Subsequently. After both meetings when you spoke to him and relayed to him what ambassador sondland said, what did ambassador bolton say to you . Ion just want to highlight first of all, that ambassador bolton wanted me to hold back in the room after the meeting. I was sitting on the sofa with a colleague. In that secondth meeting he was making a strong point that he wanted to know exactly what wasow being said. When i came back and related it to him he had some specific instruction for me. What was that . Specific instruction was i had to go to the lawyers, to John Eisenberg to basically say ba ambassador bolton is not part of whatever drug deal sondland and mulvaney were cooking up . What did you take that to mean . Investigations for a upmee. Didga you go speak to the lawyers . I certainly did. You relayed everything that you just told us. He relayed it precisely and more the details of how the meeting had unfolded. I gave a full description of this in my october 14th deposition. Mr. Holmes you testified by late august you had a clear impression that the Security Assistance hold was somehow connected into the investigations that President Trump wanted. How did you conclude how did you reach that clear conclusion . Sir, we had been hearing about the investigations since march. Months before. And we had been president zelensky received a congrat a congratulatory letter from the president , saying he would meet him in may. We had not been able to get that meeting. Then thege security hold came u. With no explanation. And i i would be surprised if any of the ukrainians we discussed earlier, sophisticated people, when they receive no explanation for why that hold was in place, they wouldnt have drawn that oconclusion. Because theaw investigations were still being pursued and the hold was still remaining without explanation . Utcorrect. This, to you, was the only logical conclusion to reach . Correct. Sort of like two plus two equals four . Exactly. Ouchairman, i yield. That concludes the majority questioning. Were expected to have votes, i think, fairly soon. This is the appropriate time to break and well resume with the minority 45h minutes, if peopl before they leave could allow the witnesses to leave first. And if Committee Members could come back promptly after votes. Hi, everyone. Were back. Im Nicolle Wallace in new york. Joining us on set is maya wiley, who worked in the Civil Division of the u. S. Attorneys office in the Southern District of new york, ismsnbc chief legal correspondentch and host of th beat arist melber. And former democratic senator from missouri, current msnbc political analyst, Claire Mccaskill who has been here 24 7. Again, lucky for us, weve been watching some of the most searing testimony. Fiona hill is this mornings witness. A late add. David holmes gave his account of that phone call between Gordon Sondland andee donald trump, whh was entered into the Public Record as part of the testimony of ambassador bill taylor last wednesday, but stealing the attention of everybody. The indictment given by fiona hill of conspiracy theories and those who spread them. Her Opening Statement was short but it packed a wallop. Sitting here watching it, that was everyones impression. She said basically this country is under attack by russia. You cannot take it lightly. You cannot play politics with that. Its sort of what we heard from directorwe mueller when he testified. You have a bipartisan report from the senate saying the same thing. Two indictments of a series of russians on the exact same issue. Shes basically saying politics should not play a role in this. We are going to face election interference in 2020. Everyone knows it. Are we ready for it . She also in the least partisan way, not that any of these, witnesses have had a whf of partisanship, but shes unitch impeachable to her allegiance to National Security. Shes an american by choice. Her story is remarkable. Unbelievable. If you think about the witnesses that you want, she is incredible. I think all of us just felt it. It was so powerful. Shes competent, apolitical and clearly telling the truth. Is also unafraid to show up in congress and say exactly what her expert beliefs are so people can hear it. She detailed, i imagine the lawyers here will not be shy at telling me the value in a courtroom, but in terms ofn th court of public opinion, which is where i spent my career, she brings john bolton back in as a witness. Whether he ends up in front of congress or not is anybodys guess. But hes back in the room today. This is what she described. She says john bolton held her back in the room in the meeting where Gordon Sondland was making clear that investigations were the condition for delivering anything for the ukrainians. She says john bolton wanted to know exactly what was being said. And she said john bolton said i had to tell eisenberg, the white house lawyer, who had all the nsc and National Security issues in his charge. And dan goldman said what did john bolton tellsa you to say . She said john bolton told me to say im not a part of the drug deal beingrt orchestrated by mi mulvaney and sondland, by what theyre cooking up. The democrats quite skilled at bringing all the relevant witnesses, all the firsthand witnesses to the misconduct at the center of the impeachment scandal, which is Donald Trumps conditioning, military aid in a meeting with zelensky on investigations into biden in 2016. Absolutely. You know, fiona hill is a lawyers dream witness. Not so not only is they sticking to facts, shes not allowing herself to be pulled in to anything edoutside of her specic knowledge but she is also importantly whenow she said wont answer that because of executive caprivilege, from