yovanovitch: no. goldman: now, after you returned to washington a couple days after that, you met with the deputy secretary of state. and at your deposition, you said that the deputy secretary of state told you that you had done nothing wrong but that there was a concerted campaign against you. what did -- what did he mean by that? yovanovitch: i'm not exactly sure, but i took it to mean that the allegations that mayor giuliani and others were putting out there, that that's -- that that's what it was. goldman: and who else was involved in this concerted campaign against you? yovanovitch: there were some members of -- of the press and others in mayor giuliani's circle. goldman: and who from ukraine? yovanovitch: in ukraine, i think -- well, mr. lutsenko, the prosecutor general and mr. shokin, his -- his predecessor, certainly. goldman: and at this time, mr. lutsenko was the lead prosecutor general, is that right? yovanovitch: yes, that's correct. goldman: and had president zelensky indicated whether or

yovanovitch: yes.he transcripts also reveal the depth of yovanovitch and her ukrainian counterparts' misgivings about ukraine becoming embroiled in american domestic politics with one of her contacts there saying, quote, getting into u.s. politics would be a dangerous place for ukraine to be. that is where we start today with some of our favorite reporters and friends. from "the washington post," white house bureau chief phil rucker. plus former chief of staff to vice presidents joe biden and al gore. former republican congressman david jolly. chief public affairs officer from move' on.org, karine jean-pierre. i didn't get all the way through this, but i read big chunks of it. the tension in her voice, and it's hard to articulate how tough and how seasoned a diplomat like marie yovanovitch is and they all are by and large. but to hear her talk about being threatened and feeling so threatened in her posting, not from the ukrainians but from her domestic enemies in the trump white house was chilling. >>

yovanovitch. ms. yovanovitch: yes. rep. swalwell: and you understand the lawyers act on their clients' behalf, is that right? ms. yovanovitch: yes. rep. swalwell: that it would be improper for a lawyer to go outside of a directive that the client gives. ms. yovanovitch: that is my understanding. rep. speier: are you familiar with a story on may 9, 2019 where you rudy giuliani says he intends to visit ukraine and says "we are not meddling in an election, we are meddling in an investigation." are you familiar with that quote? ms. yovanovitch: yes. rep. swalwell: that if 11 days before you were removed as ambassador. ms. yovanovitch: yes. rep. swalwell: he is talking about designs on coming to ukraine. but i what i think is interesting is mr. giuliani says "we're," as an "we are," he does not say "i am not meddling in an investigation, he says "we." he is speaking for himself and his client. and i want to talk about that quote, "we are not meddling in an investigation, we are meddling in an investigation," is it proper to medd

the key with yovanovitch, she is essentially the victim in this case. if it were. when you put a criminal case on trial, if possible, you always want to have the victim testify, even if the victim doesn't have direct evidence of the defendant's guilt. you want them to testify because it personalizes the crime. that's what yovanovitch did today in this hearing. >> they say maybe witness intimidation is another article of impeachment. okay. maybe. is it possible that removing yovanovitch -- everybody says he can do it any way he wants. we did some research. maladministration, which is where, yes, you can remove me for whatever reason you want, but if you do it for bad reason in a way that belies the abuse of your power, there is some precedent -- this is very thin area, but that you could be impeached for that as well. do you buy that notion? >> they talked about that when they were framing the constitution and decided to not include that phrase and came up with the phrase -- treason, bribery, high crimes and misdemeanors instead. >> instead of maladministration. >>

this is a constitutional matter, not about tweets. -- you call ambassador yovanovitch -- rep. stefanik: i agree with ambassador yovanovitch's testimony where she said she thinks it is good policy that the president of the united states determines who serves as his ambassador. >> do you agree with his decision? rep. stefanik: i agree with his ability to pick and choose who if investors are, and those are voted on and nominated by the senate. rep. jordan: the president can have who he wants in a diplomatic position. >> [indiscernible] rep. jordan: that is the president's call. have come if president zelensky, a new administration in the ukraine that is not have the same confidence in this ambassador, and so it is appropriate that the diplomats we have, to put someone in with a new regime in the ukraine that can actually work on the president's behalf, on behalf of the american people. >> why is it appropriate for the president's personal attorney, rudy giuliani, that she testified was a smear campaign against her, why is that ok? rep. jordan: as i said, the president can have wh

