Anything he said. After all, what he said is what you said. He was in that july 10th meeti meeting, we heard the same quid pro quo, the same comments by sondland. If you want this meeting, ukrainians, and we have an agreement about this. Youve got to announce that you will do these investigations. They are the same quid pro quo that you did. Why are they smearing him . Mr. Holmes, you testified just as colonel vindman said he warned zelensky about joining politics. Why smear this purple heart recipient . Just like the smear of ambassador yovanovitch, it is just gratuitous. They dont question the fact, it is just gratuitous. The attack on you, mr. Holmes, that you are discreet in mentioning this conversation to others. I think that you are quite right. The discussion is when the president on a secure line in a country known for Russian Telecommunications and eavesdropping. Thats more than an indiscretion, thats a security risk. But why attack you, mr. Holmes . They didnt question anything that you said. They didnt question what conversation you overheard. Ambassador sondland didnt question what you said. He acknowledged that the one thing that president wanted to know the day after that conversation with zelensky was, is he going to do the investigations . And sondland said, yes, he will 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, those donald trump give us a blank and i would like to use the word here, about ukraine . And he said, he doesnt give up blank about ukraine. He only cares about the big stuff. You said, there is some big stuff here. Ukraine is at war with russia. Thats kind of big stuff. No, no, no, no. He cares about the big stuff that matters to him. His personal investigation that giuliani wants. One question posed by your testimony, mr. Holmes, is 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 know about party . What do we care about . Lets go beyond your testimony today. What do we know now after these depositions, these secret depositions people watching at home i not know that in these secret depositions, which apparently no one else is allowed to hear, no members are allowed to participate. It sounds like its just me and the witness. Only over 100 members of congress are able to participate in those secret depositions. And of the minority was 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 that youve been hearing so much about. What have we learned through these depositions in the testimony . So much of this is undisputed. We learned that a dedicated Public Servant 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 prime time and a whole host of other characters. Her reputation was solid so they could get her out of the way, which they did. And you are right, it was gratuitous. The president could have gotten rid of her anytime he wanted. But that is not enough for this president. No, he has to smear and destroy those that getting his way. And someone fighting corruption in ukraine was getting in his way, so shes gone, shes gone. And this makes way almost immediately thereafter, she leaves the three amigos come in. The three amigos. Two of home never made the connection that burisma means biden. It took ten seconds on google to figure that out. But we are to believe that in all of the companies in all of the world that Rudy Giuliani happens to be interested in this one . That is absurd. The interest of course was in an investigation of Donald Trumps arrival, 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, we are not going to set up a phone call until you make certain commitments. That was ambassador sondlands testimony. The first quid pro quo was getting on the phone with President Trump. And then there was the quid pro quo involving the white house meeting. Witness after witness, none of my colleagues contested this. They talked about how important that was to let president of ukraine, and why they are at war with russia and are most important ally its United States. The most important in United States 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 new president that is negotiating with a far superior power that has invaded this country is going into negotiation with Vladimir Putin over how to resolve this conflict whether he has Good Laboratory housing leverage and the president would not give him that, not without getting something in return. Would not give him that official act, that white house meeting without getting something in return, and that return was investigations of his rival 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 woodbrook will, the withholding of Security Systems that no one can explain. There is no debate among my colleagues. Everyone in the sondland a six, everyone all of the reviews that needed to be done to be sure that ukraine was meeting its anticorruption standards had been done. They had found to meet the criteria. No one could understand or get a clear explanation for why. Until it became clear to everyone, it is all about the investigations. Its all about the leverage. If there was any doubt about it, the man closest to the president to meet with them every day, Mick Mulvaney, erased all doubt. You are darn right, yes, we talked about the 2016 election investigation. And, yes, this was in the context of holding up the military aid, and just get used to it. Just get over it or whatever it was that he said. Because thats how we roll. Those are my words, not his, but that is the import. Yeah, theres going to be politics, and just get over it. Well, if we care about the big stuff, we cannot 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. Its amazing to hear you testify, mr. Five, it was clear that the is Security Assistance was being withheld. It was clear to the americans and ukrainians. You testified that they felt pressure. They still pressure to this day. I mean, i guess they are not listening. Ukrainians felt no pressure. There was no evidence they felt pressure. It gets into their next offense, which is, it is all hearsay. Notice my colleagues are not lawyers, lawyers out there understand just how wrong they are about hearsay use. As tlets discuss this and words will understand. Because we in this committee were not in that boardroom with you, dr. Hill, we were not in that meeting earlier with dr. Bolton, because we were not in the room, its all hearsay. You are relating what you heard, and you are saying it, so it must be hearsay. And therefore, we dont have to think about it, do we . We dont have to consider that 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. If that were true, you can never present any evidence to the court unless the jury was also in the boardroom. That is absurd. I dont accept the documentary evidence, the Text Messages about quid pro quos. All we really say and thats crazy. And my worst nightmare, they dont accept the documents, the few documents that we have from the state department that were produced 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. It might be a little more convincing. Of course, they are not. And, we know why not. Because the documents are like that one we saw on the screen to implicate others including secretary pompeo. Of course donald trump and secretary pompeo dont put us to see those documents. Apparently it is all hearsay. Even when you actually hear the president , mr. Holmes, that is all hearsay. 