to the justice department. it defies the fact that the gop witness, kurt volker, said in retrospect, he understood it was about biden and the 2020 election and he would have objected if he understood it at the time because it was unacceptable. so i think they lose a lot, because many americans, republicans as well, say they think the president acted inappropriately, but it s not impeachable, but at least it was inappropriate. they get to that point. they don t even give you that. it goes against the facts. dana, the republicans are saying i m sorry, this line, it s ridiculous. he s got a deep-seeded genuine and reasonable skepticism of ukraine due to its history of pervasive corruption. the history part is true, the president s concern is not. here s the statement from the president himself, okay. just to remind people. we don t even need to go to david holmes saying he overheard the president saying gordon sondland said the president doesn t give a you know what about ukraine. we
breaking news. house republicans defending president trump. they have a new 123-page prebuttle to the democratic findings. in it, they argue there s no evidence of bribery, extortion, or any high crime or misdemeanor. so look, it s 123 pages. there s a lot in there, but here are some of the crucial things. at one point, they write, president trump is a deep seated, genuine skepticism of ukraine due to its history of pervasive corruption. maybe some people would share that concern, but that s not true of the president. here s what the truth is. ambassador soundland agrees the president did not give an explicit about ukraine. i asked why not. he stated the president only cares about big stuff. i noted there was big stuff going on in ukraine. like a war with russia.
necessary. this context shows that president trump has a deep-seated, genuine and reas reasonable skepticism of ukraine and u.s. taxpayer-funded fore n foreigned a. what does the president s state of mind matter to you? i can tell you, i think they are grasping at strauss. when you look at the memorandum of the transcript of the conversation of the president with president zelensky of ukraine, this was declassified by president trump and distributed to us. and we took a close look. what did he refer to? it wasn t corruption in general. it was would you investigate my potential opponent joe biden and his son hunter biden and look into some bizarre fox-inspired theory about undermining the last presidential election. it really wasn t about corruption in the ranks in ukraine and whether even though $400 million from the united states would be well spent. it was for his own personal, political agenda.
both occurred without ukraine investigating president trump s political rival. the 18-page staff memo obtained by fox also notes president trump s deep-seated, genuine, and reasonable skepticism of ukraine and u.s. tax-payer funded aid of corruption. he also notes the skips as an overall but u.s. foreign aid and the need for allies to do more. a key house democrat is also questioning the g.o.p. defense. we need to get to the facts, but i think saying something that is not true as a part of the defense is not going to be helpful. it is clear the ukrainians did no aid was being withheld. there are discussions that took place that indicate that. the intelligence committee s top republican sounds pessimistic over the overall atmosphere going into these open public hearings. my guess is it s going to be a complete circus. we are not going to get any of our witnesses. the mainstream media is going to
obsessed with because it doesn t seem to be that remote. the odds of a very closely contested 2020 race seem very possible. almost every election. this is this this is the russians they knew they had business dealings with trump that were kept secret from the public. so they already had their hooks in him of information they thought would be private. they also have a deep seated fear going back to 2014 with uprisings in ukraine worrying about democracy. why can t we have democracy in russia? they want to say look how badly democracy is working in the uk and in the u.s. and so they have their greatest wish would be a presidential election whose legitimacy was honestly in doubt and contested by the parties. they would say look, you re better off with vladimir taking care of everybody. this democracy is messy. it s a very good point. and mimi, as someone as a lawyer, just imagining a scenario in which you are attempting to resolve the way that we resolve contested elec