with debate on whether or not additional witnesses to testify. we begin with deputy counsel to the president patrick philbin. ready to hear the presentation from counsel for the president. mr. chief justice, members of the senate, the house managers have said throughout their presentation and throughout all of the proceedings here again and again that you can t have a trial without witnesses and documents as if it s just that simple. if you have a trial there has to be new witnesses and documents but it s not that simple and that s really something that is a trope being used to disguise the real issues, the real decisions you would be making on this decision about witnesses. because there s a lot more at stake there. and let me unpack that and explain what is really at stake there. the first is this idea of you come to trial you have to go to witnesses, have enough witnesses come in. but that s not true. in every legal system, and in our legal systems in both civil and crim
And when people in the government get worried, sometimes what they do is they draft memos because when theyre concerned about getting caught up in something that doesnt seem right, they dont want to be a part of it. So on that day, mark sandy and other colleagues at omb drafted and sent a memo about Ukraine Military aid to acting director vought. According to sandy, the memo advocated for the release of the funds. It said that the military aid was consistent with American National security interests. It would help to oppose russian aggression and it was backed by strong bipartisan support. But President Trump did not lift the hold. Over the next several weeks, omb continued to issue funding documents that kept kicking the can down the road. Supposedly to allow for more of this quote interagency process. Well, inserting those footnotes throughout the apportionment documents stating that the delay wouldnt affect the funding but heres the really shocking part. There was no interagency pro
Attacking you on twitter. What effect do you think that has on other witness willingness to come forward and expose wrongdoing. Its very intimidating. So you believe these words can be intimidating . I dont think so at all. We have learned significant new information perfect this closeddoor testimony and impeachment inquiry. For the first time a witness says he personally heard President Trump demand ukraine investigating the bidens. And on top of that the state Department Official said he was told the president didnt real lir care about ukraine. That he only cared about the big stuff. Democrats are accusing the president of witness intimidation, after he insulted the former ambassador to ukraine on twitter and he did this as she was testifying. The president slammed her and her Job Performance and then said he had a right to defend himself. We could learn more today about the Congress Approved military aid to ukraine, specifically when it was put on hold and when and why it was releas
Obviously today was the Second Public hearing of the impeachment proceedings against President Trump. Were going to talk about that in detail tonight. In terms of the latest news, though, i do need to mention as soon as the public hearing wrapped up today with u. S. Ambassador ma yrie yovanovitch, immediately thereafter the Impeachment Committees started taking a closed door deposition from another new witness. The public hearings like the ones we saw with ambassador yovanovitch today, those are supposed to be the sort of second phase of the impeachment proceedings. But apparently as more of this story is becoming known to the public and to the investigators, and as more witnesses are coming forward, you know, the Impeachment Committees are having to sort of figure out what to do with new folks who are relevant to the investigation that theyre still proceeding with. So theyre discovering new witnesses, theyre then arranging testimony from these new witnesses. And in order to do that, t
New this morning, hundreds of pages of newly released testimony from two key figures are giving us remarkable insight on the impeachment probe as it reaches day 55. The House Intelligence Committee releasing documents of closed door testimony from jennifer williams, an aide to mike pence and the former National Security counsel sif of firsthand accounts after personally listening to the july 25th phone call between President Trump and ukrainian president zelensky. In a joint statement on the transcript, the chairs leading the inquiry say the july 25th phone call immediately set off alarm bells throughout the white house. Williams told investigators that the call was, quote, unusual and inappropriate. And that it shed light on possible other motivations behind a hold on security assistance. Meanwhile, tim morrison testified he suggested to lawyers, quote, we restrict access to the package referring to the transcript of the call. However, he did not believe anything inappropriate took pl