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 record. We should imagine he said something else. We should imagine he said something about actually fighting corruption inside 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. We should not rely on that because thats hearsay. That is absurd. That would be like saying, you cannot rely on the testimony of the burglars during watergate, because it is only hearsay. Or you cannot consider the fact that they tried to break in because they got caught. The actually did not get what they came for, so, no harm, no foul. Thats absurd. That is absurd. But the other defense besides the scheme failed, they got caught them out the other defense is the president denies it. Well, i guess that his case closed, right . The president says, really quite spontaneously, its 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 i am not a crook defense. You say it, and i guess that is the end of it. Well, the only thing we can say is that it is 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. What we are talking about is the withholding of recognition in the white house meeting, the withholding of military aid to an ally at war. Thats beyond anything that nixon did. The difference between then and now is not the difference between nixon and trump, is the difference between that congress and this one. We are asking, where is howard baker . Where is howard baker . Where are the people that are willing to go beyond their party to look to their duty . I was struck by a colonel vindmans testimony, because he said 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. Ive heard my colleagues use those metaphors. This is about duty. What is our duty . We are we are the indispensable nation. We still are. People look to us from all over the world. In turkey, the victims of mass x traditional killings, in the philippines, the people that gather in the square, people want representative government, people in china who are people in ukraine who want a better future. They look to us. They are not going to look to the russians. They are not going to look to the chinese. They cant look to europe with all of its problems. They look to us, and increasingly, they dont recognize what they see. 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 its 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 office of the highest office of the land and use it for 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 wha what the coy stands for. I happened to think that is what they put that rate i remedy in e constitution. I think we need to consult our conscious or less and constituents and decide whether that remedy is a appropriate hee necessary here. And you know, notwithstanding what my colleagues said, i resisted going down this path for a long time, but i will tell you why i could resist no more. And it came down to this. It actually 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, hey, russia, if youre listening, come get hillarys emails, and later that day, they tried to hacker surv survey. The day after he testified that not only did trump invite that interference, but that he welcomed the help in the campaign, they made full use of it. They lied about it. They instructed the investigation into it. Although this is in his testimony 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 that he is above the law, beyond accountability. And in my view, there is nothing more dangerous than an unethical president that believes they are above the law. And i would just say to people watching here at home and around the world, and the words of my great colleague, we are better than that. Adjourned. [applause] neil all right, you have been watching the week 2, dave t hearing. They both closed out with at the other. Russian advisor who left her post, forced out of her post to size past summer and holmes counselor in ukraine, it was mrs. Hill who generated the most fireworks, the former top russian expert that said it was domestic political errands that forced Gordon Sondland, our ambassador to ukraine to do the president s bidding. He went on to say that sondland was involved in a domestic political errands, and we were being involved in National Security, foreign policy. Those two things had just diverged. Many of her comments were echoed by mr. Holmes, repudiated by republicans on that panel and reinforced by democrats. Whether this moves the needles who might be leaning on the fence over the republicans could be more inclined to ask tougher questions of the president or raise doubts about the president , it is anyones guess. Tell mike they have been frequent critics of his position and how we have handled this matter. No needles seem to have moved here. It is still way too early to tell. This process is apparently know where neil done. My colleagues chris wallets and brett bayer right now what is your sense of where we go from here . What did we learn here . Today was interesting. David holmes was there to testify about his phone call. What he heard about ambassador sondland talking to President Trump, he was very confident in what he says he heard and made sure his feelings were clear on a big Opening Statement. Hill was really a powerful witness for the democrats. What you just mentioned was a back end of a g. O. P. Counsel question. Steve castor went down a number of culdesacs with hill, and one of them, she answers, ambassador sondland was involved in a domestic political exercise and errand, and we were involved in National Security policy. There were a number of those where she was a very impressive witness to the point where a number of g. O. P. Lawmakers just gave speeches. They did not ask her questions. When they did ask her questions, a couple of things came out. The dossier was a rabbit hole. She also said that Christopher Steele behind at dossier got played. That was an interesting point that may be explained down the road. The whole thing for me came down to one person. That was republican lawmaker will hurd was a moderate republican. He said the president acted inappropriately on that call, but he does not see anything that is bribery, extortion, or impeachable. Thats a sloppy process, but it is not impeachable. That, to me, suggests, if you cant get will hurd, its going to get tough to get 20 republican senators. Neil jim jordan is speaking to reporters. Hes never been in this town, this new guy came in here checking this place up. That drives him crazy. If they never accepted the will of 63 million americans. They never excepted the will that donald trump came in a landslide. It was first an fbi investigation then the Robert Mueller investigation and now this. Theyre trying to do everything they can as a democratic representative al green said, impeach him because they know he is going to win reelection. That is the unfortunate position he put our country is in. Weve got to quit this stuff that is tearing our country apart. That is so true. Thats what is happening is not good for our culture, not good for our nation, and yet the democrats do not care. They are bound and determined to do everything to get after this president. I think the people see through it. They know this process has been entirely unfair. Frankly, i dont know where it goes next. We will just have to wait and see and we will take some questions. All of these allegations you say, they have gotten past the election. Is not a creative narrative, thats a fact, chad. He called the president of the United States an imposter. How is that not tearing our country apart . He did not call her an imposter. She got elected speaker of the house. He got elected president of the United States. You guys have to establish a narrative. We dont have to establish any narrative. The facts are on our side. The truth is on the president s side. [report question] how do you get past even if you disagree with what the democrats have found, how do you get past what your argument is . Did you watch the hearing yesterday . I asked ambassador sondland when it happened . He asked what happened . The announcement before they got the call, the meeting, and the money. He said there was no announcement. That says it all. There was never remember when this call came out, they said there was going to be a quid pro quo. We havent seen it. Hill rejected very strongly the notion that ukraine may have meddled in the 2016 election. She said this is a fictional narrative that is perpetrated of propaganda about that russian servers. A