Transcripts For KNTV Today In The Bay 20240713 : vimarsana.c

KNTV Today In The Bay July 13, 2024

Hearing of tchment inquiry. Wednesday. This mornings witness former u. S. Ambassador to ukraine marie yovanovitch. She has already arrived at the hill this morning. More than 30 years she spent a veteran of the u. S. Foreign Service Serving under both republican and democratic president s. She became a target of President Trumps personal lawyer Rudy Guiliani and was ousted by the president earlier this year. Helping us follow it all this morning we have chuck todd our meet the press moderator in washington. Andrea mitchell is here. Richard engel and former Justice Department prosecutor Andrew Weisman now an nbc news legal analyst. Lets start on the hill. Nbcs jeff bennett at his post with what to expect this morning. Good morning. Reporter good morning to you. Marie yovanovitch has been a Foreign Service officer for some 33 years serving in six president ial administrations, three times as an ambassador in hot spots all around the world, two times appointed by a republican president including President Trump, himself. House democrats say her testimony is key because she really, they say, put a personal face, a human face on the entire ukraine controversy since her testimony is that she was steam rolled, smeared, and ultimately sidelined once President Trumps allies realized she would be an obstacle to his desired pressure campaign, yovanovitch saying she feared for her safety as a result. Thank you very much. Now to our nbc legal analyst and former doj prosecutor. Help us understand where she fits. We saw the narrative laid out wednesday fairly clearly of what democrats claim the president did. How does she fit . Why is her testimony important at this stage of the game . For any trial you cant tell the story all at once. You have to have Building Blocks. She is an important Building Block and the issue i think for her is not that she was fired. Its why she was fired. Youre going to hear i think today over and over again the concern from the republicans that there is nothing wrong legally with the president firing an ambassador. It can happen all of the time but i think what she is going to lay out is the why. Why was it that she was being railroaded at this time . I also think shell be important in setting up just how easy a mark the ukraine was for the president and his friends. In other words, they were particularly vulnerable. I think thats going to be the import of her testimony. Do we think that republicans will have an easier time taking aim at her than they did in the previous testimony . Well, you know, with any witness we havent seen them live to see their credibility, you know, the house has because theyve seen her at the deposition. But i think by all accounts she, i assume, is going to be a very strong, credible witness. I mean, she is somebody who served in the department for years, the department of state for years. She is not aligned with any one particular party. So i suspect that she is going to be quite a credible witness like the two witnesses that we saw the other day. Let me turn to chuck todd who is in washington because for the first time, chuck, we heard yesterday House Speaker nancy pelosi really put this in stark terms. She used the term bribery and it was a signal of what an impeachment charge, if it comes, might be. How significant do you think that was . Well, i think thats a i think they believe theyre trying to change the language a little bit, trying to penetrate what they think is a little bit of a filter in the American Public that isnt necessarily consuming all of this right now. But i expect to see, to hear some of that same language echoed today particularly by the democrats. Expect to hear a lot about Rudy Guiliani today. A lot of questions about Rudy Guiliani. About what he was up to. I think youre going to hear some surprising, odd things that happened on the side channel, Rudy Guiliani. There may even be some fox news personalities whose names get dropped during this deposition. The entire run up to the president ial election in ukraine before zelensky won, i think, is what youre going to hear a lot about today and obviously thats what she can testify to because she was there for that. Ill be curious to see what the republicans do with her. Do they try to go after her credibility or do they basically back off and say you know what . She wasnt there for the call. Never mind. Because i think they run the risk if they go after her hard they run the risk of making her seem more sympathetic. They may end up just deciding, you know what . She is not relevant to what we think should be the focus of this hearing and they may back off on their questioning. Ill be very curious to see how they handle her. President trump notably said he didnt watch wednesdays hearing but it sounds like he may be trying to Counter Program this one. Lets go to the white house. Reporter he sure is, lester. Not only with an event later today focused on health care but also with this just hitting our inboxes here at the white house about two mints ago right at the stroke of 9 00 a. M. As i see the witnesses coming in it is the first transcript, the first call rather, the summary of that first discussion between President Trump and the ukrainian president zelensky back in april. This is a congratulatory call, the president on my First Reading does not bring up the bidens but does say we have more to talk about down the road after congratulating zelensky on his victory. Again, this is not the call in