Thread by @moscow_project

Today's hearing, featuring testimony from Fiona Hill and David Holmes, is beginning. Watch it live here, and follow along for our live analysis:
c-span.org/video/?466380-…

.@RepAdamSchiff begins by summarizing what we've heard so far:

@RepAdamSchiff Both Hill and Holmes had front-row seats to Trump's decision to sideline official U.S. policy and instead install a team loyal only to him that would more actively pursue the investigations he wanted:

@RepAdamSchiff Hill's testimony detailed a key event in the Ukraine scandal timeline: a meeting where Sondland made the quid pro quo explicit, leading Bolton to storm out of the room while decrying the "drug deal" that was being cooked up.

@RepAdamSchiff Holmes was not on the July 25 call. But the next day, in meetings with the Ukrainians and with Sondland, he heard more than enough to confirm the quid pro quo:

@RepAdamSchiff In August and September, the quid pro quo became increasingly clear—until, finally, congressional pressure forced Trump to release the aid just days before Zelensky delivered.

Nunes tries to boil down the hearings to just the July 25 call.
Nope.
It was an abuse of power in its own right—and part of a months-long extortion scheme. themoscowproject.org/dispatch/debun…

Nunes says Ukraine didn't know that Trump was withholding aid.
Nope.
Witness after witness has confirmed that Ukraine not only knew but was about to deliver on Trump's demands by the time he released the aid. themoscowproject.org/dispatch/debun…

"Collusion conspiracy theories" are apparently the official position of the U.S. Justice Department, which just prosecuted Roger Stone for lying about connecting the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks, which was an active part of Russia's active measures. themoscowproject.org/dispatch/trump…

Nunes says that Ukraine conspiracy theories and belief in Russian hacking aren't mutually exclusive.
Putin apparently disagrees: Just yesterday, he was bragging that allegations of Ukrainian interference were distracting from real Russian attacks. nbcnews.com/politics/polit…

Holmes describes how the climate at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv in March, when Giuliani began his (false) smear campaign in conjunction with the corrupt Ukrainian prosecutor general Yuriy Lutsenko:

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, a major target of Yovanovitch's anti-corruption push, stepped up to defend her integrity.
The U.S. State Department didn't.
And Giuliani kept up his campaign, making it more and more public until she was finally recalled.

Holmes describes how Giuliani, Mulvaney, and the "Three Amigos"—that's Sondland, Volker, and Perry—overtook official diplomatic channels to run U.S. policy in Ukraine.

Even Sondland didn't appreciate Giuliani's outsize role, saying, "dammit Rudy, every time Rudy gets involved he goes and Fs everything up."

As the Trump administration's signals on Ukraine became progressively worse, Holmes began to question whether a White House visit in which Trump didn't show support for Zelensky might actually be worse than no meeting at all.

Holmes, like previous witnesses, testifies that the administration wouldn't—or couldn't—give any official explanation for why aid to Ukraine was being withheld.

The White House concealed the records of Trump's July 25 call from their own diplomatic staff in Ukraine.
Otherwise, they might realize that Trump was illegally demanding investigations into his political opponents.

Holmes provides a clear and vivid account of Sondland's July 26 phone call with Trump, a marked contrast to Sondland's gap-filled recounting of the same event:

"Ambassador Sondland stated that the president only cares about big stuff. I noted there was big stuff going on in Ukraine, like a war with Russia. And Sondland replied he meant big stuff that benefits the president, like the Biden investigation that Giuliani was pushing."

Holmes articulates the growing frustration with the informal channels in Ukraine, including an effort by Bolton and Morrison to reroute the channel that was running through Giuliani to run through Attorney General Bill Barr:

Holmes and Taylor suggested that Zelensky give a general anti-corruption statement.
But Zelensky's staff understood the demand: He needed to announce an investigation of Trump's political rival, and was ready to do so when public pressure forced Trump to release the aid.

