We did not want to work with mr. Giuliani so we followed the president s orders. We kept the leadership, the state department and the nsc informed of our activities. They knew what we were doing and why. Was there a quid pro quo . The answer is yes. Everyone was in the loop. So what now . Lets bring in cnn legal analyst mike zelden and steve paul. That moment obviously with ambassador sondland saying, yes, there was a quid pro quo grabbing headlines as quickly as those words were uttered. Republicans are stressing here, yes, he said there was a quid pro quo but then he went on to make very clear, he was not told directly by the president. Just lets take a step back and remind us for a minute. How does the messaging usually go . Does a president speak directly with an ambassador . Eric, in the first instance, ambassadors dont directly have a direct line to the president. Key surveillance targets. But ambassadors typically coordinate their work through the National Security council. They didnt go directly to the president. What we learned today is Gordon Sondland considers his work to be part of a regular channel because the leadership was involved. Rather than sitting down and having an inner agency channel, there was this informal process, ill call it irregular because it was so out of touch with reality or, excuse me, with actual policy goals, the president to Rudy Giuliani to volker, sondland, perry and potentially secretary of state pompeo. So what weve seen is a breakdown in the actual interagency policy. Erica, this was not about policy, this was about politics. If it was about policy it would have worked through the embassy process. When we talk about the policy, the president certainly as we know had the power to change, to set policy. Whats fascinating what sam just touched on here. We have ambassador sondland who had one policy. You hear from bill taylor, you hear from volker who saw something different, who saw perhaps a completely different channel. From a security perspective how concerning is that that there are multiple messages out here and its not clear which one is official . Yeah, erica. I mean, its very confusing not just for the americans involved who are trying to formulate the policy and sam just did a good job of describing how it normally happens, but its also going to be very confusing for the host country, in this case the ukrainians as well who are trying to figure out, okay, who am i supposed to listen to here . We just had a career ambassador who i served with in moscow, the consummate professional who understands everything thats going on and then you have somebody like sondland who is basically an amateur. Yes, the president , of course, does have the ability to name whoever he wants, but sometimes that not necessarily backfires but has ramifications. One of the ramifications here is that youve got shifting messages, youve got Rudy Giuliani wandering around, you know, putting across whatever his message is, perhaps directly from the president , perhaps not. I mean, its all very confusing, not just for the americans who are actually trying to be professionals and get a real policy across but its also really confusing for the ukrainians trying to figure out who am i supposed to listen to here. When i pick up the phone, who do i talk to . It can be very confusing especially for a new president like zelensky. When sondland said, everybody was in the loop. He was asked specifically if ukrainians knew as well and he said yes. He said they had a sense, according to sondland, what they did with that is entirely separate. When we talk about what the president can and cannot do, Michael Lora Cooper talked about congressly appointed funds and how they can and cannot be spent or not. Lets take a listen to that moment. Thats a legally specified process. Thats not the president in the oval office manifesting a general skepticism of foreign aid, right . It is a thats a process. It is a congressly mandated process, yes, sir. The point is that the president cant just decide, okay, were not going to do with this aid what congress has already mandated for us to do. Really what does that do . Well, thats right, unless he goes back to congress. And this law that was passed in the post nixon era was designed to ensure that congress, when it appropriates money, has the final say in how that money is distributed. And the defense department, the state department, whoever else are the distributors of that money know that process well. And in this case they cannot legally hold that money back just whimsically, and thats what appears to have been the sort of graveman of what she was saying. This hold back without any explanation, without use of the interagency process or congressional consideration was an illegal act. Thats why you saw the testimony the other week from the omb person saying, look, im not going to sign off on this because its not lawful as far as im concerned. So they brought on a political person to do the signing off on it. Whats fascinating, too, as we look at all of this is that from the beginning one of the reasons that we were given was the reason the aid was held up was because there were concerns about corruption. We keep going back to concerns about corruption. If the president wanted to withhold that aid for some time because he was concerned about corruption, that could have been a very simple public pronouncement that likely few people would have questioned were it done that way. Im not comfortable with what i see. Im going to hold off here and i want to let you all know thats the plan. That didnt happen. Erica, even if that had happened, it would not have been backed up by what he said in private. He did not raise corruption in his private engagements with the ukrainians in the first instance and, number two, erica, we have a process for assessing corruption in ukraine under the National Defense authorization act. We have certain benchmarks that ukrainians have to meet in order to get a large portion of