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Donald Trump Impeachment Trial; Schiff Argues Trump Put Personal Interests Over U.S. Interests. Aired 4-4:30p ET

Aired January 23, 2020 - 16:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[16:00:00] SCHIFF: -- these threats. Russia brazenly and then plausibly denies its actions and we have failed to impose sufficient costs.

The Kremlin's confidence is growing as its agents conduct their sustained campaigns to undermine our confidence in ourselves and in one another. What General McMaster says obviously makes sense. Russia's confidence sadly is growing. We need to stand up to them and that's why we support Ukraine to help defeat Russian aggression.

So on July 25th when President Zelensky spoke with President Trump that's what he, McMaster, was hoping to discuss. Or he would be hoping that he would discuss. How we can support Ukraine in its fight against a huge adversary. Our confidence in one another.

That's what President Zelensky was most worried about when he got on the line with the President on July 25th, whether Ukraine could have confidence in US support. Nearly 70% of Ukraine's territory, I'm sorry nearly 7% of Ukraine's territory had been annexed by Russian backed forces. More than 15,000 troops have been lost in the hot war over the past five years.

But when President Zelensky raised the issue of US Military aid needed to confront Russian aggression, President Trump did nothing to reassure the Ukrainian leader of our steadfast support for Ukraine's sovereignty. Instead he made personal demands.

It is for these reasons that President Trump's investigations went against Official US Policy, witnesses confirmed that President Trump's request actually diverged, not just from our policy but from own National Security.

As Dr. Hill testified, Ambassador Sondland in carrying out President Trump's scheme quote "was being involved in a domestic political errand and we being involved in National Security Policy and those two things had just diverged." And as Ambassador Taylor elaborated quote "our holding up of security assistance that would go to a country that is fighting aggression from Russia for no good policy reason, no good substantive reason, no good National Security reason is wrong."

As these officials so correctly observed there's no question that President Trump's political errand and our National Security diverged. That he did this to advance his reelection. Not to advance US National Security Goals. And that he did it for no good reason but the political one.

But it's more than that, it's more than our National Security Policy. We as a country are meant to embody the solution to corruption. Our country's based on promoting the rule of law. And hear what the President did attacks another of the United States strengths. That of our ideals and our values.

Part of that is ensuring the integrity of our Democracy and our political institutions. It is a fundamental American value that underlying our Democracy that we do use official powers to ask for investigations of our political components to gain a political advantage. When President Trump asked a foreign leader to investigate his political opponent he abused the broad authority provided to the President of the United States.

Witness testimony again confirms this. Vice President Pence's Advisory, Jennifer Williams, was concerned by the President's focus on domestic political issues rather than US National Security because the President is not suppose to use foreign government for political errands. She characterized the call as a domestic political matter. Here is her testimony.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAMS: During my closed door deposition members of the Committee asked about my personal views and whether I had any concerns about the July 25th call. As I testified then, I found the July 25th phone call unusual because in contrast to other Presidential calls I had observed it involved discussions of what appeared to be a domestic political matter.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHIFF: Lieutenant Colonel Vindman also thought the call was improper and unrelated to the talking points he had drafted for the President.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VINDMAN: It is improper for the President of the United States to demand a foreign government investigate a US Citizen and a political opponent. I was also clear that if Ukraine pursued an investigation -- it was also clear that if Ukraine pursued an investigation into the 2016 Elections, the Bidens and Burisma it would interpreted as partisan play.

[16:05:00]

This would undoubtedly result in Ukraine losing bipartisan support undermining US National Security and advancing Russia's strategic objective in the region.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHIFF: Lieutenant Colonel Vindman who, as a reminded, is a Purple Heart Veteran, says what we all know clearly. It's improper for the President of the United States to demand a foreign government to investigate a US Citizen and a political opponent.