marie yovanovitch turned bad. then he criticized the record in somalia and ukraine. democrats now accuse the president of witness intimidation. yovanovitch calling the tweet very intimidating. trump denied that. the white house saying he was simply expressing his opinion. the president saying he has the right to speak. just about three weeks ago, another example. trump disparaged a witness in this same inquiry. the day after diplomat bill taylor testified behind closed doors on the ukraine scandal, trump tweet that taylor was a never trumper and then immediately called all never trumpers human scum. taylor, a kree public servant and bronze star recipient has denied being political. trump has also demand that had the whistleblower's identity be revealed. in late accept the president talked openly about going after the whistleblower's sources. that came in a private talk with diplomats which someone recorded and gave to the "l.a. times." >> who is the person who gave the whistleblower the information? that's close t

and yovanovitch understands right from wrong. you'll hear that from her today. >> she will testify in public. behind closed doors, your committee will hear from david holmes who cnn has reported is the embassy official who overheard the phone call that ambassador taylor testified to between president trump and ambassador sondland. in that phone call, ambassador taylor testified president trump was asking about the investigation into the bidens. ambassador sondland then said trump cares more about investigations than ukraine. what new information do you expect to hear from david holmes today? >> well, we want to understand precisely what he heard. it's wonderful that ambassador taylor was able to provide that new information. obviously it's a major development. it's another indication that the president was laser focused on investigating the bidens. this was not some general concern for corruption. what he was calling, speaking to ambassador sondland about the very day after the famous phone call between the two presidents was an

ambassador yovanovitch, whose deposition was released today?usly she was the object of a tremendous smear campaign and a lot of propaganda, and we want to know how deep that went and who was involved in it and who authorized it. we had another hero revealed today in his testimony, ambassador mckinley, who just said in his 37 years serving republican presidents and democratic presidents, he'd been ambassador in afghanistan, brazil, colombia, peru, he'd never seen anything like what had taken place toward ambassador yovanovitch, and he had never seen a secretary of state essentially abandon his own employees, his own workers, his own frontline diplomatic personnel and ambassadors the way that pompeo abandoned yovanovitch. so he urged him to make a statement on behalf of the ambassador, and pompeo didn't do it despite the support of high-ranking state department people. and he said, i've had enough. i'm out of here. i'm not going to participate in turning the state department into an instrument of the president's campaign for political purposes. >

yovanovitch replies. i think perhaps in the february time period i did where one of the senior ukrainian officials was very concerned and told me i really needed to watch my back. watch my back? well, the president today was asked if he was targeting his then ambassador. >> was marie yovanovitch the target of a smear campaign by -- >> i really don't know her but if you look at the transcripts, the president of ukraine was not a fan of hers. >> trump says he didn't know her but that gives a completely false impression of his involvement. that is the bottom line. there is no other way to say it. he knew plenty about her and he didn't like her. at the same time when she was told to watch her back trump's closest allies the people talking to him all the time were launching an all out public assault on yovanovitch. from fox news. >> marie yovanovitch has bad mouthed the president of the united states to ukrainian officials and has told them not to listen or worry about trump policy because he's going to be imp

andrea, yovanovitch said she felt personally targeted by the president. did she put a human face on this >> absolutely. here you had a career veteran diplomat who had served in conflict zones since the reagan years. yanked from her post in the middle of the night on a call, with no cause. an at the same time, being told that she is in her testimony today being attacked by the president on twitter in realtime smeared an attacked by the president of the united states. that's unprecedented. >> all right, andrea and chuck, thank you. >>> while all that was playing out, the president's long-time friend and former campaign adviser roger stone was found guilty today of all charges stemming from the russia investigation. here's pete williams. >> reporter: it took the jury just over one day to reach the verdict, guilty of lying to congress no comment today from roger stone still under a gag order. a far cry to fight the charges when he was arrested ten months ago. >> i believe this is a politically motivated investigation. >> reporter: stone was convicted of lying

yovanovitch take her place. kate shaw, something else that is unmistakable among the other three witnesses, they will try bout her life story as well. >> right. you saw her opening statement in her closed door testimony, talking about the oath she has taken to defend the constitution and the laws of the united states. kent and taylor underscored that, and they're not a personal, political agenda of one president, but the united states, its laws, its constitution. i think that's what we'll see today. >> let's go to the room. ambassador yovanovitch has taken her seat. she will be sworn in by adam schiff, and we'll have the opening statements by both the chairman and devin nunes. i expect an opening statement from ambassador yovanovitch as well. shell. she still works for the state department. she has actually been detailed to georgetown university where she's teaching of course. one of the other things expected to be elis tipped is she expected to be fired. she was told to return to the united states on the next p

