we are now hearing deposition from that aide. and it was i don t think in dispute that the phone conversation occurred. so it s not here say and it s not alleged. so you re hearing from a person who overheard the conversation, david holmes. that s the whole purpose of today s deposition. i know it s the whole purpose but i want to make sure we re not pinning it on bill ta r lor any longer. we have somebody who was there opposed to someone who heard it from another person. i m trying to thread a needle here so i m not directly referring to testimony in closed session. i understand completely. and you ve been very generous with your words and time as usual. thanks so much for joining us. thank you, wolf. coming up, president trump goes on the attack as his former ambassador to ukraine testified before congress. adam schiff is now calling that witness intimidation in real time.
we ll have much more ahead on today, but there s another very important story we re watching here in washington. the trial of president trump s associate and friend, roger stone ended this afternoon with a federal jury concluding that stone told lies to protect the president. stone was convicted on all seven counts. he faced. our crime and justice reporter was there, covered the trial for us. so ultimately, he was convicted, he s facing years of prison, 67 years old. he s potentially facing significant amount of prison time. the worst thing that he got convicted of was tampering with a witness. that potentially carries the most prison time for him. 20 years. 20 years potentially. you know having covered this case for two weeks, nearly two weeks now, donald trump was the central figure of this trial. the prosecutors right out of the gate said this trial was about
it was a dumb thing to do. and it was in addition, quite seriously, abusive, clearly intended to intimidate the witness. i ve been on the receiving end of presidential tweets about me and they have an impact on you. they are intimidating and they have an effect in the real world on your life. so that s my assessment of that, but with respect to the republicans defense as others were saying has been that nobody spoke to the president about what happened and so this, the statement apparently under oath by mr. holmes is a significant development and it does not help the president whatsoever. does not. and we re going to be sure to hear iraqs, a transcript of that deposition at some point as well. be hearing from the ambassador, he ll be testifying publicly on wednesday. everybody stand by. we re going to have a lot more on the democrat makt developments. we re also following a really major breaking story here in washington. president trump s associate and
criticized the president s tweet about yovanovitch. one of those sources said it was quote idiotic. that was the word used. idiotic, of president trump to go after yovanovitch as she was testifying, admitting that made her more sympathetic to people watching at home. the president complained about the process and defended his tweet aimed at the ambassador. here s what he had to say. tampering is when a guy guy like shifty schiff doesn t let us have lawyers, witnesses. when we have great republican representatives, people elected by the people and they re not allowed to even ask a question, they re not allowed to make a statement, we re not allowed to have witnesses, we re not allowed to have legal counsel, white house counsel. i think it s considered a joke all over washington and the world. the republicans are given no due process whatsoever. i have the right to speak i have freedom of speech just as other people do but they ve taken away the republicans rights.
sir, do you believe your tweets or words can be intimidating? i don t think so at all. now the president admitted today he was watchig today s proceedings, contradicting his own press secretary who told reporters that mr. trump was only watching opening statement from nunes, the ranking member on the house intelligence committee. now the white house has one other mess on its hands this evening just as the yovanovitch hearing was getting underway, the white house release d a summary transcript of the president s first phone call with the leader of ukraine in april. during the call, the president makes no mention according to this transcript of fighting corruption. contrast that with an white house read out of the trump zelensky phone call released to the press in april. it states the call between tw two leaders touched on the suspect of corruption. now the white house released a statement a short while ago that appears to blame the ukraine expert on the national security counsel h