[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] the meeting will come to order. Good morning, everyone. This is the second in a series of public hearings the committee will be holding as part of the houses impeachment inquiry, without objection the chairman reserves the right to call recess. make an Opening Statement and representative nunes will make an Opening Statement and well turn to the witness for Opening Statement and then to questions. For audience members we welcome you and respect your interest in being here. In turn, we ask for your respect as we proceed with todays hearing. It is the intention of the committee to proceed without disruptions. As chairman ill take all necessary and appropriate steps to maintain order to ensure that the committee is run in accordance with house rules and House Resolution 660. With that i now recognize myself to give an Opening Statement in the impeachment inquiry into donald j. Trump, the 45th president of the United States. In april, 201
Captioning performed by vitac although your report states collusion is not a specific offense and you have said this this morning, or a term of art in federal criminal law, conspiracy is in the colloquial context are collusion and conspiracy essentially synonymous terms . You are going to have to rethat for me. Collusion is not a specific offense or a term of art in the federal criminal law, conspiracy is. Yes. In the colloquial context no public context collusion and conspiracy are essentially synonymous terms, correct . No. If not on page 180 of volume 1 of your report you wrote in as defined in legal dictionaries collusion is largely synonymous with conspiracy 18 usc you said at your may 29 press conference and here today you choose your words carefully. Are you testifying Something Different from what your report states. What im asking is if you can give me the citation i can look at the citation and evaluate whether it is accurate. Let me just clarify. You stated that you had stay
Links to the russian government reached out to the Trump Campaign to telegraph the kremlins preference for mr. Trump. Joseph masud a london based malt east professor told george pap pop dops topz who told him the russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton including thousands of emails. Papadopoulos was informed that the russian government could assist the campaign through the anonymous release of stole be material. At the time mr. Papadopoulos was given this extraordinary information, the American Public was unaware that the dnc and Clinton Campaign had been hacked, let alone russia was behind the attack and planned to weaponize the data it stole. In july of 2016, the russian government began dumping the stolen emails in precisely the same fashion it had previewed for mr. Papadopoulos. It was informed of the russian outreach to papadopoulos and ware wire eaware that the russians medding through the aanonymous release of information gnat fbi opened up its investigation. But as james comey wou
At todays Court Appearance, the bond was set for manafort at 10 million and 5 million for gates, and both men agreed to hold the tension. Is a congressman Eric Smallwood joined us by phone, and said the plea deal is the clearest evidence yet that members of trumps team were working with russia. I think we have established a working relationship. We have a senior Foreign Policy advisor, someone the president said he was an excellent guy, traveling multiple times over to europe at a neutral location, to meet with russians to receive dirt on their opponent hillary clinton. I expect there will be more to come. They hope the wakeup call the indictments would be a wakeup call to the republicans in congress. Coming up, we will have our political analysis to talk about what this means to the president. A federal court today barter President Donald Trump from reversing his policy on transgender military members. The president said he wanted to return to a previous policy were servicemen could b
Russia. The white house emphatically maintains that the president has no connection to these charges. We have been saying from day one that theres been no connection between the president and russian collusion, and these charges just prove that. Reporter the president asked why not crooked hillary and the democrats the focus . Indictments against both manafort and gates contains 12 counts including conspiracy against the United States and conspiracy to launder money. A spokesperson for gates said the fight is just beginning, and all of this is coming just as we are learning that the this man pleaded guilty to charges of lying to the fbi about his communication to someone connected to the russian government. Reporter manaforts bond is set at 10 million in case bond is set at 5 million. East bay congressman eric farwell said the plea deal by George Papadopoulos is the clearest effort yet that members of trumps team were working with russia. I think we have established a working relations