A foreign lead er soft take the dozen white house officials and the people around pompeo that knew about it, the people around bar that knew about this, the people around the white house that knew about this. The people around zolinski that knew about this. Suddenly this little conspiracy expands. And it is something that cannot be contained and barr knows he is on the hot seat now. He can play it cool if he wants to, but a 30,000 Christmas Party at the trump appropriate is not going to protect him, zolinski will have to explain this as well. The you trainians are saying we knew if we didnt play ball that we were not going to get military equipment. This is something that the white house cannot tamp down. The one thing they find intriguing here is the electronic tape of the conversation used to get this transcript was to they destroyed the transcription. Do we have somewhere is there somewhere in president ial recordings this recording of this conversation because i think in the end that is what the Supreme Court will have to rule on if congress has a right to that recording. I think it goes back to the president s words. You dont have to connect the dots. It is one big dot. He was trying to cut a deal with a foreign leader. I will give you security assistance. Shoulder mounted missiles, to fight wrush sha with rigrussia if you see nothing here. The Acting Director of the dni will be testifying before the House Committee and we will take that live any moment now that will begin and we will go right to it. Jonathan . I think the president will be watching, i suspect, at some point this morning, but his official itinerary at the United Nations has wrapped up as of last night. But this morning he is scheduled to go to the u. N. , the u. S. Mission of the u. N. And he has a fundraiser before leaving this afternoon for washington. He has been on a Retweet Binge this morning. Defending his innocence, ampli y amplifying that this is nothing. He has not tweeted since it was released. The last document says during interagency meetings on 23 july and 26 july officials stated the instruction to suspend the assistance and the military aid to the ukraine. It came directly from the president but they were unaware of the rational. So youre never aware of a policy rational. The foreign aid, i was never in a meeting in the white house where There Werent Every Stakeholder around the table. They are talking about the aide, Secretary Of Defense around the world, a large contingency that may have a wrist whistleblower learn about it, but the idea that he can move around aide without getting caught, it is the hubris. This is so simple. It was like walking in and sitting down with the family. This is donald trump mobbing up foreign policy, end of the story. This is trump too weak to win reelection on his own asking the leader of ukraine to bury joe biden for him. This is the most trumpian story of all of the trump era. This is happening outside of the government with a guy he knew from new york city. No question that somewhere when they make the movie there will be a meeting between giuliani, trump, and maybe Campaign People and they sit and talk about here is the plan. Rudy youre going out on your own and youre going to make this happen and i will push every lever i can in the white house to hef raj this. What is apply cacomplicating hee money. She being invaded by putin, he talks about Miss Universe and ukraine won it, and says you and putin work it out. I was in the room when it happened and he just recoiled at the thought. So he really isnt even he saw ukraine as a path to Dirty Up Biden in a way that would help him win. The only play book he know Social Security to dirty up his opponent with something thats not really completely true. He saw them as something he could extort. And i think the thing that is so remarkable is they got caught if was the day after adam schiff made all of this public when he made public there was a
whistleblower complaint. The white house fwhu it was about. They wanted to smear an ally, they wanted to cover it up and they only relented when they got caught. Mr. Giuliani travelled with madrid to meet with one of president advisors. It was a direct follow up to the president s call with zolenski about the president s th cases t discussed. We know that it has been going on for months. This started in the spring, in april, and it carried on quietly. People in the administration
knew about it, and it only babe public. The meeting came about because the plans to travel and there was such push back that on the white house lawn he said i dont think that rudy should go. He delayed the trip, they met in madrid instead. There has been a lot of talk about the quid pro quo. Regarding military equipment. What this letter shows, what the whistleblower complaint shows, is that it was more than just military equipment. For the ukrainian president , and this has been reported for some time, it was very important for him to meet with the president one on one. It was very important for the president to call him. To discuss the need for more military weapons and we see time and time again in this case that the ig says that it would depend on whether or not he played ball. Absolutely. You should understand that it is important for any world lead tore have a phone call, let alone a meeting with a u. S. President. That is something that pleleade really want. And in this case given the situation of the ukrainian president , he is coming in, he is occupied by russia, a hot war. The ger mans are not doing very much for you. Were doing a lot. And not that it is not it is not necessarily reciprocal, but were helping you out mr. Zelensky and i would like do you do us a favor. And the parttiming is important. It came in early august, we were told that this was happening, the shame down was happening by someone that worked in the pentagon in a past administration, and there was an obviously quid pro quo, and there was negotiations going on between putin and zelensky and that is why he needed the phone call and the meeting. He needed to send a message to putin to russia, to his own
