that we had ukraine's back. during that april 24 call, president trump never even uttered the word corruption. but the white house call recap falsely stated that the two presidents had discussed ukraine's anticorruption efforts. shortly after the phone call, jennifer williams, advisor to vice president pence, learned that president trump asked vice president pence to attend zelinsky is a inauguration. williams colleagues begin planning for the trip to kiev. at the same time, giuliani was trying to get ukraine to investigate the bidens in the alleged 2016 election interference. on april 24th, giuliani went on "fox and friends" and had this to say. >> keep your eye on ukraine, because in ukraine a lot of the dirty work was done. american officials used a clean officials were used, that's like collusion with the ukrainians. actual in this case conspiracy with the ukrainians. i think it's interesting information about jill biden from ukraine about his son, hunter biden, about a company he was on the board of which m

giuliani on ukraine. giuliani had made clear he was pursuing investigations for president trump in a personal capacity. he said that publicly on numerous instances and he was only working for the president in a personal capacity and not on foreign-policy. yet, president trump still told white house officials that they had to work with mr. giuliani to get anywhere on ukraine. we heard significant testimony on this point. for example ambassador volker recall that at the oval office meeting on may 23 president trump directed the u.s. officials to talk to rudy. ambassador sondland testified president trump directed them to talk to rudy and in that moment the u.s. diplomat saw the writing on the wall and concluded quote that if we did not talk to rudy nothing would move forward, nothing would move forward on ukraine. pay attention to ambassador sondland's testimony. >> to respond to our persistent efforts in that meeting to change the views, president trump directed us to quote talk with rudy. we understood th

nearly 70% of ukraine's territory -- i'm sorry, nearly 7% of ukraine's territory had been annexed by russian backed forces. more than 15,000 troops had been lost in the hot war over the past five years. but when president zelensky raised the issue of u.s. military aid needed to confront russian aggression, president trump did nothing to reassure the ukrainian leader of our steadfast support for ukraine's sovereignty. instead, he made personal demands. it is for these reasons that president trump's investigations went against official u.s. policy. witnesses confirmed that president trump's request actually diverged, not just from our policy come about from our own national security. as dr. hill testified, ambassador sondland in carrying out president trump's scheme "was being involved in a domestic political errant." we were being involved in national security policy. those two things that just diverged." as ambassador taylor elaborated, "are holding up of security assistance that would go to a country that is fighting aggression from russia, for no good policy reason, no good substan

regarding ukraine. but instead of halting the president's corrupt schemes they worked overtime to conceal it from the american people. has additional evidence of the presence wrongdoing mounted, white house lawyers redoubled their efforts to prevent congress and the american people of learning of the president's misconduct. at the same time, top administration officials including secretary of state pompeo, secretary of defense esper and national security advisor john bolton tried to convince president trump to lift the hold on the security assistance. , they fail. president trump was determined to carry out his corrupt scheme. the military and security aide was only released on september 11 after the hold became public. after the house launched an investigation. and after congress learned about the existence of a whistleblower complaint. the $391 million in security aide was only released because president trump was caught red-handed. the actions of president trump and high-level white house officials a

shows that in fact it was ukraine that hacked the d.n.c. not the russians that's a russian propaganda conspiracy theory and here it is being promulgated by the president of the united states and more than promulgated he's pressuring an ally to further this russian propaganda because he was referring to this extensively discredited conspiracy theory that ukraine was the one who really hacked the d.n.c. the democratic national committee servers and 2016 and that reference to crowd strike well that's an american cyber security firm and the theory this kooky conspiracy theory is that crowd strike move the d.n.c. servers to crane to prevent us law enforcement from getting them if ukraine announced an investigation into this fabrication president trump would remove what he perceived to be a cloud over his legitimacy legitimacy of his last election russia's assistance with his campaign and suggest that it was the democratic party that was the real beneficiary of help on the call president trump told zelinsky whatever you can do it's very important

for ukraine. the president began questioning military aid to ukraine after congress appropriated and authorized the money. 250 million in dod funds, and 141 million in state department funds. this funding had bipartisan this funding had wide bipartisan support because as many witnesses testified, providing military aid to ukraine, to defend itself against russian aggression, also benefits our own national security. important leave the president's questions came weeks after the department of defense already certified that ukraine had undertaken anticorruption reforms and other measures mandated by congress as as a condition for receiving that aid. so there is a process for making sure that the funds make it to the right place and to the right people. a process that is been followed every year that we've been providing that security including to ukraine, the first two years under the trump administration. nonetheless, theno president's questions him day after dod issued a press release. on june 18 a

