Yes. Now, ambassador taylor also testified that and mr. Morrison both of them testified that you told them that President Trump said there was no quid pro quo which you also included in the text message that you referred. But then you went on and they had slight variations as to what you told them, but then you said that to ambassador taylor that president zelenskiy himself not the Prosecutor General needed to clear things up in public or there would be a stalemate. And mr. Morrison recounted something similar. You dont have any reason to doubt that both of their very similar recollections of the conversations they had with you, do you, ambassador sondland . Let me break that down, mr. Goldman. The text as i said about the no quid pro quo was my effort to respond to ambassador taylors
concerns to go to President Trump apparently ambassador taylor had access to Secretary Pompeo. He did not have access to President Trump so i made the phone call. I said what do you want . President trump responded with what i put in the text. And then i strongly encouraged ambassador taylor to take it up with the secretary and he responded i agree. When i said that. As far as the other part of your question relating to whether or not the prosecutor could make the statement or zelenskiy could make the statement, I Dont Recall who told me whether it was volker, whether it was giuliani or whether it was President Trump its got to be zelenskiy. It cant be the prosecutor. But thats what i relayed. Whoever i got that information from i relayed that to i believe mr. Ambassador taylor and to mr. Morrison. But as of September 9th you understood did you not that President Trump either himself or through his agents required
that president zelenskiy make a public announcement of the two investigations that President Trump cared about in order to get both the white house meeting and to release the Security Assistance, is that correct . I believe that is correct. Mr. Chairman, i yield back. That concludes our 45 minutes and now i recognize mr. Nunes. Okay. Why dont we take a five or ten minute break. Thank you. Well, you heard the man, the chairman says five or ten minute break giving us a chance to introduce our friends and have our first discussion. As part of our live coverage of the Blow Torch Testimony this morning from Gordon Sondland, an owner of a chain of hotels from the pacific northwest. Wrote a 1 million check to the inauguration and turns out to be the guy who has offered the most
stunning testimony. He has been compared to john dean to as you said, taking a blow torch to every defense donald trump has offered. We dont say this very often anymore because its rarely true. But i think today changed everything. I think Gordon Sondlands testimony today changed everything. And there was a little bit of foreshadowing. He has an attorney who a lot of people believe was the difference between karl rove coming out of the Valerie Plame special counsel, safe, legally speaking. His client submitted three new pages of testimony before his than script was released, amending the decision to be more in line of testimony of the others but the bombshell there was no irregular policy channel. There was the channel. It was run by donald j. Trump, mike pence, mike pompeo the Secretary Of State. That channel directed an extortion of the government, the country of ukraine in exchange for dirt on joe biden. Full stop. What do the republicans do on this committee . I mean, you know, what do they do . Maybe they pray for the Southern District of new york to indict Rudy Giuliani and try to blame it on him. I think they cant be unmoved. Heres the other bombshell today. He essentially calls into question john boltons role. John boltons had the very angelic hes left an impression of being on the side of angels but if the operation if there was one channel and it was run by the president , the Vice President and mike pompeo, john bolton knew about it. John bolton seemed to have made efforts to cover himself by sending his deputies, fiona hill, and tim morrison and others to create some sort of record of his alarm. But sondland calls into question by citing this very jovial atmosphere where pictures were taken and there are some on social media after a meeting thats been described by hill and others as sort of blowing
up. That bolton sent everyone out of the room when investigations came out. He might have done that, i have no reason to doubt that. But he also went to the south lawn of the white house and took pictures with everybody so he couldnt have been that offended or if he was, it needs to be explained by bolton himself. Bolton so far has been the reluctant witness but someone who was thought of as not having any exposure and sondland sticks him in the middle of which was clearly an effort, a conspiracy, i dont know if thats the right legal word, but a you know, it wasnt an off book operation. The operation, the policy from the president , the Vice President , the american Secretary Of State and i guess its an open question whether the National Security adviser was to extort ukraine for dirt on biden. Plainly put. We want to introduce you, the politics editor to the root, msnbc political contributor jason johnson. Our legal analyst maya wiley who