Read Fiona Hill's opening statement here: npr.org/2019/11/21/781…

Hill: "I believe that those who have information that the congress deems relevant have a legal and a moral obligation to provide it." washingtonpost.com/politics/bolto…

"Some of you on this committee appear to believe that Russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country and that ... Ukraine did. This is a fictional narrative that is being perpetrated and propagated by Russia themselves."

"We must not let domestic politics stop us from defending ourselves against the foreign powers who truly wish us harm."

"The Russians' interest is, frankly, to delegitimize our entire presidency...What we're seeing here as a result of all of these narratives, this is exactly what the Russian government was hoping for."

Hill outlines why "Russians have a particular vested interest in putting Ukraine ... in a very bad light:" "It suits the Russian government if we're also looking at Ukraine as a perpetrator of malign acts against us."

.@RepAdamSchiff and Holmes walk through the obvious hypocrisy of the U.S. claiming to fight corruption in Ukraine while the president actively pushed for investigations into his political opponents:

@RepAdamSchiff Holmes: "This doesn't end with the lifting of the security assistance hold. Ukraine still needs us and, as I said, is still fighting this war to this very day."

@RepAdamSchiff When Sondland began to take charge in Ukraine, the message was clear: He was acting on the president's "priorities and interests"

@RepAdamSchiff After the July 25 call, Zelensky talked about "sensitive issues" that Trump cared about.
Now, we know what those were: investigating Burisma and the Bidens.

@RepAdamSchiff Holmes adds even more detail to his recounting of Sondland's July 26 call with Trump:

@RepAdamSchiff Holmes recounts Sondland's phone call with Trump, in which Sondland confirmed to Trump that Zelensky would move forward with announcing the investigation:

@RepAdamSchiff How does Holmes remember the call so clearly?
"This was a very distinctive experience. I've never seen anything like this in my foreign service career."

@RepAdamSchiff When Fiona Hill read the transcript of Trump's call with Zelensky, she was "very shocked and very saddened"—not only because of what it said, but because Trump didn't reference any of the things staff had prepared Trump to discuss.

@RepAdamSchiff Trump's staff were confused by his defense of Lutsenko, who "failed to deliver the promised reforms that he had committed to when he took office, and was using his office to insulate and protect political allies while presumably enriching himself."
In other words: He was corrupt.

@RepAdamSchiff Trump's advisers told him the CrowdStrike conspiracy theory was just that—a conspiracy theory.
So why was he so insistent on it in his call with Zelensky?

@RepAdamSchiff Fiona Hill on the Ukrainian interference allegations: "This is a view that Putin and the Russian security services and many in Russia have promoted. But this view has also got some traction...here in the United States. And those two things, over time, started to fuse together."

@RepAdamSchiff All roads lead to Russia: Trump pulled Pence out of attending Zelensky's inauguration before it was even scheduled shortly after a call with Putin, and the same day he met with Putin lackey Viktor Orban:

@RepAdamSchiff Hill explains what Bolton meant when he described Giuliani as a "hand grenade:"

@RepAdamSchiff Holmes explains how Ukrainians came to see Giuliani as a key player in Trump's Ukraine policy—and how Trump's decision to recall Yovanovitch confirmed that impression:

@RepAdamSchiff Holmes describes Zelensky's inauguration, during which Vindman warned him to stay out of U.S. politics—which clearly meant Trump and Giuliani's investigations into Burisma and the Bidens.

@RepAdamSchiff Hill and Holmes confirm that Burisma was code for the Bidens—and that, yes, it was clear to everybody at the time.

@RepAdamSchiff Holmes becomes the latest in a long line of witnesses to debunk Trump's conspiracy theories about the Bidens:

@RepAdamSchiff Hill describes in great detail the now-famous meeting in which Sondland explicitly laid out the terms of the quid pro quo for Ukrainian officials:

@RepAdamSchiff Hill describes her and Bolton's response to Sondland's decision to outline the quid pro quo:

@RepAdamSchiff Holmes testifies that he, too, understood that there was a quid pro quo of investigations for military aid, saying it was "the only logical conclusion you could reach"—like 2+2=4.

