i will tell you from the perspective of someone who was formerly as part of the intelligence community and has been part of many briefings of member of congress including the republicans where these issues would come up and members of the ic would beat them back and explain why it was not true and it was a half-baked conspiracy theory is it was nice to hear someone actually resonated and say that and whether it resonated with the republicans, i don t know, but it was right on. there was devin nunes saying someone else could have interfered and he wasn t giving up. all of you stay with me please, because witness after witness has now pointed the finger directly at the well, the hearsay argument s gone and it s all now directly at president trump. at the express direction of the president of the united states, the president had so directed through the acting chief of staff. plus president trump and a major ally using the same playbook tonight. oh there s no place like home
his testimony up until now has been somewhat inconsistent, and he is going to be pressed hard to establish his credibility. but you re exactly right it s a crucial testimony because recall from watergate one of the critical questions howard baker asked back then, what did the president know, when did he know it? as we have more witnesses testify we re going to get more information about what the president knew or to what extent he was involved in this. as you pointed out, there seems to have been a systemic effort at the highest levels of this government to investigate the bidens in an inappropriate and unconstitutional way. there was a proper way to do it through the mutual legal assistance treaty and an improper way to do it and it s the improper way we re investigating. kelly, has the hearsay argument has fallen apart here as firsthand witnesses and really, you know, a web of officials who were concerned by this alternate track foreign policy with seeming political benefit there,
of marie yovanovitch yesterday, the ukrainian ambassador that the president recalled on the strength of those rumors in what she termed smears put forward by the back channel of rudy giuliani and the individuals that he was dealing with within the ukraine. the republican defense all along we heard from jim jordan in garrett s piece, has been one about process, complaining about the closed-door testimony. now it s moved into public, they re still complaining saying how can there be a quid pro quo bribery, extortion, whatever you want to call it, if military aid in the end was not withheld and there was never an investigation announced by zblenlelensky or a else in ukraine, something that was demanded according to the testimony of administration officials themselves. and then, of course, there s the hearsay argument. that has been sort of blown up itself of the testimony of david holmes yesterday, having overheard according to his account that conversation between the president and gor
impeachment inquiry, i wonder if you think what happened behind closed doors that we did not see with our eyes but have read the opening statement of david holmes was even more crucial? it may have been of i think the hearsay argument collapses almost on contact in the sense that it requires you to believe that sondland and giuliani and volker were cooking this up on their own and somehow it was without the knowledge or complicity of the president. certainly putting his words directly into this story is powerful. and important. and it is also raising the stakes for baas sondland s testimony next week. it is one of those exquisite accidents of history that this information which he has not provided to the committee comes on the same day that rocker stone is sent to princess for lying to congress. he faces some very difficult
trump and giuliani as they smeared her to world leaders who came to her and said watch your back? what is this, godfather ? pelosi highlighted he s running scared now. andrew, there s been this debate, do the republicans attack on substance, on the procedure that s going on here? we saw procedure back and forth jumping in and trying to attack. we certainly saw them do that after bill taylor s testimony on wednesday, but that hearsay argument is going to be harder to make as people like david holmes, as we talked about, come in and testify and corroborate different aspects of it and do provide firsthand corroboration of this testimony. obviously when gordon sondland shows up on wednesday, that will be more firsthand confirmation of this phone call. that s what democrats are going