quo. it was the conditioning of official acts or something of great value to the president, these political investigations. it goes right to the heart of the issue of bribery as well as other potential high crimes or misdemeanors. but we also have heard for the first time that knowledge of this scheme was pervasive. the secretary of state was aware of it. the acting chief of staff mulvaney was aware of it. okay, at the very top, donald trump, through his personal lawyer and others was implementing it and so this i think only goes to underscore just how significant the president s obstruction of this investigation has been. we now can see the veneer has been torn away, just why secretary pompeo and president donald trump do not want any of these documents provided to congress, because apparently they show as ambassador sondland has testified that the knowledge
whether he had concerns or comments what he heard. he declined to comment. you heard adam schiff make some of the most striking comments he has made to date saying this goes right to the heart of their case the president may have committed bribery, done something to reach that threshold of high crimes and misdemeanors, impeachable thresholds. he says this is the most significant everyday to date that could reach that threshold. this is a clear sign from the democrats. they believe what they heard tying this military, this meeting, to this declaration from ukraine to investigate the president s political rivals is central to their case. they believe the president testified he did not tell him directly that aid was tied to this investigation, that all sides pointed to the president wanting that aid withheld and gordon sondland confirm that notion as well. that is enough for democrats to say, look, we have reached that point. we have gotten our case against this president.
for our review in a day or two. and the question i have here is that i mean that statement never was issued and, in fact, ambassador volker has testified that he didn t think it was a good idea and ultimately the ukrainians didn t think it was a good idea, so the statement never reached a finalized state. that s correct. but even if it had, it doesn t talk about bidens, burisma, or anything insidious, correct? well, the statement as i recall would have mentioned the 2016 election/dnc server and burisma. okay. it would not have mentioned the bidens. have you heard ambassador volker how he talks about what might be an investigation into burst pla? no. okay. i mean, he has said that if there were ukrainians engaged in violationles of ukrainian law, then the prosecutor general with the new administration ought to
listed on september 11th. correct? i believe that s correct. okay. senator johnson in his letter on page 6 quotes the president on august 31st, ron, i understand your position. we re reviewing it now. and you will probably like my final decision. so eventhon august 31st and this is before any congressional investigation started, the president was signaling to senator johnson that he was going to lift the aid. it sound like it, yes. okay. most of the other witnesses from the department of defense or omb or you know have told us all along during this 55-day period, they genuinely believed the hold would be lifted. was that your feeling too, at the time? i didn t know because every time i asked about the hold, i was never given a straight answer as to why it had been put
because the witnesses that need to come in and clarify what the democrats were doing if 2016, we re not going to be able to visit with those witnesses. and so, it s an inconvenient truth that the democrats don t want to admit their operatives that were dirtying up the trump campaign, using ukrainian sources in 2016 and they do not want us to get to the bottom of it. they don t want you, ambassador, to get to the bottom of it. they don t want the president s personal attorney, even though he s under a special counsel investigation, that they fed into the fbi, that we ve dealt with for over three years, they don t want to get to the bottom of that, ambassador. i think mr. castor has some questions for. you thank you, mr. nunes. good morning, ambassador, how are you? good morning, mr. castor. welcome back. are you here all day on the 17th, late into the night. so thank you for your cooperation with the investigation.