causing yovanovitch to say she felt threatened by him. also today, behind closed doors, much more on the truly stunning revelation from tuesday's public hearing. career u.s. diplomat david holmes says he overheard president trump ask the u.s. ambassador to the eu about the status of investigations. in hours, he testifies behind closed doors up on capitol hill. and tomorrow, there's breaking -- there's other breaking ranks developing. a career official over at the white house budget office is expected to tell lawmakers what he knows about why security aid for ukraine was frozen. our team is covering all of the angles in this truly important impeachment process. let's go over to capitol hill right now. our cnn senior congressional correspondent manu raju is watching all these developments. set the scene once again, day two of these public hearings. >> marie yovanovitch, the ousted ambassador to ukraine will detail the efforts by rudy giuliani, the president's personal attorney, to push forward on issues about ukraine, push for those investi

one, ambassador yovanovitch lied under oath.he said that she didn't know that joe biden -- >> laura: let's play that sound bite where she referenced joe biden bringing up concern about this issue. let's watch. so you're concerned about that aspect because she had to have known -- >> everybody in the country knows. how could she not have known? she's one of the central players in his narrative and she didn't know that joe biden give a speech bragging about how he threatened to cut off a billion dollars in aid if they didn't fire the prosecutors looking into his son's company? how could she not possibly know that? yet she sat under oath today that she had no idea. >> biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you could look into it, it sounds horrible to me. are you familiar with the eight allegations related to vice president biden? >> yes. >> do you know whether he ever went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution as anyone? >> no. >> laura: no. so that just doesn't pass the test. >> yeah i mean i d

they never asked ambassador yovanovitch w yovanovitch about what president zelensky said about her. that is how about he rolls with alls this. why is the president tweeting? schiff wants only part of the information and to create the world's greatest parody, why didn't you ask? >> saying it right now. i'm not on the house committee. by the we we have asked the ambassador and anybody can read her deposition. spent seven, eight hours, that's not public even though morrison the is not. president trump wants to defend himself and make sure it gets out there because adam schiff isn't going to tell the american people the entire thing. >> impeachment about withholding aid? that's what i thought it was all about. i thought interesting. heard from somebody in the intraagencies today, who recommended that we give ukraine lethal aid. we heard her say that. she said it. even in the previous administration. this is what they wanted. okay? and congress approved it. okay? this is about providing the aid or not. right? the previous administration against the interagency, against congress, denied u

. >> ambassador yovanovitch, thank you for being here. it has been a long day. the first time we met it was not clear, so i want to start with a quick comment. your testimony in this inquiry broke the dam. you are the one who first threw that stone wall that the president was trying to set up. and i just want to thank you for that. because others have followed your example. there is an old expression that the first person through the wall gets a little bit body. and i think you must understand that expression in a new way. but thank you. >> thank you. >> i want to ask you about the day that you were let go. and i know this is a painful series of events, but apri april 24th, and you told us a few things that really stuck with me. you said you were at the embassy in ukraine, you are honoring a ukrainian woman, anticorruption activist, i believe her name is kateryna handziuk. giving her the woman of courage award? >> correct. >> did you know carol perez? >> yes. >> you're both the senior women of service, you had an opportunity to meet her before? >> yes. >> and sh

they were part of the effort to smear yovanovitch.y question for you does it look like rudy and trump above him is the person who carried out the very things rudy's under investigation for, does it look like there is an impeachment inquiry coming from this end and a federal investigation coming from this end? and do you see an intersection? >> i think you're absolutely right, nicole. there is no doubt that these are two pieces that come together. whether or not they will ultimately intersect, we'll have to wait and see. but it goes back to what andrew was talking about in this whole notion of the president doing something that he had the ability to do. and then us asking the question why. and we heard a lot of that answer today. it's tied up in a corrupt motive. the corrupt motive that trump needed to get someone out of the way who was a committed corruption fighter. the reason that you have to get someone who's a committed corruption fighter out of the way is if you want to engage in misconduct. and so the investigation that's going

claire mccaskill, the idea that yovanovitch is somehow unrelated, yovanovitch is, as i said to chris, patient zero. she is the first evidence of donald trump's involvement in a smear campaign. he's the architect of it. rudy giuliani, lev parnas and his guys on the ground in ukraine were carrying it out. >> absolutely. >> so here's the deal. rudy giuliani and trump cooked up this plan to find a way to go after biden and giuliani had all these contacts on the dark side. all around the globe, including some of the ones that are currently being prosecuted in this country, those two nuts from down in florida. and then this bad guy in the ukraine. so they had to gin up some dirt on biden coming from ukraine and rudy had friends that could help him do that. corrupt friends, bad guys. so who was in the way? i am so proud of this woman. she was the most senior, highest ranking woman diplomat in the state department. now, saying that is something, because the state department historically over the last 30 years has not exactly been where you go to find all the powerful women in washington. usua

