it came from ambassador bill taylor who testified alongside state department official george kent in the probe s first public hearing yesterday. during his opening statement, ambassador taylor testified about a july 26th phone conversation that happened just one day after trump s controversial call with the president of ukraine. watch. in the presence of my staff, at a restaurant, ambassador sondland called president trump and told him of his meetings in kiev. the member of my staff could hear president trump on the phone asking ambassador sondland about the investigations. ambassador sondland told president trump the ukrainians were ready to move forward. following the call with president trump, the member of my staff asked ambassador sondland what president trump thought about ukraine. ambassador sondland said president trump cares more about the investigations of biden which giuliani was pressing for. two sources tell nbc news
he immediately lept to all questions about hunter biden and why he was on the board and whether or not ambassador taylor and undersecretariy kent though that was appropriate. he pushed him to say this was bad, this back channel foreign policy they were running, giuliani and others, but it wasn t outland inn. bill taylor could only laugh at that claim and suggestion. and then you go down the line. the aid was eventually released. that the ukrainians didn t know the aid was being held up. all of those have been shot down previously. as a defense attorney, what did you think with those set of facts, how would you have defended him and could you have defended him? yipes. i sat there watching the hearings and i was thinking i m a good lawyer but i don t know what i d say if i m the defense lawyer at that point. the argument that they did make were weak. one, the aid ultimately flowed. that s like the bank robber saying, well, i didn t rob the
partridge in a pear tree. and he was saying this is all hearsay information, secondhand, thirdhand. yeah, president trump is prohiblting the first-hand witnesses, the direct witnesses from testifying. so you can t complain about hearsay information. it s like the old line about you can t kill your parents and cry and complain you re an orphan. and that s what jordan was doing. so if you peel back the jordan garble, it s a bunch of nonsense. because mick mulvaney is not going to show up. none of the perpetrators like giuliani are going to show up. not to be a contrarian but apparently that s my role tonight, it would be nice after he does his partridge in a pear tree thing if the next congress person is listeningening and will deal with it instantly like glenn just did. because goldman can t do all the
ambassador sondland told president trump the ukrainians were ready to move forward. following the call with president trump the member of my staff asked ambassador sondland when the president thought about ukraine. ambassador sondland responded trump cares more about the investigations of biden which giuliani was pressing for. i take the import of that is he cares more about that than he does about ukraine? yes, sir. that staffer identified as david ho david holmes now set to testify this friday. republicans spent their time trying to poke holes in the testimony and advance the president s counter narrative. but the testimony of taylor and kent offered some troubling details for the president. ambassador taylor affirmed military aid was withheld in an effort to extort ukraine. and both suggested the actions taken in crew crane were
2019, i became increasingly aware of an effort by rudy giuliani and others, including his associates lev parnas and igor fruman to run a campaign to smear ambassador yovanovitch and other officials at the u.s. embassy in kiev. i became alarmed as those efforts bore fruit. they led to the ouster of yovanovitch and hampered efforts to establish rapport with the now zelensky administration in ukraine. in mid-august, it became clear to me that giuliani s efforts to ginn up politically motivated investigations were now infecting u.s. engagement with ukraine, leveraging president zelensky s desire for a white house meeting. it s so weird to hear and think about all of these conspiracy theories and then to hear from the career diplomats who have served presidents on both sides of the aisle trying to figure out what s going on here. what more do you know about rudy giuliani and where he was getting all of this information? so, mika, from the very