investigation, intelligence committee republicans issued a 240-page report describing in detail how the russians meddled in the 2016 elections and making specific recommendations to improve our election security. denouncing the report as a whitewash and accusing republicans of subverting the investigation, the democrats issued their own report. focusing on their now-debunkt conspiracy theory that the trump campaign colluded with russia to hack the elections. notably, the democrats vowed at the time to present a further, quote, comprehensive report, unquote, after they finished their investigation into trump s treasonous collusion with russia. for some completely inexplicable reason, after the implosion of their russia hoax, the democrats failed to issue that comprehensive report.
such a concerted and across the board effort to obstruct this investigation and this impeachment inquiry. and i will just say this, they do so at their own peril. i remind the president that article 3 of the impeachment articles drafted against president nixon was his refusal to obey the subpoenas of congress. and with that, i recognize ranking member nunes for any remarks he would wish to make. i thank the gentleman. as we learned last night, storytime last night, we get storytime first thing this morning. ambassador sondland, welcome. glad you re here. really not glad you re here, but welcome to the fifth day of this circus. as i ve noted before, the democrats on this committee spent three years accusing president trump of being a russian agent. in march 2018, after a year-long
here s just part of what is in this opening statement that he will read before the committee in moments. sondland will say, and i m quoting now, i know that members of this committee have frequently framed these complicated issues in the form of a simple question. was there a quid pro quo? as i testified previously with regard to the requested white house call and white house meeting, the answer is yes. the ambassador will then go on to say and once again i m quoting, everyone was in the loop. it was no secret. everyone was informed via email on july 19th, days before the presidential call. and as i communicated to the team, i told president zelensky in advance that assurances to run a fully transparent investigation and turn over every stone were necessary in his call with president trump. let s go to our senior congressional correspondent manu raju up on capitol hill.
secretary of state pompeo, he knew everything. you know, to the the discussion of your panel, so many brilliant lawyers, they re all right, just in common lay speak, you know, we only know what they show. and what was in this president s head is a function of what we saw him do. and if he really had real questions about burisma or biden or payments, you go to the department of justice. you don t ask for an announcement from ukraine about an investigation. that s about politics. it s not about investigating corruption. but, wolf, we ll see how sondland puts it together in a way that protects him and the president. all right, chris, stand by. we have major breaking news right now. we now have a copy of the explosive, truly explosive opening remarks by the u.s. ambassador to the european union, gordon sondland. and it is not repeat, not good for the white house. not good for president trump.
meeting or hundreds of millions of needed aid, it will be up to us to decide whether those acts are compatible with the office of the presidency. finally, i want to say a word about the president and secretary pompeo s obstruction of this investigation. we have not received a single document from the state department, and as ambassador sondland s opening statement today will make clear, those documents bear directly on this investigation and this impeachment inquiry. i think we know now, based on a sample of the documents attached to ambassador sondland s statement, that the knowledge of this scheme was far and wide. and included, among others, secretary of state pompeo, as well as the vice president. we can see why secretary pompeo and president trump have made