Parallel Foreign Policy in ukraine. According to the transcript, what sondland says. Again, people usually smiled when they heard rudys name, because he was always swirling around somewhere. Question, yeah, but, i mean, he was causing serious issues in the u. S. Relationship with ukraine. Did you raise those concerns with sondland . Listen, state department was fully aware of the issues and little they could do about it if the president decided he wanted his lawyer involved. Question, does that include secretary pompeo and his counselor . Sondland, my speculation, is, yes, they hit a brick wall when it came to getting rid of mr. Giuliani. Go to cnn senior Congressional Correspondent manu raju on the hill and reading through this as we all have. Talk about the significance of what i just read. Giulianis perceives and how aware secretary pompeo was of all of this and your other Key Takeaways . Reporter yeah. It speaks very clear this effort to get a meeting with the ukrainian president a
Attacking this, laura, saying well hes making a bunch of assumptions but that not a fact. It is not a fact. To distill down what they are saying for the better part of two and a half and three weeks unless you hear it with somebody from the direct knowledge of the president it is all hogwash and inadmissible even in an impeachment inquiry and now somebody is saying let me break down what you are calling a presumption. Im giving you evidentiary basis for my thought process and giving dates and receipts and what led me to conclude if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it is, in fact, a duck. And now the only viable strategy is to say, well, actually, youre basing this on an assumption of the mental state of the president was using his own mouth piece which is what one would surmise. What i was shocked by the real analogy here that reminds me of what was the defense to the Mueller Probe which is lets attack the origins of the probe as opposed to the substance of what is coming ou
Tier as well. Biden is likely to face questions tonight about his son hunter who just opened up about his foreign business dealings in a new interview. The back drop for all of this, the impeachment investigation in washington. Democrats are seizing on very dramatic ongoing testimony from a Top State Department official, Rudy Giulianis role in the ukraine scandal as giuliani tells lawmakers he wont comply with subpoenas. And the federal Budget Office disregards a deadline to turn over key documents. Lets go to capitol hill right now where democrats are facing down defiant witnesses. Our senior Congressional Correspondent manu raju is joining us. The president s lawyer said he wont comply with a congressional subpoena and hes not alone. What is the latest . Reporter that is right. That is right. Rudy giulianis attorney sent a letter to capitol hill making it very clear that he would not comply with this congressional subpoena demanding documents to turn over information dating back from
This hearing especially for Eu Ambassador Gordon Sondland. Why . The steady stream of testimony so far raises the stakes personally for him. His name is the one that came out of peoples mouths most often about who was on the inside of delivering this message to ukraine that no bidens, no investigations, no money. So what the ambassador chooses to say today is going to give us a very definite direction about where responsibility is going to lie in this matter. It could shatter the gop defense of a white house that says absolutely nothing done was wrong, wolf. Its going to be very, very powerful by all accounts. Was the president of the United States directly involved in pressuring the new government in ukraine for investigations into the bidens and the 2016 president ial election here in the United States . Did they talk about that on an unsecured phone call the day after the president s infamous july 25th phone conversation with ukraines new leader president zelensky. We could get chri
Morning will be crucial. In just a few hours, Gordon Sondland will speak publicly. The u. S. Ambassador to the European Union is the only witness thus far to have spoken directly with President Trump about the scheme to pressure the ukrainian president to investigate the bidens. Ambassador sondland already had to amend his testimony once. And gop sources tell cnn they are concerned about what he will say today. The Eu Ambassador is walking a delicate tugt rope. Will he say that the president directed him to demand a quid pro quo . To issue a bribe of millions of dollars in exchange for investigations . So this morning the hearings following nearly 12 hours of testimony from four witnesses. One of them Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman testified about his concerns with the call and the National Security risks involved. For that the iraq war hero was attacked by the white house and its republican allies. Kurt volker made a number of important changes to his original testimony. He now