uncovered by the committee from the house budget and appropriations committees that documents omb placing a hold on the ukrainian security assistance on july 25th. without objection. so let s review. on july 18th, omb announced to all relevant agencies that the military aid would be withheld from ukraine. on a call with ukraine on july 25th, president trump says do us aen favor, though, and ask ukrae to investigate his political rival. also onic july 25th, in the hou following that call, both the ukrainians and the americans took action specifically related to that military aid. the ukrainians began asking about the status of their military aid. and omb took its first official action to withhold that aid. mr. goldman, i am placing on the screen in front of you an email from ambassador sondland to members of the white house administration in which ambassadorra sondland says i wod
just a control plus plf. sondland himself told the world that basically nobody elss on the planet told him that donald trump wasla trying to ti aid to investigations. in fact he also said everything that he had been testifying to is simply his presumption. is that sright? that is correct. and so when we consider what a presumption is, it s not direct, it s not circumstantial, it s not even hearsay. in fact, we typically when we try the case we consider is speculation. is that right? doul courts allow speculatio in? llno. why not? because it s not reliable. it s inherently unreliable. so, can you name any democrat witness who asserted that he or she had direct evidence of those 17 that we heard from? we had some direct evidence on certain thingse and we had some direct evidence on the may 23idrd meeting. and sondland gave some direct evidence. but a lot of what we have obtained has been circumstantial. how about with regard to personal knowledge of the quid
one thing is clear. as it related to this scheme, the president of the united states donald j. trump knew everything and i yield back. mr. castor, what s direct evidence? when i witness personally observes a fact and testifies to it. and what s hearsay evidence? out of court statement offered for the truth of the matter asserted is something that you learn in lawth school. hearsay is inadmissible unless it falls under exceptions. andio i believe when every witns testified including mr. sondland, right? uh-huh. and that sgh a yes? yes. and much of the democrats report in impeachment narrative is based t on the sondland testimony. is that a fair characterization? a lot of it is, yes. how many times did mr. sondland mentioned in the report? like ied said, i did a searc
defense in conjunction with the other interagencies certified that ukraine was making the necessary progress on anti-corruption efforts to merit theti aid. er and yet the aid was not released, correct? the aid was subsequently held. it was supposed to be released. the dod announced the release. and then president trump held the aid without explanation. mr. goldman, based on the evidence and testimony that you haveev reviewed, is there any reason to believe that the president cared about corruption inti ukraine? no. the evidence really supports the fact that president trump views corruption in ukraine to be synonymous with the two investigations that he wants. what the president did care about was a political favor from the ukrainian government. and that is why he withheld the military aid, true? he told ambassador sondland himself that that is the only thing that he cares about.
that the president s actions both leveraged taxpayer funds for his own private gain and sacrificed the national interest for his own private ends? that is what we found. i was alsois perfectly struc by mr. holmes testimony because it makes this clear that the president did not care about our foreign policy or u.s. national security. he onlys. cared about investigating his political opponent. here s what mr. holmes said. ambassador sondland stated the president only cares about big stuff. i noted there was big stuff going on in ukraine. like a war with russia. and ambassador sondland replied that he meant big stuff that benefits the president, like the biden investigation that mr. giuliani was pushing. look. here s the thing. if any military member used official acts for personal gain, that member would no longer be part of the military. and, in o fact, last year, a na commander was convicted for taking things of value in exchange for official acts. the u.s.ic attorney who pros