johnny's allies in ukraine. .-ellipsis that scheme begins with the attempt to get ambassador yovanovitch out of the way. by all accounts ambassador yovanovitch was a highly respected and effective ambassador. witnesses praised her 33 year career as a nonpartisan public servant. they told us she particularly excelled at fighting corruption of broad. president george bush named her as ambassador twice. president obama nominated her as ambassador to ukraine where she represented the united states in 2016 to 2019 . eradicating corruption in the ukraine has been a key policy priority of the us government for years. during the house inquiry,the ambassador explains why implementing this anticorruption policy was so important . >> as critical as the war against russia is, ukraine's struggling democracy as equally important challenge : telling the soviet legacy of corruption which has pervaded ukraine's government. corruption makes ukrainians leaders vulnerable to the russians and the ukrainian people understand that. that

now, rudy is the key to ukraine. we know from mr. giuliani and the president's own statements about his role as president trump's personal agent advancing the ukraine scheme. we know from their comments and the documentary evidence about the frequency of their contact. but it wasn't just the frequency of mr. giuliani's contact that's significant. here's what matters. president trump directed u.s. officials to work with his personal agent who was pursuing investigations not at all related to foreign policy. u.s. officials, including the president's own national security adviser, knew there was no getting around rudy giuliani when it came to ukraine. witnesses repeatedly testified to the constant presence of rudy giuliani on television and in the newspapers. the state department officials christopher anderson said that john bolton quote, joked about every time ukraine is mentioned giulianien pops up. after. ambassador in mac -- ambassador yovanovitch's dismissal ambassador bolton told dr. hill that rudy giuliani was a, quote, hand gren

seventh, ukraine expressed concerns multiple times that these were political investigations and ukraine didn't want to get involved in domestic u.s. politics. eighth, the white house tried to bury the call. ninth, president trump himself told us he wanted and cared about, in his own words in many public statements. and finally, despite the president's counsel attempts to justify his actions, the evidence makes clear that president trump did not care about anticorruption efforts in ukraine. this was only about one thing: his political investigations. now, as i mentioned, the object of the president's scheme is clear. two investigations to help his political re-election. the constitution grants the president broad authority to conduct u.s. foreign policy. he is our commander in chief, and chief diplomat. when the president of the united states calls aor get foreign leaders to do what is in the best -- what is best for the u.s. national interest, consistent with the faithful execution of his oath of office, and consistent with official u.s. policy. but on july 25, when president trump call

and a newshour weekend special on ukraine: caught ithe crosshairs both at home and in the u.s. next on "pbs newshour weekend." >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: bernard and irene schwartz. iisue and edgar wachenheim the cheryl and philip milstein family. rosalind p. walter. barbara hope zuckerberg. charles rosenblum. we try to live in the moment, to not miss what's right in front of us. at mutual of america, we believe taking care of tomorrow can help you make the most of today. mutual of america financial group, retirement services and investments. additional support has been provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting, a private corporatn funded by the american people. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. from the tisch wnet studios at lioln center in new york, hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: good e fning and than joining us. despite being in a territorial war with russia for nearly six years w, the country of ukraine rarely made front page news. but all that has changed now, under the leadership of political

ukraine. >> as mr. kent indicated, the smear campaign against ambassador yovanovitch was orchestrated by a core group of corrupt ukrainian officials working at mr. giuliani's direction. this group included two additional characters who had been in the news of late. lev parnas and igor fruman. mr. parnas and mr. fruman were indicted on charges including supporting president trump. simply put, in doing her job well, ambassador yovanovitch drew mr. lutsenko's ire. and as mr. kent observed, you can promote anticorruption efforts without taking off corrupt people. as it turned out, this statement applied to mr. lutsenko and mr. giuliani who feared that the ambassador would stand in the way of his corrupt efforts to course ukraine into conducting investigations that would benefit the interest of his client, president trump. mr. giuliani's courting smear campaign against ambassador yovanovitch became public in the united states in late march, 2019. with the publication of a series of opinion pieces i

regarding ukraine. but instead of halting the president's corrupt scheme, they worked overtime to conceal it from the american people. as additional evidence of the president wrongdoing mounted, white house lawyers doubled their efforts to prevent congress and the american people from learning of the president's misconduct. at the same time, top administration officials including secretary of state pompeo, secretary of defense esper and national security advisor john bolton try to convince president trump to lift the hold on the security assistance. they failed. president trump was determined to carry out his corrupt scheme. the military and security aide was only released on september september 11 after the hold became public. after the house launched an investigation and after congress learned about the existence of a whistleblower complaint. $391 million in security aide was only released because president trump was caught red-handed. the actions of president trump and high-level white house official

