Thread by @VeraMBergen

It's transcript time. Again.

Here's Fiona Hill, Trump's former Russia adviser: docs.house.gov/meetings/IG/IG…

Was wondering why Matt Gaetz was listed at the top of of Fiona Hill's testimony and then remembered that this was the day he led a group of Republicans in storming the SCIF.

In case you're wondering how that went down:

Here's Fiona Hill recounting Bolton's now infamous quote "He basically said Rudy Giuliani is a hand grenade that is going to blow everybody up"

Hill says Bolton was "pained" but "he made it clear that he didn't feel that there was anything that he could personally do about this"

Here it is: "You go and tell Eisenberg that I am not part of whatever drug deal Sondland and Mulvaney are cooking up on this," Hill said Bolton told her.

Some outlets reported that Hill had said "Rudy and Mulvaney," but she was talking about Sondland, not Giuliani, here.

Hill paints quite the picture:

"He told me he was in charge in Ukraine...I said to him you're not. And then he got testy with me. And I said, who has said you're in charge of Ukraine, Gordon? And he said - the President. Well, that shut me up...you can't really argue with that"

Fiona Hill describes trying to find out what Giuliani was up to in Ukraine, "and I will be quite frank in saying that most of the people who I spoke to thought it was related to personal business on his part."

It's not surprising that, as Hill describes, it took a while for US natsec officials to figure out what Giuliani was up to in Ukraine. As we wrote last week, he had been mixing his personal international business w/ his role as Trump's lawyer for a year time.com/5714722/rudy-g…

Fiona Hill also told investigators that the "notorious" Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman had "been involved in all kinds of strange things in Venezuela."

Because of course.

Hill testified several times that there were no US national security interests served by the probes Trump, via Giuliani, was demanding of Ukraine.

"I do not see and I did not see at any point any national security interest in the things that Rudy Giuliani was saying"

Fiona Hill describes how when she went to John Bolton's office, the TV was always on, often on Fox News, and he'd turn the volume up so they could hear what Rudy Giuliani was saying.

"Every time I was in his office, Giuliani was on the television."

!! Fiona Hill says she thought meeting with Giuliani was "futile" because "Look, I'm not a psychologist or anything, but based on my assessment of what Mr. Giuliani was saying on television, it was all over the place...I didn't see the point in having a conversation with him."

Relatable, from Fiona Hill: I worked extraordinarily Iong days, so the last thing that I wanted to do when I went home was watch TV...but I would have
to go home and try to look on the news to see what Giuliani was saying."

"My God, have you seen what Giuliani is saying now?"

Chuckling at this line where Schiff asks Fiona Hill if she understood that Bolton "was not referring to an actual drug deal"

Hill says Sondland was constantly appearing at the White House - "to the point where several people said to me: Is he ever in Brussels?" - and she asked him "what's going on here?"

Sondland: "The President has given me, you know, this broad - I am to be his point man on Europe"

👀 Fiona Hill says she "busted" Sondland on the street by the WH (he hadn't gone through the usual channels) and "he'd say that he'd been in, you know, to see
the President, but I would find from talking to the staff that he'd only been up to see Mick Mulvaney"

Apparently Sondland pretended he was meeting with Trump - a lot! - when he was actually meeting with Mulvaney?

Hill: "I could just say to someone...Hey, has Ambassador Sondland just
been in? And I could just say: Did he see the President? 'No, but he' s been in to see Mulvaney'"