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Former White House adviser Fiona Hill testified Thursday that she had warned Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, that his efforts in Ukraine on behalf of President Trump would “blow up.”

Hill, a Russia expert who reported directly to John Bolton when he was national security adviser, testified alongside David Holmes, a top staffer at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, before the House Intelligence Committee as part of the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/09/12/biden-impeachment-inquiry-meaning/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">impeachment inquiry</a>.

Democrats are seeking information to bolster the case that Trump sought to leverage U.S. military aid to Ukraine and a White House visit by President Volodymyr Zelensky in exchange for investigations of former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, among others.

●Fiona Hill testifies in impeachment inquiry about <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/fiona-hill-to-testify-in-impeachment-inquiry-about-a-fictional-narrative-on-ukrainian-interference/2019/11/21/6d1fe576-0c60-11ea-8397-a955cd542d00_story.html">a ‘fictional narrative’</a> on Ukrainian interference.

●Sondland <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sondland-was-there-a-quid-pro-quo-the-answer-is-yes/2019/11/20/34741e3c-0b92-11ea-8397-a955cd542d00_story.html">acknowledges Ukraine quid pro quo</a>, implicates Trump, Vice President Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and others.

● Sondland’s bombshell testimony leaves Trump’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sondlands-bombshell-testimony-leaves-trumps-republican-allies-scrambling/2019/11/20/bf8e54f8-0bbd-11ea-97ac-a7ccc8dd1ebc_story.html">Republican allies scrambling</a>.

●Testimony <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/testimony-ensnares-pompeo-in-ukraine-scandal-as-he-mulls-political-future/2019/11/20/f18c3876-0bb8-11ea-a49f-9066f51640f6_story.html">ensnares Pompeo in Ukraine scandal</a> as he mulls political future.

<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/politics/impeachment-calendar/">What’s next in the inquiry </a><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-impeachment-key-figures/" >| Who’s involved in the impeachment inquiry</a> | <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/politics/key-documents-trump-impeachment/" >Key documents related to the inquiry</a>

The frst daughter weighed in on her father’s impeachment Thursday evening with a quote from 19th century French historian Alexis de Tocqueville warning that impeachment could be used politically.<b> </b>

On Twitter, Ivanka Trump shared without comment this quote: “A decline of public morals in the United States will probably be marked by the abuse of the power of impeachment as a means of crushing political adversaries or ejecting them from office.”

Except, as several Twitter users noted, that quote is a vague paraphrase of Tocqueville used by a judge in 1889 to defend President Andrew Johnson who opposed rights for freed slaves after the Civil War and was later impeached.<b> </b>

Colby Itkowitz

Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh shrugged off the latest testimony in the impeachment inquiry, arguing that Democrats have “managed to produce no evidence at all that President Trump did anything wrong.”

“Two more witnesses and two more whiffs by Democrats in their sham impeachment circus,” Murtaugh said. “Let’s remember that Nancy Pelosi promised she would not proceed with impeachment unless it was a bipartisan endeavor, which it clearly is not.”

Felicia Sonmez

Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) sent a letter to Pompeo on Thursday requesting documents related to Biden and his communications with Ukrainian officials, a step seen as a GOP effort to counter the House impeachment investigation.

Graham’s inquiry is focused on any calls Biden may have had with Petro Poroshenko, then the Ukrainian president, regarding the firing of the country’s top prosecutor as well as any that referred to an investigation into Burisma, the Ukrainian natural gas company that employed Biden’s son, Hunter.

Graham’s document request suggests that he is seeking to legitimize Trump’s accusations that Biden, then vice president, put pressure on Ukraine to fire its lead prosecutor to protect his son, a claim without evidence that has been disputed by officials familiar with the investigation.

Read more <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/graham-launches-probe-into-bidens-burisma-and-ukraine/2019/11/21/5a5675b4-0ca5-11ea-97ac-a7ccc8dd1ebc_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_22" title="www.washingtonpost.com">here</a>.

Robert Driscoll, an attorney for acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, dismissed Hill’s testimony in a statement after the hearing ended.