Despite Hill's warnings this morning, Nunes begins by rehashing conspiracy theories alleging that Ukraine hacked the 2016 election.
We took the opportunity to debunk those conspiracy theories for him: themoscowproject.org/dispatch/debun…

As Nunes goes back to the well of Ukraine 2016 conspiracy theories, Holmes shoots down his nonsense regarding the black ledger that exposed Manafort's corrupt dealings in Ukraine:

For the record, here's what Serhiy Leshschenko had to say about the ledger, and about Trump and Giuliani's allegations against him: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/…

Nunes leads every witness through allegations about Burisma and the Bidens. Since he leaves during Goldman's questioning, he may have missed previous witnesses shooting that narrative down, including Volker explicitly calling it a conspiracy theory.

https://twitter.com/moscow_project/status/1196906780544110597?s=20

Hill explains how she came to realize that Sondland was "being involved in a domestic political errand, and we were being involved in national security foreign policy. And those two things had just diverged."

Schiff cautions witnesses to be careful not to allow questioners to introduce misinformation into the record—then clarifies one of the more blatant misrepresentations by the GOP questioning:

Hill forcefully rebukes the attacks Republicans on the committee and in the media have launched on her fellow naturalized citizen Vindman before and after his testimony:

Hill recounts the events leading up to Bolton's comment that Sondland and Mulvaney were cooking up a "drug deal:"

Hill describes how Sondland laid out the quid pro quo to the Ukrainians, including one key difference from Sondland: Hill confirms that, by then, it was obvious that "Burisma" was code for the Bidens.

As Jim Jordan tries to shout him down, Holmes again recounts the July 26 phone call he overheard: "Everyone by that point agreed. It was obvious what the president was pressing for."

Republicans say that nobody is disputing that Russia attacked the 2016 elections.
They leave out one obvious person: Donald Trump.

.@jahimes and Hill debunk the notion that a single op-ed about Russia's invasion of Crimea comprises a foreign attack on our democracy:

@jahimes Hill explains more differences between Russian interference and Ukraine-related conspiracy theories:
Russia used its military intelligence services to attack our democracy.
Ukraine didn't.
That's a pretty big difference.

@jahimes "I could list a whole host of ambassadors from allied countries who tweeted out public comments about the president as well and it did not affect security assistance having meetings with them."

@jahimes Nice work here by Ratcliffe summarizing the basic allegations against Trump, and the clear evidence that he did exactly what he's been accused of doing:

@jahimes Hill and Holmes again provide the defense of Ambassador Yovanovitch that the State Department under Mike Pompeo refused to give for fear of an angry tweet from Trump.

@jahimes Hill explains why the "Never Trumper" label is nonsense, and discusses the hateful calls and other attacks she's received since Trump began attacking witnesses in the hearings:

@jahimes Hill explains why she found Yovanovitch's removal so dispiriting: "We all firmly believe that Mr. Giuliani and others including the people who were recently indicted, the Ukrainian-American gentlemen, had for some reason decided Yovanovitch was a personal problem for them."

@jahimes FACT CHECK: No, Mueller did not "debunk" the assertion that there was collusion. In fact, his report outlined several clear examples of it—and Roger Stone's conviction last week just drove it home. themoscowproject.org/dispatch/yes-m…

@jahimes Hill gives an impassioned defense of herself and the other witnesses who have testified, and of the need for elections free of interference from any quarter:

@jahimes Stewart just spent five minutes not asking any questions, but rehashing the debunked conspiracy theories that make up the basis of Trump's defense. themoscowproject.org/dispatch/debun…

"Ukraine ultimately did receive the aid, correct?"
Correct—after Congress began investigating, and the whistleblower filed his complaint about, Trump's decision to withhold the aid.
themoscowproject.org/dispatch/debun…

As early as July 10, White House lawyers were aware that there was concern within the administration that Trump was linking a White House meeting with the prospect of investigations into his political opponents.

.@JoaquinCastrotx: "We have seen substantial evidence and heard substantial evidence of wrongdoing by the president of the United States."

