It is 12 00 in new york. Were following what has already been a dramatic day of testimony on capitol hill from two key witnesses, former nsc Senior Adviser fiona hill and current u. S. Diplomat david holmes, both witnesses raising alarms today about the conduct they witnessed between the Trump Administration and ukraine, namely the conditioning of both military aid and a white house meeting on a commitment from the ukrainians into those investigations designed to hurt the bidens, a Smear Campaign against Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch who was apparently standing in the way. The conduct of both of todays witness witnesses, they believed lives could be jeopardized in ukraine. Here is some of the dramatic testimony of fiona hill and david holmes. The barrage of allegations
directed against ambassador yovanovitch, a career ambassador, is unlike anything i have seen in my professional career. I heard ambassador sondland say to the president , yes, he was in ukraine, and went on to say
making my debate points in our impeachment debate, since i have abuse of authority. but this is a central tenet of what james madison, hamilton, mason, said about the importance of the impeachment provision and why you would remove a sitting president without an election, goes to the degree to which they re undermining the country. andrew johnson was the first impeachment process. it was for abuse of power. it was for, in this instance we would translate that to your point about brand, weakness that endangers the national security. and chuck, just to bring it back to sort of the conversation we were having about fiona hill, the contrast doesn t help donald trump either. strength is being embodied during this 12-week period, since the whistle-blower complaint came out by people he likes to attack. they now look stronger than him. the whistle-blower is stronger
only hearsay witnesses, folks who weren t on the call, we already had the schedule that there were witnesses who were listening to the call who would be coming to testify in the next few days. so you have seen and you could see it coming down the line, this evolution of talking points and evolution of the republican defense. that s why i mentioned the other pillars. the only one i didn t mention would be the throw rudy under the bus defense. gordon sondland made it very clear he wasn t going to go down alone. if republicans decide that the last defensible position here is that rudy was ordering this and the president didn t know, maybe that will be the final defensive talking point here. but we haven t reached that barricade yet. all right, garrett haake, we re so lucky to have you up there for us, come back out whenever you can, we ll always break in and want to hear what you are learning. thank you, my friend. reporter: thanks, nicolle. go ahead, claire. i was going to say,
than donald trump with his chest thumping big baby bully act, he couldn t beat the whistle-blower whose identity is still being protected, barely, by adam schiff. the whistle-blower s complaint went to a trump appointee, the watchdog for the intelligence community. that trump appointee investigated it, corroborated it, and even going through the justice department, managed to somehow transmit it to congress where the impeachment investigation commenced. and now a dozen witnesses are also proving themselves to be stronger, even than anonymous, someone who works for trump but isn t strong enough to come out from under trump s bullying and put his or her name to the allegations of abuse of power. there has not been a greater display of strength than we ve seen in the witnesses in the impeachment proceeding. and it makes trump s weakness all the more stark. sure. strength, dignity, principle, intelligence. it s not just fiona hill,