ambassador to ukraine marie yovanovitch's firing in late april or her recall. holmes was stunned by the consistency of media attacks on yovanovitch by name as a u.s. ambassador and the scope of the allegations that were leveled against her. yovanovitch's dismissal as a result of giuliani's smear campaign was one of several things that unsettled dr. hill. another was the role of gordan sondland who emerged as a key player in ukraine policy in may when he was named as part of the u.s. delegation led by secretary rick perry to president ugurati. lieutenant colonel alexander vindman also attended the inauguration and as holmes recalls, during a meeting with president zelensky, took the opportunity to advise the new ukrainian leader to stay out of u.s. domestic politics. another concern that arose for dr. hill around this time was her discovery of a potential nsc-backed channel on ukraine. hill learned that an nsc staff member who did not work on ukraine and for her may have been providing ukraine-related information to president trump that dr. hill was not made awa

ambassador yovanovitch, thank you. >>

the key with yovanovitch, she is essentially the victim in this case. when you put a criminal case on trial, if possible you always want to have the victim testify, even if the victim doesn't have direct evidence of the guilt, you want them to testify because it personalizes the crime. that's what yovanovitch did today in this hearing. >> they say maybe witness intimidation is another article of impeach. everybody says he can do it any way he wants. we did veeresearch. mal-administration, if you do it in a way that alies your abuse of power as president, you could be impeached for that as well. >> they talked about that when they were framing the stus and decided to not clou clu that phrase and came up with treason, bribery, high crimes and misdemeanors instead. >> it's intended to cover a range of abuses of office. that's what it's about, abusing your office for bad reasons to be determined by congress. the house and the senate need to figure it out as time evolves. >> it's interesting. >> but he just doesn't get to do whatever he wants with the office

while yovanovitch was testifying, the president slammed her on twitter writing, everywhere marie yovanovitch went turned bad. her testimony is on hold right now while lawmakers vote on the house floor. here's some of what we've heard from her so far. >> i do not understand mr. giuliani's motives for attacking me nor can i offer an opinion whether he believed the allegations he spread about me. clearly, no one at the state department did. what i can say is that mr. giuliani should have known those claims were suspect coming as they reportedly did from individuals with questionable motives. when i returned to the united states, deputy secretary of state sullivan told me there had been a concerted campaign against me, that the president no longer wished me to serve as ambassador to ukraine and that, in fact, the president had been pushing for my removal since the prior summer. although then and now, i have always understood that i served at the pleasure of the president. i still find it difficult to comprehend that foreign and private interests were able to undermine u.s. interests in this way.

it's not just about yovanovitch, it's about future witnesses.c servants who have come forward and testified. if you're gordon sondland and you tell the president you love his you know what, he will be kind to you. but if not, he will -- he doesn't understand what diplomats actually do. >> it was a cheap shot. >> and it was a dangerous shot. because it discourages everybody from speaking truth and upholding the constitution and our system of checks and balances. >> and other witnesses coming forward have to factor into this, knowing that it will come raining down from the president, and many of the right-wing media, you will face that fire if you choose to speak out. >> speaking out, with the media, it was important to hear some of the commentary on fox news, some of it. you heard chris wallace say if you didn't feel for yovanovitch today, you don't have a pulse. and ken starr calling what the president did extraordinarily poor judgment. >> extraordinarily poor judgment. the president frequently says i follow my instincts. sometimes you need to c

we saw that today with yovanovitch.r case, the day was more emotional because you got to see a case of bullying against a strong, upstanding woman, and, so, i thought she expressed, like, the hea o momentsf today where, when she expressed her reaction to how badly she was treated. so that introduces an element of emotion and pen pethos in wheret should not be just a legal proceeding buta contrast between good and bad people. >> woodruff: how is it adding upor you? >> the conventional wisdom,dy last friday, is it would be the democrats would impeach in the house and th republicans would acquit in the senate. i think conventional wisdom has i think we remind ourselves this is a not a static process, it a dynamic process. each testimony changes the narrative and changes the reality. there's no question that the first two witnesses, mr taylor and mr. kent, have inspireand encouraged and given spirit to other people to come forward. david holmes today, and ambassador yovanovitch, i agree with david, after listening to ambass

