After all what colonel vindman said is what you said. He was in the july 10th meeting, heard the same quid pro quo, the same comments by sondland, if you want this meeting, ukrainians, and we have an agreement about this, you got to announce youre going to do the ivestigations. Heard the same quid pro quo that you did. Why are they smeerg him . Mr. Holmes, you testified just as colonel vindman said that he warned zelensky about getting involved in u. S. Politics. Didnt question that, didnt take issue with that. Why smear this purple heart recipient just like the smear of ambassador yovanovitch, its just gratuitous. They dont question the facts, just gratuitous. The attack on you, mr. Holmes, you were indiscreet, in mentioning this conversation to others. The indiscretion is when an ambassador calls the president on an insecure line in a country known for Russian Telecommunications and eavesdropping, thats more than indiscretion, thats a security risk. But why attack you, mr. Holmes . They didnt question anything you said. They didnt question what conversation you overheard ambassador sondland didnt question what you said. He acknowledged that the one thing the president wanted to know the day after that conversation with zelensky was is he going to do the investigations. And sondland said, yes, hell do anything you ask. They dont question that. So why attack you . They didnt question your testimony when you said and i think you asked mr. Sondland, does donald trump give a blank and i would like to use the word here, about ukraine . And he said he doesnt give a blank about ukraine. He only cares about the big stuff and you said, well, there is some big stuff here. Ukraine is at war with russia, thats kind of big stuff. And his answer was no, no, no. He cares about the big stuff that matters to him, his personal interests, like the biden investigation that giuliani wants. One question posed by your testimony, mr. Holmes, what do we care about . Do we care about the big stuff like the constitution, like an oath of office, or do we only care now about party . What do we care about . Lets go beyond your testimony today. Lets look at the bigger picture. What do we know now after these depositions, these secret depositions. People watching at home might not know that in the secret depositio depositions, which apparently no one else is allowed to hear, no members are allowed to participate, secret, apparently just me and the witness, only over 100 members of congress are able to participate in those secret depositions. And the minority was just so unable to participate, they got the same time they got in these open hearings, it was the same format. That was the secret star chamber youve been hearing so much about. So what have we learned through these depositions and through the testimony . Because so much of this is really undisputed. We learned that a dedicated public sevenarvant named Marie Yovanovitch known for fighting corruption, widely respected throughout the diplomatic corps was ruthlessly smeared by Rudy Giuliani, by the president s own son, by their friends on fox primetime and a whole host of other characters, her reputation was sullied so they could get her out of the way, which they did. And youre right, it was gratuitous. The president could have gotten rid of her anytime he wanted. But thats not enough for this president. No, he has to smear and destroy those that get in his way. And someone fighting corruption in ukraine was getting in his way. So shes gone. Shes gone. And this makes way almost immediately there after, she leaves, the three amigos come in. The three amigos. Two of whom never made the connection that burisma means biden. It took tim morrison 30 seconds on google to figure that out. But were to believe, guess, that in all the companies and all the world that Rudy Giuliani just happens to be interested in this one . Thats absurd. The interest, of course, was in an investigation of Donald Trumps rival, the one that he apparently feared the most. And they were willing to do whatever was necessary to get ukraine to do that dirty work, to do that political investigation. And so it began, were not going to set up a phone call until you make certain commitments. That was ambassador sondlands testimony, first quid pro quo was just getting on the phone with President Trump. And then there was the quid pro quo involving the white house meeting. And witness after witness and none of my colleagues contested this, talked about just how important that meeting was to the president of ukraine and why theyre at war with russia and their most important ally is the United States and the most important person in the United States of that relationship is the president of the United States. And if president zelensky can show that he has a Good Relationship with the president of the United States, it means to his people, that this new president has the support of their most important patron and it means to the russians that we have their back. This president , this new president who is negotiating with the far superior power that has invaded his country is going into negotiation with putin over how to resolve this conflict, whether he has good leverage or lousy leverage depends on whether the russians think he has a relationship with the president. And the president wouldnt give him that, not without getting something in return. Wouldnt give him that official act, that white house meeting without giving something in return and that return was investigations of his rival that would help his reelection. An official act for something of clear value and something very important, the big stuff as sondland explained to you, mr. Holmes, to help his campaign. Now, we also heard abundant testimony about the other quid pro quo, the withholding of Security Assistance which no one can explain. There is no debate among my colleagues. Everyone in the nsc and the state department, the defense department, everyones support, everyone, all the reviews that needed to be done