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Vanherck sat down with me to talk about the decision making that led to the balloon's ultimate destruction. it was set in motion days earlier in a high-stakes mission to intercept it over alaska. >> we sent a package that included f-22s and f-16s along with support package of an e3 awacs tanker support with aircraft. >> did you know what its mission was? >> we had worked with the intelligence community, and we had a good idea of what the mission actually was going to be. once we intercepted the high-altitude balloon just off the coast of alaska, i made the assessment that it didn't demonstrate...

Place. >> the same hour they had the duelling stories that told the same story not just on the political side but on the business and financial side. i talk to republicans on the hill every day. some of them speak to the president regularly and they've been telling him for months now that they need to dump rudy giuliani because he -- his role is making it harder for republicans to even defend the president's conduct throughout this entire impeachment saga. rudy giuliani says everything he did was at the president's behest as -- given that the president is his client. >> the president denying t...

Pattern that made it so damaging. there were many damaging moments, but that was certainly one of them. >> in terms of damage, how damaging was it to the president? i mean, did you find sondland's testimony credible? >> i did. and he gave very important testimony that gave us context to that call record that the president himself released. we've known since the president released that call record the basic outlines of the story, that he brought pressure to bear against a foreign government for, as jill says, this personal political benefit. that is the essence of corruption, using your officia...

Would not have involved the leadership of the state department and the white house. >> so you are saying everyone in the chain of command knew about giuliani's efforts to try to get the investigations into burisma and -- i'm trying to figure out what you thought you were actually opining to. >> the president directed us to work with mr. giuliani and the leadership of the state department were knowledgeable, as was the nsc, that we are working with mr. giuliani. >> what's interesting is that ambassador taylor testified he knew nothing about it and clearly he would be in the chain of information...

Definition, rogue diplomacy would meant that i would not have involved the leadership of the state department and the white house. >> are you saying that everyone in the chain of command knew about giuliani's efforts to try to get the investigations into burisma -- i'm just trying to figure out what you thought you were actually opining to. >> look, the president directed us to work with mr. giuliani and the leadership of the state department were knowledgeable that we were working with mr. giuliani. >> what's interesting is that ambassador taylor testified that he knew nothing about it and cl...