Driscoll said Hill’s remarks were “riddled with speculation and guesses about any role that Mr. Mulvaney played with anything related to Ukraine,” adding that “no court in this country” would give any weight to her testimony, and “neither should Congress or the public.”

Among other things, Hill had described Bolton characterizing the efforts of Sondland and Mulvaney on Ukraine as a “drug deal.”

“The fact is that Ms. Hill has never met Mr. Mulvaney other than in passing, and has never discussed anything with him regarding Ukraine,” Driscoll said. “We have no idea why Ms. Hill believes Mr. Mulvaney was so heavily involved, especially in light of Ambassador Sondland’s contrary testimony that he only spoke very infrequently to Mr. Mulvaney and had zero substantive conversations with him about Ukraine.”

Rosalind S. Helderman

A group of Republican senators and senior White House officials met privately Thursday to map out a strategy for a potential impeachment trial, including proceedings in the Senate that could be limited to about two weeks, according to multiple officials familiar with the talks.

Republican Sens. Mike Lee (Utah), Ron Johnson (Wis.), John Neely Kennedy (La.), Graham, Ted Cruz (Tex.) and Tom Cotton (Ark.) met with White House counsel Pat Cipollone, Mulvaney, senior adviser Jared Kushner, and counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway, according to the officials, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a private meeting.

Read more <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/white-house-and-republicans-discuss-limiting-impeachment-trial-to-two-weeks/2019/11/21/3e02edf8-0c9a-11ea-a49f-9066f51640f6_story.html?wpisrc=al_news__alert-politics--alert-national&amp;wpmk=1&itid=lk_inline_manual_31" title="www.washingtonpost.com">here</a>.

Seung Min Kim

Josh Dawsey

After his fiery closing remarks, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) gaveled the hearing to a close, concluding the week’s testimony.

In case any doubt remained that Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee would support impeaching Trump, Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) declared at the close of Thursday’s hearing that the president’s actions are far worse than anything President Richard Nixon had done.

Schiff acknowledged that no one witness had been able to fully explain the Trump administration’s freezing of nearly $400 million in security assistance for Ukraine. But he cited a news conference by acting White House cheif of staff Mick Mulvaney, who has defied a subpoena from the committee.

Despite criticism for a similar kind of comment in the past, Schiff briefly impersonated Mulvaney: “You’re darn right. Yes. We talked about the 2016 election investigation. And, yes, this was in the context of holding up the military aid and, you know, just get used to it or just get over or whatever it was he said,” Schiff said, adding “those are my words, not his.”

Schiff also took aim at Trump’s proclamation that he demanded nothing from Ukraine. “’No, no quid pro quo.’ This is the ‘I’m not a crook defense.’ You say it. And I guess that’s the end of it,” Schiff said.

That was just the beginning of parallels Schiff drew to the Watergate scandal and the resignation of Nixon.

“What we’ve seen here is far more serious than a third-rate burglary of the Democratic headquarters. What we’re talking about here is the withholding … of military aid to an ally at war — that is beyond anything Nixon did.”

There was little doubt Schiff had reached his conclusion on impeachment, pointing to the timing of Trump asking Zelensky for a favor in July.

“It came down to the fact that the day after [special counsel] Bob Mueller testified … Donald Trump is back on the phone asking another nation to involve itself in another U.S. election,” he said.

“And I would just say to people watching here at home and around the world, in the words of my great colleague, ‘We are better than that,’ ” he said, citing the words of the late House Oversight Committee chairman Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.).

Aaron C. Davis

In his closing remarks, Schiff asked, “Where is Howard Baker?” The line was a reference to the Republican senator whose question during the Nixon impeachment — “What did the president know, and when did he know it?” — was seen as a turning point in those proceedings.

On Thursday, only three Republicans were in the room to hear Schiff ask the question.

The California Democrat delivered a lengthy closing argument, asking who in the GOP would put their duty over party and see Trump’s actions in Ukraine as bribery.

The answer is not many, if any. Even Rep. Will Hurd (R-Tex.), a retiring centrist who some thought might join Democrats in an impeachment vote, stated plainly Thursday that he had not “heard evidence proving the president committed bribery or extortion.”

