point out, maggie, now knowing that he knew about the whistle-blower complaint, he knew the entire concept and the entire thing was a quid pro quo. the fact that he introduces it that s right. he knew somebody was saying that or knew that that was at least our understanding of it, based on what he was briefed on that that was part of the conversation. i should note here that the white house declined to comment on this briefing or on the timing of it. and what else, maggie, do you think could be significant here. what this means for what the president was thinking and his use of the word quid pro quo and the way he handled gordon sondland. all of that is very crucial. what else do you think could be the implications of now knowing of what the president knew when he knew it. i think anything we can pinpoint as to what the president s mindset was, erin, when he decided to free up this aid, i think, is important. i think, again, we still don t know exactly what pat sipiloni and what
each other to degrade our institutions and the democrat see. hill said that on camera. bolton, though, is still hiding behind twitter and still tech incomely doing the president s bidding because he s refusing to testify in the impeachment investigation and to be clear on two big points here. one, bolton has a lot to say about what trump did and what trump knew and when he knew it. bolton was in the know and you don t need to take it from me. dr. hill said that ambassador bolton referred to this deal as this is a drug deal. ambassador bolton told me that i am not part of the this whatever drug deal that mull vainy and sondland are cooking up. i heard ambassador bolton express to taylor and tim morrison his frustration about mr. giuliani s influence with the president, making clear there was nothing he could do about it. did you tell ambassador bolton about this conversation, as well? i reached out to him, as well
explain what you mean. sure. to your point about congress, this briefing took place at a moment when sipiloni and eisenberg were arguing they didn t think they could have the whistle-blower complaint ask they were covered by executive privilege and they were seeking an opinion from the justice department s legal office and the justice department said they didn t have to share it and they didn t, but to your point, congress ended up finding out anyway, but he found out about this complaint existing prior to a conversation that gordon sondland testified to congress that he had with the president about questions about this aid being withheld and the president said to sondland there s no quid pro quo. that s according to sondland s testimony. that s very specific language and that was language that was not part of the public discussion around this aid being withheld at that time when they had this conversation in the beginning of september. very crucial because as you
story. let s go to democratic congresswoman brenda lawrence who sits on the committee. you heard maggie going through some of the reporting there. does this change anything now that you know when the president became aware of the whistle-blower complaint that it was prior to that conversation with gordon sondland. it appears in which he said no quid pro quo. certainly it was prior to his decision to release the aid. well, it has been so magical the proceedings for impeachment and the hearing is that someone says it s like an onion, you keep peeling away layer after layer and this is solidifying that the president of the united states is not a truthful person that the president of the united states was manipulating his his office and manipulating aid to another country, and it was only until he felt that he was
sort of whether or not, you know, how informed was he? right? this sort of question that s out there, how informed was he considering his national security adviser was on the call? wouldn t he be informed? i meant by, was that question posed to him? because it s not just, do you support it or do you not? it s, you had a full briefing book when you went to meet with the ukrainian president in the beginning of september. so a little more than a month ago. and the call happened in july. the call, we are told, the summer we have all seen was in there. plus, his own national security adviser, pence s, was on that call. so did he read that, was he briefed on it? did he know and did he carry that message? did he also ask the ukrainian leader whether it was explicit or implicit for dirt on the former vice president? he was raising issues of corruption and these appropriate