so ukraine channel, please. >> ukraine channel 24, i have speakers.on to both i have a question to president zelensky first. the situation with the impeachment trial of donald trump spoiled the ukrainian-american relations? pres. zelensky: [speaking foreign language] translator: well, thank you for your question. i was thinking, "when will this question appear?" when we had the meeting with united states, we also had a discussion about president trump. essentially the other way around. we have an excellent relationship. only the word that the united states will support and defend ukraine, which is really true, and support our -- is not only about words. mutuallyries should be -- we talked about manager difference, contractor difference that we want to include between our countries. this is a new step in our relationship, new attitude. we have had multiple meetings, and i don't think that these friendly relations have been influenced by impeachment trial. add many points -- to navigate in our powers -- we are doing to make it assible mutually beneficial project. us, it was a tragedy in our cr

for ukraine. >> while we know from ambassador taylor and deputy assistant secretary kent that the cable was received we do not know whether or how the state department responded nor do we know if the state department has any other internal record relating to this cable. this cable is vital for three reasons. first, it demonstrates the harm that president trump did to our national security when he used foreign-policy as an instrument of his own personal political gain. second, the same day the cable to send presidents zelensky senior aide told ambassador taylor that he was very concerned about the hold on military assistance. he added that ukrainians were just desperate for it to be released. in other words president trump's effort to use military aid to apply additional pressure on ukraine was working. and finally based on reporting of "the news york times" we now know that within days of ambassador taylor sending this cable president trump discussed ukrainian security business with secretary pomp

giuliani on ukraine. giuliani had made clear he was pursuing investigations for president trump in a personal capacity. he said that publicly on numerous instances and he was only working for the president in a personal capacity and not on foreign-policy. yet, president trump still told white house officials that they had to work with mr. giuliani to get anywhere on ukraine. we heard significant testimony on this point. for example ambassador volker recall that at the oval office meeting on may 23 president trump directed the u.s. officials to talk to rudy. ambassador sondland testified president trump directed them to talk to rudy and in that moment the u.s. diplomat saw the writing on the wall and concluded quote that if we did not talk to rudy nothing would move forward, nothing would move forward on ukraine. pay attention to ambassador sondland's testimony. >> to respond to our persistent efforts in that meeting to change the views, president trump directed us to quote talk with rudy. we understood th

the ukraine security he brief assistance was paused? people were gathering information and monitoring the facts on the ground in ukraine as the new parliament was sworn in and began introducing anti-corruption legislation. notwithstanding what the house managers would have you believe. the reason for the pause was no secret within the white house and agencies. according to mr. mormorrison, i july meeting attended by officials throughout the agencies, the reason provided for the pause by a representative of the office of management and budget was that the president was concerned about corruption in ukraine, and he wanted to make sure ukraine was doing enough to manage that corruption. in fact, as mr. morrison testified, by labor day, there had been definitive developments to demonstrate that president zelensky was committed to the issues he campaigned on. anti-corruption reforms. mr. morrison also testified that the administration was working on answering the president's concerns regarding burden sharing. here's mr. morrison. >> were the

giuliani, about ukraine. it was immediately clear that giuliani who was pursuing the discredited investigations on the president's behalf was the key to unlocking an oval office meeting for president zelensky . giuliani by then had said publicly he was actively pursuing investigations president trump corruptly desired and planning a trip to the ukraine. giuliani admitted quote, where not meddling in an election, where meddling in an investigation.on may 10 however giuliani canceled the trip to the ukraine to dig up dirt on former vice president biden and the 2016 conspiracy theory just as president zelensky one elections forthe presidency and the parliament . faced with a choice between working with giuliani to pursue an oval office meeting, understanding it meant taking place in a corrupt effort to pursue political investigations or abandoning efforts to support our ukrainian ally, the president agents fell into lying. they were pursue the white house meeting and explained to the ukraine announcements of the

about 2016 in ukraine. i'vegs heard him say plenty this publicly but i was not given a directed. in fact, if i was given a directive on july 10 occluded stay out of domestic politics. >> so to beid clear, when president trump asked for these investigations he was not asking for them based on an official u.s. policy. his top official advisers had not even been told about these investigations. to the contrary they were told to stay out of u.s. politics. and itt gets worse here it was not just that president trump ignored official u.s. policy in the talking points he was given. it was that what he was doing was withholding support from ukraine was actually contrary to and harmful to u.s. policy there is clear and undisputed bipartisan support for ukraine. ukraine is our ally. what's more, they are at war with their adversary. so our goal should be helping president zelensky's anticorruption reform and help fight rush anyway that we can for president trump's own national defense strategy stated that the united

