was entirely on the president's desire to see europe contribute more to ukraine security and sovereignty, and to also see president zelensky make good on his own election commitment to pass significant corruption reforms in ukraine. we have been pleased with the progress he has made on that front. we are pleased the aid that we provided is continuing to provide security

we are left it in the ukraine. they say you lecture us on corruption and your idiot press can't figure out we were paying off joe biden and what you think the chinese say? they were paying $1.5 billion to this kid who were buying the vice president. >> appreciate your coming on. >> you should do something about it. >> ahead, a couple extraordinary news conferences. immediate reaction to donald trump inviting china and ukraine to investigate biden. i've always had a knack for finding things... ...colon cancer,to be exact. and i find it noninvasively... no need for time off or special prep. it all starts here... you collect your sample, and cologuard uses the dna in your stool to find 92% of colon cancers. you can always count on me to know where to look. oh, i found them! i can do this test now! ask your doctor if cologuard is right for you. covered by medicare and most major insurers >> many journalists were stunned ever weeklong frenzy where donald trump's call with ukraine at leader, he went in front of the camer

supported ukraine. he denied them a white house visit until he could promise he could get what he wanted. why is that dangerous? what can you tell the american people about why it's important for us to support ukraine? >> first of all, look what he did. he, obviously, used taxpayer funded assistance, passed by the congress on a bipartisan basis, to both threaten and intimidate the new president of ukraine, to investigate his political opponents for the purpose of advancing his own re-election. now, that has so many elements in it and it's one of the reasons why i think it's broken through to the american people. it also is troubling that ukraine has been a subject of constant pressure from vladimir putin and the russian interests in ukraine. so you have the trump administration, the president, the vice president, others, actually pressuring a new president who has a part of his country invaded and occupied by russian troops, and putting this poor new president in this vise. you think you are going to ge