2016, we ll nail down visit for we ll nail down for a visit to fwashington. goodsi luck. see you tomorrow. kurt. so evenmo before the phone call with president zelensky took place, president trump had directed that ukraine initiate the investigation into 2016, the debunked conspiracy theory that ukraine had interfered in the election in order for president zelensky to get the white house visit that heth desperately coveted. ambassador sondland was clear in his testimony about this quid t pro quo. frequently framed these complicated issues in the form of a simplete question. was there a quid pro quo? as i testified previously, with regard to the requested white house call and the white house meeting, the answer is yes.
conspiracy theory promoted by russian president vladimir putin that ukraine interfered in the last presidential election to support the democraticec nomine. in truth, as has been made clear byde irrefutable evidence from throughout the government, russia interfered in the last election in order to help then-candidate trump. the allegations about vice president biden and the 2016 election are patently false. but thattl did not defer presidt trump during his phone call with the ukrainian president, and it does notes appear to deter him today. just two days ago, president trump stated publicly that he hopes that his personal attorney, rudy giuliani, will report to the department of justice and to congress the results of mr. giuliani s efforts in ukraine last week to pursue these false allegations meant to tarnish vice president
misdemeanors, but because they disagree with his policies. this impeachment inquiry is not the organic outgrowth of serious misconduct. democrats have been searching for a set of facts on which to impeach president trump since his inauguration on january 20th, 2017. just 27 minutes after the president s inauguration that day, the washington post ran a story that the campaign to impeach the president has already begun. the article reported democrats and liberal activists are mounting broad opposition to stymyn trump s agenda and note that impeachment strategists believed the constitutions emoluments clause would be the vehicle. the democrats announced articles of impeachment to remove president trump on several different factual bases. on january 3rdt , the very firs day of the new congress, congressman sherman introduced
wealthy people it says the server they sayhe ukraine has i. there are a lot of things that went loon. the whole situation. i think you re surrounding yourself with hek some of the same people. and he went on later, i would like to have the attorney general call you or your people and i would like you to get to the bottom of it. as you saw yesterday that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a name named robert mueller an incompetent performance but they say a lot of it started with ukraine. whatever youwi can do, it s ver important that you do it, if that s possible. here, again, president trump was referring to the baseless conspiracy theory that the ukrainian government not russia was behind the hack of the democratic national committee in 2016. not a single witness in our investigation testified that there was anyif factual support for this allegation. tor the contrary, a unanimous assessment of the u.s.
of every member of the trump family, including his minor child. the reason they gave for why they needed such personal information about the trump family was, get this, financial industry compliance with banking statutes and regulations. here in the judiciary committee, democrats sent out letters demanding information from over 80 recipients, including the president s children, business partners, employees, his campaign, businesses and foundation. of course the main event for the judiciary committee was the report of special counsel mueller, which democrats would believe would serve as the everybo evidentiary basis for impeaching the president. despite interviewing 500 witnesses, issuing 2800 subpoenas, executing almost 500 search warrants and spending $25