/ukraine relationship. a top aide to president zelensky texted to volker that i feel that the key for many things is rudy. and i'm ready to talk with him at any time. but everyone understood that mr. giuliani was no rogue agent. he was acting at the direction of the president. ambassador sondland clearly described mr. giuliani's role in regard to the president. let's listen. >> mr. giuliani's requests for a quid pro quo for arranging a white house visit for president zelensky. mr. giuliani demapded that ukraine make a public statement announcing the investigations of the 2016 election, dnc server, and barisma. mr. giuliani was expressing the desires of the president of the united states and we knew these investigations were important to the president. >> concerned about mr. giuliani's influence began to grow. on july 10th at a meeting between ambassadors taylor and two ukrainian officials in kiev, ukrainian officials said they were very concerned because mr. giuliani had told the corrupt prosecutor general

right there giuliani admits he was asking ukraine for the ukraine to be very hopeful. he was not doing this for the government that personal interest of his client, donald j. trump. the next morning, may 10 amid coverage of the planned trip to ukraine, giuliana one - - giuliani treated further that was helping to plan the trip to ukraine. that same day giuliani spoke with ambassador volcker for more than 30ut minutes and he learned that giuliani intended to travel to ukraine and was called to warn but later that day he had a 17 minute call with a white house number that was masked before speaking again for 12 minutes. that same day, politico asked about the giuliani upcoming trip and he replied, speaks that. >> i have not spoken to him in any great length that i will. i will speak to him before he leaves. but that evening on fox news i keep walking into people that are enemies of the president. separately, in a text message to politico, giuliani alleges the original offer with the omeeting of zielinski was a set up. he said it is a set up orchestrated by several local

the money mattered to ukraine. it mattered to ukraine. witness testimony revealed that this money was 10% of ukraine's defense budget. 10%. now, imagine if president trump just decided, without cause or explanation, to hold 10% of our own defense budget. that would have a dramatic impact on our military. and it certainly did to ukraine, our ally. keep in mind too that president trump had to sign the bill into law, which he did in september of 2018. at no time, at no time during the congressional debate or passage of the bill did the white house express any concerns about the funding or the program itself. i want you to see the slide before us. president trump signs bill authorizing aid to ukraine for fiscal year 2019. on june 18, president trump's own department of defense certified that ukraine had met all of the anticorruption requirements necessary to receive aid. and you know what? the department of defense announced that the money was on its way, just as we, the united states of america, had promised. senators, our word must continue

, with ukraine. and as my colleagues have shown, they failed to give you key facts about the meeting and lots of other evidence that they produced themselves. but let's talk about the meeting. they said it was all about an invitation to a meeting. if you look at the first transcript, at the first transcript, the president said to president zelensky when you're settled in and ready, i'd like to invite you to the white house. we'll have a lot of things to talk about. but we're with you all the way. and president zelensky said well, thank you for the invitation. we accept the invitation and look forward to the visit. thank you again. then president zelensky got a letter on may 29 inviting him again to come to the white house. and then, going back to the transcript of the july 25th call, again a part of the call that they didn't talk to you about, president trump said whenever you would like to come to the white house, feel free to call. give us a date, and we'll work that out. i look forward to seeing y

ukraine is a friend, russia is a flow. ukraine is a democracy, russia is a dictatorship. the united states may very well be one of the only things standing between russia and ukraine being completely overrun. as part of that, vladimir putin's continued aggression against the free world. that is why this congress allocated $391 million in military and security aid to a vulnerable ukraine on a bipartisan basis, because it is in america's national security interest. on the july 20 fifth call mister trump could have endeavored to strengthen the relationship with this new ukrainian leader. instead he focused on securing a personal favor. he wanted ukraine to conduct phony investigations designed to enhance his political standing to solicit foreign interference in the 2020 election. on a july 20 fifth call, donald trump maligned a highly respected american ambassador. known as an anticorruption crusader. at the same time, he praised a corrupt former ukrainian prosecutor. on multiple occasions, donald trump directed ukraine's new leader to speak with his personal lawyer, rudy gi

in ukraine. we're joined by chris wallace. you think this is pretty effective by garcia. >> i do. i said at the top of the -- of our coverage this felt like groundhog day. we're going to hear the same arguments all over again. it's true with jerry nadler. but sylvia garcia has really been effective. you can argue whether you agree with her or not. this is one of the big arguments you'll hear from the republicans, the white house lawyers, when they talk. that is going to be that well, the president wasn't trying to to get dirt on his political opponent. joe biden. he was trying to root out corruption and going after burisma and even involved in firing a prosecutor general and also was trying to protect american elections. what you've heard congresswoman garcia from houston lay out in detail is exactly why the -- she argues that it was bogus the idea that when joe biden went to ukraine in 2015 and got them to fire shokin, he was trying to cover up for his son. she makes the case it was a european m

