domestic political errand and we were being involved in national security foreign policy and those two things had just diverged. hill recounted sondland s deal with mick mulvaney to arrange an oval office meeting between president trump and the ukrainian spread. he said he had a meeting in return for investigations this meeting would get scheduled. she recalled how john bolton then the national security adviser told her to report it. the specific struck was i had to go to the lawyers, to john eisenberg, senior counsel for the national security council, to basically say you tell eisenberg ambassador bolton told me i am not part of this whatever deal that mulvaney and sondland are cooking up. both offered sharp warning to lawmakers. i refuse to be part of an effort to legitimize an alternate narrative that ukraine, not russia, attacked us
in 2016. these fictions are harmful even if deployed for purely domestic political purposes. they described the parerils. this is a fictional narrative being perpetrated and propagated by the russian security services themselves. why would it be to vladimir putin s advantage to promote this theory of ukraine interference? first of all, to deflect from the allegations of russia interference. second of all, to drive a wedge between the united states and ukraine. and holmes left lawmakers with an urgent reminder, the ukrainians never got that white house meeting and they are still under pressure to please the american president. i think that continues to this day. i think they re being very careful, they still need us now going forward. now, we just got a statement this evening from mick mull rainy s new attorney outside of the white house, robert driscoll taking issue with fiona hill s testimony, saying fiona hill s testimony is riddled with speculation and guesses about an
to ukraine was directly connected to that country s investigating joe biden and his son. our politicalsara murray is here with us in the situation room. we saw powerful statements today from the two witnesses. that s right. fiona hill did kick it off, she came out swinging against those gop conspiracy theories and of course then we heard from david holmes who recounted the stunning conversation he heard between president trump and gordon sondland. a u.s. diplomat in ukraine recounted for lawmakers the moment he realized that president trump cared more about having joe biden and his son investigated than anything to do with ukraine. the four of us went to a nearby restaurant and sat on an outdoor terrace. ambassador sondland selected a bottle of wine, said he would call president trump to give him an update. that came july 26th, just a day after trump spoke with
on ukraine, not russia. i want to be clear, beware gop sleight of hand on this argument about ukraine interference in the election. a lot of heard, you heard jim jordan talking about op-eds written by ukrainian officials and so on. that s not the interference. trump was repeatedly, in the testimony, talking about the dnc server, it is actually in ukraine, et cetera. that s where the president s attention was, not on protecting the election. beyond that, wolf, today s testimony by fiona hill was devastating for the republicans. we have seen extraordinary testimony from fact witnesses, from professionals, she was the gold standard. and so was david holmes. and point by point she absolutely devastated the republicans until at some point they were making statements where they said, i really don t have any questions to ask you. she completely took apart anything. there has been no white house
a big thing is not can you find me dirt on my political opponent, a big thing is how can we protect and help protect a democracy in peril? congresswoman, thank you for joining us. thank you, wolf. to the white house right now, chief white house correspondent jim acosta is working his sources for us. these public hearings, just wrapped up, so what are you hearing over there at the white house? what is the reaction? reporter: yeah, wolf, after a damaging week of testimony for the president over here at the white house, they still believe there is not enough evidence at this point that these witnesses have not done enough damage at this point for the president to be convicted and removed from office if a senate trial were to happen, given the likelihood that the president will be impeached in the house. i talked to officials earlier this afternoon who said yes they listened to fiona hill, to david holmes. but they do not seat witnesses as being very good closing witnesses for the