a credibility standpoint what that communicated is whether or not its a legitimate privilege, i wont take a side. I wont cross that line. When shes comes back to john bolton on that critical july 10th day, just yesterday sondland said i dont remember john bolton being upset. We took a picture. It was great. He went upset. She doesnt say exactly the same thing as Lieutenant Colonel vind mvin vindman, but she does move the dial to vindmans side away from sondland on this. She says no, his back stiffened. That was the kind of detail that is enough to say sondland was not being forthcoming on what i saw in thatom meeting. And this is important to your point. It does put john bolton right back in the middle of this. And most substantively and importantly saying this was wrong. This was a drug deal, i want to make sure lawyers know im not down with this. I want to make sure i knew what was said. I know things are being said about trading, meeting with the president for investigations, and that goes directly to what this impeachment hearing is ng about. Claire, the i politics of th seems to have broken down on republicans leaning heavily on the lack of firsthand witnesses, a lack ofse adam schiff said yesterday republicans are looking forpu magical words, donald trump saying i donald j. Trump sayi. Signed in blood. I confess. It seems like were inching closer toe the magical version. Fionave hill is a firsthand witness. So much so she wouldnt violate executiven privilege. She was on some of these phone calls between donald trump and world leaders. She again brings john boltons experience as the most senior nationale security official in the west wing into these hearings. Shes also, i think, shaming the republicans who knowmi better. I wouldnt put all of them in that category but a few of them know better. David holmes mentioning congresswoman stephanik as one who travelled to ukraine. Shes almost shaming the liars and daring them not to lie to her face. Its interesting that nunez pushed ahead with his opening in light of her basically saying you are speaking for putin when you advance these bogus conspiracy theories about ukraine being the culprit in meddling in our elections. It was swruas interesting that parnas lawyer about this i dated buddy who is all dirtied up, mobbed up with the oligarchs, hes the guy who arranged meetings in europe for Rudy Giuliani excuse me, for devin nunes and his staff when they made ahi trip over there t get to the bottom of this. To ferret out this wasnt russia, but somebody wanting to hurt donald trump. Theng ironydish would speak boldly forsh my fellow lawyers this panel that have been in a courtroom and seen a jury, i think any of us would be glad to take this case. I would take it today. I would file it. I would argue it to a jury and i could prove ita beyond a reasonable doubt unanimously to that jury. Evidence has become overwhelming. The irony is you know how the president u likes to talk about central casting . This guy looks like central casting. Hesce really into how people look. Yeah. These witnesses are out of central casting in terms of their credibility, their intellect, their commitment to the facts, and not partisanship. Theyre just astounding how strong they are. To that point, who how do you c examine them . Ho what will the republicans do with these two who, i agree, i was listening to holmes Opening Statement. I thought hes straightst out o whatgh aaron sorkin would writen a screen play about the good guys trying to rescue america from russian influence. You want these people on that wall. I think theyre strong. Their argument is theyre defending america under parties of botham administrations. The only thing you can do in a congressional cross examination is try to make it more about legitimate policy differences, and more about maybe even the fog of different approaches to Different Countries and Foreign Policy than the facts. I think fiona hill was effective at the part about bolton. We have been tracking this. I wont bore everyone in depth, we even have the different charting of where each witness has come down on some of these key disagreements about whether there was quid pro quo bribery, what happened at that qinfamou meeting, wein the white house where many pictures are taking, does picture taking alone wipe out somebody raising something to lawyers . Youre seeing accounts that say no. Another point that came up earlier that you raised, where does donald trump stand . Hes not strictly denying this anymore. He is quoting himself, call it a self referential lear say. Its not really evidence, its a notev guilty plea repeated in a weird loop kind of retweet. Heres the problem with that. Gordon sondland just said under oath that they did quid pro quo bribery. He hasnt been fired for that he hasnt been relieved of his ee post. The white house is notli dealin with that, perhaps because they cant. Perhaps because theyrey afrai of what else he might say how much worse it could get if they cut him loose. Irancontra, a scandal where bad things happened, but investigations did not prove that the president was involved, they cut people loose who they said didos the bad things. Gordon sondland admitted he was at the center of a plot to do bad things and he brought receipts of emails that showed pompeo and mulvaney were on the email plotting about how that call in advance with ukraine was going to be about the investigation. So all thatou stacks up. One other point i would make that is lessul helpful to democrats, maybe slightly helpful to republicans, i dont think david holmes was an effective witness today. I dont think it matters, because he was just confirming other things. You canhe see where experience