and for ukraine that was a really big deal. ukraine is a country at war with russia. it is a country very much dependent on both the reality and the perception of their having strong support from the united states government. so when mr. giuliani as the president's personal attorney started making public claims that the new ukrainian president was surrounded by enemies of the united states of america and that's why he wasn't going to ukraine, at that point the ukrainian government kind of freaked out. that kind of criticism from the new u.s. administration for their new president in ukraine that's a potential death sentence for their country. at the time that happened lev parnas was in ukraine, he was in kiev at the time all that happened. and he told me today he was tasked by rudy giuliani in that moment to crank up the pressure on the government of ukraine, to make even more insistent and obvious and even more onerous this threat and this demand that ukraine must announce investigations into joe biden or else. >> did you meet with a ukrainian official named sergey s

to invade ukraine. this was the first effort to redraw european boundaries by military force sounds world war ii. the war was devastated to ukraine and remained so today, approximately 7% of ukraine's territory is now occupied by russia, approximately 15000 people have been killed as a result of the conflict and over 1.4 million people have been displaced. in response to russia's invasion of ukraine, the united states and our allies in posed stations on russian individuals and entities and agreed to provide billions of dollars in assistance to support ukrainian sovereignty and democratic development. we understood immediately, democrats and republicans alike, that ukraine safety and security was directly tied to our safety and security. with this goal in mind since 2014 the united states has delivered roughly $1.5 billion in security assistance and another 1.5 billion and other assistance to our ally, ukraine. our allies in europe have provided approximately $18 billion in loans and grants since 2014. a

support of ukraine. ambassador taylor felt so strongly about the harm withholding the security existence that for the first time ever in this decades of service at the state department, he sent a first person cable with his concerns to secretary mike pompeo. in the cable, he described directly the following that taylor saw in withholding the aid. here is his testimony. >> have you ever sent a cable like that? how many times in your career, 40, 50 careers have you sent a cable to the secretary of the state? >> once. >> in 50 years? >> yes, sir. >> ambassador taylor never received an answer to the cable, but he was told that secretary mike pompeo carried it with him to the white house meeting about security assistance to ukraine. it seemed this meeting about the aid may have occurred on august 30th. there is press reports where they discussed the hold with president trump. keep this in mind, this was two days after the hold was publically reported and after the president was briefed on the whistleblower co

overwhelming body of evidence that clearly proves that the president implemented this old to pressure ukraine to announce investigations the full story. behind the hold the full and complete story is within your power to request as you consider the evidence we present to you ask yourselves whether the documents and witnesses that have been denied by the president's complete and unprecedented struction could shed more light on this critical topic you may agree with the house managers that the evidence of the president's withholding of military aid to course ukraine is already supported by overwhelming evidence and no further insight is necessary to convict the president but if the president's lawyers attempt to contest these or other factual matters you are left with no choice but to demand to hear from each witness with firsthand knowledge a fair trial requires nothing less. let's look at some of the evidence that we gather not withstanding this obstruction 1st. president withheld the aid without explanation and against the advice of his own agencies cabinet officials national security expert

in ukraine. that is the so-called crowdstrike conspiracy theory. this tale is also patently false. remarkably, it is precisely the inverse what the u.s. and intelligence communities unanimous assess. russia interfered in the 2016 election in a sweeping systemic fashion in order to hurt hillary clinton and help donald trump. nevertheless, the president evidently believed a public announcement lending credence to these allegations by the ukrainian president could assist his reelection by putting to rest any doubts americans may have had over the legitimacy of his first election, even as he invited foreign interference in the next. to the degree most americans have followed the president's efforts to involve another foreign power in our election they may be most familiar with the entreaty on july 25th, called to do us a favor, though, investigate biden and the 2016 conspiracy theory. but that call was not the beginning of the story of the president's corrupt scheme, nor was it the end. rather, it wa

number seven, ukraine expresses concerns multiple times that these political investigations in ukraine did not want to get involved in domestic us politics. number eight the white house tried to bury the call. nine. president trump himself told us he really wanted and cared in many public statements and finally despite the president counsels attempts to justify his actions the evidence made it clear that president trump did not care about anticorruption efforts in ukraine, he was only worried about one thing, his political investigations. if you're following along, now the object of theec president scheme is clear. two investigations that the constitution grants the broad authority to conduct us foreignho policy. he is the commander-in-chief so when the president of the united states calls a foreignom leader the first and only objective should be to get for leaders to do what is in the best for the us national interest. consistent with the faithful execution of his own with of office. and consistent with official us policy. but on july 25th, when president trump called the president of

