Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. Even as more witnesses come before congress and the cast of characters grow, the central core facts of the ukraine story do not change. We know from documents the white house itself released and through statements by the president himself that the president of the United States corruptly abused the power of his office to coerce an occupied country into manufacturing dirt on his political opponent. The president of ukraine told trump he wanted to buy more american weapons. President trump responded i want to ask you a favor, though. That is what the whistleblower warned congress about, that is what led House Democrats to open an impeachment investigation into the president. What we learned from that investigation hasnt been any better for the president. The third current or former Trump Administration official testified as part of that investigation and it was another marathon session after former u. S. Ambassador to ukraine Marie Yovanovitch testified friday, fiona hill testified today for well, shes still going. Hill say fascinating figure. She was one of the foremost russia experts in the government. She was an Intelligence Officer with the National Intelligence council under president bush and president barack obama. She has written several books on russia, including a critical book on putin entitled mr. Putin. Russian and modern history from st. Andrews history in scotland. We dont know exactly what hill told congress today. She planned it say Rudy Giuliani and Eu AmbassadorGordon Sondland circumvented the National Security council for a shadow policy on ukraine. It shows again the scandal was not an offhand comment trump made on a phone call with ukraines president but a systematic strategy to use the tools of american state to gain assistance for donald trump in the 2020 election. Meanwhile we have this whole other part of this unfolding scandal. While congress is churning ahead, deposing witnesses, demanding documents and there are big deadlines and witnesses set to testify, the fbi arrested these two sovietborn american citizen businessmen last week on federal campaign corruption charges, just a few hours after those two men had lunch at a trump hotel with Rudy Giuliani, a man who essentially has taken on the role of the president s fixer. Giuliani appears to be the subject of a criminal investigation by the Southern District of new york. The office he once ran. Were learning more about giulianis links to these two sketchy businessmen, including bringing them to president george h. W. Bushs funeral last year and their own conflicts of interest immeshed. The other person fiona hill was expected to discuss today was ambassador sondland with that legend legendary, very normal text, the president has been crystal clear, no quid pro quos of any kind, trump even pointed to that text, incorrectly calling it a tweet, claiming he was innocent. When sondland testifies before house committees he will say that the content of that text message was relayed to him directly by President Trump. The president dictated his own cover story in the midst of the scandal. Big question today, what happened behind those closed doors with fiona hill . Those who attended her marathon testimony, member of the house intelligence committee. Congressman, i know you cant get into the details of what you heard today, but can you describe the testimony . In my seven years of congress i would candidly tell you, country, shes the most substantive witness ive observed before any committee and thats over the course of thousands of hours of testimony. Secondly, i believe the woman has an identic memory. If she doesnt have total recall its very close to it. Thirdly in the tenth hour, she had every bit as much energy as she had in the first hour. It sounds like she had a lot to say if shes still there. She did have an incredible amount to say. I would say about all three witnesses, chris, theyve added considerably to get to the bottom of this, the entire truth of how this happened with the president ending up doing a shakedown and a coverup of his blatant violation of federal law, asking president zelensky of ukraine to interfere in our 2020 president ial elections. Everyone has brought something new and different to the table, which has helped to bring in more clearer and stark relief what happened here, and it aint pretty. Im curious about the trajectory here. Kurt volker came and testified. He no longer worked for the state department. And Gordon Sondland, who was set to testify this week, was stopped at the last minute, in the middle of the night, white house says now. And Marie Yovanovitch coming before you. Fiona hill coming before you. Gordon sondland will come this week. Former number two to mike pompeo, Mike Mckinley is going to come. Whats happened here . Its striking to me that the white house, as much as its trying to stop people from talking to you or turn over documents, it looks like youre getting to talk to people. It feels like the dam is breaking. Right, chris . I thought the fact that mr. Mckinley agreed to come to talk with with us, the day after tomorrow, was significant. He has a career diplomat, has a depth of understanding of how diplomacy should work, has had the most significant diplomatic postings within the state department. I think well learn a lot from him. Again, i think were learning a lot from each and every one. How would you describe what youre learning . Also explain to me why are these being done as closed door depositions . Because theyre depositions, right . Were conducting this to the highest standards and the best practices of investigations. Were not in the public hearing portion of this yet. Well get there. But we what we dont want is for all of the witnesses, some of whom will be hostile, to