Horrific portrait of a president and his allies who waged war against a career diplomat who got in their way. Ambassador was pushed out and told she was under threat. In her testimony, she explains how the director general of Foreign Service called her at 1 00 a. M. In the foreign quote, she said that there was a lot of concern for me. That i needed to be on the next plane home to washington. This is about your security. You need to come home immediately. You need to come home on the next plane. She goes on the say her removal was the result of a Smear Campaign orchestrated by Rudy Giuliani and his business associates. Parnus is willing to comply with the congressional subpoena. We will honor and not avoid the request that they are proper. Yovanovithch said she was told that quote, i really needed to watch my back. Yovanovitch said they raised concerns. The official told her, it was dangerous to get involved because it would appear ukraine would be getting into u. S. Politics. She also testified she felt threatened by President Trump. She said she was shocked the president would speak about me or any am baskbassador that way foreign counterpart. Im joined by peter baker. Thank you. This is ominous because it talks about what happens to someone especially a public servant, a Foreign Service officer if you get in the way of this. We have seen from the beginning of Trump Presidency is this basically war with the government that the president presides over. From the very start he didnt trust them and expressed that. He compared them to nazis. Hes used other phrases to describe Civil Servants and Foreign Service diplomats. I think this is sort of the ultimate culmination of that struggle that this has been going on for three years. They have served for decades. I think for three decades their job is to serve who ever happened to be president. When you get in the way of Rudy Giuliani and his campaign to pressure Ukraine Ambassador yovanovitch yovanovitch paid a price and that was stunning to a lot of people who worked for the state department over the last few months how that played out. Theres no perfect parallels to watergate. They began to be a government of their own breaking into houses, breaking into brookings institution, democratic headquarters, the whole works. These case seem to be break sboing into the state department. They did seem to have the authority of the president behind them. Any president is within his rights or her rights to remove an ambassador for not supporting their policies. Thats traditional. Thats happened before. He seems to have gotten in the way of whats going on outside. Outside of the structure and the state department and the National Security apparatus. Thats where she got in trouble. She was smeared not just a matter of the president saying that ambassador is not serving my agenda, they went after her on fox television. The president s son went after her accusing her of disloyalty publicly. It was Something Different than the traditional way a president enforces his policy through the civil service. Thats one of the things that stood out for other people who worked for years and years in this government and in this Foreign Service. How did she stand as an obstacle to shake down, if you will, the Ukrainian Government for dirt on bidens son. How did she stand in the way of that as they saw it to the point they had to get rid of her and scare her out of a job . She didnt buy into the theory. The theory was the ukrainians, not the russians hacked the election in 2016 in favor of the democrats. She thought this was nonsensical and there was no evidence for it. Even President Trumps own Homeland Security adviser told the president repeatedly this has been a completely debunked theory. In that vain they saw her as somebody who was not going to help get the ukrainians on board to find information that would be helpful in discrediting the Mueller Report and discrediting the investigation and the whole idea that russia was involved in the 2016 campaign to begin with. Now we have her transcript and all day in the papers youll be reading a lot about what yovanovitch had come forward with. She testified that Ambassador Gordon Sondland told her to could wanter the Smear Campaign by tweeting her support for the president. That was the plan. Say Something Sweet about him on tweet. She claimed he told her you need to tweet out there that you support the president and all these are lies and everything else. Back to this idea of the smallness of the trump space. If you Say Something nice about him, then youll be okay with him. Its as simple as that. We know flattery works with this president. Loyalty matters to him as he perceives it. I cant think of an instance where a career ambassador was expected to go public with that kind of praise of a president in order to kind of keep her job. Thats not something that normally happens. Thats very unusual circumstance. That tells you what ambassador sondsland was the key to keeping her job. Thats the kind of thing that does work in trump environment. A typical president as we have said, hes not. That goes against the grain of the career of the Foreign Service servant who doesnt see their job reenforcing a president s ego in that sense. Thats where things really fell apart. She wasnt able to sort of adapt to that kind of environment in the way she had been told to do it. Thank you so much. Great having you on. I want to bring in jerry connolly. How did this strike you to hear this womans story . Now that we have the transcript you can talk about how she was threatened. Very disturbing that the professional Foreign Service would be subject to this kind of political corruption, frankly and to smear her because they couldnt get her cooperation in the parallel process of corrupting Ukrainian Government to get political dirt on a perspective political opponent. They had to smear her to get her removed. They enlisted the help of congressman or former congressman like robert livingston. Almost speaker. And Pete Sessions of texas, apparently. Pete session was chairman of the rules committee. He had no Foreign Policy responsibility. What is he doing calling and urging the firing of ambassador yovanovitch and here is an honorable, patriot yachtic american being smeared and even the president pursuing that narrative with the president of ukraine. The president of the United States behind it all. What did you read into the idea that she gets to call at 1 00 in the morning, i guess local time where she is in kiev, get home. Your safety is involved. How did that hit you when you heard that . Reallyw horrifying because im old enough to remember u. S. Ambassadors who were killed in line of duty. To tell her that is using the ultimate threat to any Foreign Service diplomat but especially the ambassador in ukraine. The president wanting dirt on his political rival, joe biden and doing anything he can including scaring this ambassador out of kiev. Michael mckinley, the other transcript that came out today. He spoke three times with secretary of state mike pompeo about a public show of support for ambassador yovanovitch. He said he never heard anything from mckinley. Lets watch. From the time that ambassador yovanovitch departed till the time he came to tell me he was departing, i never heard him say a single thing about his concerns with respect to the decision. Not once, george did ambassador mckinley Say Something to me. Congressman, somebody is lying here. Mckinley testified he under oath. Is this some sort of administration thing where you cover up for the president no matter what. I would say its a very convenient memory by secretary pompeo. Its a shameful moment that one of your sacred duties is to protect the Foreign Services of the United States. We have done that for over 200 years. Even if mckin lley talked to pompeo, why from the slander. Why not . Hes a coward and enabler and his disqualified himself from continued service as secretary of state. You wonder how pricey Public Office is at the top now, what people will do. The price they will pay in terms of character. And for what. For what . For whales . Great to have you on. Coming up, the president s weak impeachment defense. Trump says there was no quid pro quo but if there was, theres nothing wrong with it. Hes demanding the outing of the whistleblower. Hes looking for another peter s struzk. We have much more to get to tonight. Stick with us. O tonight. Stick with us. 