to make sure ukraine was meeting its anticorruption standards have been done. And they had found to meet the criteria, the aid should have been released but was withheld and no one could understand or get a clear explanation for why until it became clear to everyone, it is all about the investigations, it is all about the leverage and if there was any doubt about it, the man closest to the president , who meets with him every day, Mick Mulvaney erased all doubt. Youre darn right. Yes, we talked about the 2016 election investigation. And, yes, this was in the context of holding up the military aid and, you know, just get used to it. Just get over it or whatever it was he said. Because thats how we roll. Those are my words, not his. But thats the import. Yeah, there is going to be politics and just get over it. Well, if we care about the big stuff, we cant just get over it. Now, my colleagues have had a lot of defenses to all of this evidence, which is piled up day after day after day and it is amazing they hear you testimony, mr. Holmes, and it was clear the Security Assistance was being withheld, clear to all of the americans, it was clear to the ukrainians. You testified that ukrainians felt pressure, they still feel pressure to this day. My colleagues saying, the same hearing, i guess theyre not listening. Ukrainians felt no pressure . There is no evidence they felt pressure. Which gets into their next defense, which is it is all hearsay. It is all hearsay. Now, most of my colleagues, i guess, are not lawyers, lawyers out there understand just how wrong they are about what hearsay is, but lets just discuss this in terms that all people can understand, the impression they would have you take from it is all hearsay is because we in this committee were not in that war room with you, dr. Hill, not in that meeting earlier with dr. Bolton, that because were not in the room, it is all hearsay. After all, youre relating what you heard and youre saying it, so it must be hearsay and so therefore we dont have to think about it, do we . We dont have to consider you have direct evidence that this meeting in the white house was being withheld because the president wanted these meetings, these investigations, we cant accept that. Well, if that were true, you could never present any evidence in court unless the jury was also in the war room. Thats absurd. They dont accept the documentary evidence, all the Text Messages about quid pro quos, are we really saying and thats crazy, and if my Worst Nightmare is the russians will get it, ill quit. They dont accept the documents, the few documents that we have from the state department that werent produced by the way by the state department where sondland communicates directly with the secretary of state about this investigative interest of the president , and they dont accept the documents either, i guess the documents are also hearsay. Now, might be a little more convincing if they were joining us in demanding that the documents be produced, but, of course, theyre not. And we know why not. Because the documents are like that one we saw on the screen, they implicate others including secretary pompeo. So, of course, donald trump and secretary pompeo dont want us to see those documents. But apparently thats all hearsay. Even when you hear the president , mr. Holmes, thats hearsay. We cant rely on people saying what the president said, apparently we can only rely on what the president says and there we shouldnt even rely on that either. We shouldnt really rely on what the president said on the call report, we should imagine he said something else. We should imagine, he said, something about actually fighting corruption. Instead of what he actually said, which was, i want you to do us a favor, though. I want you to look into this 2016 crowd strike Conspiracy Theory and i want you to look into the bidens. I guess were not even supposed to rely on that, because thats hearsay. Well, thats absurd. That would be like saying you cant rely on the testimony of the burglars during watergate because it is only hearsay or you cant consider the fact that they tried to break in because they got caught. They actually didnt get what they came for, so, you know, i dont know, no harm, no foul. Thats absurd. Thats absurd. But the other the other defense, besides it failed the scheme failed, they got caught. Other defense is the president denies it. Well, i guess thats case closed, right . The president says really quite spontaneous spontaneously, not as if he was asked in this way, no quid pro quo. What do you want from ukraine, no quid pro quo. This is the im not a crook defense. You say it, and i guess thats the end of it. Well, the only thing we can say is that its not so much that the situation is different in terms of nixons conduct and trumps conduct, what we have seen here is far more serious than a third rate burglary of the democratic headquarters. What were talking about here is the withholding of recognition in that white house meeting, the withholding of military aid to an ally at war. That is beyond anything nixon did. The difference between then and now is not the difference between nixon and trump, it is the difference between that congress and this one. And so we are asking, where is howard baker . Where is howard baker . Where are the people who are willing to go beyond their party to look to their duty . I was struck by colonel vindmans testimony because he said that he acted out of duty. What is our duty here . Thats what we need to be asking. Not using metaphors about balls and strikes or our team and your team, i heard my colleagues use those metaphors, this should be about duty wh, what is our duty . We are, this gets to mr. Hecks point, we are the indispensable nation. We still are. People look to us from all over the world, journalists from their jail cells, in turkey, victims of mass extradition killings in the philippines, people who gathered in Tahrir Square wanting representative government, people in china who are