people. That while they were have the negotiations that the president of the United States was on his side, but of course we find out now that he knew he had to follow along with trump we have a quote now from stephanie grisham. Nothing has changed with the release of this complaint. A collection of third hand events and press clippings. She says the president is going to be transparent. They will continue to push back on this hysteria being peddled by democrats. We talked about the
transcript being placed in that National Security council. It you read through the apen diction it says according to white house officials that i spoke with, this was not the first time under the administration a president ial transcript was placed into this Code Word Level System solely for the purpose of protecting politically sensitive rather than in nation nal Security Sensiti sensitive information. We have a lot of detail with what they left us, the transcript that were using, but if we get a actual recording of the president of the United States, because the Wall Street Journal said there was like eight times he asked for help with biden. The notes we got yesterday were not a half hour of conversation. There is a lot of, and by the way by reading this report, of
the Inspector General, does anyone trust any trance scriscr . So the question is how does my former party. I dont know if its your former or current party, how do republicans react. We have seen mitt romney and ben sass come out saying it is very troubling. The time lean will be interesting, dan coats, a lifelong republican and john bolton, well see what their stories are, i think that will be determine wrg they begin. The Acting Dni Director will be testifying today. We have Opening Statements by chairman schiff. The president ial oath of
office requires the president of the United States to do two things, faithfully execute his or her office and protect and defend the constitution. The president does not first defend the country. If our National Security is jeopardized. If our country left undefended, the necessity to execute the faithfulness of the office is moot. When there is no country there is no office to execute, so it is foundational to the president s responsibilities. But of the second responsibility to defend the constitution. What does that really mean . The founders were not speaking of course of a piece of parchment. A principal upon which the idea of america was born that were a nation of laws not men. If we do not defend the nation there is no constitution. But if we do not defend the constitution there is no nation worth defending. Yesterday we were presents with the most graphic evidence yet that the president of the United States has betrayed his Oath Of Office. Betrayed his oath to defend our National Security and our constitution. We were presented with a transcript of a call between the president and the president of ukraine. He fact fits our National Security. For his personal political benefit fop understand how we did so, you must understand how
ov overwhemingly the ukraine is on the United States. And not just on the United States but on the person of the president. You crane was invaded by Vladimir Putins russia. It remains occupied by regular forces in a long simmering war. They need our help and for four years we have given it nap is until two months ago when it was held up inexplicably by President Trump if subpoena in this context after a brief congratulatory, and ach Rudy Giuliani made it clear, it is in this context that the new
president of ukraine would speak to donald trump on the phone on july 25th. Eager to accomplish himself at home, as a friend of the president of the most powerful nation on earth, had at least two objectives. Get a meeting with the president , and get more military help. And so what happened on that call. Zelensky tries to enlist the support of the president. He expresses his interest in meeting with the president and says his country wants to acquire more weapons from us to defend itself. And what is the president s response . It reads like a classic organized crime shake down. In not so many words, this is the essence of what president
communicates. Weve been very good to your country, no other country has done as much as we have. I have a favor that i want from you, and im going to say this only seven times so you better listen good. I want you to make up dirt on my political opponent, understand . Lots of it. On this and that. I will put you in touch with people, not just any people, i will put you in touch with the Attorney General of the United States, bill barr. He has the whole weight of the american Law Enforcement behind him. I will put you in touch with rudy, youre going to love him, trust me. Im going to say this a few more times in a few more ways. And by the way, dont call me again, ill call you when youve