comes into play. Miss hill, so experienced, so factual, so focused. Mr. Holmes, who was around for way less important stuff went on the longest. He included a lot of detail. Doesnt matter in the big scheme of things, as we track the witnesses, that wasck notable a he did delve into policy saying the president didnt bring up oure policy recommendations on the call. The president can ignore Embassy Staff if he wants. Iif want to bring in ambassar mcfall. You have beenn so passionate about these witnesses. You andth i talked after colone vindman was smeared. I know todays witness in fiona hill, i believe, is one you know quite well. Your thoughts . I do. I know both of the witnesses. David holmes worked with me in moscow. Fiona ive known for about three decades. Shes an t expert on russia. One of our top experts in the country. N written one of the most important books on putin. Better book than ive written about putin,v by the way. And she worked for the president for two and a half years. I want to keep underscoring this. This is somebody who has been with the president , with the Trump Administration almost from the very beginning. I found her testimony very compelling on ate couple of fronts. One, completely debunking the notion that ukraine was interfering in our elections. Remember, when shes debunking that, shes debunking her own former boss, the president of the United States. Because thats one of the things hes seeking to be negotiated. Two, as we heard from others, she made itro really clear, you know, in that july meeting when they are pressuring ukrainians to say you must do these investigations in order to get the oval office visit, and john bolton says i dont want to be part of that drug deal, fiona doesnt want to be part of that drug deal, they go to the lawyers. Thats a dramatic thing to do. I worked at the white house for three years at the National Security t council. I never once went to the lawyers about any meeting i was in. I think that makes that piece of the case very damming for the president of the United States. Lets play that again. Specific instruction was that i had to go to the lawyers to John Eisenberg, to basically say you tell eisenberg that ambassador bolton told me im not part of whatever drug deal mu mulvaney and sondland were cooking up . What did you take that to mean . Investigations for a meeting. Did you go speak to the lawyers . I certainly did. She made is very clear, it was the use of the public office, one t of the most importante offices, if not the most Important Office in the world, by the way, the oval office, for privatel gain, for his reelection effort. Its clear as day she said it there. One more t thing, if i lose you guys, one other thing demands a little bit more attention, i hope peoplee will come back to it, there was one other piece in mr. Holmes testimony that i thought was timportant. When he testified that when ambassador bolton was in ukraine, in those meetings, he was making pretty clear that military assistance, this is late august, will not be lifted unill it the investigatitil the. Yesterday there was ambiguity if these things were linked. That was specific linkage. It would be better to have bolton testifybe to it, but he s theit notetaker and he said it. That was also important. I keyed up on that, too. What he seemed to do to the ukrainians was put all the pressure on warsaw. You felt what must be crushing disappointment for president zelensky when President Trump canceled that trip to warsaw. It also put pence back in the middle of it. The if zelensky thought all the military aid was riding on whatever impression he made in warsaw, he made that impression on aipence. So whatever was put on that being a vital audition for them being a good partner, it ended up happening in a meeting that Vice President pence attended. If yount put that on top of wha sondland said about Vice President pences knowledge or awareness of what was being run through the w regular channel, that is donald trump was directing an effort that Rudy Giuliani was involved in, that mike pompeo knew was the stated mission, the stated policy goal, pence was aware of it, it was investigations before any commitment to a meeting or military aid, right . Exactly. I want to get the ukrainian voice in here. Imagine how this feels to president zelensky. He just won reelection on an anticorruption campaign. Massive landslide election. Then his party won a massive landslide election in the paraphernalia party. 80 of the deputies were thrown out, a place known for corruption. Brandnew start, now theyre being asked to do the very things that we told them you shouldnt do, which is you use your prosecutor general to use ther rule of law for political purposes. Now theyre set up to do that. From a policy point of view, youre sending exactly the opposite message. We heard a lot yesterday about how President Trump wants to fight corruption in ukraine. That was news to me. If youre trying to do that, is your first move out of the block withou the brandnew anticorruption president and his new parliament to say im pulling back military assistance untilil you do something krupp r me . Thatru doesnt seem like good policy andli obviously it is misconduct on behalf of the president. When you toldn be me i mighte you, you made me feel greedy with your time. You wave sos if you need go. I have one more for you, ambassador mcfaul. We sat here talking about how reminiscent fiona hills tone andon panic about russian influence felt to what muellers testimony felt like in his most compelling moments. It was in a line of questioning from congressman will hurd, who is on this committee. I will watch him today to see if he returns to those questions