you can believe it at home or accept it, is that maybe all these nefarious things happened and maybe the president shouldn t have asked for the investigation or withheld the aid, but they eventually got the aid. they never announced the investigation. so where s the big deal? what did president zelensky actually do to get the aid? the answer is nothing. he didn t do any of the things that house democrats say that he was being forced and coerced and threatened to do. some have argued in the president s defense that the aid was ultimately released, and that is true. but only after congress began an investigation. again, more of the sparring and the democratic point being, attempted extortion, bribery, whatever you want to call it, is a crime. i think mee ia is right, thes all these pieces that democrats are putting in place that show you it s not illegal for the president to withdraw his ambassador or to call back his
seven counts, including lying to congress and witness tampering. stone now the fifth trump insider headed to prison, a list that includes the president s long time lawyer, two campaign aids and his first national security adviser. candidate trump denied knowing anything about wikileaks dumps in advance. the testimony at the trial detailed that candidate trump was lying. wikileaks and clinton then, ukraine and biden, that s one way to look at it. this is the same behavior. this is dirty tricks, these are dirty tricks. it s a climate of corruption. it s trying to acquire dirt on your opponents. it s part of american politics, but we shouldn t be proud of it. but it has a different meaning and significance when it s done by a president. when the president is in office. there s a similarity between the climate around mr. stone and what he did for the then candidate and what we re looking at with mr. giuliani.
encouraging. at the same time, there s a long way to go. inside politics, the biggest stories sourced by the best reporters now. welcome to inside politics. i m john king. to our viewers in the united states and around the world, thank you for sharing your sunday. in a bit, some very big campaign news. a new democrat leads the pack in iowa, which kicks off the 2020 voting in just 11 weeks. but first, the impeachment hearings. there was eye-popping testimony in the week just ended and the process expect for more consequential witnesses and revelations in the week ahead. the trump political donor, turned ambassador to the european union will be a witness, and gordon sondland told congress under oath and under penalty of perjury, quote, i recall no discussions with any state department or white house official about former vice president or his son, nor do i recall taking part in any effort to encourage an investigation
a key piece of that is to accuse the democrats of stacking the deck. thank you, mr. nunes. ambassador yovanovitch, thank you for being here today. the gentle woman will suspend. you re not recognized. i just recognized under house res 660 you re not allowed to yield time. the ranking member yielded time to another member of congress. this is the fifth time you have interrupted members of congress, duly elected members of congress. that was a stunt, stunt, stunt, clearly against the hearing rules passed by the full house. but it was a hit with the trump friendly media. here the republican council makes what seems to be a very important point. if the president wanted to do improper things in ukraine, why did the state department replace yovanovitch with veteran diplomat bill taylor.
he lost oregon by 11 and his approval rates was 16 points underwater worse than any other state he won in 2016. interesting to watch. 30 years ago, oregon was a swing state. 30 years ago. we ll see. who knows. things change. whatever is going on domestically the international focus on russia and ukraine. turkey is fading into the background a little bit. erdogan was at the white house this weekend. there was a meeting which he didn t win any friends. that s going to potentially set up a clash between republicans in congress and presidents. everybody is looking a at senate to see if they re move on turkey sanctions. yes, the republican in charge of the senate foreign relations committee is trying to find a work around. the more erdogan does not come to the middle on this, and the fewer friends he s winning over in the gop and congress. we ll be watching to see if they make a move. because this is the timing of