@JoaquinCastrotx .@JoaquinCastrotx points to another reason not to believe that Trump was sincerely concerned about corruption in Ukraine: Energy Secretary Rick Perry's push to get major campaign donors placed on the boards of Ukrainian energy companies.

@JoaquinCastrotx .@JoaquinCastroTX: "If Congress allows a president of the United States now or later to ask a foreign government...to investigate a political rival, what precedent does the that set for American diplomacy, for the safety of Americans overseas, and for the future of our country?"

@JoaquinCastrotx .@RepDennyHeck runs through some of the big lies Trump and his defenders have told during the hearings, and ends with the big truth: "He did it."

@JoaquinCastrotx @RepDennyHeck Jim Jordan once again says that the Mueller investigation found no collusion.
That's just false. Here's what he actually found: themoscowproject.org/dispatch/yes-m…

Jim Jordan still apparently hasn't heard that Zelensky was all set to go on CNN to announce the president's desired investigations when Trump released the aid due to congressional pressure and the whistleblower complaint.
themoscowproject.org/dispatch/debun…

"The witnesses have made it absolutely clear what the president did. And it's equally clear that the president has launched a coverup and a disinformation campaign to hide his abuse of power from the American people."

.@PeterWelch: "This conduct corrupts our democracy, it corrupts how our country conducts foreign policy, it threatens our national security and the security of all Americans. And it is in my view a clear betrayal of the president's oath of office."

@PeterWelch Hill testifies that she had never before been directed by a superior to report something to the White House lawyers—until Bolton told her to do so when Sondland laid out the quid pro quo.

@PeterWelch Hill: "It was not credible to me that [Sondland] was oblivious" that "Burisma" was code for an investigation into the Bidens.

@PeterWelch Hill on the importance of aid to Ukraine: "Putin is always looking out to see if there is any hint that we will not follow through on promises that we have made, because he will also follow through on a threat as indeed he ultimately did."

@PeterWelch Hill pushes back on the anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that swirl through the right's smear campaigns against Trump's critics—and draws their history back to the original Russian hoax intel operation, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

@PeterWelch Hill agrees: Trump's shadow Ukraine policy appears to have been run to benefit the personal interests of a variety of shady characters, including Parnas, Fruman, and even Dmitry Firtash.

Nunes just cited his memo.
His allegations all fell apart—but he did reveal that Trump administration officials were so concerned about a potential Russian agent on Trump's campaign that they renewed surveillance on him multiple times.
themoscowproject.org/dispatch/nunes…

Where was the indignation Republicans showed to today's witnesses when Trump questioned whether Russia attacked the U.S. in Helsinki?

Trump's defenders have not questioned a single fact that was brought forward in these hearings.
They have only smeared witnesses in hopes of defending the president.

Trump and his allies could have simply recalled Yovanovitch.
"But that's not enough for this president. No, he has to smear and destroy those that get in his way."

"The president wouldn't give him that, not without getting something in return. Wouldn't give him that official act, that White House meeting, without giving something in return and that return was investigations of his rival that would help his re-election."

"If we care about the big stuff, we can't just get over it."

Republicans' dismissal of hearsay evidence "might be a little more convincing if they were joining us in demanding that the documents be produced, but, of course, they're not."

"The president says really quite spontaneously, not as if he was asked in this way, 'no quid pro quo.' 'What do you want from Ukraine?' 'No quid pro quo.' This is the 'I'm not a crook' defense."

There are two differences between Trump and Nixon.
The first is that what Trump did is worse.
The second is that now, no congressional Republicans are willing to stand up to Trump.
"Where are the people who are willing to go beyond their party to look to their duty?"

.@RepAdamSchiff: The damage Trump has done to the U.S. "is a terrible tragedy for us, but it is a greater tragedy for the rest of the world."

@RepAdamSchiff On July 24, Mueller testified.
On July 25, Trump asked another country to interfere in U.S. elections.
"That says to me, this president believes he is above the law."

@RepAdamSchiff .@RepAdamSchiff ends the hearing to applause: "There is nothing more dangerous than an unethical president who believes they are above the law. And I would just say to people watching at home, and around the world, in the words of my great colleague, we are better than that."