effort toha conceal the president's conduct, yes. >> and i understand that october 8th the white house wrote a lettere explaining that presidt trump had direct his administration not to cooperate with the white house's impeachment inquiry. in thehi letter the white house counsel wrote, quote, president trump cannot permit his administration to participate in this partisan inquiry understand the circumstances. the investigative committees tried to interview dozens of witnesses including currentew a former trumpen administration officials and wereio stymied wi respect to most of them, is that correct? >> there were 12 witnesses who were directed not to appear and ultimately they did not appear. >> thank you very much. my time has expired. i yield to the ranking member mr. collins. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. goldman, it's an interesting thing. we can commit basically extortion or put pressures on others as long as we have the international community behind get enough people to think we're okay i can extort anybody ixt want to as long as enough think it's okay that is what you said whether you believe it or not as iel copied the notes.