that were on his mind on july 24th. But fiona hill, i think george kent before her and his testimony before last wednesday, put into the timeline between Donald Trumps congratulatory call with zelensky and this monkey kybusiness, this extorti of investigations and proving ones self before military aid, a phone call with Vladimir Putin and a meeting with his ally in the world stage, orban. What do you make about the fact that here we go again . Here we go again with questions about not just Donald Trumps conduct, not just what appears like extortion, but Donald Trumps onloyalties, his orientation on the world stage . Which seems to always come back to that whichs is favorable or advantageous for Vladimir Putin. First, nicole, im not leaving you. Ni im with you all day long. I thought you were going to leave me. Never. Never. To your point, of courkourcours has beenur focused on russian u. Relations for her entire adult e life. Important for her to remind everybody about the National Securityt implications involve here. When the president of the United States says in a callmpvo to president zelensky you need to look into this crowdstrike thing, this dnc server thing, thats him repeating putin p propaganda. I want to be clear about that. Thatar is what the russians hav been feeding into our news cycle, ourws news media i wroten oped about it this week in the Washington Post reminding people itsas not just the stuf they do with trolls and bots, but they put the stuff into eth media and then our media on the right amplifies it, and the president of the United States has been taken by this myth, propagated by mr. Giuliani, propagated by others, and fiona hill was putting down a marker, folks,a we have to stop this. She was, i think shg, trying to preempt what might come later in the hearing about somehow the ukrainian interference in our election. Thats propaganda put out by the kremlin and we as a country have to stop, you know, amplifying it in our debate as we run into the 20 run up to the 2020 election. Andrew, the Mueller Report was a Public Document pulling all sorts of alarms on exactly this, i think, concern that ambassador mcfaul articulated this week in his Washington Post piece. Your investigation found 150 contacts between donald trump russians . What does it say just to us as outsiders that we ares in this sameer its almost like a sl car track and the slot the car is still in the slok, at, a were going around and around on the russian question. Right, you need to decouple the issue of was the Trump White House involved or not. From the clear fact that everyone should be agreeing on which is we were attacked. Trump doesnt agree. I understand that. Thats where you have the white house saying theres a ukraine conspiracy, and how do you decouple it if the head of our country doesnt accept the fact . That is a good point. But you do have the senate actually coming up with a bipartisan report saying that russia has attacked us. It is incumbent on elected officials to follow their oath of office in the same way that people who have testified today are following their oath of office, which is really apolitical. You would think were all americans first,we you would thk that our first allegiance is are we underll attack . The secondary issue is does it help one sideis or the other . Is somebody else here involved in it . Those are important questions. But the main issue is what do you do about the fact that you know the russians attacked the 2016 election, and as sure as we are sitting here, you know theyll do the same thing in this country and in other countries to attack upcoming elections. Bluntly, donald trump doesnt feel attacked, he feels helped, as you pointed out. He was helped last time. He isst seeking help this time. The mueller makes that point. Thats the problem. Thats why theres a bribery plot at the center of this. He said a it on the white house lawn, ukraine investigates the bidens, what are you looking for . Ukraine investigating the bidens, and china can get in on it, too. He doesnt feel attacked, he wants his points attacked. Thats what you will get all day, substance and bluntness. We have to sneak in a break. Theres more to come. Mo theres more testimony ahead of us. Dont go anywhere. Me well be right back. Based on questions and statements ive heard, some of you on this committee appear to believe that russia and its Security Services did not conduct a campaign against our country and that perhaps somehow for some reason ukraine did. This is a fictional narrative perpetrated and propagated by the russian Security Services themselves. I refuse tovi be part of an efft to legitimize an ultimate narrative that the Ukrainian Government as a u. S. Ed ed ed a and that the ukraine, not russia, attacked us in 2016. Ta c. Get started at fastsigns. Com. A lot of folks ask me why their dishwasher doesnt get everything clean. I tell them, it may be your detergent. Thats why more dishwasher brands recommend cascade platinum. Its speciallydesigned with the soaking, scrubbing and rinsing built right in. Cascade platinums unique actionpacs dissolve quickly. To remove stuckon food. For sparklingclean dishes, the first time. Choose the detergent that lets your dishwasher do the dishes cascade platinum. The number one recommended brand in north america. I am totally blind. And non24 can make me show up too early. Or too late. Or make me feel like im not really there. Talk to your doctor, and call 8442342424. Some things are too important to do yourself. Get customized security with 24 7 monitoring from xfinity home. Awarded the best professionally installed system by cnet. Simple. Easy. Awesome. Call, click or visit a store today. Ambassador