their Security Sector assistance. People like laura cooper have an official regular process for assessing whether the Defense Sector in the ukraine meets those corruption benchmarks. It is not an arbitrary decision by the president of the United States. It relies on expert analysis in line with the law. The president cannot choose just to violate that law because he doesnt trust president zelensky or some other explanation. Again, this whole notion that they were trying and jim jordan, i believe, put this forward that they were trying to suss out how serious zelensky was about corruption. That could have been something President Trump raised on a phone call with president ze n zelensky or with the charge. When we look at what we are hearing from the president , so the president very clearly today wanted to remind everyone where hes at and where he was at back in september. I just i just want to play this moment and then well circle back. So heres my answer. I want nothing. I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo. Tell zelensky to do the right thing, then he says, this is the final word from the president of the you states, i want nothing. Okay. So we watched the president there. This was earlier today. You saw him looking down at his notes and we actually have a picture of these notes. You can see, its very clearly written out on his pad there what he wanted to say which is basically verbatim what we heard from sondland in his testimony when he was asked about this exchange with the president on september, i believe its september 9th, right . The same day the i. G. Told congress about the complaint that congress announced an investigation. Michael, when you see all of this, im just curious, what do you make of all of this . It seems pretty selfserving. It seems to me that when ambassador sondland says to the president of the United States what do you want from the ukrainians, his answer should have been i want to make sure that they are fulfilling their anticorruption promises. I am concerned about whether or not were going to give money to them and its going to be wasted. So he had an opportunity to speak to the Corruption Initiative that all of his defenders say was at the bottom of what he was doing here. Instead he says, no quid pro quo, i want nothing. That seems too convenient, especially in the aftermath of the whistleblower complaint being made known and the quid pro quo becoming part of our daily vernacular. I dont buy it. Youre not buying it. Theres been so much attention on what weve heard from sondland today, and with good reason, but part of what we learned from laura cooper today should also be grabbing headlines because what she testified to is that ukrainians were emailing about the assistance, they had questions about the aid on the day of the call, on july 25th. Heres what she laid out today. On july 25th a member of my staff got a question from a Ukraine Embassy contact asking what was going on with ukraines security assistance. And she was asked in further testimony, steve, about this about this reaction and she made clear, ukrainians when it was her experience when they reached out they had specific questions. And the fact that this happened hours after the call based on the time stamp of the email, steve, what does that tell you about what they likely knew and who may have known it . You know, here in the United States, erica, we might be a bit confused about who fwhu when and whether or not guys like sondland, you know, had direct contact with the president , but ill tell you one thing, and i visited ukraine a number of times, ive met with some of their Senior Intelligence folks as well as senior leadership, there is no doubt, there is absolutely no doubt that the ukrainians understood a quid pro quo. There is no doubt. Why . The ukrainians have lived all these years, since soviet times, right under the shadow of the russian bear. They know that if they dont want to get completely absorbed back into russia, like crimea did, that theres really only one country thats going to stop them from doing that, and thats the United States of america. So the president can go on all day long and all night if he wants to about how there was no quid pro quo, i asked for nothing in return, and thats garbage. The ukrainians know better. Is everything snok have we screwed something up . Because they know if they dont get the assistance, specifically if they dont get the military assistance, its critically important to them given the fact that theyre at war with russia, the ukrainians knew that they had to do what it was, whatever it was, really, that the United States wanted them to do in order to survive as a country. Its an existential threat. So the idea that there was no quid pro quo because those fancy lattin words were not said is senseless. Steve erica go ahead. May i just add one thing to carry on steves point which is that the july 25th transcript is exhibit a of the fact that the president of the United States wanted a favor from ukraine in exchange for continued cooperation with them. So in the transcript itself, before you even get to the quid pro quo, there is the favor being asked which is essentially an offer that they cant refuse. All right. Dont go far. We have much to discuss in our next hour including the threat from russia. When we look at ambassador sondlands testimony, i widid i harm the democrats . Ill ask the ambassador next. With sofi, get your credit cards right by consolidating your Credit Card Debt into one monthly payment. And get your Interest Rate right so you can save big. Get a nofee personal loan up to 100k. You have fastacting power over pain, so the whole world looks different. The unbeatable strength and speed of advil liquigels. What pain . Im a verizon engineer, and im part of the Team Building the most powerful 5g experience for america. Its 5g ultra wideband for massive capacity and ultrafast speeds. Almost 2 gigs here in minneapolis. Thats 25 times faster than todays network