Dozens of hours of closed door and new testimony from a former congressional testimony that trumps phone call was just one Trump Campaign official seems to moment in a far reaching contradict the president on operation involving the president s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, two Giuliani Associates who have since been indicted partially for their role in the scheme. White house chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, the attorney general, the secretary of energy, the secretary of state, the Vice President of the United States, and of course President Trump himself. Tomorrow two opening witnesses are expected to describe the scope of the scheme to extort ukraine. That includes bill taylor who was the acting u. S. Ambassador of ukraine at this very moment. West point grad who was awarded the bronze star for service in vietnam. Hes a career diplomat and worked in republican and democratic administrations since all the way back in 1985. He served in afghanistan shortly after the u. S. Invaded that
Their constituents back home could help determine what happens when they come back. We havent seen President Trump on television today. Hes been active on twitter defending his call with the ukrainian president and demanding the resignation hoff the democratic chairman of the house tell committee, adam schiff. Among the president s tweets, if that perfect call or i should say perfect phone call with the president of ukraine isnt considered appropriate, then no future president can ever again speak to another foreign leader. More than 300 former National Security officials disagree with his view of the call. They signed a letter calling President Trumps actions a profound National Security concern. John roberts reporting live. Hi, john. Good afternoon, shep. The white house is confirming that a transcript of the call that the president had with volodymyr zelensky, the ukrainian president , on july 25 was archived on a highly secure computer system, it is not saying which system and the
Hes in italy. We dont know if hes going to speak to the cameras. We dont know if hes going to respond to the questions. But we do know that he had an opportunity last week to talk about the discussions between the president and the leader of ukraine. He gave what seemed to be a pretty carefully phrased response as we look live at the photo opportunity right now. Let me play for you what pompeo said just about nine days ago. What do you know about those conversations . So you just gave me a report about a whistleblower complaint, none of which ive seen. And andrea, that may have been true at the time. But it is interesting in light of what weve now learned from a Senior State Department official about pompeo being on that call. Incredibly, he ducked it clearly, the complaint then came out. And then even after the complaint had come out at the United Nations last week in new york, he had a News Conference and again avoided he didnt lie but he just deflected. So he avoided saying that he
The acting dni director appear before the House Intelligence Committee. That will be fascinating. Hey, willie geist, what an extraordinary 24 hours. You can go to the night before and before we actually got to see what the white house called the trump. People were predicting that it was going to be much ado about nothing. The next morning of course it kploiexplodes and republicans are shocked that the white house released that transcript. And news continued breaking throughout the day and, of course, last night you had the whistleblower report read and apparently so disturbing that republicans on and off the record were saying that it was far worse than what the white house released in the morning. Ben sasse who has been strangely silent over the past year, ben sasse coming out and talking about it being very troubling. Ben sasse was a tell to me saying what he read in that report, which by the way we may all see at some point today, the whistleblow whistleblower complaint as it has be
She went to Gordon Sondland and asked for advice. His advice was go big or go home. Essentially, what he argued, was perhaps she should tweet support for the president , say the rumors werent true. Michael mckinleys transcript was released today. Hes a former top aide to mike pompeo. He said he left the state department because the career diplomats were being used to advance the political agenda, something he did not support. But more testimony and transcript expected to be released this week, including that of curt volker and Gordon Sondland. Thank you for that. In his statement, Michael Mckinney gave a statement why he stepped down from mike pompeo. One that contradicts his boss version of events. He told the lawmakers he felt the department, and especially pompeo, were not defending yovanovitch against that Smear Campaign. He said, quote, there were numerous media articles appearing about yovanovitch and i did grow concerned that we needed to Say Something forceful on her behalf. Ho