and people have been, look, when i traveled across. i ve been everywhere from california to the east coast and the midwest. everyone stops and asks about the impeachment. it s on people s minds. people are going to be talking about it. people are going to be digesting what has happened over the last two weeks. and they are going to be the lawmakers are going to be hearing from them about it. if that shifts particularly some more moderate republicans we may hear folks begin to speak out more, that might tip the needle. well, they might not be republican. i can see michael steele shaking his head. let me come back to joyce. i think that a large swath of the american public that may not be the ones that watch prime time on any cable news channel. but a part of the public has now watched, and they may not have been compelled by or moved by or alarmed by the mueller hearing. but they learned that robert mueller couldn t touch donald trump because a sitting president can t be indicted.
everyone was in the loop. it was no secret. to secretary pompeo, secretary perry. chief of staff mulvaney and mr. mulvaney s senior adviser rob blair. a lot of senior officials. i believe that those who have information that the congress deems relevant have a legal and a moral obligation to provide it. fiona hill s obvious sense of duty, more obligation to appear. a sentiment evidently not shared by some of the key witnesses in the impeachment inquiry. democrats are relying on testimony from some of the supporting characters in the ukraine saga because many of the major players, the officials who allegedly participated in the scheme have so far refused to testify. namely donald trump, rick perry, rudy giuliani, mike pence, mike
hearings. and while divisions in our politics endure, it s beyond debate that the democrats fact witnesses, the majority of them, trump appointees and career diplomats, painted a devastating picture of presidential misconduct that was damning enough that the new york times today describes trump s republican allies as, quote, all but certain that the house will move forward to impeach president trump. nbc news reports today that the house is expecting to vote on articles of impeachment in a matter of weeks as republicans face a devastating dismantling of their last remaining defenses against the allegations at the heart of the ukraine scandal. the washington post adds this. quote, the committee has begun writing a report summarizing its findings according to people familiar with the matter who spoke anonymously to discuss the democrats next move. once that s completed proceedings move to the house judiciary committee which will draft specific articles of impeachment. the judiciary
but he wants at least the protection or the cover or the validation, if you will, of a district court judge saying you have no choice, you have to do it. that would help him both in terms of his legal concerns that he might have. it would help him politically. remember he wants i think to have a future in the republican party. he s restarted his political action committee. he doesn t want to be ostsized because he testified against the president trump. if he does testify and it s harmful to the president presumably he d like to say that a judge made him do it. peter baker, just your thoughts. we haven t had a chance to talk to you about just the sweep of testimony this week. you have covered a couple white houses. this is a story told i think most succinctly by gordon sondland and fiona hill of an operation that wasn t the black op, it wasn t the rogue op. it was the op. and the op was that donald trump ordered rudy giuliani executed, vice president pence knew and mike pompeo was inv
tell you that he told m mr. yermak? that the ukrainians would have to have the prosecutor general make a statement with respect to the investigations as a condition of having the aid lifted. your staff at least gleaned from those conversations that the ukrainian embassy was aware that there was some kind of a hold on the assistance. sir, the way i would phrase it is that there was some kind of an issue, yes. secretary perry, ambassador volker, and i worked with mr. rudy giuliani on ukraine matters at the express direction of the president of the united states. i was upset with him that he wasn t fully telling us about all of the meetings that he was having. and he said to me but i am briefing the president, i am briefing chief of staff mulvaney, i am briefing secretary pompeo, and i have talked to ambassador bolton.