sondland leaned in basically to say we have an agreement that there will be a meeting, a specific investigations are put under way. Thats when i saw ambassador bolton stiffen. I was him sit back slightly, like this, he had been more moving forward like i am to the table. And for me, that was an unmistakable body language and it caught my attention. And then he looked up to the clock and, you know, at his watch or towards his wrist in any case. Again, i was sitting behind him. And basically he said it has been great to see you. Im afraid ive got another meeting. Im pleased to bring in chief Foreign Affairs correspondent fresh off a triumphant turn as debate moderator last night. Terrific last night. Four wonderful colleagues. For the first time in history at a president ial debate there were more women on stage than men. The we had four women candidates among the ten and four women moderators. So my math is we had 14 folks on the stage, and eight of them were women. Thats very cool. Perhaps thats why it was so much better behaved. There you go. Substantive and classy and important, and congratulations. Thank you. Somehow youre here. That was magic, but rachel and kristin and Ashley Parker from the Washington Post were amazing. The four of us you were all amazing. We need you here today. Fiona hill, weve been blown away by her precision, by her strength, by her power, by her credibility. We pull that up because you mentioned theres just something about how state department officials, the precision with which they go about their job. The way they had notice things and observe things. So observant and so credible. It will be hard to undermine her or impeach her on cross examination because her memory is very precise. Shes a scholar, as mike mcfaul said, she wrote the book on Vladimir Putin. A better book than his own, he said, on Vladimir Putin. Hes known her for decades. Shes literally a coal miners daughter from the north of england who migrated to this country seeking, you know, better opportunities and a former intelligence official on russia. Her precision and her dedication to her profession and her responsibility was so exacting. To say, as you pointed out and showed the video, she wasnt going to say it was his watch, because she was sitting behind john bolton but he was looking at his wrist and the clock on the wall saying im out of her. He told her go to the lawyers and say im not going to get involved in this drug deal, meaning whatever the corrupt deal bargain was, that mulvaney and sondland are cooking up here, which implicated certainly the acting chief of staff, mick mulvaney. The u. S. State department has been your beat through democratic and republican administrations. Youve known these people as they have adjusted the policy priorities for democrats and republicans. One thing that came through from both of todays witnesses, the u. S. Policy towards ukraine was always to support and help and align ourselves with this democracy to help protect to help them protect themselves against rushing shsia. What these two closing witnesses seem to be saying is we were in our jobs as americans. The conduct we witnessed was at its core against american National Security interests. Absolutely. What came through so clearly from sondlands testimony, which you were covering yesterday, is that the giuliani sondland, three amigos track was not shadow diplomacy or second track, that was the primary track of this administration, rather than the established bipartisan policy from republicans to democrats to republicans to democrats. To stand strong against russia in defense of ukraine as a fledgling struggling democracy. In particular, this new president who was judged to have the best chance at it and then with the parliamentary elections in august, actually be bolstered if they wanted to do anticorruption, and also that corruption, anticorruption was never mentioned by the president in the broader context of this u. S. Policy. It was always burisma code word go against the bidens. Both of todays witnesses talked about burisma. Well try to pull that and show that again. The idea that there wasnt alarm at the highest level among political appointees, Career Foreign Service officers, and the kinds of people like john bolton who had been around government for a long time was debunked by yesterday afternoons witnesses. You had a Senior Pentagon official who talked about the legality of the of withholding military aid. The executtortion is no longer dispute. Everyone testified to the fact that until they went into the public square, which in Donald Trumps world means cable tv, and announced investigation, they would not get the approved military aid. They passed all the hurdles. Absolutely. You know from your service in government the extraordinary detail here and that david hale yesterday, the other Top State Department official, he testified even as mike pompeo, the secretary of state was in brussels meeting with nato officials, and blowing off questions about sondland as w l well, im too busy here, im not aware, just as he had blown off questions for ten days about the call, the suspicious july 25th call when the transcript or notes were released on september 25th, he was overseas and in rome said i was on that call. Yes. He said he wasnt able to Pay Attention because hes too busy being secretary of state. Hes too busy not defending ambassador taylor, yovanovitch. He has not to this day defended her from this smear attacks from giuliani. This by has all accounts sullied mike pompeos reputation, which was already very much just damaged inside the state department. Now its for all the world to see. We are heading up to capitol hill. Jeff bennett is live there for