Tweet and propo kbgate the idea that interference by russia was a hoax. And we all remember the debacle in helsinki, i wish i had heard just some of the righteous indignation that we had heard in the committee today when the president questioned that fundamental conclusion of our intelligence agencies. But of course they will silent when the president said that. They will show indignation today, but they will cower when they hear the president questioning the very conclusions that our Intelligence Community has reached. But we saw Something Interesting also today. My colleagues sought to use you, dr. Hill, to besmirch the character of Colonel Vindman. And i thought this was very interesting. It certainly wasnt unexpected i could not tell was very
interesting for this reason. They didnt really question anything Colonel Vindman said. After all what he said is what you said. He was in that July 10th Meeting. He 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 these investigations. They heard the same quid pro quo that you did. So why are they smearing him . Mr. Holmes, you testified just as vindman said, Colonel Vindman said that he warned zelensky about getting involved in u. S. Politics. They dont question that. They didnt take issue with that. So why smear this Purple Heart Recipient . Just like the smear of ambassador yovanovitch, its just gratuitous. They dont question the facts. Its just gratuitous the attack on you, mr. Holmes, that you were indiscreet in mentioning this conversation to others. Well, i think you are quite right. The indiscretion is when the ambassador calls the president on an unsecure line on 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, indeed, Didnt Question what you said. He acknowledged that the one thing the president wanted to know the day after the conversation with zelensky is 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 ambassador 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. Ukraines 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. I mean, 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 now about party . What do we care about . But lets go beyond your testimony today. Lets look at the bigger picture. What do we know now after these depositions, these secret depositions . Now people watching at home might not know that in these secret depositions, which apparently no one else is
allowed to hear, no members are allowed to participate, its just secret apparently. It sounds like its just me and the witness. Only over a hundred 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 that 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 Servant named marie yovanovitch, known for Fighting Corruption, widely respected throughout the diplomatic core, 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 sullied so they could get her out of the way, which they did. And youre right. It was gratuitous. The president couldve gotten rid of her any time 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 thereafter 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 all of 30 seconds on google to figure that out. But were to believe i guess that in all the companies in 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 we are not going to set up a phone call until you would make certain commitments. The first quid pro quo was actually 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 can attest to 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 most important person in the United States for 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 new president who is negotiating with a 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 getting 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, in the State Department, the defense department, everyone supported us. Everyone, all the reviews that needed to be done to make sure that ukraine was meeting its anticorruption standards had been done. They had found to meet the criteria. The aid shouldve been released but it was withheld, and no one could understand or get a clear explanation for why until it became clear to everyone its all about the investigations, its all about the leverage. 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 just get used to it or just get over it or whatever it was he said. Because thats how we role. Those are my words, not his. But thats the import. Yeah, theres 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 has piled up day after day after day and its amazing they hear you testify, mr. Holmes, that it was clear that the Security Assistance was being withheld. It was clear to all of the americans. It was clear to the ukrainians. You testified the ukrainians felt pressure. They still feel pressure to this day. And what do my colleagues say in the same hearing . I guess they are not listening. The ukrainians felt no pressure, there is no evidence they felt pressure, which gets into their
next defense, which was its all hearsay, its 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 its all hearsay is because we in this committee were not in that room with you, dr. Hill. We were not in that meeting earlier with dr. Bolton. That because we are not in the room its all hearsay. After all, you are relating what you heard and you are saying it, so it must be hearsay, and therefore we dont really 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. Well, if that were true, you could never present any evidence
in court unless the jury was also in the ward room. Thats absurd. They dont accept the documentary evidence, all the Text Messages about quid pro quos and 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 from the State Department where sondland communicates directly with the Secretary Of State about this investigative interest of the president. They dont accept the documents either. I guess the documents are also here. 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 its all hearsay. Even when you actually 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 record. 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 crowdstrike Conspiracy Theory and i want you to look into the bidens. I guess we are 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 its 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, no harm, no foul. Thats absurd. But the other defense besides it failed the scheme failed they got caught. The other defense is the president denies it. Well, i guess thats 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 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 this situation is different in terms of nixons conduct and trumps conduct. What weve seen here is far more serious than a thirdrate burglary of the democratic headquarters. What we are 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. Its 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. Ive heard my colleagues use those metaphors. This should be about duty. What is our duty . We are, and 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, the victims of mass extra judicial killing in the philippines, people wanting a representative government, people in china who are uighurs,
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 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 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 of
impeachment, they might who are what would happen if someone took the offihighest office in land and didnt care about the big things that should matter like our National Security and our defense and our allies and what the country stands for. I happy 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 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 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, hey, 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 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. [ applause ] you just watched the Closing Statement of the chairman of this Committee Chairman adam schiff. That was the most emotional, most emotional sustained set of remarks from the chairman of this committee on this, the last day so far of scheduled public testimony in the Impeachment Proceedings into donald j. Trump. Chuck rosenberg, you and i have been watching this all day and
all week. Chairman schiff really underscoring there the case that democrats feel that they have made brick by brick by brick. And its fair and irrefutable that today two more bricks in the wall in terms of Fact Witnesses to what became clear to everyone was a quid pro quo, the conditioning of military aid and a meeting for the new leader of ukraine on those investigations that in the words of fiona hill were domestic politics squarely, investigations that would damage the bidens, Investigations Into what ambassador mcfaul called cockamaney. I know we are going to talk about the details. But so is the context. So for people who are watching pieces of this or may not know a little bit of the history, may
i . Please. So in 2014 russia invades ukraine. They are still there. We learned from ambassador taylor a couple of days ago last week. Last wednesday. That russia occupies about 7 of ukrainian territory, an area the size of turkey. Imagine if russia held 7 of american territory. Moreover, since 2014, about 14,000 ukrainians have died in conflict with russia on ukrainian soil. And in this context, there was a corrupt bargain that the president tried to strike to withhold Security Assistance for the ukrainians, an ally of ours, an important ally of ours, in return for political favors. You know, without being mello dramatic, to me this is heart breaking. We are a beacon of light and hope for democracy, struggling
democracies around the world. Ukraine is a struggling democracy. Theyre very proamerican. They love our country. They have got to be mystified, dumbfounded by what we are seeing. The details matter but so does the conte