done what i asked. This is in some character what the president was trying to communicate. It would be funny if it wasnt such a graphic betrayal of the president s Oath Of Office. But as it does represent a real betrayal, there is nothing the president says here that is in americas interest after all. It is instead the most consequenco consequential. This would not have come to our attention without the courage of a single person, a whistleblower. As you know director mcguire, more so than any other area of government, since we deal with classified information, when the agencies do not self report
because outside parties are not allowed to scrutinize your work and to guide us. If that system is allowed to break down as it did here, if whistleblowers come to understand they will not be protected, two things happen. Serious wrong doing happens or they take matter into their own hands. And placing our National Security at risk. This is why the whistleblower system is so vital to us. And why your handling of this urgent complaint is so troubling. Today we can say for the First Time Since we have released this morning the whistleblower complaint that you marked unclassified that the substance of this issue, meaning the
whistleblowers complaint. This should have been presented to this Committee Weeks ago. And yet it wasnt. Cguire, i was pleased when you were Acting Director. A navy seal for 36 years and director of the National Counter terrorism center. Your credentials are impressive. And in the limited interactions we have had you have struck me as a good and decent man. Which makes your actions in the last month more bewildering. Why you chose not to provide this complaint to a committee regardless of law. And whether or not shall really means shall under the statute. Why you chose to go to a Department Lead by a department and believe he exists to serve the interest of the president , not the office itself, mind you, or the public interest, but the interest of the person, destruct. Why you waited to see if congress would pursue the complaint. And why it was ridiculed by the president. When that whistleblower by Their Very Act of coming forward has shown more dedication to country. More of an understanding of the president s Oath Of Office, than the president himself. We look forward to your explanation. Ranking member nunes. Thank you, gentleman, i want to congratulate the democrats on the rollout of their latest Information Warfare against the president and their extraordinary ability to inlist the main stream media in their campaign. This operation started with Media Reports from the Prime Instagators of the russia collusion hoax. They are claiming the president made a nefarious claims with the leader nap didnt matter. The democrats moved the goal post and said there doesnt need be a quid pro quo for this conversation to serve as the basis for impeaching the president. Speaker pelosi went further when saying she would put brakes on
impeachment if the transcript was benign. There you go if the whistleblower operation doesnt work out, we have many candidates for impeachable offenses. That was her quote. So there you go, if the whistleblower operation doesnt work out, they can trump up something us. We learned the following. The complaint relied on Hearsay Evidence provided by the whistleblower. The Inspector General found the whistleblower displayed arguab arguably consider bias. The ukrainian president denies
being pressured by President Trump. So this supposed scandal ends up being nothing like what we were told and once again the democrats, their media mouthpieces, and leakers are ginning up a fake story with no regard to the monumental damage caused to our Public Institution and team. And acknowledging all of the false stories they had in the past including countless allegations that the Campaign Colluded with russia to hack the 2016 election. Were supposed to forget about all of those stories, but believe this one. In short, what we have with this story line is another still dossier. I will note here that the departments mania to overturn 20916 Elections Everything they touch gets hopelessly
sensationalized. Now today, the whistleblower process is the casualty. Until a week ago, the need to protect that process was a primary bipartisan concern of this committee. But if they are really concerned with defending that process, they would have pursued this with a quiet sober inquiry for all whistleblowers. That would have been useless for them. They dont want answers, they want a public spectacle. So we have had unending aid of press conferences, press releases, and fake news stories in is another example that they should not be held in public at all. Our Senate Counter parts understand and their hearing with mr. Mcguire is behind closed door, but that only makes sense when your goal is to get information, not to create a
media frenzy. The current hysteria has something necessary common with the russian hoax. They accused the Trump Campaign of colluding with russians when the democrats themselves were colluding with russians and preparing the steel dossier. Today they say the president is pressuring ukrainians to take actions that would help themselves or hurt political rivals, joe biden bragged that he extorted the ukrainians into firing a prosecutor who was investigating bidens own son. Three Democratic Senators wrote a letter to pressure the prosecutor to reopen the
investigation. Into former Trump Camp