us, just stepping out of a News Conference with House Speaker nancy pelosi. What does she have as a top line this morning . Nancy pelosi held her weekly press conference. She does it every thursday. She started by talking about policy, making the point that House Democrats, she says, have passed 275 bills that have effectively died on the desk of majority leader Mitch Mcconnell, the top senate republican. She talked about that and then the news of the day, which is impeachment. She didnt give much in the way of a timeline. Ill get to that later. I asked her about this point. There was a time its hard to belief n believe now there was a time when nancy pelosi wouldnt utter the phrase impeachment inquiry because she didnt fully embrace it and she thought to say that phrase in public would give it relevance and significance. She said that one of the reasons she was cautious about approaching impeachment, this is well before september 24th when the formal inquiry was announced, she said it was a long and arduous process, that democrats would expend a metric ton of Political Capital knowing that in the end they would likely not be successful in removing donald trump from office because they likely would not find in the senate 20 republicans to join with the 45 Senate Democrats and the one independent who caucuses with the democrats. So today i asked her about that, looking back to her previous perspective, and what she makes of all of it. Heres that q a. Before you sort of fully embrace the impeachment inquiry and announced t you said one reason you were cautious about it was because the process, you knew, would be long, arduous and divisive. It turns out youre right. Its not that long. Not as long as the nixon impeachment. Both sides are dug in. Impeachment has sort of taken on the tenor of being just like any other partisan dispute. I cant even answer a question to that. Theres not bipartisan support. If the republicans are in denial about the facts, if the republicans do not want to honor their oaths of office, then i dont think that this should be we should be characterized as partisan in any way, because we are patriotic. Whats your question . The question is how does that change your kalcalculus moving forward . Or does it . We said we wanted to see the facts. We want the American People to see the facts. Whatever decision is made and it has not been made yet, whatever decision is made to go forward will be based on our honoring our oath of office not on the resistance to the truth of the republicans on the other side. I think the sad tragedy of all of this is the behavior of the president and the defense of that behavior by the republicans. On this other issue of the timeline, House Speaker nancy pelosi has said what she said before, the calendar and that no outside pressure, it will be the arbitrator of where this investigation leads. Setting that aside, i can tell you that based on our own reporting, and given the fact that the House Intelligence Committee has not announced additional public hearings, they have not announced depositions, we expect theres a huge caveat here we expect next week the House Intelligence Committee will use that time to draft the report, sew together the testimony that theyve been acquiring over the last three months, and that a report will be handed to the House Speaker, the House Speaker will hand that off to the Judiciary Committee. The Judiciary Committee has the responsibility of drafting articles of impeachment. Already House Democrats have signaled there could be at least two. One connected with what they see as bribery, the other connected to what they see as extortion. There has been an expectation for months that democrats would wrap that up by the end of the year, and that Mitch Mcconnell said he fully expects that the month of january f this process moves forward, january the senate trial would begin. Jeff bennett on capitol hill, thank you very much, my friend. I will bring in chuck rosenberg. He knows me the best. Hes the lawyer to whom i can ask my dumb questions. Have we not proven beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of public opinion, based on the release of the white houses own release of the transcript where donald trump says to president zelensky, i need a favor though, the testimony of a dozen witnesses, i think every single one of them having worked for more republicans than democrats, that donald trump conditioned, held up, withheld, sought to deny military aid until he had a promise of investigations into burisma in 2016 . Not a dumb question, nicole. To paraphrase the movie query mcgwim jerry mcgwire. You had me at the transcript. When the judge instructs the jury we talked about jury instructions the other day. The judge always tells the jury never abandon your logic, your common sense, and your experience. So we spend a lot of time i think appropriately so talking about the details of the case, the timeline, who said what to whom who heard it what did they do with it all of that stuff matters. Claire and andrew on your panel are former prosecutors, they know this the way i do. If you just take a step back and you say what happened . What do i understand as an adult functional human being happened . Its that the president through giuliani and others conditioned a couple of things on an investigation of his political opponent. The details matter. But we know this from logic and experience and common sense. And so to your point, we saw it in the transcript, we heard it over and over again from witnesses, weve seen it in text messages. Well hear more of it later today. But we know what happened. Chuck, if bribery is a crime, why isnt the countrys Justice Department investigating