you've got ambassador yovanovitch. it's pretty clear, isn't it? who the good guys are and the bad guys are. the one thing mike quigley was joking about but it's' kind of true it felt like a movie hearing her talk about being at the embassy honoring a courageous woman who lost her life fighting corruption when she gets the call that leads to the realization that the own government is going to kneecap her for doing the same thing. and we've got to set this right. i got to tell you after this testimony, we are more determined than ever to hold this president accountable and to make sure the american people know who the good guys are here and what the right things are to be fighting for and it sure as hell isn't the russians. >> sean patrick murphy -- sean patrick maloney. one of the irish guys. thank you for joining us. i like your values, sir. thank you so much. jason, i do think this is not an ethics matter. this is not something for the house ethics committee or the senate. this seems to be a question of what side are you on? >> right. right. are

we also have yovanovitch and dr. hill and yovanovitch obviously left before the time period. dr. hill, we appreciate you being with us today. dr. hill, you have provided me probably the greatest piece of evidence that's before us to illustrate the problem with hearsay. so, you said based on questions and statements, i have heard some of you on this committee, believe that russia and its security service did not conduct a campaign against our country. and perhaps somehow for some reason it was ukraine. so this is the -- it was held up by deonne nunes, the russian active measures voted on by all of us. it begins with this sentence. in 2015, russia began in a covert campaign aimed at the eexwill. any of ustlmall effort on your part dr. hill, you would have known what you said was not true. you had heard, you felt the need to put it in your eight-page statement before you went on to tell us a bunch of other things about other people no matter how convinced you were of, also not necessarily true. one of which was that you said that ambassador sondland met with guiliani, actually, amba

ambassador to ukraine marie yovanovitch. we already know a lot about what mckinley testified about, including that he resigned his post because of the failure to the state department to offer support to foreign service employees caught up in the impeachment inquiry. mckinley, who was senior advisor to secretary of state mike pompeo, also testified, again, under oath in this deposition, that he told pompeo about his concerns multiple times before he resigned, which makes what pompeo said last month so much more interesting. listen to the way that pompeo gives himself absolutely no wiggle room on this question. >> mike mckinley served me well for a year and a half. i chose him. i had people tell me he was a great foreign service officer. in fact, he served america wonderfully for 37 years. he in fact had the office that was just behind mine, it had a door that he could walk in any time and say whatever he wanted. you know, from the time that ambassador yovanovitch departed ukraine until the time that he came to tell me that he

get, everywhere marie yovanovitch went turned bad the president wrote.e added that ukrainian president had spoken about him. yovanovitch was told about the tweet moments later. >> what effect do you think that has on other witnesses' willingness to come forward and expose wrongdoing? >> well, it's very intimidating. >> it's designed to intimidate, is it not? i mean, i can't speak to what the president is trying to do. but i think the effect is to be intimidating. >> well, i want to let you know, ambassador, that some of us here take witness intimidation very, very seriously. >> people in the gallery applauded ambassador marie yovanovitch at the end of her six hours of testimony. we get more now from cnn's alex marquardt. >> our ukraine policy has been thrown into disarray. and shady interests of the world over have learned how little it takes to remove an american ambassador it who does not give him what they want. >> reporter: a blistering opening statement by ambassador marie yovanovitch as as he took same at her smear campaign. >> there's a question a

and he was thereafter marie yovanovitch had left. a lot of the republican criticism today was you weren't there when the worst of all these things happened. and holmes was there for all of it. and it's further corroboration and a new witness. >> i have to say when news of this call emerged and it first emerged in ambassador taylor's testimony when he made reference to it, and no name just a staff member, well now we know who that is, overheard this phone call. before we even get to the content of it, i was just so stunned at the imagery of gordon sondland sitting there in a restaurant in kiev calling the president of the united states on a cellphone. the unsecure nature of that call is just so wild, and we've since had john brennen on and others on saying yes, of course, the russians were listening to that call. of course the ukrainians were able to listen to that call. of course the call in that atmosphere was probably picked up and recorded by other intelligence services. >> and at that time in july, right, the fact that the u.s. w

that change began with the emergence of press reports critical of ambassador yovanovitch, lutsen yovanovitch, by lutsenko and others to discredit her. an embassy colleague learned from a ukrainian colleague that lutsenko complained that ambassador yovanovitch had, quote, destroyed him with her refusal to support him until he followed through with her reform commitments for personal gain. in retaliation, lutsenko made allegations against ambassador yovanovitch, mostly suggesting that ambassador yovanovitch improperly used the embassy to advance the political interests of the democratic party. among mr. lutsenko's allegations were that the embassy had ordered the investigation of a former ukrainian official solely because that former official was the main ukrainian contact of the republican party, and president trump personally, and that the embassy allegedly pressured lutsenko's predecessor to close a case against a different ukrainian official solely because of a connection between the connection of burisma, and joe biden's son. he never received $4.4 million for his office, and was a tape s