question. The whistleblower complaint centered around the july call not this initial one right when zelensky was first elected. The president has been promising to release it. Very interesting timing that he chooses to do so and the white house is doing so as this public hearing is beginning. Thanks very much as we look at ambassador yovanovitch taking her place, waiting for this hearing to start. To andrea, youve also covered Foreign Policy for many years. There is a republican defense here that says that military aid while it was withheld for a time ultimately was released and so there was no damage done. How can democrats battle that particular argument . Reporter they are arguing and most Foreign Policy experts are arguing that it was really damaging to zelensky, to his standing as a new, young leader that it fatally damaged his ongoing negotiations with Vladimir Putin because by then putin knew President Trump was in his corner not zelenskys corner and the aid was conditioned. The committee will be holding this as part of the impeachment inquiry. Without objection the chair has authorized the recess of the committee at any time. There is a quorum present. We will proceed today in the same fashion as our first hearing. I will make an Opening Statement and then Ranking Member nunes will have the opportunity to make a statement. We will turn to our witness for an Opening Statement and then to questions. For audience members we welcome you and respect your interest in being here. In turn, we ask for your respect as we proceed with todays hearing. It is the intention of the committee to proceed without disruptions. As chairman i will take all necessary and appropriate steps. To maintain order and ensure the committee is run in accordance with house rules and House Resolution 660. With that i now recognize myself to give an Opening Statement in the impeachment inquiry of donald j. Trump the 45th president of the United States. In april, 2019, the United States ambassador to ukraine, marie yovanovitch, was in kiev when she was called by a Senior State Department official and told to get on the next plane back to washington. Upon her return to d. C. , she was informed by her superiors that although she had done nothing wrong, she could no longer serve as ambassador to ukraine because she did not have the confidence of the president. It was a stunning turn of events for this highly regarded career diplomat who had done such a remarkable job fighting corruption in ukraine that a short time earlier she had been asked by the state department to extend her tour. Ambassador yovanovitch has been in the Foreign Service for 33 years and served much of that time in the former soviet union. Her parents have fled stalin and later hitler before settling in the United States. She is an exemplary officer who is widely praised and respected by her colleagues. She is known as an anticorruption champion whose tour in kiev was viewed as very successful. Ambassador Michael Mckinley who had served with her in the Foreign Service for several decades stated that from the earliest days of her career in the Foreign Service she was excellent, serious, committed. I certainly remember her being one of those people who seechme to be destined for greater things. Her successor is acting chief of mission in Ukraine Ambassador bill taylor, described her as very frank. She was very direct. She made points very clearly. And she was indeed tough on corruption. And she named names. And that sometimes is controversial out there, but shes a strong person and made those charges. In her time in kiev, ambassador yovanovitch was tough on corruption. Too tough on corruption for some. And her principled stance made her enemies. As george kent told this Committee Wednesday you cant commit to anticorruption principled action without pissing off corrupt people. Ambassador yovanovitch didnt just piss off corrupt ukrainians like the former general lutsenko but also certain americans like Rudy Guiliani, Donald Trumps personal attorney, and two individuals now indicted who worked with him, igor fruman and levparnas. They and others who would come to include the president s own son don jr. Promoted a Smear Campaign against her based on false allegations. At the state department there was an effort to push back to obtain a statement of support from secretary pompeo but those efforts failed when it became clear that President Trump wanted her gone. Some have argued the president has the ability to remove any ambassador that he wants. That they serve at the pleasure of the president , and that is true. The question before us is not whether donald trump could recall an American Ambassador with a stellar reputation for fighting corruption in ukraine but why would he want to . Why did Rudy Guiliani want her gone and why did donald trump . Why would donald trump instruct the new team he put in place the three amigos, rick perry and kurt volker to work with the same man Rudy Guiliani who played such a central role in the Smear Campaign against her . Rudy guiliani has made no secret of his desire to get ukraine to open investigations nah the bidens. As well as the Conspiracy Theory of ukrainian interference in the 2016 election. As he said in one interview in may, 2019, were not meddling in an election. Were meddling in an investigation. Which we have a right to do. More recently, he told krns chris cuomo, of course he did when asked if he had pressed ukraine to investigate joe biden. And he has never been shy about who he is doing this work for. His client, the president. One