it also . Well, two things. Number one, i dont know that they are not. And second, they may be waiting for the impeachment inquiry to end so that they have additional evidence. It is a crime. Its not always an easy crime to prove because in addition to the conduct you need to show intent. Virtually every criminal statute requires a proof of intent. And that is always the hardest thing to prove. So, again, you know, in summary, nicole, they might be doing it now. They wouldnt tell us. Or they might just be waiting for the impeachment inquiry to wrap up and to follow on its investigation with an investigation of their own. You host a podcast called the oath. When i think of what that is about, it is about people like fiona hill who take an oath to serve this country, to serve this countrys National Security interests. And i just wonder your thoughts about her testimony today. I thought she was spectacular. Not surprising. Its about fiona hill. Its about george kent. Its about bill tear loaylor, a david hale, all of these people stressed as if they needed to, and i dont think they did. That they were there only to answer questions, they had not picked sides. They were not partisans. They didnt have a view on impeachment, not one they would share. The idea behind the oath we ail ta all take is that we pledge to uphold the constitution of the United States. We dont pledge allegiance to a party or person, we pledge allegiance to the constitution. Youre seeing that over and over and over again with men and women who served honor honorably and well for decades. It makes me feel good. I share that feeling. Its affirming that there are people like fiona hill. Two things, first about fiona hill and a profile of her in the nor new york times. It tells it of a story when she was 11 years old, fataking a te, someone behind her set one of her pig tails on fire, she calmly reached back, extinguished the fire with her hand and continued taking the test. Incredible. That sums up on intent, as a prosecutor, chuck and andrew will back me up on this, you look for things that the accused does that reflect intent. I would make the argument that when he chose giuliani to be the quarterback of this enterprise, if this was legitimate Foreign Policy, why would he need somebody operating out there fast and loose coloring outside the lines . Why would he need giuliani and his pals from florida that are connected to the oligarchs and russia . Why wouldnt he just go through the state department and pompeo to say i want to go after corruption in the ukraine . Instead this is giuliani that is quarterbacking this whole enterpri enterprise. If theres any can i follow up . Why wouldnt anyone at the state department object . Because it came directly from the boss. He was the the president is the boss. So the boss decided rather than use regular channels to impact Foreign Policy, i want this guy over here that i that can operate out there, pretend he has immunity and executive privilege, legal privilege, but giuliani clearly was not constrained by the rules of behavior that you have with these very exacting its both. Its both. Its the same its the same parall parallel that we saw at doj. You fire mccomey, mccabe, you gin up a prosecution of mccabe, which they were criticized for in open federal court. You oust the ukraine ambassador. Theres a lot of removing the people who would be good cops, trying to put bad cops in charge, and there are bad cops, theyre still cops, and then also having an outside channel. On the mueller example, we know he went to the outside channel and asked lewandowski who did not, according to muellers people, commit a crime. He asked lewandowski to commit a crime, he said yeah, boss, and didnt do it. Theres the shadow, the shadow, the policy, and still hatchet people, fixers, shadow, who are agitating on the outside. Its hard to pull off this plot with those people we saw today, the hills, you know, bill taylors in charge. So youre doing both. How would fiona hill relate to a lev parnas and these ukrainian bag man doing their own side deals . Rudy giuliani with all of his financial entangle ms with foreign operators . He could not pass a state department conflict of interest or ethics questionnaire . None of the rules of the road apply to Rudy Giuliani. Hes the president s envoy. Or give a security clearance. Exactly. Exactly be, there is certainly not a great relationshiper right now between the fbi and main justice of which its a component. And the whole tell me more about that. You have the fbi thats been maligned up one side and down the other by the white house. And these are career people. Theer fbi, unlike almost every othere agency in the United States government, has won and only one president ial appointee and that is the director. Other than that, it is all careeris people. 36,000 career people. You also have the fact that the Justice Department did not open up a Campaign Finance violation. They sort of dismissed it. I cant imagine that the fbi is not looking at that and revisiting it in light of all of the evidence thats comeht out say, that would be just a terrible precedent j for the bureau and frankly for career prosecutors to say, this does not constitute at least sufficientoe predication for an investigation. So you can imagine careerti peoe saying, this needs to be looked at. And you dont have to be looking at just the president. He is the person who under Justice Department policyho cant be indicted while in office. That does not apply to anyone else. And Rudy Giuliani, from our knowledge, from previous om testimony, hadle not registereds a foreign agent. But one ofre his colleagues, robert livingston, a former member of congress, presumptive