coordinate with one another. That will impede us in our effort. I see. To get to the complete truth. I think thats what the American Public wants. Obviously theyll want to know all this information at some point. For the time being what they want us to do is get to the truth. And you feel like anything you have heard in this witness testimony has been exculpatory for the president or altered your thinking . Youre smiling but im asking because youre in there and im not. We keep getting asked the question in 923 different ways, what did she say to you . Of course, we cant answer. Ill reiterate that i think every Single Person has come before us, has added new information and given new depth to our understanding about what went on here. I think theres enough information in the Public Domain that as one member, i believe its clear that the president has committed impeachable offenses but every member is different and how it is they get to that point and whether or not they get to that point. Were not yet at the truth. As we know on an almost every 48 or 72hour basis, something new happens or some new information comes forward. Some of it in public and some of it during these depositions. And so were kind of trying to ask the question of ourselves, you know, at what point do you have everything . Yeah. Because we keep learning more. Final question, deadlines for document production this week, including, i believe, from the white house itself, which has said they will not cooperate. Do you have a plan in place for what to do if and when they do not turn over those documents . Chairman schiff has said it well. If they refuse to turn over the documents that, in and of itself, is an act of obstruction to an impeachment inquiry article i. Third article of the nixon impeachment was obstructing congress investigation. And secondly it would be a pretty clear, albeit, tacit, that theyre guilty of something, theyre hiding something. The shakedown and the coverup. And thats just part of the coverup. Congressmen denny heck, thank you very much. Youre welcome, sir. Two people who have been following this from the beginning, nick ackerman, former u. S. Attorney for the Southern District of new york and julie ioffe who wrote heres why ukraine pops up in so many u. S. Scandals. This is what the wall street journal says today. Federal prosecutors are investigating Rudy Giulianis business meetings. Investigators will also examined mr. Giulianis bank records. Is this as enormous a deal as it seems to be . Huge. Rudy giuliani was the u. S. Attorney in the Southern District of new york. He was my boss for six months. He was running that office. Dont forget, he was in every aspect of this ukrainian scandal. This is not something that just happened in july. This goes back to april, with the first conversation, and prior to april. Yeah. And the one person who is right in the middle of this entire program is Rudy Giuliani. Youve got to ask yourself, is he being investigated for violation of the hobbs act for extortion, is he being investigated for bribery, is he being investigated for campaign violation. Or foreign registration. Foreign registration is the least of his problems. Washington post says of Gordon Sondland key ambassador, that he will intend to testify that trump told him in the oval office that ukraine requests had to go through giuliani and that rudy wanted a written statement promising biden probe. Giuliani apparently is going to say sondland or says sondland was the one in charge. Giuliani is very clearly to me i want to hear your perspective on this, tied up in a world he doesnt understand. I think its ironic that this was the law and order mayor of new york, right . And he is now caught in unlawful and disorderly things, lets say. I think you get involved in a place like ukraine that is tremendously complicated, opaque, even people who are experts in the region have a problem. For one second ill tell folks that is fiona hill leaving her testimony, her deposition today. Its 8 11. I think she was in there about ten hours ago. Thats ten hours she stood in front of or sat in front of that committee and gave her deposition. Go ahead, julie. Fiona is a case in point. Even experts in the region have a hard time getting to the bottom of who stands behind whom. Exactly. Everybody isnt just what they appear to be. Theres a person behind a person, and then theres like a Shall Company behind that, and a Shall Company that owns that Shall Company. And by the time you figure it out its not often the person you thought you were dealing with, as f rechlt id, who designed the sanctions against russia for their you always have to know who is buying the drinks in ukraine and im not sure Rudy Giuliani did. The picture that emerges is Rudy Giuliani with a mission. We know what the mission is, right . Right. To go get dirt on hunter from the bidens from the Ukrainian Government and look into the origin of the mueller probe. Meeting with with with all sorts of people, advertising to them that the way that you can get close to the president of the United States is if you supply that to him. Exactly. Compromise. Right. And thats just when you think about the legal peril hes in there, its not that that itself is illegal. Its just that it seems to me you put yourself into some very dangerous, gray areas. Of course you do. Then you have mutt and jeff that were arrested the other day. One of them got 1 million from some russian we dont know about. Not named in the indictment. But what does that have to do with Vladimir Putin and whats putin doing in the 2020 election . This raises really serious questions. I dont want to include a cast of characters that makes people have a hard time following the story, but there are very clear links to a very russianbacked oligarch who is like one