And it wasn't just that Colonel Vindman thought that is was wrong. He was so concerned that warned Ukraine too, not to get involved in our domestic politics. In May Lieutenant Colonel Vindman grew concerned by the pressure campaign he witnessed in the media waged primarily by Rudy Giuliani.

During a meeting with President Zelensky on May 20th, Lieutenant Colonel Vindman warned the Ukrainian leader to stay out of US Politics because that is our Official US Policy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VINDMAN: During a bilateral meeting in which the whole delegation was meeting with President Zelensky and his team, I offered two pieces of advice. To be particularly cautious with regards to Ukraine, to be particularly cautious with regards to Russia and its desire to provoke Ukraine. And the second one was to stay out of US domestic policy.

SCHIFF: You meant politics?

VINDMAN: Politics, correction.

SCHIFF: And why did you feel it was necessary to advise President Zelensky to stay away from US domestic politics?

VINDMAN: Chairman, in the March and April timeframe became clear that there were -- there were actors in the US -- public actors, non- governmental actors that were promoting the idea of investigations and 2016 Ukrainian interference and it was consistent with US policy to advise any country, all the countries in my portfolio, any country in the world to not participate in US domestic politics. So I was passing the same advise consistent with U.S. policy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHIFF: He once again makes this clear, it was consistent with U.S. policy to advise any country -- all the countries in my portfolio, any country in the world we do not participate in U.S. domestic politics.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent, too, testified that the president's political investigations of course have nothing to do with American anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine, which have consistently focused on building institutions and never specific investigations, and that if we do ask countries to do our political errands, it entirely threatens our credibility as a democracy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(UNKNOWN): But you also testified on October 15, in the deposition about fundamental reforms necessary for Ukraine to fight corruption and to transform the country. And you cited the importance of reforming certain institutions -- notably the security service in the prosecutor general's office.

Was investigating President Trump's political opponents a part of those necessary reforms? Was it on that list of yours, sir? Indeed was it on any list?

KENT: No, they weren't.

(UNKNOWN): In fact, historically is it not true that a major problem in the Ukraine has been its misuse of prosecutors, precisely to conduct investigation of political opponents? That's a legacy, I dare suggest from the Soviet era. When (ph) as you stated in your testimony, prosecutors like the KGB were, and I quote you now, 'instruments of oppression --"

KENT: I said that, and I believe it's true.

(UNKNOWN): So finally, Mr. Kent, for as long as I can remember U.S. foreign policy has been predicated on advancing principled interest and democratic values, notably freedom of speech, press, assembly, religion, free, fair and open elections and the rule of law.

Mr. Kent, would American leaders ask foreign governments to investigate their potential rivals? Doesn't that make it harder for us to advocate on behalf of those democratic values?

KENT: I believe it makes it more difficult for our diplomatic representatives overseas to carry out those policy goals, yes.

(UNKNOWN): How is that, sir?

[16:10:00]

KENT: Well there's an issue of credibility. They hear diplomats on the ground saying one thing and they hear other U.S. leaders saying something else.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHIFF: The bottom line is this, what was in the best interest of our country was to help Ukraine, to give them the military aid, to fight one of our greatest adversaries and to help promote the rule of law.

And what was in President Trump's personal interest was the opposite -- to pressure Ukraine to conduct investigations against his 2020 rival to help ensure his reelection. And when, what is best for the country and what was best for Donald Trump diverged, President Trump put himself above the best interest of our country.

Let's now go to the fifth reason that you know the president put himself first. The fifth reason is that the requests for these investigations to pardon, not just from U.S. policy but from established U.S. government channels. On the July 25 call President Trump told President Zelensky that he should speak to Mr. Giuliani and Attorney General Barr.

But after the July 25 transcript was released the Department of Justice disclaimed any knowledge or involvement in the president's political investigations. The Department of Justice statement from the day the July 25 call was released says this -- this was from September 25. The president has not spoken with the attorney general about having Ukraine investigate anything relating to former Vice President Biden or his son. The president has not asked the attorney general to contact Ukraine on this, or any other matter. The attorney general has not communicated with Ukraine, on this or any other subject, nor has the attorney general discussed this matter or anything relating to Ukraine with Rudy Giuliani.

