Tonight on 360, new and dangerous language from the once and possible future president of the United States. Also tonight, new details on a fatal car crash involving the thengirlfriend, nowwife of new jersey senator bob menendez. And a live report from elle reef about how some students and parents are bushing back against the book bans in that state. We begin tonight keeping him honest, by taking a step back, a step back from what seems like a flood of words lately that the former president has said, followed by a flood of stories about those words and subsequent outrage that one side or another has about those stories. Before the whole cycle repeats itself and the latest outrage is forgotten because its old news by then. His former strategist steve bannon had a phrase for this. He called it flooding the zone with excrement, though he used a different word for excrement. It never gave anyone time to stop, take a breath and take stock of what just happened or what someone just said, so
President zelensky decided that they were not going to issue thatt statement that Rudy Giuliani wanted to include burisma in the 2016 elections, there was no white house meeting. It soon became clear to them that the Security Assistance was also at risk. And that took on a renewed importance for them. Well, following the 25th call, the t july 25th call, ambassador sondland and volker worked closely with mr. Giuliani and the ukrainians to help draft a statement that the president could make, president zelensky. Wasnt that right . Yes. And the report said they worked closely and there were also phone calls with the white house around the same time that they werear working closely. Do you know what that statement was supposed tou say according to mr. Giuliani and the u. S. Officials . Well, the key difference is that it had to include that ukraine would do the investigations of burisma which equalled theic Biden Investigatn in the 2016 ukraine
interference. But was there concern about doi
Todays proceedings. I would like to recap my recognition of the timeline in which these events played out. I testified about all of this at length in my deposition. In july, i became aware of a hold being an obligation of the State Departments Foreign Military financing and dods usai funds. In a series of interagency meetings, i heard that the president had directed the office of of management and budget to hold the funds becausf his concerns about corruption in ukraine. Let me say at the outset that i have never discussed this or any other matter with the president and never heard directly from him about this matter. At a senior level meeting i attended on july 26, chaired by National Security council leadership, as at all other interagency meetings on this topic of which i was aware, the National Security community
expressed unanimous support for resuming the funding as in the u. S. National security interest. At the july 26 meeting, there was a discussion of how ukrainian anticorrup
theen following in your finding of fact? president trumpin ordered the suspension of $391 million in vital military assistance urgently needed bymi ukraine. and the president did so despite his obligations under the impoundment control act. did you find that? yes. all right. so not only did the president abuse his powers for personal gain and not only was it illegal. his actions also harmed u.s. national security. so it s a fundamental tenant of u.s. national security to push back against russian aggression. ukraine s at the tip of the spear pushing back against russian aggression. is it true that harming theck ukrainian military also harms u.s. national security? that s what pretty much every witness said. last week, professor karlan confirmed that it is an impeachable offense to sacrifice the national interest for his own private ends. a slide shows what she said. mr. goldman, based on the evidence that you found in your report, is it fair to conclude
a reasonable person could also conclude that the president violated the impoundment control act of 1974, which congress passed as a response to president nixon s abuse of power. so i d like to explore that a little further with you, mr. goldman. in this case, congress, with bipartisan support, had appropriated taxpayer funds for the specific purpose of aiding ukraine in its war against russia. is that right?int yes. and not only had that money been appropriated, the money had actually been released to the department of defense, is that right? nt they were about to release it, yes. and then, suddenly without explanation, the president demanded those taxpayer funds be withheld fromye an ally who desperately neededll the aid. mr. goldman, did the president notifyld congress about his decision to withhold the aid? no, he did not. the impoundment control act was designed to prevent the president from secretly taking congressionally-appropriated funds and doing whatever he wants w