we ll tackle the lingering and very important questions, what more do democrats need? before they can begin writing articles of impeachment that will stick. have we seen only the tip of the ice burg when it comes to the testimony. will the president s own party stick with him? that is of course a crucial question. and we begin tonight our special coverage with erica hill. reporter: shock waving rippling through the white house. bomb shell in the impeachment. before the bomb shell, there was a phone call. it was a per perfect call. with a foreign leader. that left some officials so concerned. it s record was moved to a secure server. the whistleblower filed a complaint. then, a picture painted by career dlats and officials in closed door sessions suggest there was much more to learn.
dependent on zelensky publicly announcing investigations. this is the most disturbing day in congress. so far. it means more people will come back in and reanswer questions. the president quick to dismiss the testimony. here s the problem. he s a never trumper and his lawyers a never trumper. joining me now. january dean former nixon counsel. the state department for 31 years under both republican and democrat presidents. she s known bill taylor. for 25 years. david gergen and elliot williams. former assistant attorney general. know now the testimony that we - have seen. you heard ambassadors taylor testimony. he laid out evidence of a quid
everybody says when the democrats were in charge. the republicans stick together. and republicans say the democrats stick together. in terms of what mitt romney will do i don t have a clue. nobody does. i think he ll look at the evidence. this is clearly something that bothered him. that has gotten inside of his conscious. i don t think he ll put his career on the line if he votes this. it s not there s no profile courage here. by looking at information that a president of the united states held up military aid. so the leader of the another country would investigate his political opponent. it s cut and dry. it s simple. and we saw the chief of staff say it. we saw the ambassador taylor who had a very powerful testimony. i believe republicans will probably pivot to say maybe there was a quid pro quo. but, we re a year out. why don t we we have an election. that s where they re going
you can file articles of impeachment today. but what you re doing now is filling in the gaps. prosecutors lawyers do this all the time. this involves the state department. on diplomacy parties. and witnesses from the defense department and white house. we ll hear from the seven more over the course of the week. at that point, they can file an article of impeachment. and vote on it. the one thing even prior to that, what you would have is public hearings. you have to get the public behind this. this testimony happened in private. that s okay it s part of the process. you put it on the record ambassador sondland, bill taylor and let the american people hear from them directly. we have zen more people that we know of. scheduled to be deposed. they do that behind closed doors that s the process. the democrats and republicans in the committee are allowed to be in the room and ask questions. sondland is likely to come back. the u.s. ambassador to the european union.
investigate and get to the bottom of what happened in 2016. we ll nail down a date for the visit to washington. good luck. on august 9, a text from ambassador sondland to volker. i think potus want the deliverable. going onto suggest volker should ask ukraine for a draft statement. so that we can see exactly what they propose to cover. it basically substantiated every aspect of the whistleblower s complaint. that the president of the united states cohearsed a foreign power to help himself politically. republicans hear something different. there was no quid pro quo. in more than nine hours of closed door testimony. volker also raise concerns about the role of rudy giuliani. october 11, yovanovitch. the former ukraine ambassador. removed from her post in may. defying orders from the administration not to appear. a career diplomat with more than