ambassador yovanovitch was telling a chilling story. she was saying she was at the embassy in ukraine and she was honoring posthumously, someone who had found corruption in ukraine and who had been murdered by pro russian corrupt forces in ukraine. during that ceremony, honoring the anti-corruption fighter. she received an ominous phone call from washington saying your security is in jeopardy, you better get home. she was cleared out of that job, fired, harassed and deny graded by the president. and while she is sayi ining she stood up to that intimidation here comes the president real-time, continuing the intimidation of her. it was a pivotal moment. an emotional moment of these impeachment hearings. >> perhaps surprising or not, given the nature of who was speaking there were republicans who called it out and said the president did himself no favors in regard to witness intimidation, is there any way that this can be spun in any way other than witness intimidation in your mind? >> the president's defenders will of course say he tweets

holmes' testimony came immediately after former ukraine ambassador marie yovanovitch spent hours today testifying before the intelligence committee. >> if our chief representative is kneecaped, it limits our effectiveness to safeguard the vital national security interest of the united states. our ukraine policy has been thrown into disarray and shady interests, the world over have learned how little it takes to remove an american ambassador who does not give them what they want. >> she described efforts by rudy giuliani and others including the president to smear her which the president did actually again today tweeting about her as she was testifying. she called it intimidating. democrats called it witness intimidation. and as that was unfolding, a federal jury convicted roger stone of seven counts including lying to the intelligence community and witness intimidation. gordon sondland goes before the committee next week. he's already testified once behind closed doors and then to correct his testimony after his memory returned to him after other witnesses contradicted evidence he had

today we are joined by ambassador marie yovanovitch. she was born in canada to parents who fled the soviet union and the nazis. ambassador yovanovitch emigrated to connecticut at 3, became a naturalized american at 18, and entered the u.s. foreign service in 1986. she has served as u.s. ambassador three times and been nominated by presidents of both parties. george w. bush nominated her to be ambassador to the republic where she served from 2005 to 2008. president obama then nominated her to be u.s. ambassador to armenia where she served from 2008 until 2011. and u.s. ambassador to ukraine where she served from 2016 until she was recalled to washington by president trump this may. beyond these posts she has held numerous other senior positions at the state department including in the bureau of european and eurasian affairs. she served as a dean at the foreign service institute and taught national security strategy at the defense university. she also previously served at u.s. embassyies in kiev, ottawa, moscow, london, and mogadishu. amb

for the moment it is marie yovanovitch.she will be back in that room, we believe, at noon eastern time. still voting on the floor of the house. the guidance we have is that vote has been extended for the moment. we might be here another 30 minutes or so. get a quick break and we'll be back with more coverage on this hearing right after this. it is nice. his haircut is "nice." this is the most-awarded minivan three years in a row. the van just talked. sales guy, give 'em the employee price, then gimme your foot. hands-free sliding doors, stow 'n go® seats. can your car do this? man, y'all getting a hook up and you don't even work here. don't act like i'm not doing y'all a favor. y'all should be singing my praises. pacificaaaaa! purchase and get $5,361 below msrp plus 0% financing for 60 months on the 2019 pacifica limited. financing for 60 months on the 2019 as a family, we always mum and dad are always saying... i love the breakfasts... it's the lunch for me we both like the snacks and the evening meals granny always says..

ambassador to ukraine, marie yovanovitch. the career diplomat saying behind closed doors she was warned to watch my back because of trump lawyer rudy giuliani and his associates. court the rough transcript of the july 25th phone call, president trump told ukraine's new president that yovanovitch was bad news and warned she's going to go through some things. yovanovitch telling lawmakers i didn't know what it meant. i was very concerned. i still am. when asked did you feel threatened? her answer simply yes. >> obviously she was the object of a tremendous smear campaign. we want to know how deep that went. >> reporter: under pressure from the president's allies, yovanovitch says she sought advice from ambassador to the european union gordon sondland. his suggestion go big or go home. you need to tweet out there you support the president. yovanovitch at the center of michael mckinley's testimony, the former top aide to secretary of state mike pompeo explaining why he abruptly resigned days before his deposition. he says the stat

to help get yovanovitch. keep reading, my young brother, and tell them to tell me in the control room and i'll come right back. you can't make it up. once again, i've never heard of anything like this before. i know hannity. if i don't know what's going on, i leave him out of it. it's weird for a secretary of state to be calling somebody like me or a hannity to talk about an ongoing story. i got to know more about that and i'm sure you do, too. why he's calling makes all the difference. but the secretary of state, who did not back yovanovitch, who did not defend taylor, and he named none as deserving his support. your read. >> it was mike pompeo let maria yovanovitch hang out in the wind and ultimately mounted no serious defense. so it's very clear that the secretary chose the political interests of the president, his efforts to extort the ukrainians for his reelection goals over the reputation of his employees. but what i think is also important here is that it's just further confirmation that rudy giuliani

