biden. president trump s persistent and continuing effort to coerce a foreign country to help him cheat to win an election is a clear and present danger to our free ander fair elections and t our national security. the overwhelming evidence of this scheme is described in detail in a nailer 300-page document entitled the trump-ukraine impeachment inquiry report. formally transmitted from the house committee on intelligence to this committee a few days ago. the report relies on testimony from numerous current and former government officials, the vast majoritye of whom are nonpartin career professionals responsible forio keeping our nation safe a promoting american values around the globe. the evidence from these witnesses cannot seriously be disputed. the president placed his
democrats hired federal prosecutors to prepare for their anticipated efforts to impeach the president. now that the russian collusion allegations did not work out, democrats have settled on the ukraine phone call, eight lines, the president uttered on july 25th with ukrainian president zelensky. but the foreign affairs committee, the committee of jurisdiction, wasn t the committee leading the impeachment inquiry or holding the hearings. neither was the oversight committee. the house s chief investigative entity. the judiciary committee was only recently brought back into the mix afterug fact finding concluded. instead, the impeachment inquiry was run byco the house intelligence committee, and thesete former federal prosecutors. democrats on the intelligence committee ran the impeachment inquiryco in a manifestly unfai way. all of the fact-finding was classified andwa that was made clear at the top of every single
witnesses to a peer with agency lawyers or initiating contempt proceedings. sometimes the threat of a contempt proceeding gets you a different tsresult, sometimes t witnesses choose to appear when contempt is on the table. democrats even withdrew a subpoena to one witness who asked a federal court to resolve conflicting orders from congress and thein executive, either because the democrats did not want to waite for the court to rule, or they didn t like the presiding judge, judge leon. instead, democrats made their demands and refused to budge. democrats told witnesses at the outset that their refusal to cooperate in full would be used against them and the president. democrats threatened federal employees that theirth salaries could be withheld for not meeting committee demands. these tactics are fundamentally unfair and counterproductive for gathering information in any serious inquiry.
listening had expected. now just prior to this telephone call, president trumpne spoke t gordon sondland, u.s. ambassador to the european union who had donated $1 million to the president s inaugural campaign. andgu who had been directed by e president himself to take on a leading role in ukraine issues. ambassador sondland relayed theh president s message to president zelensky through ambassador kurt volker who had lunch that day with president t zelensky s top aide who appears repeatedly through this scheme as president zelensky s right-hand man. ambassador kurt volker texted him with president trump s direction. good lunch, thanks. heard from white house. assuming president z convinces trump he ll investigate get to the bottom ofve what happened i
campaign against ukraine, president trump directed an unprecedented effort to obstruct congress s impeachment inquiry conduct. with that context in mind i would like toco turn to the evidence of president trump s conduct concerning ukraine. my colleague mr. castor just said it revolves around eight lines in one call record. but that sorely ignores the vast amount of evidence that we collected of a months long scheme directed by the president. but i do want to start with that july 25th phone call, because that is critical evidence of the president s involvement and intent. it was on that day that he held his second phone call with the new ukrainian president. thera first in april was short d cordial, following the ukrainian president s election success. but the second call would diverge dramatically from those