if the war in ukraine spills over outside of ukraine it is those men and women that will have to get into tanks, in their helicopters, and do their job. the united states senate cannot let this information remain hidden. it goes directly to one of president trump's abuses of power. with again with holding aide that 87 people in this room already voted for. the president the senate and the american people deserve a fair trial, let's see the documents and see them now. and let the facts speak for themselves. i would like to end by reading a short transcript. something i was thinking about earlier this evening. this is the transcript from ambassador taylors testimony. i want to take a minute to read it to you. he was talking about a trip that he made to visit friends in ukraine. we had a meeting with the defense minister. it was the first meeting of the day. we went over there. they invited us to a ceremony they have in front of the ministry every day. every day they have this ceremony. about a half hour ceremony where soldiers in formation, defense minister, families of soldiers killed

ambassador in ukraine, marie jovanovich. mr. giuliani viewed her as an impediment to implementing the president's corrupt schemes and orchestrated a long-running smear campaign against her. here is what mr. parnas said about this just last week. >> do you believe that part of the motivation to get rid of investor yovanovitch was because she was in the way of this effort to get the government of ukraine to announce investigation into joe biden? >> that was the only motivation. there was no other motivation. >> these are just some of the email communications that we know. these are just some of the email communications that we know to exist. there are undoubtedly more, including, for example, ambassador yovanovitch's request for the state department to issue a statement of support of her around the time that mr. giuliani was speaking directly, directly with secretary pompeo. but that statement never came. the state department has gathered these records and they are ready to be turned over, pursuant to a subpoena of the senate. it

but then to bring to ukraine and trump how do you not bring up ukraine and biden? and to have those investigated to say when you talk about me and ukraine you cannot argue lord - - or ignore the biden and ukraine it undercuts the narrative. >> but you have lobbying jobs. >> i would say we have a responsibility to conduct ourselves honorably and to follow the law but to have kids working in the private secto sector, that's a bit different than working for the most loved company in the ukraine when you're given the charge to combat corruption. that is a bridge too far. if it were my son or my daughter and if you are republican you would be all over us. but republicans believe more than ever that's not fair for people to believe that. i like joe biden. i don't want to do this. >> somebody could say when hunter biden went to the state department the new york times reported he was on the board of burisma that undermines his credibility. maybe it's just a conflict of interest or bad judgment or may be no more to this but i know from the office of the president and the ti

foreign policy in ukraine. if you are taking notes you can find that in the hill deposition transcript 34:7-13. doctor hill also said she thinks the president is quite publicly said he was very skeptical about corruption in ukraine. he's not alone, she said this as well, everyone has expressed great concerns about corruption. ambassador yovanovitch, they didn't play this, said we all have concerns. national security director morrison confirmed the, quote, he was aware he thought the president had a corruption problem as did many other people familiar with it. i am not going to continue to go over and over and over again the evidence that they did not put before you because we would be here for a lot longer than 24 hours. but to say that the president of the united states was not concerned about burden sharing, that he was not concerned about corruption in ukraine, the facts from their hearing, the facts from their hearing establish exactly the opposite. the president wasn't concerned about burden sharing? read

ambassador to the ukraine, european union, gordon sondland, who was delegated authority over ukraine matters by none other than president trump, testified we knew these investigations were important to the president. and we followed the president's orders. and david holmes, a senior official at the u.s. embassy in kiev said it was made clear that some action on a burisma biden investigation was condition for an oval office meeting. during their testimony, many of these state department officials describe specific documents, including text messages, e-mails, former diplomatic cables and note that would corroborate their testimony and shed additional light on president trump's corrupt scheme. for instance, ambassador taylor, who raised concerns that military aid had had been conditioned on the president's demand for political investigations described a little notebook in which he would take notes on conversations he had with key officials. ambassador sondland referred by date and recipient to e-mails regarding the president's demand that ukraine announce political investigations. as we

seventh, ukraine express concerns multiple times that these were political investigations, and ukraine didn't want to g get involved in domestic u.s. politics. eight, the white house tried to bury the call. nine, president trump himself told us he really wanted and cared about, , in his own words, in many public statements,pu and finally, despite the president's counsel attempt to justify his actions, the evidence makes clear that president trump did not care about anticorruption efforts in ukraine. this was only about one thing, his political investigation. if you're following along on the slide. now i mentioned the object of the president's scheme is clear, two investigations to help his political reelection.es the constitution grants the president broad authority to conduct u.s. foreign policy. he is our commander-in-chief, and chief diplomat. with the president of the united states calls a foreign leader, a presidents first and only objective should be to get foreign leaders to do what is in the f best, what's best for the u.s. national interest.al consistents with the faithful exe

