get our first look at the opening statement of ambassador bill taylor. he is the key diplomat testifying in the impeachment investigation today. taylor the top american diplomat in ukraine raised concerns in text messages about whether or not the trump administration was forcing a quid pro quo. demanding one. go to cnn s manu raju live on capitol hill. manu, you re reading an opening statement. what does. say? reporter: yes. just obtained 15-page very detailed opening statement that raises serious questions about the president s actions and the reason why military aid was delayed to ukraine. military aid approved by congress. read you a little of this 15-page testimony that was delivered this morning. he is referring to, text message that bill taylor, top diplomat in ukraine had sent to the ambassador to the european union, gordon sondland. in this text message we ve already seen publicly says we re now saying that security
announcer: this is cnn breaking news. and welcome to the lead. i m pamela brown in for jake tapper and we start with breaking news in our politics lead. new cnn reporting right now that house democrats are preparing a flurry of new subpoenas as the trump administration declares war on the impeachment inquiry. sources telling cnn democrats are now threatening subpoenas for associates for president trump s personal lawyer rudy giuliani and debating subpoenas for current state department officials. plus new reporting on a growing fracture in the democratic party of whether they should hold a formal vote on the impeachment inquiry. i ll go straight to correspondent manu raju live on capitol hill. and manu, let s start with the new impeachment push. reporter: expect three rudy giuliani associates to be hit with subpoenas very soon after they defied requests for information from these committees that are pushing forward on the impeachment
or is this a legal argument to try to get access to documents? reporter: well, this court case started before this current impeachment inquiry, looking into the ukraine matter. what the democrats are arguing in court is to get the underlying evidence to the mueller probe, but the general counsel did say that he said, quote, i can t emphasize enough, it s not just ukraine, that this impeachment could be much broader than ukraine and saying unequivocally he was asked whether or not the president could be impeached for lying, and he responded to the judge, i believe so, yes. he doesn t have to just commit a crime, according to the house general counsel, but it appears that the justice department will turn over some redacted memos to capitol hill. the judge was not happy about that, so perhaps we ll get more information in court, but that fight is still ongoing in court, john. a lot of different pieces of this to keep track of. manu raju on capitol hill it, kaitlan collins. lopez
ambassador and the state department is withholding those messages as well. those messages are also deeply relevant to this investigation and the impeachment inquiry. in a statement, sondland s attorney says the ambassador is, quote, profoundly disappointed but that he had no choice. sondland believes strongly that he acted as in the best interests of the united states and he stands ready to answer the committee s questions fully and truthfully whenever he is permitted to appear. the president adding on twitter, he would love to have sondland testify, but, unfortunately, he would be testifying before a kangaroo court. the president adding that some of sondland s text messages only prove he did nothing wrong. manu raju live on capitol hill, kaitlan collins at the white house. what happened behind the scenes at the white house to get them to decide no testimony from the
answers. cnn s manu raju live on capitol hill. how deep is chairman burr ready to go? reporter: he s trying to have a bipartisan investigation, the same thing mark warner, vice president of the committee, is trying to conduct, same way they conducted the russia investigation. the question ultimately is what do they ultimately find, how quick do they come up with answers? after all the russia investigation is still ongoing in their committee. they have yet to issue a report on how they determine the issue of collusion, for instance, which was one of the central areas of their more than two-year investigation. they re planning to do all of this mostly behind closed doors. they already tried to get an interview with the whistleblower. it s the same thing happening with the house intelligence committee. but john, the house intelligence committee is moving at a much different pace. i just talked to adam schiff,