Of law and our fierce constitutional patriotism. Now, it looked like President Trump might get away with his ukraine shakedown. After all most americans didnt know anything about it and the few who learned of it would be too afraid, too intimidated to cross the most powerful man on earth. President trump could rest easy. But if donald trump misjudged the american character, the framers of our constitution did not. I count 17 honorable Public Servants who came forward to testify over the intimidation and disparagement of the president. Is that right, mr. Goldman . Yes. There was 17. And i counted dozen Career State Department and National Security officials who served republican and democratic president s alike over decades who came to testify. In fact, four of President Trumps own National Security council staffers, hill, vindman, morrison and maguire came
forward to report trumps scheme to nsc lawyers as soon as they learned of it, didnt they mr. Goldman. Morrison and vindman went to
and soviet russia. i think her family came from england. it was marie yovanovitch that was ambassador yovanovitch? yes. dr. hill voiced her concerns to the nsc lawyers on july 10 and july 11th, long before anyone on the committee knew about it. why was she why did she go to report what she had learned? what motivated her? she was concerned that ambassador sondland and mick mulvaney were entering into essentially a transaction whereby the ukrainians would open up investigations for president trump s political interests in return for getting the white house meeting that president trump had offered. and i want to talk about deputy assistant secretary george kent who served as a career foreign service office for more than 27 years under five different presidents, democrats and republicans alike. and he wrote or updated notes to file on four different occasions
to record his grave contemporaneous concerns about the president s conduct. mr. goldman, what were the events that led mr. kent to draft notes to his file? there were several. there was a conversation at the end of june where several american officials had indicated to president zelensky that he needed to go forward with these investigations. there was one on august 16th, i recall, that he talked about. but you bring up a very important point. which is all of these state department witnesses in particular, and frankly almost all of the witnesses other than ambassador sondland, took unbelievable meticulous notes. i would have dreamed for a witness like that as a prosecutor. and it makes for a very clear and compelling record and clear and compelling evidence that is based on contemporaneous notes. do we have mr. kent s note in this process. we have no state department records including notes and
investigations into his political rival. and you saw the clip where ambassador sondland picked up the phone, called president trump and then mr. holmes asked him what the president thought about ukraine and quickly what was mr. sondland s answer? mr. sondland said the president does not give a bleep about ukraine. he only cares about the big stuff. meaning the biden investigation that mr. giuliani was pushing. and by the way just to add, that is a direct evidence conversation between president trump and ambassador sondland on that day and there are mr. that we have not talked about on the minority side. so we know what president trump was interested in based on his words, his actions, and witness testimony. the president of the united states wanted ukraine to announce an investigation into a political rival for his own personal, political benefit to interfere in our election and he was willing to use u.s. military aid which is taxpayer dollars and an essentially white house meeting
to announce the investigation into the 2016 interference and president zelensky should want to do that himself? that is right. we had a number of different accounts of this. and i think this is they re up on the boards here. right. i see that. ambassador taylor said that mr. morrison said something similar. their understanding of that conversation is that there was a clear directive that there was a quid pro quo factually from the conduct, from the actions. we ve talked a lot today about the words and that zelensky said no pressure and trump said no pressure and no quid pro quo. but as an investigator and prosecutor, you need to look at the actions to understand what those words mean and that is why this call in particular is so important. so let s go further. as we discussed multiple individuals reacted with concern to president trump s call with ambassador sondland. do you recall mr. morrison s reaction? mr. morrison said that he was shocked, i think. and that he