management and budget didn't have much visibility at all into what was happening with ukraine and any suggestion that the aid hold was contingent upon the burisma investigation. so to some extent, there was more of a division than i think we expected to find between the aid hold and then the campaign to influence the president of ukraine. >> and yet those officials remain silent in public. eric lipton, thanks for your reporting. joining me now, julie pace, washington bureau chief for the associated press, cnn political analyst, and former republican congressman, charlie dent. he's now a cnn political commentator. thanks to both of you. hope you got a break for the holidays or will. charlie dent, the republican defense here, as i said to eric, is that, well, insufficient evidence that this order came from the president. you have, you know, an email. this is a potus-level decision. you have the president's senior-most advisers going to him to try to get the aid released. does this remove any doubt as to where this aid hold was ordered from?