powerful ally guiliani had in ukraine to promote these investigations was lutsenko, the corrupt former prosecutor general. And one powerful adversary lutsenko had was a certain United States ambassador named marie yovanovitch. It is no coincidence that in the now infamous july 25th call with zelensky donald trump brings up a corrupt ukrainian prosecutor and praises him against all evidence trump claims this former prosecutor general was very good and he was shut down and thats really unfair. But the woman known for fighting corruption his own former ambassador, the woman ruthlessly smeared and driven from her post, the president does nothing but disparage. Or, worse, threaten. Well, she is going to go through some things, the president declares. That tells you a lot about the president s priorities and intentions. Getting rid of ambassador yovanovitch helped set the stage for an irregular channel that could pursue the two investigations that mattered so much to the president. The 2016 Conspiracy Theory and, most important, an investigation into the 2020 political opponent he apparently feared most, joe biden. And the president s scheme might have worked but for the fact that the man who would succeed ambassador yovanovitch whom we heard from on wednesday acting ambassador taylor, would eventually discover the effort to press ukraine into conducting these investigations and would push back. But for the fact, also, that someone blew the whistle. Ambassador yovanovitch was serving our nations interests and fighting corruption in ukraine. But she was considered an obstacle to the furtherance of the president s personal and political agenda. For that, she was smeared and cast aside. The powers of the presidency are immense. But they are not absolute and they cannot be used for corrupt purpose. The American People expect their president to use the authority they grant him in the service of the nation, not to destroy others to advance his personal or political interests. I now recognize Ranking Member nunes for his remarks. I thank the gentleman. It is unfortunate that today and for most of next week we will continue engaging in the democrats day long tv spectacles instead of solving the problems we were all sent to washington to address. We now have a major trade agreement with canada and mexico ready for approval, a deal that would create jobs and boost our economy. Mean while we have not yet approved funding for the government, which expires next week. Along with funding for our men and women in uniform. Instead, the democrats have convened us once again to advance their operation to topple a duly elected president. Ill note that five five democrats on this committee had already voted to impeach this president before the trumpzelensky phone call occurred. In fact, democrats have been vowing to oust President Trump since the day he was elected. So americans can rightly suspect that his phone call with president zelensky was used as an excuse for the democrats to fulfill their watergate fantasies. But im glad that on wednesday, after the democrats staged six the basement of the capitol like some kind of strange cult, the American People finally got to see this farce for themselves. They saw us sit through hours of hearsay testimony about conversations that two diplomats who had never spoken to the president heard second hand, third hand, and fourth hand from other people. In other words, rumors. The problem of trying to overthrow a president based on this type of evidence is obvious. But thats what their whole case relies on beginning with secondhand and thirdhand information cited by the whistleblower. Thats why on wednesday the democrats were forced to make the absurd argument that hearsay can be much better evidence than direct evidence. And just when you thought the spectacle couldnt get more bizarre, the Committee Republicans received a memo from the democrats threatening ethics referrals if we out the whistleblower. As the democrats are well aware, no republicans here know the whistleblowers identity because the whistleblower only met with democrats. Not with republicans. Chairman schiff claimed not to know who it is. Yet he also vowed to block us from asking questions that could reveal his or her identity. Republicans on this committee are left wondering how its even possible for the chairman to block questions about a person whose identity he claims not to know. The American People may be seeing these absurdities for the first time but republicans on this dais are used to them. Until they secretly met with the whistleblower democrats showed little interest for the last three years in any topic aside from the ridiculous conspiracy theories that President Trump is a russian agent. When you find yourself on the phone like the democrats did with the russian pranksters offering you nude pictures of trump and afterward you order your staff to follow up and get the photos, as the democrats also did, then it might be time to ask yourself if youve gone out too far on a limb. Even as they were accusing republicans of colluding with the russians the democrats themselves were colluding with the russians by funding the dossier. Mean while they turned a blind eye to ukrainians meddling in our elections because the democrats were cooperating with that operation. This was the subject of a july 20th, 2017 letter sent by senator grassley to then Deputy Attorney general rod rosenstein. The letter raised concerns about the activities Alexander Chalupa a contractor for the De

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