in new york city. So people from midtown manhattan to downtown denver can experience what our 5g can deliver. woman and if verizon 5g can deliver performance like this in these places. Its pretty crazy. Just imagine what it can do for you. They can save you these. In fact, if you had a dollar for every time they said it, youd have a lot of dollars. Which makes it hard to believe, especially coming from a talking lizard. Pip, pip, cheerio look, all i, dennis quaid, know is that esurance is built to save you dollars without skimping on service. And when they save, you save. The only way to know how much is to get a quote. Chances are youll save time, paperwork, and yes, dollars. When insurance is affordable, its surprisingly painless. The fourth day of public impeachment testimony bringing new focus on the people surrounding the president swept up in the inquiry. Do the democrats though believe they gained any ground . Lets bring in one of the democrats asking questions in the probe. Washington state congressman denney beck. Congressman, certainly an important moment today for democrats when we heard ambassador sondland say, yes, there was a quid pro quo. However, when he was pressed he also made clear, and i want to play a moment here, that it was not from the president who told him directly about that. Lets listen to this. President trump never told me directly that the aid was conditioned on the meetings. The only thing we got directly from giuliani was that the barism a and 2016 elections was conditioned on the white house meeting. The aid was my own personal, you know, guess, based again on your analogy, two plus two equals four. It was his guess. He never heard it directly from the president. Is that going to be a problem for you moving forward . The aid was withheld, erica, and it was withheld over the objection of every Single Agency that was involved in it, the National Security council, the department of defense and the state department all wanted him to go ahead and directly instructed that it was being withheld under orders of Mick Mulvaney from the president for reasons that were never revealed. Two plus two equals four, erica. He did it. He withheld the aid in an attempt to shake down the ukrainian president to undertake this politically motivated investigation. As you pointed out, thats what was coming from Mick Mulvaney. As we heard from ambassador sondland, this is what he was hearing from Rudy Giuliani. Does it matter . It seems that it should that it was not coming directly from the president who was saying, this is what i want. Erica, it came directly from the president. Please do read the transcript. He shook down i can promise you i have. Like you, several times. Im sure you have, in no uncertain terms. That was a confession that was signed by Mick Mulvaney in a later press conference and is surrounded by all the facts, all the players around. He told them talk to rudy. Rudy told them he wanted the shakedown while the aid is being withheld. If that isnt enough to suggest consciousness. They moved that into the code word server to hide it. Remember they refused to allow us to talk to any of the primary actors, Mick Mulvaney, secretary of state mike pompeo, or mr. Vote or mr. Mcduffy over at the office of management nor will they produce any of the documents that have been duly subpoenaed of them. If that doesnt indicate a consciousness of guilt, i dont know what does when combined with the president s words in that very transcript. Let me talk to you about those people, a number of whom you just mentioned. Central figures here who you have not heard from. You brought that up earlier today as well asking why they havent been heard from. I want to play that moment as well. Why then, sir, with your courage to come before us does that same standard not apply to mr. Mulvaney, mr. Did you hauff bolton, mr. Volk, mr. Giuliani . Why shouldnt that beat within their hearts and do what you have done, sir . Indeed, why doesnt that same standard apply to the president of the United States . I wish i could answer. I suspect you cant because there is no good answer. As you said, you want to hear from them. You want to see these documents. If you dont, however, if you dont hear from some of these officials, do you believe democrats can convincingly make their case against the president . He did it, erica. The case has already been made. Look you dont need to see anything else . Well, what i am seeing is an overwhelming indeed, a mountain of evidence to suggest that he did it. We seem to be constructing kind of a new Legal Standard here. If this were a crime what you would be suggesting is unless you have a signed confession, videotape and three eye witnesses you cant convict anybody and we all know thats not what happens in the criminal court of law. The evidence is overwhelming. He did it. The only question for congress and the American Public is he did it. Whats the appropriate remedy. How should he be held accountable . Is this behavior thats acceptable . That betrays his oath of office and compromises our National Security. As we talked about in the beginning you had ambassador sondland saying, yes, there was a quid pro quo. We know from what we heard in the questioning and even hearing from lawmakers afterwards, it doesnt seem that that was enough to move the needle for republicans. Do you believe at this point there is even one republican who was coming over to the side of the democrats at this point and in agreement with you and seeing what you see . Not yet but then again were not taking the vote today or tomorrow. Indeed, we have yet another hearing to go, erica. In fact, from two spectacular witnesses. Dr. Fiona hill and david holmes. He overheard the conversation in can kiev and today is a great example. We learned something new today that we didnt know before. We may learn something new tomorrow. We just dont know. If you think about the American Public, its as though there are three pots. There are those who havent paid