regarding the ukraine. instead of halting the president's corrupt scheme, he worked overtime to conceal it from the american people. as additional evidence of the presidents wrongdoing can mount it, white house lawyers redouble their efforts to prevent congress and the american people from learning of the presidents misconduct. at the same time, top administration officials including secretary of state pompeo, secretary of defense esper, and national security advisor john bolton tried to convince president trump to lift the hold on the security assistance. they failed. president trump was determined to carry out his corrupt scheme. the military and security aide was only released on septembe september 11th, after the hold became public. after the house launched an investigation. and after congress learned about the existence of a whistle-blower complaint. the $391 million in security aid was only released because president trump was caught red-handed. the actions of president trump president trump and high-

you don't need to care about ukraine. who cares about ukraine. how many people can find ukraine on a map? why should we care about ukraine. but we should care about ukraine, they are an ally of ours. if it matters to us, we should care about the fact that in 1994 when we asked them to give up their nuclear weapons that they inherited from the soviet union, and they did not want to give them up and we were worried about proliferation. we said hey if you give them up, which you don't want to do because you're afraid the russians will invade. if you get them up we will help assure you. we made that commitment. i hope we care now testimony indicated that secretary pompeo eventually took that to the white house. but there is no evidence that those national international secured concerns, that they don't want you to see, were able to outweigh the presidents personal interest in his getting foreign help in his reelection campaign. there is no evidence at all. now we get to august 28. politico was the first to publicly report the president trump had impl

ukraine. that is a so-called conspiracy theory. s it's also false. were markley, this is the inverse of what the intelligent u.s. community, the russia interfered in order to hurt hillary clinton and help donald trump. nevertheless, the president believed the public announcement increase the allegations by the ukrainian president could assist his reelection by putting to rest any doubt american's me over the legitimacy of his first election. even as he invited foreignma interference in the next. to the degree that most americans have followed his efforts, they may be most familiar with the ukrainian president, the july 25 call to do us a favor. investigate biden in the 2016 conspiracy theory. but that cough was not the beginning of the story. nor was it the end. rather, it was merely part, a significant part of a month-to-month effort by president trump and his allies and associates who had significant and increasing pressure on ukraine to announce these two politically motivated investigation

in ukraine. that is the so-called crowd strake conspiracy theory. this is also patently false and remarkably precisely the inverse of what the us intelligence community's unanimous assessment was that russia interfered in the 2016 election in sleeping and sustainable faction to hurt hillary clinton and help donald trump. a public announcement lend credence to these allegations, to put advanced -- even as he invited foreign interference in the next. and they may be entreated to the ukrainian president, and to investigate biden in the 2016 conspiracy theory. that call is not the beginning of the story of the president's corrupt scheme nor was it the end. it was merely part, though a significant part of a month-long effort donald trump and his allies and associates who applied significant and increasing pressure on ukraine to announce these two politically motivated and expectations. he figures in the trump administration involved or participated in the scheme. one witness to the inaugural committee

the money mattered to ukraine. it mattered to ukraine. witness testimony revealed that this money was 10% of ukraine's defense budget. 10%. now, imagine if president trump just decided without cause or explanation to hold 10% of our own defense budget. that would have a dramatic impact on our military, and it certainly did to ukraine, our ally. keep in mind, too, that president trump had to sign the law -- the bill into law, which he did in september of 2018. at no time, at no time during the congressional debate or passage of the bill did the white house express any concerns about the funding or the program itself. i want you to see the slide before us. president trump signed bill authorizing aid to ukraine for fiscal year 2019. on june 18, president trump's own department of defense certified that ukraine had met all of the anticorruption requirements necessary to receive aid. and you know what? the department of defense announced that the money was on its way. just as we, the united states of america, had promised. senators, our word m

that the president would ratchet up pressure on ukraine to compel its actions stunned ukraine experts like ambassador taylor but followed logically for those engaged in the presidents corrupt scheme. fourth, by the end of august, there was still no explanation for the hold despite ongoing efforts from numerous officials to persuade the president to release the money. and the leverage of the white house meeting had not succeeded in coursing ukraine to announce investigations, providing the president and his agents every reason to use the most aggressive lever of influence, hundreds of millions of dollars of military support, to compel ukraine to act. if they didn't feel pressure, they would have done it. they would have done it. but of course they did. imagine that this were dependent on a more powerful country for our defense. imagine we were at war. imagine we are waiting for weapons to defend ourselves. something our framers could've understood. imagine we found ourselves in those circumstances and much to our astonishment, we couldn't even get a meeting with our ally. much to our a