speaker at one point briefly after Newt Gingrich who had to resign under an ethical cloud, he is a lobbyist and did register. So questions could be asked about that. Let me follow up with you. The Southern District of new york has indicted lev parnas and his sidekick. Igor. And they were direct reports to Rudy Giuliani. They werent indicted for their conduct in ukraine but thats also under scrutiny. The attorneyer for lev parnas h availed him to congress. So everything he knows but the ukraine operation will also be known by congressional investigators. Where might and i asked you this last week but it seems like theres more information now in the i pipeline. Where might those two intersect and how high could that go . If we know from sondland that trup direct trump directed the rudy operation, in investigating rudy could you pull in theat preside . We dont know exactly the information, but to me, all bets are off. You could go as high as firsthand information that levs and l igor have. It could also be a fizzle. They could be terrible witnesses, they could not be in fact truly cooperating. We just dont know yet. But im not asking how an investigation would end. Im justig asking what an investigation could encompass. If it encompasses the decided associates of giuliani and we know iasdny is investigating ru, i guess what im asking is, as with the Michael Cohen case, where donald trump was an unindicted coconspirator, could the president be ensnared again by federal investigation . Absolutely. Again, its going to depend i dont want to speculate too much. Its going to depend on what they haves to say. But you have people working with Rudy Giuliani in ukraine. Theyre part his agents and they in part also seem to be his clients. Its a weird setup. But theyre going to have a lot of information about what they were doing in ukraine. And what were seeing is that this is part of the regular irregular track, meaning it wentr through the president which makes it regular. Ands they met with the t president. Exactly. They met with the president after the white house hanukkah partyus last year at the trump hotel. And we have photographs of this. They will have some firsthand information. Now, weath now, whether it is information that isth incriminating remainso be seen. The president s conduct ended up investigated because of a Campaign Finance investigation intoca Michael Cohen. The president was obviously investigated in the sweep of the mueller propose of russian interference and then the president s obstructive acts. It would appear if sdny and those prosecutors work for main justice, if theyre investigating Rudy Giuliani in hisdy foreign business work, th obviously includes efforts that benefitted the orpresident. Thats the beenbe rudys testimony, thats been sondlands testimony yesterday. The removal of yovanovitch was the policy objective that donald trump ultimately carried out. Na there, i think its going be very hard for someone to say that the president somehow didnt know or this was all being done below t him. When ive done organized crime cases, you very rarely have people who said, yes, i met with the boss of the crime family and this is what he told me. Sometimes youre lucky enough to have that. The idea that this would go on and you would do it behind the president s back, like you do it behind the boss in a crime family, is i think preposterous. Theres only one person who is benefiting and that, in fact, some of the testimony that came outso yesterday, where sondland was asked repeatedly and finally coughed up who would benefit from this. One person. And why would someone do that and curry favor with the president without then taking credit with the president and say, this is what i was done. To say i was out of the loop as the president s of the United States does not seem terribly credible. It served no policy purpose. Dirtying up the policy served no policy purpose. There wasnt some wider anticorruption agenda. Wino, the Witnesses Today we incredibly strong that they had zero, zeroth evidence that ther wasnc wrongdoing by either of t bidens, that there was any reason to go forward with that. And i thought one thing that was i thought very interestingi toy was that you had Daniel Goldman elicit from both of the witnesses that when they heard the word burisma, they knew it meant the bidens. That was really taking a shot at sondland yesterday, saying i didnt connect the two. Sondland and volker. Both played dumb. Pl who played dumb. Funny how that happens. There isho so much more coming , more testimony from these extraordinary witnesses, Congress Taking some votes but they will be back in a minute. So will we. Dont go anywhere. In hes been tweeting away, ridiculing the witnesses, saying had a they said is wrong. Well, if hes right, if he has nothing to hide, if he wants to convince the American People and the house of representatives, let him come under oath and tell his side of the story. When he doesnt come under oath he can do it tomorrow, in the next few days. The American People will say, mr. President , what are you hiding . Dealing with Psoriatic Arthritis pain was so frustrating. My skin. It was embarrassing. My joints. They hurt. The pain and swelling. The tenderness. The psoriasis. I had to find something that worked on all of this. I found cosentyx. Now, watch me. Real people with active Psoriatic Arthritis are getting real relief with cosentyx. Its a different kind of targeted biologic. Cosentyx treats more than just the joint pain of Psoriatic Arthritis. It even helps stop further joint damage. Dont use if youre allergic to cosentyx. Before starting, get checked for tuberculosis. 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