let's talk more about marie yovanovitch. of course she is a career diplomat, not a political appointee. democrats have high hopes for her testimony. republicans are preparing their ways to push back to what she has to say. alex explains more about who she is, her background, and why this public testimony is so important to the democrats' case. >> i became increasingly aware of an effort by rudy giuliani and others including his associates lev parnas and igor fruman to run a campaign to smear ambassador yovanovitch. >> the former ambassador has been treated poorly. >> bill taylor and deputy assistant secretary of state george kent kicking off the first public impeachment hearings by defending their colleague marie yovanovitch. the ousted ambassador to ukraine is the next to testify. she defied the trump administration and appeared before lawmakers last month after the state department tried to block her testimony. in it, she levelled stunning allegations about a shadow ukraine policy led by rudy giuliani, the president's pers

mike pompeo was silent as rudy giuliani planned to oust maria yovanovitch. >> was maria yovanovitch part of a smear campaign? >> if you look at the president of the ukraine was not a fan of hers. >> a look at the transcript, shows zelensky criticized the ambassador after trump called her bad news. lauren fox has more on the transcripts from capitol hill. >> reporter: a significant day on capitol hill, as we saw the release of the first transcripts from these closed-door depositions that have been going on for the last month on capitol hill. it's a big opportunity for lawmakers who haven't been in the room over the last several weeks to see what was been occurring. one of the transcripts is from maria yovanovitch, the former ambassador to ukraine, who was concerned that the reputation was being damaged and the president was losing faith in her. there was rumors she was not supportive of the president. and she wanted the state department to put out a statement defending her. she was told that the state department couldn't do that. the president could undermine it with a tweet. she said, wh

yovanovitch went turned bad.ut in somalia. how did that go? fast forward to ukraine where the new ukrainian president spoke unfavorably about her in my second phone call with him. immediately after that tweet, yovanovitch was asked to respond. >> what effect do you think that has on other witnesses' willingness to come forward and expose wrongdoing? >> well, it's very intimidating. >> it's designed to intimidate, is it not? >> i mean, i can't speak to what the president is trying to do, but i think the effect is to be intimidating. >> well, i want to let you know, ambassador, that some of us here, take witness intimidation very, very seriously. >> alex marquardt has more on ambassador yovanovitch's hearing. >> our ukraine policy has been thrown into disarray and shady interests the world over have learned how little it takes to remove an american ambassador who does not give them what they want. >> a blistering opening statement by ambassador marie yovanovitch highlighting her often dangerous decades of service a

donald trump removed yovanovitch. the connection always goes back to the man in the office with no corner. >> rudy giuliani was not a magical special envoy as nikki haley suggested. he was out there operating in the ether and behind the shadowtion for what donald trump wanted. i ultimately think he might be the only person that might end up getting in trouble. he may have to pay for his own defense like michael cohen did. what a lot of people around trump never seem to realize and the painful things that yovanovitch have gone for, as chris mentioned, he's not loyal to anybody. at some point you have to pay for your own defense. at some point someone is going to go down. rudy giuliani is the number one person to get in trouble. donald trump is going to say, regardless of how many pictures and selfies he's met with him, i never met rudy giuliani. he'll claim he was operating on his own in ukraine and he had nothing to do with this. that's why he's probably so desperate and has to make friends. he will be the one hung ou

, do not attack yovanovitch. and then president trump did itt and they had to defend or dismiss it in a way. robert: yamiche, you brought up how the president is meeting with republican senators. there's a trial in the horizon. i was at the senate this week talking to different republicans. there's a divide over whether the trial should be fiveas weeks t was for president clinton in 1999 or six to eight weeks, senator burr was talking about that or whetherho itd be just a week long, senator paul what does the white house want? yamiche: i think the white house in some ways wants in whatever ends in president trump being acquitted. i think that's the most important to them. i think there is some thought that if you drag itut and it starts going into the democratic in iowale this trial ise voting still going on, that could bein distra because you have several senators running for the democratic nomination that woula to be sitting for this trial so that would be elizabee warren, bernders, others. but i think there's