Now this is pretty extraordinary. You can say a lot of things about the attorney general, but you cannot say that he ever has looked to pursue something the thought was not in the president's interest.

This is pretty extraordinary, where he is saying the moment this transcript is publicly released, I've got nothing to do with this scheme. I don't know why they brought me up in this call, I don't know why the president brought me up in this call -- he hasn't (ph) asked me to do anything about this -- I want nothing to do with this business.

I suspect the attorney general can recognize a drug deal when he sees it too, and he wanted nothing to do with this. Now, if this was some legitimate investigation, you would think the Department of Justice would have a role, that's traditionally how an investigation with an international component would work.

But this wasn't the case. This wasn't the case and the attorney general wanted nothing to do with it. If these were legitimate investigations that were in the national interest, why was Bill Barr's Justice Department so quick to divorce themselves from it?

A simple answer is that as we see so clearly they were against U.S. official policy and our national security. The Justice Department wanted nothing to do with it, and by asking for these investigations the president was abusing his power.

Let's go to the sixth reason you know President Trump put himself first. It wasn't just that these witnesses told us -- what these witnesses told us in the impeachment hearings about this being wrong, they reported the president's conduct in real time, so it's not just that they came forward later. They came forward in real time to report the president's conduct.

And of course you've seen over the last couple days how many times people were told, go talk to the lawyers. Well Tim Morrison, former Republican Congressional staffer and Colonel Vindman were sufficiently concerned by what they heard President Trump solicit on that July 25 call, that they both immediately went to speak to the lawyers -- John Eisenberg the NSC legal advisor, let's take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(UNKNOWN): Now Mr. Morrison, shortly after you heard the July 25 call, you testified that you alerted the NSC legal advisor John Eisenberg, pretty much right away, is that right?

MORRISON: Correct. (UNKNOWN): And you indicated in your opening statement -- or at least from your deposition that you went to Mr. Eisenberg out of concern over the potential political fallout if the call record became public, and not because you thought it was illegal, is that right?

[16:15:00]

MORRISON: Correct.

(UNKNOWN): But you would agree, right, that asking a foreign government to investigate a domestic political rival is inappropriate, would you not?

MORRISON: It's not what -- it's not what we recommended the president discuss.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHIFF: Well, I think that's a profound understatement. Mr. Morrison clearly recognized that the request to investigate Biden and Burisma was about U.S. domestic politics and not U.S. national security.

Lieutenant Colonel Vindman knew this too. And he reported his concerns to the White House Counsel.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(UNKNOWN): Now you said you also reported this incident to the NSC lawyers, is that right.

VINDMAN: Correct.

(UNKNOWN): And what was their response?

VINDMAN: John Eisenberg said that he -- he took -- he took notes while I was talking and he said that he would look into it.

(UNKNOWN): Why did you report this meeting and this conversation to the NCS lawyers?

VINDMAN: Because it was inappropriate and following the meeting, I had a short conversation -- following the post meeting meeting in the war (ph) room, I had a short conversation with Ambassador -- correction -- Dr. Hill and we discussed the idea of needing to report this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHIFF: In fact, Colonel Vindman reported concerns twice and Mr. Morrison did so multiple times as well. They weren't, of course, the only ones. As this slide shows, Dr. Hill reported her concerns to the NSC legal advisor.

Mr. Kent reported his concerns that the State Departments failure to respond to a House document request, the lawyers were awfully busy.

And why did President Trump's own officials not so called never Trumpers, not Democrats or Republicans, but career public servants report this conduct in real time. Because they knew it was wrong.