But the image of nearly a full dais of Democrats — compared to only three Republicans present when Schiff asked the question — was a reminder of just how politically split the House will remain on impeachment, and how much more partisan the Trump era is than Nixon’s time.

“What we’ve seen here is far more serious than a third-rate burglary of the Democratic headquarters,” Schiff said, referring to the Watergate affair. “The difference between then and now is not the difference between Nixon and Trump. It’s the difference between that Congress and this one.”

The three Republicans in attendance were Reps. Devin Nunes (Calif.), the top Republican on the Intelligence panel; Jim Jordan (Ohio), the ranking member on the Oversight committee; and K. Michael Conaway (Tex.), who ran the GOP’s Russia probe.

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) slipped back into her seat after Schiff’s question, before he gaveled out the hearing.

Karoun Demirjian

Hill testified that it was “not credible” that Sondland did not equate Burisma to the Bidens when Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal attorney, and others spoke of it.

“It’s not credible to me at all that he was oblivious to this,” Hill said, noting that it was obvious the name of the Ukrainian energy company was code for the president’s interest in investigating Hunter Biden.

Hill said Sondland’s effort to pressure the Ukrainians “was improper and it was inappropriate, and we said that in real time.”

She also noted that the July 10 conversation in which Sondland communicated the quid pro quo to the Ukrainians “was the first time it crystallized to me that there was a different channel” regarding Ukraine — a channel to pursue domestic priorities instead of foreign policy.

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) recited a quote made by longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone to the far-right conspiracy theory website Infowars. Stone had called Hill “the globalist leftist George Soros insider who had infiltrated McMaster’s staff,” referring to Trump’s former national security adviser, H.R. McMaster.

“I think my coal-mining family would be very surprised to hear all of these things about me,” Hill deadpanned.

Stone and others have leveled the Soros conspiracy theories against former ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch as well. Krishnamoorthi asked Hill whether she believed the attacks “have a tinge of anti-Semitism to them, at least?”

“Well, certainly when they involve George Soros, they do,” she said, comparing the campaign to an early 1900s document propagating lies about Jewish plans for global domination.

“This is the longest-running anti-Semitic trope that we have in history,” Hill said. “And the trope against Mr. Soros — George Soros — was also created for political purposes.”

“I’m sorry you’ve been kind of wrapped up in these crackpot conspiracy theories,” Krishnamoorthi said.

Hurd, the rare GOP lawmaker to occasionally criticize Trump, went further than most Republicans in objecting to the actions uncovered so far in the impeachment inquiry.

Hurd zeroed in on Trump’s use of the word “favor” and naming the Bidens in his call with Zelensky in July. He said the testimony revealed that doing so was “inappropriate, misguided foreign policy. And it’s certainly not how the executive – current, or in the future – should handle such a call.”

Without citing specifics, Hurd also generally criticized the pressure campaign to get Ukraine to launch investigations as having “undermined our national security and undercut Ukraine, a key partner on the front lines against Russian aggression.”

He said the effort seemed particularly ill timed, sending “confusing and conflicting messages” to Kyiv. But that’s as far as Hurd would go. He said the congressional inquiry still lacked critical testimony from figures like Giuliani, who many witnesses have testified pressed Trump’s interests through U.S. officials.

“An impeachable offense should be compelling, overwhelmingly clear and unambiguous. And it’s not something to be rushed or taken lightly. I have not heard evidence proving the president committed bribery or extortion,” Hurd said.

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) raised questions about purported ties between the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee and Lev Parnas, an indicted associate of Giuliani.

The Daily Beast <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/lev-parnas-helped-rep-devin-nunes-investigations?via=twitter_page" title="www.thedailybeast.com">reported</a> Wednesday night that Parnas helped arrange meetings and calls for Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) in 2018, citing an interview with Parnas’s lawyer, Ed MacMahon. Swalwell asked that the article be entered into the record of the impeachment inquiry.