"everywhere marie yovanovitch went turned bad. she started off in somalia. how did that go?" what would you like to respond to the president's attack that everywhere you went turned bad? >> well, i -- i mean, i don't -- i don't think i have such powers, not in mogadishu, somalia, and not in other places. i actually think that where i've served over the years, i and others have demonstrably made things better. >> reporter: schiff with a stark warning. >> the president in real time is attacking you. what effect do you think that has on other witnesses' willingness to come forward and expose wrongdoing? >> well, it's very intimidating. >> well, i want to let you know, ambassador, that some of us here take witness intimidation very, very seriously. >> reporter: after the trump tweet, even republicans applauding the ambassador. >> you're tough as nails and you're smart as hell, and i will -- you're a great example of what our ambassadors should be like. >> we are lucky to have you in foreign service, and i again want to thank you for your tremendous public service. >> reporter: bu

"everywhere marie yovanovitch she started off in somalia, how did thato? would you like to respond to tht president'sk that everywhere you went turned bad? >> wl, i mean -- i don't think i have such powers, not in mogadishu, somalia, and not in other places. i actually think that where i've served over the years, i and others, have demonstrably made things better. >> what effect do you think that has onther witnesses' willingness to come forward and expose wrongdoing? >> well, it'sery intimidating. robert: as michael recently wrote with his colleagues in bhe times," "rarely has the state departmenn the center of a revolt against a president and his top appointees." michael, we saw the president of the united states respond in realtime to impeachment testimony. what kind of clash do you see between the executive branch and e non-partisan civil servants who form the diplomatic corps? michael: it's a clash that has been ongoing for years now and is reaching a crescendo. ntcareer civil ser and foreign service officers at the state deparent feel that under pres

maria von read the entire tweet and then respond. -- marie yovanovitch should read the entire tweet and then respond. why would he cherry pick out? information, he outright lies and cherry picks makes. in this case, he took a part of a tweet. it was the entire approach to it. the fact they never ask the ambassador about what president zelensky said about her. that is how he rules with all of this. why is president trump putting out information on fighting back? it is because adam schiff only once the american public to have 3% of the information and connect dots that are not connected to the world's greatest parity. anyone out there can go back and read the deposition. we spent 7, 8, 9 hours. president trump is right to want to defend himself and ensure that the story is out there. reporter: [indiscernible] reporter: [indiscernible] that is what it was all about. i find it really interesting. someone recommended today that we gave ukraine legal aid. she said it even in the previous administration, this is what they wanted. and congress approved it. this is about providing the eight or n

today's witness, career diplomat marie yovanovitch. chris, what -- there was so much drama this morning as donald trump took to twitter to smear this woman whose closed door deposition, the transcript that was released and her opening statement centered around the smear campaign orchestrated against her by donald trump's personal attorney rudy giuliani. just a one-two whopper of drama, of impact, and almost underscoring for people who may not have been paying attention to every twist and turn of the ukraine scandal, exactly what kind of threat marie yovanovitch represented to donald trump. she was an anti-corruption crusader in the words of congressman eric swalwell. >> i think we saw that in realtime today. and it's very hard to imagine the afternoon an impeachable crime in the morning. i'm dead serious. if the chairman is nothing else, he is a very serious, sober guy. when he brought up that charge right after the president had done that tweet, basically attacking her whole career as causing trouble around the world in a way to perha

we also yovanovitch and dr. hill. yovanovitch obviously left before the time period. dr. hill, we appreciate you being with us today. and mr. holmes. dr. hill, you have provided me probably the greatest piece of evidence that's before us to illustrate the problem with hearsay. so you said based on questions and statements i have heard some of you on this committee, that would be us appear to believe that russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country. and perhaps somehow for some reason it was ukraine. this evidence was held up by devin nunes as the report of active measures voted on by all of us, it begins in this sentence, in 2015, russia began engaging in a covert influence campaign, aimed at the u.s. presidential election. every one of us, small effort on your part, dr. hill, and you would have known, what you just said was not true, what you had heard but you felt the need to put it in your eight-page statement before you went on to tell us other things that you heard about other people no matter how convinced you were of also which w

to watch my bag, yovanovitch said. in part because giuliani and his associates were trashing her and pushing ukraine for dirt on biden. quote, to start kind of getting into u.s. politics and u.s. domestic politics looking forward to the 2020 campaign and whether this would hurt former vice president biden i think he felt that was very dangerous -- tear rain for -- terrain for another country to be in. so the investigation into the bidens and other investigations. >> and you have meetings in the background. you have rudy giuliani meeting with some officials. so yes, this pressure campaign has been going on for a while but it took a while and the president had been listening to his -- to the kind of other parallel track, the nonofficial advisers when it came to ukraine and sort of poisoning the well. and that fell back on this ambassador despite any kind of internal push like you saw with mckinley to bolster her and to back her up. >> and anna asked about the shadow giuliani trump policy yovanovitch said is it was za dis