Dr. Hill said it was improper and it was inappropriate and we said that in the time, in real time. Lieutenant Colonel Vindman said the July 25th call was wrong and he had a duty to report it.

Ambassador Taylor said quote, holding up of security assistance for no good policy reason, no good substantive reason, no good national security reason is wrong. Mr. Morrison admitted that he reported the July 25th call pretty much right away and recommended to them that we restrict access to the package.

And Ms. Williams said that the July 25th call struck me as unusual and inappropriate and more political in nature. The consensus is one again clear. The president's demand for political investigations was improper, inappropriate and wrong and again, confirms that these requested investigations were not about anything except Donald Trump's political gain.

Let's go to the 7th reason why you know President Trump put himself first. American officials weren't the only ones who recognize the political nature of these request. Ukrainian officials did too.

And that brings us the seventh reason we know that this was against our national interest. Ukrainian officials themselves expressed concern that these corrupt investigations would drag them into U.S. domestic politics.

For example, in mid July Ambassador Taylor texted Sondland and Taylor explained President Zelensky's reluctant to become -- reluctance to become a pawn in U.S. politics. Ambassador Taylor said, Gordon, one thing court -- Kurt and -- Kurt Volker that is -- one thing Kurt and I talked about yesterday was Sasha Danyliuk's point, and he's a top advisor to President Zelensky.

Sasha Danyliuk's point that President Zelensky is sensitive about Ukraine being taken seriously, not nearly as an instrument in Washington domestic re-election politics.

So here you have Sasha Danyliuk, one of the top advisors to Zelensky, affirming that his president wants to be taken seriously. It's pretty extraordinary when a foreign leader has to communicate to this country that they want to be taken seriously and not just as some kind of a pawn for political purposes.

[16:20:00]

When an ally wholly dependent on us for military support, for economic support, for diplomatic support has to say please take us seriously. But this is what the Ukrainians are saying.

They understood this wasn't American policy as much as we do. And they didn't want to be used as a pawn. Ambassador Taylor explained this text during his testimony. The whole thrust of this irregular channel, he said, was to get these investigations, which Danyliuk and presumably Zelensky were resisting because they didn't want to be seen -- they didn't want to be seen to be interfering. But also to be a pawn. So this is an important too, which is it wasn't just that they didn't want to be seen as getting involved in U.S. politics because if they did, and it looked like they were getting involved on the side of Donald Trump, then it would hurt their support with Democrats.

If it looked like they were getting involved on the other side, it would hurt them with the president. It wasn't just that it -- it was no benefit to Ukraine to be dragged into this. There was no benefit to Ukraine by this.

But they also didn't want to be viewed as a pawn. And President Zelensky's got his own electorate. He's this new leader. He's a former comedian and he wants to be taken seriously. He needs to be taken seriously because if the U.S. won't take him seriously, you can darn well bet Vladimir Putin isn't going to take him seriously.

And so the perception not just that there's a rift that he can't get military aid or it's in doubt or in question, but the -- the impression that he's nothing more than a pawn, you could see how problematic that was for President Zelensky.

In other words, Ukrainian officials understood just as our officials understood, just as all those folks you just saw, Morrison and Vindman and Hill and others and all the people who had to go to the lawyers, all the people who listened to that call and understood this is just wrong.

Now Morrison goes on to say that he's no legal expert and can't really opine on the legality of what happened in this call. But they all knew it was wrong. They also knew that it was damaging to bipartisan support.

They knew it was damaging to our national security. But here we see it wasn't just our people. It was Ukrainians who also understood this was a pure political errand they were being asked to perform.

It's no way to treat an ally at war. Now, it wasn't just the testimony of the U.S. officials on this. We know this directly from the Ukrainians. Indeed we know this directly from President Zelensky himself who said quote, I'm sorry but I don't want to be involved to Democratic open elections -- elections of the USA. Here's Zelensky saying I don't want to be involved. And he shouldn't be involved in our elections. That's not his job and he knows that and it's - it's a tragic fact that the world's oldest democracy has to be told by the struggling democracy, this isn't what you're supposed to do. But that's what's happening here.