“Mr. Chairman,” he said, directing remarks to Schiff, “you have been falsely accused throughout these proceedings by the ranking member [Nunes] as being a ‘fact witness.’ Now, if this story is correct, the ranking member may have actually been projecting. In fact, he may be the fact witness, if he is working with indicted individuals around our investigation.”

The Daily Beast article stated that a spokesperson for Nunes did not respond to requests for comment before publication.

Elise Viebeck

Hill expressed concern that foreign election interference has shaken Americans’ faith in their own democracy. She urged lawmakers to help citizens differentiate fact from fiction for the good of the country.

She said voters should go to the polls in 2020 “without any fear that this is being interfered in by and from any quarter whatsoever.”

Hill said she agreed to join the Trump administration because she believed in Trump’s desire to bring about closer relations to Russia.

“I heard President Trump say that he wanted to improve the relationship with Russia,” she said. “I believe we have to.”

She then made the case for stabilizing the U.S. relationship with Russia, saying it is crucial in order to “stop them from doing what they did in 2016 again in 2020.”

John Hudson

Hill testified that Giuliani’s involvement in Ukraine posed a “huge complication” to long-term reforms and anti-corruption work that U.S. officials were trying to encourage in the country’s energy sector.

Hill said officials like herself and Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman had worked for two years on an interagency action plan, but that “clearly Rudy Giuliani and other people didn’t care at all about this.”

“Ambassador Sondland wasn’t particularly interested in it, either,” Hill added. “It was quite boring, wouldn’t make for good copy in the press.”

In a more lighthearted moment, Hill confirmed a story <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/21/us/politics/who-is-fiona-hill.html" title="www.nytimes.com">reported by the New York Times</a> about how when she was 11 years old, a boy set her pigtails on fire while she was taking a test – and she simply snuffed out the fire with her hands and finished the exam.

“It is a true story,” Hill said, noting she was “surprised to see that pop up” as it actually ended with “unfortunate consequences.”

“Afterwards, my mother gave me a bowl haircut,” Hill lamented. “So for the school photograph later in that week, I looked like Richard III.”

Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), who had raised the anecdote, said she thinks it “underscores the fact” that Hill is “steely,” noting that she respected that.

Rep. Michael R. Turner (R-Ohio) accused Holmes of embarrassing the Ukrainian president with his testimony about Trump’s phone call.

On the call, Sondland told Trump that Zelensky “loves your ass” and would do “anything you want.”

Turner dismissed the ambassador’s remarks, noting, “Who cares that Ambassador Sondland said that?” He argued that “that information had nothing whatsoever to do with the subject matter of any of these hearings.”

Democrats see Sondland’s characterization that Zelensky would do anything for Trump as relevant to the question of whether the U.S. president had leverage over his Ukrainian counterpart, and whether Trump used tools of diplomacy and national security to serve his personal political ends.

But Turner argued that Holmes had undermined Zelensky’s leadership by airing Sondland’s words. “You know he got asked this question in his own country and people are hearing that statement as if it is true,” he said.

Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) was mistaken Thursday when he said Sondland testified that the topic of investigations “did not come up” on July 26 when he met with an aide to Zelensky in Kyiv.

In fact, Sondland testified Wednesday that he believes “the issue of investigations was probably a part of the agenda” when he sat down with Andriy Yermak that day.

Ratcliffe sought to emphasize his point while questioning Holmes, asking the embassy aide when on July 26 Sondland had asked the Ukrainians about the status of the investigations requested by Trump the day before.

Holmes said he assumed Sondland had raised the issue during a private meeting with Yermak.

Ratcliffe said he wanted to make it “clear that yesterday Ambassador Sondland testified that the topic of conversations did not come up on that day.”

In fact, Sondland said Wednesday: “While I do not recall the specifics of our conversation, I believe the issue of investigations was probably a part of the agenda.”

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) challenged Holmes to explain why William B. Taylor Jr., the acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, did not bring up Sondland’s call with Trump. Jordan suggested the call — in which Trump loudly asked about “investigations” — wasn’t relevant.

