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Publicly testifying there was a quid pro quo, a pressure campaign on ukraine to extract politically-loaded investigations directed, he says, but president trump himself with rudy giuliani as pointman and sondland saying it wasnt a case of rogue diplomacy. rather, he said, everyone was in the loop it was no secret peter alexander has details. >> reporter: tonight bombshell testimony from gordon sondland, the trump donor turned diplomat turning against the presidents key line of defense in the imp...

The 2016 election dnc server, and burisma. mr. giuliani was expressing the desires of the president of the united states. >> reporter: sondland revealing new emails he says prove his case and implicate some of the top officials in the trump administration including this august message to secretary of state mike pompeo, updating him on efforts to nail down ukraines public statement. >> mike, referring to mike pompeo, kurt and i negotiated a statement from zelensky to be delivered for our review i...

Done at the direction of the president. sondland insisted everyone was in the loop, including the vice president and the secretary of state, and he dramatically shifted the timeline, saying the attempts to push ukraine to investigate joe biden and his son began as early as last may. we have a team of correspondents covering todays dramatic developments, and were going to begin tonight with nancy cordes at the capitol. and nancy, sondlands testimony went further than many expected, right? >> repo...

>> no, answer the question. no one on this planet told you that president trump was tying aid to investigations, yes or no? >> yes. >> so, you really have no testimony today that ties president trump to a scheme to withhold aid from ukraine in exchange for these investigations? >> other than my own presumptions. >> which is nothing. >> reporter: chairman schiff pushing back. >> my colleagues seem to think unless the president says the magic words that, i hereby bribe the ukrainians, that theres ...

>> reporter: but that september phone call between president trump and sondland came after the white house learned about the whistle-blower complaint. >> the timing is really interesting here. lets get to our chief white house correspondent jonathan karl, live at the white house, as this was all playing out today. jon, republicans also seizing on that call, the president telling sondland, "i want no quid pro quo," but as you just reported there, that call with sondland came just as the white hou...

Interests, his own partisan interests, his own political interests in front of our countrys interests. >> we have to establish the principle no one is above the law. we have a constitutional responsibility and weapon need to meet it. how did ambassador sondland get there? this is not a man who had any qualifications except one, he wrote a check for a million dollars. and that tells us about whats happening in washington. >> we have a criminal living in the white house. ambassador sondland by his...

House. and there is no question that in 2020 the biggest issue before us until we get to that tender moment is justice is on the ballot. and what we saw today is ambassador sondland by his own words told us that everyone was in the loop. that means it is a criminal enterprise engaged in by the president from what we heard today, the vice president, the secretary of state and the chief of staff. and so this not only points to the corrupt nature of this administration and the need for these impeac...

>> and vice president pence just nodded his head? >> again, i dont recall any exchange or where he asked me any questions. i think it was sort of a duly noted -- >> well, he didnt say, gordon, what are you talking about? >> no, he did not. >> he didnt say, what investigations? >> he did not. we made every effort to ensure that the relevant decisionmakers at the national security council and the state department knew the important details of our efforts. the suggestion that we were engaged in som...

We have stopped our operations with south korea. for a year and a half now, we have not engaged in those operations, which are critical. >> right, the exercises. >> its critical for our national security. >> this primary fight. today ambassador sondland, who was basically the ringleader for the president with the three amigos and giuliani and all, he basically lined up in a litany all the top government officials who are working with him on this deal. this wasnt some rogue operation the way trum...

Sondland, today, it involved, as he said, quote, everyone was in the loop. which is, by infer rens and also explicitly, what he said, the president, the vice president, the secretary of state and chief of staff. >> so, you think this guy should be removed from office? >> which guy? >> donald trump? >> i think that the process of impeachment is a robust and important process and it should proceed and well see where it goes. i think its going to end up in impeachment. >> you have your vote figured...