degree removed from rudy in all of this. Right but then theres the unnamed Russian National funneling money through brick and brack, or fruman and its all happening after the Mueller Investigation wrapped up and trump believed he was exonerated thanks to bill barr, who is also flying around the world, trying to gather similar dirt. Theres a lot of weird freelancing happening by people inside the government, outside the government and accountable to nobody. And doing things contrary what the u. S. Government does. An indictment charged to 12 russians for breaking into the Democratic National committee and the attorney general and former prosecutor going around, trying to get material, exculpatory information that, god forbid, they ever arrest these guys, theyll use to get out of the crime. Good point. Its outrageous. People wanted, especially on the republican side, to have somebody come in and run the country like a business. We have somebody running the company like he ran his personal business. Like he ran trump org. You go in the oval and trump is saying you have to go through rudy. This is the president of the United States. Rudy giuliani doesnt work for the american people, the taxpayer, he doesnt have a position. He is not accountable to anybody. This is run like the mafia. Thank you to you both. Spin out of control as the white house enters a brand new phase of damage control. Damage. Bleech aww awww its the easiest because its the cheesiest. Kraft for the win win. [woman] with my shark, i deep clean messes like this, this, and even this. But i dont have to clean this, because the selfcleaning brush roll removes hair while i clean. [announcer] shark, the vacuum that deep cleans now cleans itself. To the wait did frowe just winners. Prouders everyone uses their phone differently. Thats why Xfinity Mobile lets you design your own data. Now you can share it between lines. Mix with unlimited, and switch it up at anytime so you only pay for what you need. Its a different kind of Wireless Network designed to save you money. Save up to 400 a year on your wireless bill. Plus get 250 back when you buy an eligible phone. Call, click, or visit a store today. Before last sunday, the u. S. Policy in syria has been to partner with. U. S. Decided to work account kurds for a couple of reasons. Primarily they have an extraordinary fighting force that helped us push back and defeat isis territorial. Two, the kurdish presence helped to limit syrian, by extension russia and iran from getting too much influence. On the other side, nato allies with turkey. The u. S. Has tried, across multiple administrations, to manage this very complicated situation between the turks and the kurds so no one gets into a horrifying shooting war. To be clear, all of this was fraught as well help and no one knew the right way out. It was more or less, at least for the time being, working. And then came trumps phone call with turkish strongman erdogan last sunday after which trump, surprising just about everyone, suddenly announcing u. S. Troops would clear the area, home to 200 kurds, so turkey could attack, basically saying to turkey, have at it, announced a withdrawal of u. S. Troops. It was a shock to the state department, department of defense, u. S. Allies and pretty much everyone in the region, including those kurdish partners on the ground in the fight against isis who we suddenly abandoned. And the news since that decision has been well, its been horrifying. Syria escalated their operations, launching artillery rounds near a u. S. Outpost. The u. S. Will withdrawal all u. S. Troops from northern syria, 1,000 u. S. Troops moved out of the area over to iraq. Its difficult to confirm all the reports out of the region, video and photographs are circulating on social media that appear to show alleged atrocities carried out by turkish fighters. The kurds have now decided to cut a deal with syrian dictator bashir alassad for protection, extending his power throughout most of the territory. The situation with isis, Kurds Holding isis terrorists and allies in jails said clees cloes to 800 members of the camp had escaped after turkish shelling. United states had failed to transfer 5 dozen islamic detainees out of the country. Facing what is universally seen as a strategic and humanitarian disaster, trump is making noise about how hes going to get tough on turkey. Facing pressure from congress, ordering sanctions on turkish officials, Vice President mike pence out saying that trump called e. Are dogan asking him to stop the invasion, and that pence is going to turkey as soon as possible. Covering National Security in the new book shadow of the nations, isis. Youve been in this part of the region. I have, with the kurds. What does this military push mean for the stability and balance of power in the region . These were some of the most stable places in syria and where isis was the strongest. When the u. S. Came into syria and started working with the kurds, it was a disaster. Isis seemed unstoppable at the time. Through this partnership and more than 10,000 kurdish soldiers killed, they were able to stabilize. Kurds were able to control it and able to bring some semblance of order. Thats important because isis is not dead, no matter how trump says and how he defeated it. They are a threat in these areas. Theyve gone back to their roots as an insurgency. Kurds and american troops until eight days ago were working to roll up those networks and eliminate that threat. And now all of that is gone. When you say all that have is gone, first of all, it seems theres reporting today that all antiisis fighting from the coalition has essentially stopped. You mean the fighters will reconstitute again . Thats always been the risk. New york times had a report that there were still 18,000 isis fighters acr