Let's go to the eighth reason why you can know that President Trump put himself first and that is there's no serious dispute that the White House tried to bury the call record. They tried to bury the call record. Although President Trump has repeatedly insisted that his July 25th conversation with President Zelensky was perfect. The White House apparently believed otherwise. Their own lawyers apparently believed otherwise. Following a head of state call the White House normally issues a pubic summary or readout to lock in any commitments made by the foreign leader and publicly reinforce the core elements of the president's message. However, no public readout was posted on the White House website following the July 25th call. I wonder why that was?

[16:25:00]

The White House instead provided reporters with a short, incomplete summary that, of course, omitted the major elements of that conversation. The short summary said, today, President Donald J. Trump spoke by telephone with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine to congratulate him on his recent election. President Trump and President Zelensky discussed ways to strengthen the relationship between the United States and Ukraine including energy and economic cooperation. Both leaders also expressed that they look forward to the opportunity to meet. That was it.

Now I don't know about you but that does not seem like an accurate summary of that call. As you can see that summary did not mention President Trump's repetition of a debunked conspiracy theory about the 2016 election promoted by Russian President Putin.

The summary did not mention President Trump's demand that Ukraine announce an investigation into his domestic political rival, former Vice President Biden. The summary did not mention that President Trump raise a - praised a corrupt Ukrainian prosecutor who to this day continues to feed false claims to the president through Rudy Giuliani. If the call was perfect, if these investigations were legitimate, if the White House had nothing to hide, then ask yourselves, why did the White House readout omit any mention of these investigations? Why not publicly confirm that Ukraine had been asked by the president to pursue them? Why? Because it would have exposed the president's corruption.

But sanitizing the call readout wasn't the only step taken to cover up the president's wrongdoing. The White House Counsel's office also took irregular efforts to hide the call record away on a secure server used to store highly-classified information. National Security Council Senior Director Tim Morrison who you saw video clips of, testified that he requested that access to the electronic file of the call record be restricted so that it couldn't leak.

Mr. Morrison said the call record did not meet the requirements to be placed on the highly-classified system and Mr. Eisenberg later claimed the call record had been placed on the highly-classified system by mistake. Sure it was a very innocent mistake. However, mistake or no mistake, it remained on that system until at least the third week of September 2019. So that mistake continued from July all the way through September.

Why were they trying to hide what the president did? This was U.S. policy. If they were proud of it, if they were really interested in corruption, if this was about corruption, this had nothing to do with the president's reelection campaign, if Biden was merely an interesting coincidence, why did they bury the record?

Why did they hide the record? Why did they put the record on a system meant for highly classified information which the folks in here on the Intelligence Committee and many others can tell you is usually used for things like covert action operations - the most sensitive secrets. Well this was a very sensitive political secret. This was a covert action of a different kind and character.

This was a corrupt action and it was hidden and they knew it was wrong and that's why they hid it. Innocent people don't behave that way.

Let's go to the ninth reason that you know President Trump put himself first. This is perhaps the clearest reason that we can tell that all President Trump cared about is that President Trump is that President Trump confirmed his desire for these investigations in his statements to his agents and when the scheme was discovered, to the American people.

The very day after he solicited foreign interference to help him cheat in the 2020 election, President Trump spoke with Gordon Sondland who was in Ukraine. President Trump had only one question for Ambassador Sondland. So, he's going to do the investigation. Here is David Holmes recounting the call between President Trump and Sondland.

(BEGIN VIDEO)

HOLMES: I then heard President Trump ask, so he's going to do the investigation. Ambassador Sondland replied that he's going to do it adding that President Zelensky will do anything you ask him to do.

(END VIDEO)

SCHIFF: So here we are, this is July 26th.

[16:30:00]