President zelensky decided that they were not going to issue thatt statement that Rudy Giuliani wanted to include burisma in the 2016 elections, there was no white house meeting. It soon became clear to them that the Security Assistance was also at risk. And that took on a renewed importance for them. Well, following the 25th call, the t july 25th call, ambassador sondland and volker worked closely with mr. Giuliani and the ukrainians to help draft a statement that the president could make, president zelensky. Wasnt that right . Yes. And the report said they worked closely and there were also phone calls with the white house around the same time that they werear working closely. Do you know what that statement was supposed tou say according to mr. Giuliani and the u. S. Officials . Well, the key difference is that it had to include that ukraine would do the investigations of burisma which equalled theic Biden Investigatn in the 2016 ukraine
interference. But was there concern about doi
important because the minority wants tois focus on these four very narrow facts that ignore the vast majority of the evidence. so the fact that you use scheme is actually critical to the wholeal case here. the president abused his power. the president must be held accountable. no one is aboveta the law. i yield back. the gentleman yields back. mr. gaetz? we are continuing to monitor today s impeachment hearing in front of the house judiciary committee. attorneys for the democrats and republicans facing questions from committee members. we ll bring you right back into that now. but right now the fallout from the inspector general s report on theec origins of the russia probe. that report obliterated some of donald trump s most incendiary claims of a deep state conspiracy against his presidency and campaign, an attempted coup by the men and
these are the legal doctrines of despots. but they re the only ones that can accommodate the case before us today. this is a stunning abuse of power and a shameless travesty of justice that will stain the reputations of those responsible for generations to come. and god help our country if they should ever be given the power to replace our bill of rights with the doctrines that they have imposed in this process. democrats are fond of saying no one s no one s above the law. well, they have one unspoken caveat. except for themselves. now, the speaker s already short circuited what should be a solemn, painstaking, thorough, and above all, fair process by ordering her foot soldiers on this committee to draw up articles of impeachment without this committee hearing from a single fact witness. despite the fact that mr. schiff doesn t dare to appear before this committee to defend his work. we re supposed to accept his report at face value and
women b working in law enforcement. another report by michael horowitz was critical of the fbi s handling of a wire tap application used early on in the wire probe. it did not find evidence that political bias affected how officials a conducting the investigation went about their jobs. case closed as far as the watchdog for the justice department isor concerned. and yet today the president s attorney general william barr is publicly challenging his own i.g. and the u.s. attorney barr hand-picked to conduct a similar probe into similar issues also sowing doubts around the conclusions in today s i.g. report. joining us now for his first interview since the report was released former fbi director jim comey. you were the target of a lot of those smears. but your first thoughts about what the reports concludes tha on the big question on the big smear levied by donald trump aboutr some sort of conspiracyr
just a control plus plf. sondland himself told the world that basically nobody elss on the planet told him that donald trump wasla trying to ti aid to investigations. in fact he also said everything that he had been testifying to is simply his presumption. is that sright? that is correct. and so when we consider what a presumption is, it s not direct, it s not circumstantial, it s not even hearsay. in fact, we typically when we try the case we consider is speculation. is that right? doul courts allow speculatio in? llno. why not? because it s not reliable. it s inherently unreliable. so, can you name any democrat witness who asserted that he or she had direct evidence of those 17 that we heard from? we had some direct evidence on certain thingse and we had some direct evidence on the may 23idrd meeting. and sondland gave some direct evidence. but a lot of what we have obtained has been circumstantial. how about with regard to personal knowledge of the quid