versus what was being offered up as motives for the president s actions. hill will dismiss the core of the gop impeachment defense that ukraine tried to influence the 2016 election so it was okay for the president to say it needed to be investigated. instead she ll make clear it was not ukraine meddling in 2016. it was russia. and it will be russia again in 2020 and we are not ready. joining hill this morning, david holmes. he s the ukraine embassy official who says he overheard ambassador gordon sondland in that july phone call with president trump at that restaurant in ukraine, wolf. it s interesting, the eu ambassador, he testified for hours and hours yesterday that not only was there a quid pro quo directed by the president, but both vice president mike pence and secretary of state mike pompeo knew all about it. it s a very, very serious development, chris, that
you on this committee appear to believe that russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country and that perhaps somehow for some reason ukraine did. this is a fictional narrative. she goes on to say it also happens to be a russian narrative. that s remarkable for people inside this administration. appointed by this president to say definitively that he was subjugating u.s. national security interest to his own interest. she specifically, jamie, and i ll get everyone to weigh in on this. she specifically says this whole narrative that ukraine interfered in the 2016 u.s. presidential election, that was propagated by the russians and now you have people like rudy giuliani and maybe the president himself accepting what the russians originally came up with. and just to put this in some context, what have we been saying for three years. donald trump will not criticize vladimir putin. as nancy pelosi said in her
it s really important the comments that you, jim and jamie, made about the russia implications here. it s not just that he subverted u.s. policy for this fictitious theory about ukrainian meddling in the election which, by the way, the absolutely unanimous conclusion it was russia, not ukraine is a conclusion placed on fact. the united states government has detailed hard forensic evidence of the russians engagement in that meddling. so he adopted a conspiracy theory propagated by russia with the effect of withholding security assistance that would have been used to battle russia and ukraine. it s not just his adoption of the conspiracy theory is in line with russian goals but the effect of that adoption is to deny our ally, the aid they need to fight the russians on that. and she makes the point, carrie, this is dr. fiona hill, president putin and the russian security services operate like a superpac. they deploy millions of dollars
dismissed these professionals and these foreign service officers and their commitment saying things that always have sexist overtones like, oh, the woman and i don t even know who she is. and he says it about men, too, just to dismiss them as faceless bureaucrats instead of seeing what america can see. people who are dedicated not only to their expertise, but to the united states. the president clearly is fixated on all of this right now getting ready to watch more of this dramatic testimony. just tweeted this. and i ll read it it you. i never in my wildest dreams thought my name would in any way be associated with the ugly word impeachment. the calls, transcripts, were perfect. there was nothing said that was wrong. no pressure on ukraine. great corruption and dishonesty by schiff on the other side. he s getting concerned by what s unfolding. he is, and he should. what he s hearing in these hearings are an existential threat to his presidency, and for good reason.
washington, d.c., where she learned that she would be recall early. the barrage of allegations drect directed at yovanovitch, a career ambassador, is unlike anything i ve seen in my professional career. following president-elect zelensky s victory our attention in the embassy focused on getting to know the zelensky administration and preparations for the inauguration scheduled for may 20th, the same day that ambassador yovanovitch departed post permanently. it quickly became clear that the white house was not prepared to show the level of support for the zelensky administration that we had originally anticipated. in early may, mr. giuliani publicly alleged that mr. zelensky was, quote, surrounded by enemies of the u.s. president and canceled a visit to ukraine. shortly thereafter, we learned that vice president pence no longer planned to lead the presidential delegation to the inauguration. the white house then whittled down an initial list for the official presidential delegation