It is 12 00 in new york. Were following what has already been a dramatic day of testimony on capitol hill from two key witnesses, former nsc Senior Adviser fiona hill and current u. S. Diplomat david holmes, both witnesses raising alarms today about the conduct they witnessed between the Trump Administration and ukraine, namely the conditioning of both military aid and a white house meeting on a commitment from the ukrainians into those investigations designed to hurt the bidens, a Smear Campaign against Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch who was apparently standing in the way. The conduct of both of todays witness witnesses, they believed lives could be jeopardized in ukraine. Here is some of the dramatic testimony of fiona hill and david holmes. The barrage of allegations
directed against ambassador yovanovitch, a career ambassador, is unlike anything i have seen in my professional career. I heard ambassador sondland say to the president , yes, he was in ukraine, and went on to say
my job is to call it so i will say it, have you ever worked with an ambassador that is a novice and a donor? are there donors that get ambassadorships in both parties, and they have started to see it in the last several days, and they had no business, no credible argument to be there, and we re doing to quote mr. sondland, we re doing quid pro quo bribery. a source told me that they were working to not grab on to everything about russia s transgressions, sinister demise, and reclaim those republican issues. get themselves back in the sort
key disagreements about whether there was quid pro quo bribery, what happened at that qinfamou meeting, wein the white house where many pictures are taking, does picture taking alone wipe out somebody raising something to lawyers? you re seeing accounts that say no. another point that came up earlier that you raised, where does donald trump stand? he s not strictly denying this anymore. he is quoting himself, call it a self referential lear say. it s not really evidence, it s a notev guilty plea repeated in a weird loop kind of retweet. here s the problem with that. gordon sondland just said under oath that they did quid pro quo bribery. he hasn t been fired for that he hasn t been relieved of his ee post. the white house is notli dealin with that, perhaps because they can t. perhaps because they rey afrai of what else he might say how
considering firing the inspector general who initially deemed the whistle-blower complaint urgent and credible. more officials lining up, providing the facts and the evidence to support the allegation that there was quid pro quo bribery. consider state department official laura cooper, added to the list we ve been keeping here of people who have alleged facts to support bribery. meanwhile two other officials have confirmed the plot, offici. they are expected to lay it out in the public hearings tomorrow. that will be new. republicans? well, here is their response with hours to go. selection of basically a lengthy memo. a new talking point that the money that ultimately went to ukraine means maybe there was no plot. if they got the money they wanted. donald trump basically saying, well, if there was an attempted plot but they ultimately got the money, maybe no harm, no foul.
but if the president, and this is bigger picture. it s not just cohen we re talking about, manafort, flynn, other people who were at risk with cooperating with the president. if he is offering pardons to people, that could be two things. it could be obstruction of justice, right? because you re trying to convince a potential witness against you not to become a witness against you. and it could be quid pro quo bribery. so we re talking about two separate criminal problems the president could find himself in. and remember, bill barr, the new ag who say staunch defender of the president says he can t be convicted of obstruction of justice for firing the fbi director did say that he could be opt hook for obstruction if he was offering pardons in exchange for the person not testifying. so you see more legal jeopardy for the president and his team if there was talk of a pardon than michael cohen, though michael cohen, it would have meant that he lied about it in the public testimony last w