uighurs. People in ukraine who want a better future, they look to us. Theyre not going to look to the russians. Theyre not going to look to the chinese. They cant look to europe with all its problems. They still look to us and increasingly they dont recognize what they see. Because what they see is americans saying dont engage in political prosecutions. And what they say back is, oh, you mean like the bidens and the clintons that you want us to investigate . What they see, they dont recognize. And that is a terrible tragedy for us, but it is a greater tragedy for the rest of the world. Now, i happen to think that when the founders provided a mechanism in the constitution for impeachment, they were worried about what might happen if someone unethical took the highest office in the land and used it for their personal gain and not because of deep care about the big things that should matter, like our National Security and our defense and our allies and what the country stands for. Happened to think thats why they put that remedy in the constitution. And i think we need to consult our conscience and our constituents and decide whether that remedy is appropriate here, whether that remedy is necessary here, and as you know, not withstanding what my colleague said, i resisted going down this path for a long time. I will tell you why i could resist no more. And it came down to this, it came down to actually it came down to timing. It came down to the fact that the day after bob mueller testified, the day after bob mueller testified that donald trump invited russian interference, russia, if youre listening, come get hillarys emails and later that day they tried to hack her server. The day after he testified that not only did trump invite that interference, but that he welcomed the help and the campaign, they made full use of it, they lied about it, they obstructed the investigation into it, and all this is in his testimony and in his report, the day after that, donald trump is back on the phone asking another nation to involve itself in another u. S. Election. That says to me, this president believes he is above the law. Beyond accountability. And in my view there is nothing more dangerous than an unethical president who believes they are above the law. And i would just say to people watching here at home, and around the world, in the words of my great colleague, we are better than that. Adjourned. Youre watching cnn special coverage of the public hearings in the impeachment investigation. Im jake tapper live in washington, d. C. , where two witnesses testified today that it was clear to them that President Trump was pressuring ukraine to open investigations into burisma, the company, and the bidens, if ukraine wanted a white house meeting. David holmes, a political adviser at the u. S. Embassy in kyiv, ukraine, said he heard President Trump on the phone with the u. S. Ambassador to the eu Gordon Sondland directly asking if ukrainian president zelensky was going to do the investigation. And dr. Fiona hill, President Trumps former top russia adviser on the National Security council testified that it became apparent to her that President Trumps push to investigate burisma meant investigating the bidens. Lets discuss. What do you think was the most important thing that you heard from fiona hill today, dana bash in. If i may, i want to answer that on the substance and then quickly on the style. Cancer on the presidency is what our now colleague coined during the john dean, during watergate, yeah. Domestic political errand is going to be the three words that we remember i think from this round of impeachment hearings from all of these witnesses. She took this whole big story about names and about dates and about meetings and she distilled it to what the democrats are trying to get at. And she did it from the perspective not as a democrat, but from the perspective of somebody who went into a republican administration, a controversial one for people in the Foreign Policy community, fiona hill, decided to do it because she wanted to use her russia expertise to help the president and his administration. So that is the way that she described what she her aha moment when she realized in the course of one of these meetings was going on by all of these players that we have seen for the past week around her and the regular lines of the National Security council. It is also about her style. And if i may just really quickly, on the other important thing is john bolton. The man we didnt hear from, the man she worked for, the way she described such detail in a very clearly prepared way the way he reacted, stiffening his spine, coming into the office, telling her to write the notes, going to the National Security council lawyer, the way that she described that it is as if she was bringing him in, even though he refused to testify. And then on her style, look, these hearings hold on one second, the republicans, were going to listen in. It has been clear from the start this is not about the facts. We saw that yesterday, the facts are very clear, the witness yesterday, ambassador sondland, said unless there was an announcement of an investigation, there would be no call, no meeting, no money. And, of course, the ukrainians got the call, the meeting and they got the Security Assistance dollars and there never was an announcement of an investigation, so this is not about the facts. This is about i think what nancy pelosi said, the speaker of the house said sunday when she said she called the president of the United States an impostor. Democrats never got over the fact that this new guy has never been in this town, never been in politics, this new guy came in here and has shaken this place up and that drives him crazy. They never accepted the will of 63 million americans, never accepted the fact that donald trump won an Electoral College landslide and theyre trying to do everything they can and first fbi investigation, then it was the mueller investigation, now it is this, theyre trying to do everyt