get one or two points out and focus on developing a defense for the president. i want to ask you both this last question because this coming week we have a bunch of people who will be testifying publicly. eight witnesses, in fact, including some of those familiar names like ambassador sondland. we also have kirk volker on that list. we have fiona hill on that list. renato, who are you most interested in? i m most interested in hearing from sondland. he s somebody who literally was on the phone with the president. so he has some really important things to say, as ross pointed out. he s already amended his testimony once. i suspect his memory is going to improve once again. and he s in a spot where he really wants to still be part of the inner circle. he still wants to serve in the administration. he still wants to please the president. i m very interested to see exactly what he says and how he characterizes what trump did and said. ross, quick answer? yeah, i agree. sondland is
trump ask, so he s going to do the investigation? ambassador sondland replied, he s going to do it, adding that president zelensky will do anything you ask him to. how important is that testimony for the investigation? i think it s important because, first of all, it s firsthand testimony. there s been a lot of discussion. i know republicans have argued there s certain testimony that was not firsthand. here you have an eyewitness to a conversation. clearly the president didn t think that other people were going to be hearing that. and it shows the president s intense interest in that investigation. that s something that s apparent, but it really goes to the core of it. i think it s more evidence you know, you re going to hear a lot from witnesses that will say it s a quid pro quo, but it s more evidence that goes to the heart of the matter. this is a conversation overheard between president trump and ambassador sondland, who will testify in public this coming week. ross, what p
in which gordon sondland told the president the ukrainians were willing to move forward with investigations into the president s political opponents. that, of course, very significant. holmes said while this phone call wasn t on speakerphone, the president was speaking so loud he could hear it through the phone. ana? lauren fox, we ll let you get to those depositions that were just released, and you can report back on any new information you discover. with us now, cnn legal analyst ross garber, who teaches impeachment law at tulane. his past clienlts who faced impeachment include former south carolina governor mark sanford. also with us, cnn legal analyst and former federal prosecutor. so the state department aide corroborated bill taylor s testimony about that phone call between president trump and ambassador sondland the day after the ukraine call. holmes says this. quote, i then heard president
the president, ukraine or our system or generally? here s somebody who she s not the victim of this ukraine scheme, but she was somebody harmed by trump. there was wrongdoing here towards here. at least that was her allegation. it was very compelling. you saw somebody i think she was very sympathetic. secondly, i think this whole business you mentioned earlier about the president tweeting, intimidating her, i really think that was a very it crystallized what happened, and i think it was a powerful moment that will be remembered when this whole impeachment is over. let s talk more about that moment after the president lashed out against her on twitter. that tweet, actually, was brought up during the hearing. chairman schiff showed that tweet to her. this is an image in which you can see her blurred there on the left. you can see her looking at the tweet. she said it s very intimidating. ross, did the president hurt his case with that tweet? it was not a smart tweet. it was not
it was not a smart thing to say. i think it reflects a bigger problem, which is that i don t see much of a coordinated strategy coming out of the white house for the defense of this. so if there were that kind of koord naft coordinated strategy, you would not see this kind of tweet from the president. i don t think it was witness intimidate. i don t think it was impeachable conduct. i think he was just trying to say something to defend himself because one of the notable things yesterday is you didn t see house republicans sort of stand up and say that the testimony was false, that there were exmr. nations for it. house republicans pretty much just kind of let the testimony happen. you could see the president being in a position where he d be frustrated and would tweet something like that. not a smart decision. renato, ross says he doesn t see it as witness zbintimidatio or tampering. schiff suggested it could be. where do you stand on this?