cross-examination. his securing of an extremely well-paying job on the board of a corrupt ukrainian company burisma highlights the precise corruption problem in ukraine that concerned not only president trump but all of the witnesses we ve interviewed so far. the democrats have dismissed questions about biden s role at burisma as conspiracy theories. yet, they re trying to impeach president trump for having expressed concerns about the company. if we could hear from biden, we could ask him how he got his position. what did he do to earn his lavish salary? and what light could he shed on corruption at this notorious company? this notorious company. but biden would make an inconvenient witness for the democrats, and so they ve blocked his testimony. at these hearings, we ve heard a lot of secondhand, third-hand information and speculation about president trump s
investigations. the the other thing is sondland because you d actually want to because you d actually want to root it out. it goes back to the point about burisma. if you re actually interested and your intent is corruption, you re not only interested in one company. and that s what lieutenant colonel vindman testified to yesterday, right? not to mention the department of defense, which i don t think we heard enough of in the past few days. the department of defense certified ukraine as having met its benchmarks. but if you go back to what sondland then tries to do later, he when he s being questioned by republicans, he kind of tries to clean it up and say, well, it s it s not we wanted them to announce it because we wanted to hold their feet to the fire. box them in. box them in. and it s like once you couple that with the evidence around trying to get agreement on the language of the statement, it kind of explodes that, well, it was just about boxing them in
ukrainian ministry of defense reform to ensure the long-term sustainability of u.s. investments and the transformation of the ukrainian military from a soviet model to a nato interoperable force. the act requires the department of defense to certify defense reform progress to release half of the ukraine security assistance initiative or usai funds, a provision we find very helpful. based on recommendations from me and other key dod advisers, the department of defense in coordination with the department of state certified in may 2018 that ukraine had, quote, taken substantial actions to make institutional reforms for the purposes of decreasing corruption, increasing accountability and sustaining improvements of combat capability, unquote, meriting obligation of the entire 250 million in usai funds. this brings me to the topic of
never even pretended to care about good governments. he harassed the mueller prosecution. he smeared you and everybody. who are we joking? how do we even with straight faces say the defense says he was after corruption? he doesn t care about krum corruption. he s more comfortable in corrupt enterprises. typically, the defense is he s ignorant. he didn t know. so when we look at the campaign finance violation, andrew, your team put him on notice that a thing of value, opposition research from a foreign government, counts as a violation of campaign law. mr. mueller said he wasn t sure he could prove corrupt intent. mr. trump certainly knows it now. but when we think of the thing of value, even to call the opposition research i think is a little grand. it wasn t the research or the investigation. it was the announcement that trump wanted. and, in fact, if there had been a legitimate investigation of burisma or the bidens, it would have exposed the bizarre
he had to announce the investigations. he didn t actually have to do them, as i understood it. we ve been watching together all day long. i i have now heard that three times, including when i heard it live. and it still rattles me. this is so far from normal. this is so far from ethical. i think it s an open question about whether or not it s illegal. but i know having spent my career on campaigns that it is something of value to have and the fact that it wasn t the actual investigation, that is supposed to be secret and that could have been done stateside. but that it was supposed to be public, that is the only part of value in terms of dirt. absolutely. and it makes the point you made earlier, nicolle, which is it erases any defense that donald trump s motivation was corruption in the ukraine. because if your motivation, if your intent, is to stop corruption, you wouldn t be satisfied solely with announcement from the ukrainians that they were opening these