“You’re their closing witness, and he can’t remember a call from a guy he works with every single day?” Jordan said, challenging Taylor’s assertion that he told several people about the call at the time.

Taylor did not testify behind closed doors about the call Holmes observed between Sondland and Trump; he raised it during his public hearing last week as something that had come to his attention since his deposition.

But Jordan’s argument leaves out several chronological and substantive details. First: Holmes observed the July 26 call between Sondland and Trump a full two months before the transcript of Trump’s July 25 transcript of the call between him and the Ukrainian president was released.

And though Holmes briefed the deputy chief of mission about the July 26 call immediately, he did not do the same with Taylor, because, as Holmes noted Thursday, “he was on the front lines that afternoon” — later assuming Taylor had heard about it from others.

“My vivid recollection of an event I was involved in was a touchstone experience that to me validated what we believed. Ambassador Taylor was not in that call,” Holmes argued. “[Taylor] was involved in a number of other interactions as you outlined that brought him to the same conclusion.”

Hill denounced the dual loyalty attacks leveled against Ukrainian-born Vindman, the White House official who expressed grave concerns about the U.S. pressure campaign against Ukraine.

The former White House official said such criticisms, which appeared on Fox News following his sworn deposition, were “very unfortunate” and “deeply unfair” because the United States is a “country of immigrants.”

Hill, a British-born former White House official who is a naturalized citizen of the United States, then repurposed Trump’s iconic 2016 campaign slogan and declared that immigrants are “what makes America great.”

“Everyone immigrated to the United States at some point in their family history,” she said.

Hill said her own allegiance to Britain changed after she decided to become a U.S. citizen.

“I do not believe my loyalty is to the United Kingdom,” she said. “It’s here to the United States.”

As the proceedings resumed after a break, a new sign was being displayed by House Republicans, who have frequently criticized Democrats over the manner in which they have conducted the impeachment hearings.

The message — targeting the Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee — might not be the one Republicans intended, however.

“Days Since Adam Schiff Followed House Rules,” reads the text of the sign, which is displayed on an easel behind Rep. Michael R. Turner (R-Ohio).

Hill challenged a piece of testimony from her successor that Republicans have used to undercut Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a National Security Council official who served as a witness for the impeachment inquiry earlier in the week.

Calling Vindman a “highly distinguished, decorated military officer,” Hill said that she conveyed to her successor, Tim Morrison, that Vindman “wasn’t as well-suited” for positions that required more sensitive antennae on issues related to domestic politics.

“Not everyone is suited for that,” Hill said. “That does not mean in any way that I was questioning his overall judgment, nor was I questioning in any way his substantive expertise. He is excellent on issues related to Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova, on Russian defense issues.”

Morrison testified in the impeachment inquiry that Hill shared his concerns about Vindman, the director for European affairs at the National Security Council, and his judgment.

Hill said her comments to Morrison came as she said she spoke about the “way things were trending in Ukraine policy” — that is, in a more political direction.

“We were evaluating and looking at [Vindman] in the context of what his future positions would be,” she said. “And I was concerned that if, for example, Colonel Vindman might decide to leave the military, that perhaps he wasn’t as well suited for something that would be much more political.”

Hill said Vindman was “justifiably alarmed” when he “realized that there was this highly political aspect of the meeting that we were looking for eventually with President Zelensky.”

Hill said she told Sondland that “this is all going to blow up” when confronting him about the two divergent channels of diplomacy toward Ukraine.

Speaking to lawmakers, Hill said she became angry with Sondland because he was not coordinating with the National Security Council as he met with Ukrainian leaders and others about U.S. policy toward the country.

Reflecting on her anger, Hill said she did not realize at the time that Sondland was part of a different effort altogether.

“He was being involved in a domestic political errand,” Hill said of Sondland. “And we were being involved in national security, foreign policy. And those two things had just diverged.”

“I had not put my finger on that at the moment,” Hill said, “but I was irritated with him and angry with him that he wasn’t fully coordinating. And I did say to him, Ambassador Sondland, ‘Gordon, I think this is all going to blow up.’ And here we are.”