previously worked in the Civil Division of the u. S. Attorneys office and in the Southern District of new york, former senior fbi official, chuck rosenberg. Also an msnbc legal analyst and for good measure, a former democratic United States senator from the great state of missouri, current msnbc political analyst claire mccaskill. Your reaction . We are hearing from the white house already that trying to hang their hat on sondland does not say he heard the president say all this. That it was in fact Rudy Giuliani. So youre going to see now this bus has run over a lot of people. Looks like to me that giuliani is the next one up to for the white house to try to distant the president from him. But whats really clear in this testimony is that everyone knew that giuliani had been tasked
with accomplishing this dirty political op. That giulianis job was to go over there and talk to a corrupt prosecutor and get this corrupt prosecutor to help them forward this theory that joe bidens character was less than stellar. And, you know, its obvious and now we have a witness who says, yes, giuliani was speaking for the president. Yes, giuliani was insisting on this. Yes, there was a quid pro quo. So its a problem for the white house. Lets listen to schiff for just a moment. Is among the most significant evidence to date and what we have just heard from ambassador sondland is that the knowledge of this scheme, this conditioning of the white house meeting of the Security Assistance to get the deliverable that the president wanted, these two political investigations that he believed would help his reelection
campaign was a basic quid pro quo. It was the conditioning of official acts for something of great value to the president , these political investigations. It goes right to the heart of the issue of bribery, as well as other potential high crimes or misdemeanors. But we also have heard for the first time that knowledge of this scheme was pervasive. The Secretary Of State was aware of it. The acting Chief Of Staff mulvaney was aware of it. And of course at the very top, donald trump through his personal lawyer and others was implementing it and so this i think only goes to underscore just how significant the president s obstruction of this investigation has been. We now can see the veneer has been torn away, just why Secretary Pompeo and President Donald Trump do not want any of these documents provided to congress because apparently they
show as ambassador sondland has testified that the knowledge of this scheme to condition official acts, the white house meeting and 400 million in Security Assistance to an ally at war with russia was conditioned on political favors that the president wanted for his reelection. So i think a very important moment in the history of this inquiry. Thank you. All right. Chairman schiff, senator mccaskill, you were in the process of saying that short of calling the former mayor Secretary Giuliani he was in charge of this policy. Giuliani clearly the president told everyone including zelenskiy on the call, giuliani is the guy. Hes executing this and sondland just confirmed it. By the way, these Conversations Giuliani was having with the corrupt prosecutor was at the very time the ukrainian officials were in washington meeting at the white house. This was in july. So this is really and the white house has sent out the talking points. The president never said this. This is sondland saying this came from giuliani. Chuck, we learned you didnt have to investigate corruption. Just say youre going to do it. Thats right. We heard a lot about how this white house was big, strong on anticorruption efforts particularly in Eastern Europe and ukraine. Nope, turns out brian, they wanted an announcement. It was all for show. I will say this if i may. What were seeing today is not unusual. As a federal prosecutor we would see witnesses evolve from falsity to something approaching complete truth. Im just making the numbers up but if you imagine the zero is, you know, utter lies and the ten is complete truth, they kind of move from five to seven to nine over time. Youre seeing an evolution if youre wondering how republicans attack it, thats one way. They go after the inconsistencies, the prior statements. I think youre going to see some of that when the republicans have their turn with ambassador sondland. Maya wiley . I agree both with claire and with chuck and i would say nicole to your question about conspiracy, adam schiff just said that what was so Ground Breaking in addition to sondland essentially saying i wasnt rogue, i was being transparent about my quid pro quo and i kept everyone in the loop, we were having meetings and conversations, i hid nothing that says what a conspiracy is is an agreement. And what it says is they agreed. They understood it was not in the National Security interests of the country. Every last one of them. I believe them on this. I think it was credible to say this was not good for the country. This is what we have to deliver to the president , to get whats good for the country. So were going to agree to
