this is exactly what the russian government was hoping for. seed misinformation, seed doubt, they have everybody questioning the legitimacy of a presidential candidate, be it president trump or potentially a president clinton, that they would pit one side of our o electorate agains the other, they would pit one party against the other. and that s why i wanted to make such a w strong point at the ve beginning. because there were certainly individuals in many other countries who had harsh words for both of the candidates, had harsh words for many of the candidates during the primaries. we had a lot of people running for president on the republican side. there were many people who were trying pethemselves to game the outcome. as you know in the united kingdom the bookies take bets. you can go to william hill and lay a bet on who you think is going to be the candidate. the russian government were trying to land their own bets. what they wanted to do is give a spread. they wanted to make su
as the impeachment inquiry has progressed, i have followed press reports and reviewed the statements of ambassador taylor and yovanovitch. based on my experiences in ukraine, my recollection is generally consistent with their testimony. i believe that relevant facts were being laid out for the american people. however, in the last couple weeks,ho i read press reports expressing for the first time that certain senior officials may have been acting without the president s knowledge or freelancing in their dealings with ukraine. at the same time i also read reports noting the lack of firsthand evidence in the investigation and suggesting that the only evidence being elicited was hearsay. i came to realize i had firsthand knowledge regarding certain events that had not otherwise been reported. and that those events potentially bore on the question the president did, in fact, have knowledge. that those senior officials were using the levers of diplomatic
and was that the end of the ukraine portion of the conversation?ra yes. a afterwards you described a follow on conversation you had with ambassador sondland where you asked him, i think, generally what did president trump think of ukraine, is that right? correct. what did ambassador sondland say to you? he said, he doesn t really care about ukraine. did he use slightly more colorful language than that? he did. what did he say that he does care about? he said he cares about big stuff. did he explain what he meant by big stuff? i asked him what kind of big stuff. we have big stuff going on here like a war with russia and he said no, big stuff, like the biden investigation that mr. giuliani is pushing. now, were you familiar with the biden investigation that he referenced at that point? yes, sir.
so is it your understanding then that president trump disregarded the advice of his senior officials about this theory and instead listed on to rudy giuliani s views. that appears to be the case, yes. and i also then want to just show one other exhibit that goes backth to what you were testifyg earlier, dr. hill, about russia s interest in promoting this theory. this is an excerpt from a february 2nd, 2017, news conference between president putin and prime minister orbon of hungary where putin says, as we all know during the presidential campaign in the united states, the ukrainian government adopted a unilateral position in a favor of one candidate. more than that, oligarchs with the approval of the political leadership,ti funded this candidate to be more precise. you spent three years in the
external forces as they seek to divide us against each other degrade our institutions and destroy the american people and our democracy. i respect the work that this congress does in carrying out its constitutional responsibilities including this inquiry and i am here to help you to the best of my ability. if the president or anyone else impedes or subverts the national security of the united states to further domestic political or personal interests, that s more than worthy of your attention. but we must not let domestic politics stops us from defending ourselves against the foreign powers who truly wish us harm. i m ready to answer your questions. thank you. thank you, dr. hill. i will now proceed to the first round of questions as detailed inue the memo provided to committee members, 45 minutes of questions conducted by the chairman or majority counsel followed by 45 minutes for the ranking member or minority counsel. following that unless i specify additional equal time for exten