the subject line is ukraine. chris heinz certainly understood the sensitivity to our us foreign policy. and what does the secretary of state stepson say about hunter biden and devon archer? he says this. apparently devon and hunter joined the boardof burisma and a pressrelease went out today. i can't speak to why they decided , but there was no investment by our firm in the company . what is the most telling thing about this? it is cheered clear the chief of staff and secretary new who devon was because mister heinz did not include his lastname. it's just devon . they obviously knew who hunter was because again it hunter biden. this is chris pine saying i can't why they decided to join the board of burisma. he's their business partner. not that there are good corporate reasons and they're going therefore corporate governance. not that they are there to announce corporate transparency, not that they are there to further us policy, not that they are there to help fight corruption in ukraine. not that they are there

policy in ukraine. catherine croft with the state department special adviser for ukraine testifieadvisor forukrae announcement blew up the meeting. deputy assistant secretary of state george kent said it was great confusion among the rest of us because we didn't understand why that happened. he explained since there was unanimity about the security assistance to ukraine, it was in our national interest and surprise all of us. the consensus at this and later nsc meetings was clear, with the exception of omb, which was following the direction of the e president, everyone supported lifting the hold. all the way up to the number two officials that the agent, the political appointees of president trump. there was unanimous agreement that the hold was ill-advised and the aid should be released. tim morrison, security adviser to john alton, understood the most are appointed officials were all supportive of the continued disbursement of the aid. on august 15, at the president's golf club in new jersey, members

that there's this server somewhere in ukraine that shows that in fact it was ukraine that hacked the dnc. not the russians. that's a russian propaganda conspiracy theory and here it is being promulgated by the president of the united states. more than promulgated. he's pressuring an ally to further this russian propaganda. because he was referring to this discredited theorytemocratic nal committee servers in 2016 and that reference to crowd strike 's the theory, this kooky theory is that they moved it to ukraine to prevent u.s. law enforcement from getting them. if ukraine announced an investigation into this fabrication, president trump would remove what he perceived to be a crowd over his legitimacy over his last election. russia's assistance with his campaign and suggest it was the democratic party that was the real beneficiary of the help. on the call president trump told zelensky, whatever you do, it is very important you do it as soon as possible. president zelensky agreed that he would do the investigation saying, yes, it is very important for mentioned earlier. asking presi z

there is clear and undisputed bipartisan support for ukraine. ukraine is our ally. once what's more, they're at war with our adversary. so our goal should be helping president certificate eleven key's anti-corruption -- zelensky's anti-corruption reforms in any way that we can. president trump's own national defense strategy stated that the united states and its european allies, quote: will deter russian adventurism, end quote. a clear reference to russia's usurpation of ukrainian territory and southernty. consistent with -- sovereignty. consistent with that strategy, we have currently approximately 68,000 troops stationed in europe. roughly 10,000 of those u.s. troops are deployed on nato's eastern border with russia to countries like poland, hungary, lithuania and bulgaria. these american forces are literally holding the line against another land grabby vladimir putin -- grab by vladimir putin. the author of that strategy, former u.s. national security adviser lieutenant general h.r. mcmaster, issued this stark warning about russia's aggression: for too long some

you don't need to care about ukraine. who cares about ukraine? how many people can find ukraine on a map? why should we care about ukraine? well, we should care about ukraine. they're an ally of ours. if it matters to us, we should care about the fact that in 1994 when we asked them to give up their nuclear weapons they inherited from the soviet union and they didn't want to give them up and we were worried about proliferation, we said, hey, if you give them up which you don't want to do because you're worried the russians might invade, we'll help assure your territorial integrity. we made that commitment. i hope we care about that. i hope we care about that because they did give them up. you know what? just what they feared took place. the russians moved across their border and they remain occupying part of ukraine. that's the word of america we ga gave, and we're breaking that word why? for help with a political campaign? amend taylor was exactly right. that's crazy. it's worse than krasz si. it's repulsive. it's repugnant. it breaks our word.

security assistance to ukraine. what they did not tell you is miss cooper testified that she could not say for certain whether the emails were about the pause on security assistance. she could not say one way or the other. she also testified that she didn't want to speculate about the meaning of the words in the emails. the house managers also didn't tell you miss cooper testified that i reviewed my calendar on the only meeting where i can recall a ukrainian official raising the issue of security assistance with me is on september 5th at the ukrainian independence day celebration. the house managers didn't tell you that. the house managers also mentioned one of ambassador volker's advisers, katherine croft, claimed the ukrainian embassy officials learned about the pause earlier than the politico article. but when asked when she heard from the ukrainian officials, miss croft admitted she cannot remember those specifics and does not think she took notes. miss croft also did not remember when they became public. rememb