New damning testimony on Capitol Hill today as two more witnesses testify before the House Intelligence Committee. Fiona Hill, a former Russia expert for the National Security Council, debunked a conspiracy theory that GOP members of the committee have been pushing about Ukraine:
“Some of you on this committee appear to believe that Russia and it’s security services did not conduct a campaign against our country, and that perhaps, somehow, for some reason Ukraine did. This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves.”
“I refuse to be part of an effort to legitimize an alternate narrative that the Ukrainian government is a U.S. adversary and that Ukraine, not Russia, attacked us in 2016.”
Fiona Hill, a former senior director for Russia on the National Security Council, says during testimony that she has "no interest in advancing the outcome of your inquiry in any particular direction except towards the truth." https://t.co/OVa306iBP7 pic.twitter.com/Zd2uUtx0tt
— CBS News (@CBSNews) November 21, 2019
Constitutional legal scholar Laurence Tribe said, “Fiona Hill’s statement was extraordinarily powerful. She made clear that the Republicans on the Committee are damaging our national security by perpetrating an anti-Ukraine myth concocted by Putin to divide and undermine America. Her explanation of Russia’s tactics was brilliant.”
David Holmes, U.S. embassy aid in Ukraine appeared alongside Hill. He talked about the phone call he overheard between Ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland and Donald Trump:
“I then took the opportunity to ask Ambassador Sondland for his candid impression of the President’s views on Ukraine. In particular, I asked Ambassador Sondland if it was true that the President did not ‘give an expletive about Ukraine.’ Ambassador Sondland agreed that the President did not ‘give an expletive about Ukraine.’”
After a phone call with Trump, Sondland told Holmes that Trump doesn't give a shit about Ukraine and only cares about "big stuff that benefits the president, like the Biden investigations." pic.twitter.com/3SdMKjgpYe
— Pod Save America (@PodSaveAmerica) November 21, 2019
HOLMES, upon learning in Sept. about the Zelensky CNN interview: "I was
shocked the requirement was so specific and concrete … this was a demand that President Zelenskyy personally commit, on a cable news channel, to a specific investigation of Pres. Trump's political rival.— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 21, 2019
Holmes also defended Ukraine.
“At a time of shifting allegiances and rising competitors in the world, we have no better friend than Ukraine – a scrappy, unbowed, determined, and above all dignified people who are standing up against Russian authoritarianism and aggression. They deserve better.”
Watch more of Holme’s opening statement above.