participate in allowing Rudy Giuliani who publicly represented himself as the personal lawyer for the president going to Ukraine In May to try to turn the tables on the democrats that we are going to serve this master not the country in order to we think do whats best for the country. And it doesnt matter what their intentions were if they intentionally participated in that. Can i read these words . I think these words will live on far beyond the trump presidency. He says, this is ambassador sondland says, first, Secretary Perry, ambassador volker and i worked with mr. Rudy giuliani on ukraine matters at the express direction of the president of the United States. We did not want to work with Rudy Giuliani. We played the hand we were dealt. We understood if we refused to work with mr. Giuliani we would lose an important opportunity to cement relations. So we followed the president s orders. Jason johnson . Basically, sondland said i Wont Go To Jail for any of you. Thats good. Im not going to jail for any of you and i think whats key is this is the thing when we talk about whether the Impeachment Hearings make sense to regular people. He ratted out everybody. We know the biggest rat of all, the pixar movie is rudy manipulating everybody from behind the scenes but thats something that regular people can understand. I think part of whats been difficult about some of this, well, if you dont Know Morrison or taylor, he basically said everybody was involved in this. We all went along with it. This narrative that we have had prior to now of brave individuals like vindman who stand up against this, hes painted a different picture. Yeah, theres some brave folks and now were caught well rat everybody out. I think thats a difficult thing for republicans to try to explain. Because when you have individuals basically saying we were being manipulated by the president s personal lawyer, we all knew it, we went along with it, how are we going to say this
is a huge conspiracy by rudy himself . He wouldnt have thought of it on his own. So i think this is a rough day for the republicans. Actually, i think we have Garrett Haake up on capitol hill in the blast radius this morning. Well, nicole, heres what youll hear in the next 45 minutes. Sondland said he was ordered to work with Rudy Giuliani and he made a point of saying he never talked to the president linking the aid to the investigation. I think you will see republicans hammer that point home and while sondland was very casual, almost nonchalant saying of course it was a quid pro quo, it was as obvious as two plus two equals four, you will hear republicans say that was your judgment. That was not the order that he explicitly got from the president of the United States. They will make this come down to whether or not he was explicitly ordered to commit a crime or not. The other thing that really caught my attention in the first part of this hearing in the prepared remarks, the biggest
deviation that sondland made, it was him that gave ambassador bolltons Rudy Giulianis Contact Information and talking about that as a curious thing. Thats the second thing in the last two days that witnesses have gone back to expressly link bolton to something. Remember we learned that bolton had the oneonone meeting with President Trump about the aid from morrisons testimony and today we hear sondland going out of his way everyone thought it was him that connected bolton and giuliani. Sondland is not going down on this, but hes the second to pull bolton that much closer to this. Thats something that democrats are going to be so tempted to want to explore further. The question is do they wait to get john bolton who has thus said hes not going to testify until mid december at the soonest. As someone pointed out this morning on a neighboring network to ours, if you want to hear from john bolton these days, you
have to pay to have him come talk to your event. And im wondering if this testimony today will kind of sweeten the deal to get him into this. And the whole frame of the debate around john bolton they have been playing chicken with congress. His lawyer, mr. Cooper, made a point of saying two fridays ago he has a lot of interesting insights, guys. You know, basically waving a red flag in front of the bull. Congressional sources told me were not playing. We are not playing that game. Were not subpoenaing him or getting wrapped up in court for 10 to 12 months. He has been accused by Gordon Sondland of essentially is lying. Lying. So i think the calculation changes. And they may call and request through a back channel a subpoena so that bolton has some cover to go. But i think that the power you know, its look a girl saying Everyone Wants to date me. Well, congress is saying well, we dont want to date you, but he may call them and say, hey, im available. Jason is so right. So much of life and so much of this story starts in the movies. It is a reference you hear and see on a daily basis. Pick your film. A lot of them happened to be mob movies. A lot of them happen to be scorsese and nature, but youre right. The whole mob setup we said that a lot about this sort of administration especially with giuliani sort of being the point person. But now i think its as nicole said, you have someone who is called out. Hes been called out. This is the big western and as bolton, does he want to keep playing, wait a minute, i wont have all of these people basically throwing my mind out there when i wanted to present myself as the hero. I think the other accomplishment that might happen today he may feel compelled as you say to come out and explain himself. Now Rudy Giuliani dont want to do that, but there are several different individuals. If this continues and other people take sort of the hint from sondland, you know what, who is going to rat out each other . When Rudy Giuliani holds up on fox news which is is as friendly as it gets for rudy
giuliani his defense is the state told me to do it. Thing is a much worse day for mike pompeo than even Rudy Giuliani. I agree. Chuck . You know, one thing id like to hear from sondland a little more sharply is contrition. He talks about, you know, Everyone Else knew that he didnt have access to his documents, so only now is his memory refres