Hill was candid with lawmakers that she had had “a bit of a blow up” and “a couple of testy encounters” with Sondland, particularly when she asked who gave him the authority to manage policy toward Ukraine.

“I’ll admit I was a bit rude,” she said. “And that’s when he told me ‘the president,’ which shut me up,” she said.

“Have you ever heard of the black ledger?” asked Nunes, the top Republican on the Intelligence Committee.

Nunes then asked if the black ledger is seen as credible information.

It didn’t seem to be the answer Nunes was expecting: “The black ledger is credible?”

You may be asking: What’s the black ledger?

In August 2016, the New York Times reported that the name of Trump’s then-campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, appeared in a so-called “black ledger” located in Kyiv, next to notations indicating that Manafort had received more than $12 million in off-books payments during his time as a consultant for former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych.

At the time, Manafort denied receiving off-books or cash payments but he resigned from Trump’s campaign.

Some Ukrainians have subsequently alleged that the black ledger is a forgery and Republicans have alleged that it was leaked to hurt the Trump campaign, part of what they say was an effort by Ukrainians to hurt the Republican candidate.

They have accused an investigative journalist and former Ukrainian parliamentarian, Serhiy Leshchenko, of being behind the leak and claimed he was interfering in U.S. politics.

In an editorial published this week, however, Leschenko wrote that though he was the first to publish other pages of the black ledger, he did not have any pages that included Manafort’s name and played no role in its release to the New York Times.

“If I had that information, I would have been the first to publish it,” he wrote in a Kyiv Post column headlined, “Republicans keep lying about me at impeachment hearings.”

At Thursday’s hearing, Nunes kept pressing Holmes: “So, the motivation for Leschenko … was to go after a Trump campaign official and undermine Trump’s candidacy. Are you aware of that?”

“I think Leschenko’s motivation was the same motivation he’s always expressed, which is to expose corruption in Ukraine,” Holmes replied.

Hill disputed Sondland’s testimony that Bolton had endorsed the idea of a phone call between Trump and Zelensky, saying Bolton shared her concerns that Trump was “not properly prepared” to take full advantage of the opportunity to “make sure there was a fulsome bilateral agenda.”

Hill added that Bolton “never indicated in any way” that he accepted Sondland’s claims that he was in charge of the Trump administration’s Ukraine policy — authority Sondland claimed he had from Trump, who he said had given him “very broad authority.”

Hill’s last day at the National Security Council was July 19 — one day after finding out that the Office of Management and Budget had frozen military assistance funds for Ukraine, and six days before the July 25 call between Trump and Zelensky.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Thursday that he doesn’t think it’s necessary for Trump to testify in the impeachment inquiry.

“I don’t see what the president would have to answer,” McCarthy said at his weekly news conference. “The president gave his transcript. What more would you need?”

McCarthy also said he believes Sondland’s testimony exonerated Trump, telling reporters: “I think it was very clear. There was no quid pro quo.”

However, in his testimony Wednesday, Sondland detailed what he characterized as an explicit quid pro quo with Ukraine at Trump’s ultimate directive.

“Was there a quid pro quo? ... With regard to the requested White House call and the White House meeting, the answer is yes,” Sondland said.

Asked directly what he thinks was the reason the military aid to Ukraine was finally released, McCarthy said he thinks it’s because Trump “had more confidence in the change in government in Ukraine” after Zelensky’s election.

“You had a new leader inside Ukraine,” he said.

White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham sought to discount the importance of Thursday’s two witnesses and accused Democrats of being motivated by a “sick hatred” for Trump.

“As has been the case throughout the Democrats’ impeachment sham, today’s witnesses rely heavily on their own presumptions, assumptions and opinions,” Grisham said in a statement distributed shortly after the hearing resumed. “These two witnesses, just like the rest, have no personal or direct knowledge regarding why U.S. aid was temporarily withheld.”

She added: “The Democrats are clearly being motivated by a sick hatred for President Trump and their rabid desire to overturn the 2016 election. The American people deserve better.”

Hill said she told Sondland that his efforts in Ukraine would ‘blow up’

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