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House intelligence share adam schiff said the four administration sno shno shows c only add to the case against President Trump. Watch this. This will only further add to the body of evidence on a potential obstruction of congress charge against the president. The Washington Post reported a growing number of Senate Republicans are ready to acknowledge President Trump used military aid as leverage to investigate the bidens. In this shift in strategy they are insisting the president s action was not illegal and does not rise to the level of impeachable offense. These Senate Republicans conflict with the argument President Trump tweeted last night. False stories are being reported that a few republican senators are saying that President Trump may have done a quid pro quo. It doesnt matter. Theres nothing wrong with that. Its not an event. Perhaps so. Read the transcript. Theres no quid pro quo. Thats all trumps argument. It conflicts with top House Republicans that there was no quid pro quo with ukraine. Look at anybody they brought forth. Theres no quid pro quo. Theres nothing this president has done wrong. Youre saying you believe it didnt happen . It wasnt about the 2020 election. It was about what had happened prior in 2016, corruption in ukraine. I dont think there was a kwur quid pro quo. The aid is there and the investigations didnt happen. If there was a quid pro quo, it wasnt effective. That guy is so much smarter than those guys. I would like to slam a lie detector on him right now. I didnt believe a word he said on meet the press yesterday. Barbara, can you tell if somebody is lying through their teeth . Did you watch him yesterday . His eyes were all over the place. He couldnt look at chuck todd. He couldnt answer directly. There was all this quibbling and gee whiz. Your thoughts. Shifting stories are something that raises a red flag for investigators that somebody may not be telling the truth, discomfort, shifting, all of those physical signs of discomfort. I think one of the reasons President Trump is adamant about this mantre of no quid pro quo is hes a salesman. You dont shoplift tift the sto. You stick with one story. In same way the Mueller Investigation about no collusion, no obstruction. His mantre is no quid pro quo. Read a transcript. Its a diversionary tactic to draw attention away from what he did which is, in my view, imp f impeachab impeachable. He was selling the nations National Security. Both of those whether they were part of a quid pro quo is an abuse of power thats impeachable. Let me tell you something, this would be a challenge. The transcript or the summary, which he will make available, he said he will recite on fdr, fireside chat style. Is he going to say the words i want a favor from you though. Is he going to say that . The summary is a distortion already. He will say that and wont mention say the words biden in the original. The difference between the house and Senate Republican s the House Republicans are willing to look like morons for the cause. Because they represent republican districts. And the Senate Republicans are because they represent states. A lot of democrats. They dont want the look like total idiots. Here is the answer to this question about is attempted extortion a problem. Today, the fbi annoyanced and thank god for this, they have apprehended a man that planned to blow up a synagogue in colorado over the weekend. Fbi was about to apprehends him and the question is that a crime. But hes guilty. The bomb never went off. No one was hurt. No crime, no foul thats the logic of the president. The truth of that and the relevance. Let me give you another one. Barbara here is another one. Richard nixon tells his chief of staff, tell the fbi to get off the case investigating watergate because its a cia matter. The cia never did that. They never followed through. They never told the fbi to get off the case. Nixon was impeached for that conversation where he tried to do something that wasnt followed through with just like now. Your thoughts. Yeah. It makes perfect sense as david was explaining. Attempt is a crime. The person is just as morally blameworthy and just as dangerous as just as in need of criminal punishment when they attempt and fail as when they succeed through no effort of their own sometimes people are successful and sometimes they fail because other people intervene before they can skds. What President Trump did was expose our nation to danger, withholding military aid and inviting a Foreign Government to interfere with our election. They did withhold military aid. They did hold back on the missiles. They did do that. When they used the language of attempt, theres the suggestion that no harm was done. A dozen there was harm done. A dozen ukrainian soldiers died in the month of august. 50 ukrainian soldiers were killed or wounded in september because they held it up. The aid was released on september 11th of this year. The whistleblower report went to the Intelligence Committee on september 9th. What cause the aid to be released is he knew the cops were at his door. At that point he let the you kran y ukrainians have their money. Kellyanne conway said she doesnt know if President Trump held up aid to ukraine. Was there a time when military aid was held up because the president wanted y eed ukra look into their biden . I dont know. I know they got their aid. Its possible in. Here is what is absolutely unimpeachablely true. Ukraine has the aids. They have more aid than in the previous administration. You wont say yes or no. Quid pro quo, yes or no . I dont know whether aid was being held up. Shes a bit conflicted there because she said i dont know whether the aid was held up but she said it was not held up but then she said it was held up. She wouldnt admit whether it was a quid pro quo deal that she doesnt know because she doesnt want to ask. Thats the smart role, dont ask the boss what happened because it did happen. Barbara. As david points out there there was a day. That alone means it happened. Even if it didnt happen, if you took the military aids piece out and you focus where President Trump is asking ukraine to interfere with our election, that alone is an abuse of power thats