- Click to share on Facebook (Opens in a new window)
- Click to share on Twitter (Opens in a new window)
- Click here to share on LinkedIn (Opens in a new window)
- Click to email a friend (Opens in a new window)
(CNN) - This Tuesday, the political trial investigation against Donald Trump that is advancing from the House of Representatives had its third day of public hearings, with Alexander Vindman, adviser on Ukraine of the National Security Council, and Jennifer Williams, adviser to the vice president Mike Pence, during the morning.
The afternoon session featured the special ex-US. to Ukraine, Kurt Volker and Tim Morrison, former advisor to the National Security Council, specializing in Russia and Europe.
I watched the audiences and took notes, so you wouldn't have to! Then the most important moments.
Jennifer Williams, adviser to Vice President Mike Pence, and Alexander Vindman, adviser to Ukraine of the National Security Council, swear before testifying before the US House of Representatives. (Credit: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)
1. Adam Schiff tries to prevent attacks against Vindman and Williams
Even before Vindman or Williams said a word, the president of the House of Representatives Intelligence Commission, Adam Schiff, tried to warn his Republican colleagues against the attack on any of the witnesses.
On Vindman, who received a Purple Heart after being wounded in Iraq, Schiff said: “We have seen quite insulting attacks against his figure, and we see how certain personalities in Fox have questioned his loyalty. I know that blood has been shed for the United States and we have a huge debt of gratitude for that. ”
After noting that Trump had attacked both Vindman and Williams, Schiff added: "I hope nobody on this commission becomes part of those vicious attacks."
2. Devin Nunes doesn't like the media ... seriously
Upon hearing the opening statement of the representative Devin Nunes, it would not be surprising if you came to think that this Tuesday's hearing was an evaluation of the national media and its role in politics.
Nunes said the media were responsible, among other things, for driving the idea that Trump's campaign in 2016 conspired with the Russians (the Justice Department decided to open the investigation, not the media), as well as for working with the Democrats to generate controversy about Ukraine (Witnesses called so far in the political trial investigation have been members of the Trump government).
- LOOK: Donald Trump: "I don't know any of these people"
Nunes also used his opening statement to defend a series of columns written by John Solomon, ex-columnist for The Hill newspaper, raising doubts about the activities of Joe and Hunter Biden in Ukraine. "Now that Salomon's reports are a problem for the Democrats, it is also a problem for the media," Nunes said. (The Hill is in the middle of an investigation on Solomon's columns).
How much did Nunes really talk about the facts of the Ukrainian investigation or the testimony of the witnesses we were going to hear? Not much.
3. Vindman's powerful opening statement
Vindman's personal history - who was brought to the United States from Russia with his twin brother at age 3, his military service has been decorated and accumulates years of work as an expert on Ukraine - is convincing when he reads it on a piece of paper. But it was much more captivating to hear him relate his life's journey in his opening statement while wearing the uniform of the United States Army.
In fact, its closing lines were especially powerful:
"I am grateful for my father's brave act of hope 40 years ago and for the privilege of being a US citizen and public servant, where I can live without fear for my safety and that of my family."
“Dad, my audience here today, at the United States Capitol, speaking to our elected officials is proof that you made the right decision forty years ago when you left the Soviet Union and came to the United States. In search of a better life for our family. Don't worry, I'll be fine in telling the truth. "
4. Vindman reveals a “false narrative” about Ukraine
Vindman did not hesitate in words when asked why he immediately informed his superiors about the discomfort he felt in the face of Donald Trump's actions during the July 25 telephone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Alexander Vindman, advisor on Ukraine of the National Security Council, during his testimony in the House of Representatives (Photo by Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)
He explained that he knew of a "false alternative narrative" before the call. At the insistence on whether these “false narratives” corresponded to the ideas that a) Ukraine interfered in the 2016 presidential elections to help Hillary Clinton and b) the Ukrainians did not properly investigate the allegations that Joe and Hunter Biden had committed a crime with respect to Ukraine, Vindman who, in effect, referred to that.
None of those arguments, which Trump conveyed in his July 25 call with Zelensky, has no basis in known facts.
5. Vindman for the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine?
During the interrogation of Vindman, it emerged that the Ukrainians asked him three times to be his defense minister. (Vindman was born in Ukraine but arrived in the United States when he was 3 years old).
"I am American," Vindman replied, noting that he had rejected the offers. "I came here when I was a child, and I immediately rejected these offers." He added that he had notified his "chain of command and people of appropriate counterintelligence about the offer."
Subsequently, Connecticut Democratic Representative Jim Himes criticized Republicans for trying to include the issue in the hearings. Himes said it was a clear effort to question Vindman's commitment to the United States and part of a broader attempt by conservatives to suggest that he had double loyalty of some sort. (Later, President Trump shared a tweet from an assistant, Dan Scavino, pointing out the three offers made to Vindman.)
6. Who is the complainant? (Again)
Twice - once for Nunes and once for Ohio representative Jim Jordan - the Republicans on the commission tried to force VIndman to reveal who the two people outside the National Security Council are to whom he informed them about the July 25 call . One of them, said Vindman, was George Kent, the State Department official who testified last week. The other, Vindman added, was a member of the intelligence community.
- READ: Alexander Vindman condemns the 'reprehensible' attacks on witnesses of the political trial
When pressed to say who that second person was, Vindman objected, citing the guidance provided by Schiff that the commission would not be involved in efforts to identify the informant.
Nunes and Jordan strongly opposed, noting that Vindman had said he didn't know the identity of the informant, so how could he reveal it? Jordan went further by making it clear that he did not believe Schiff's claim that the latter did not know who the complainant is.
They went round and round, without any result. Vindman did not say the name of the second person, and Jordan and Nunes remained upset.
7. Mr. Vindman? No, Lieutenant Colonel Vindman
Vindman showed relatively little emotion after the first moments of the audience, when his hands were visibly shaking as he read his opening statement. But he did let his annoyance escape for a moment, when Nunes referred to him as "Mr. Vindman" by asking him a question.
"It's Lieutenant Colonel VIndman," he replied.
Trump took advantage of that moment when he spoke with journalists on Tuesday. "I don't know him," Trump said of Vindman. "I don't know, as he says, the 'lieutenant colonel.' I understand that someone had the misfortune to call him 'sir' and corrected him. I have never seen man. I understand that he now wears his uniform when he enters. No, I don't know Vindman at all, ”Trump said.
8. “This is the United States”
When the hearing was nearing its end, Democratic representative Sean Patrick Maloney asked Vindman if he or his father were concerned about the decision to present a testimony that would put him on the opposite side of the president of the United States.
Vindman replied that his father was very concerned because he came from the Soviet Union, where the consequences of such action could be serious. However, Vindman added that he himself was not uneasy because “this is the United States. This is the country I have served and defended. To which all my brothers have served. And here, the right thing matters. ”
The former US special to Ukraine, Kurt Volker and Tim Morrison, former advisor to the National Security Council, specializing in Russia and Europe, just before his testimony in the process of political trial of Trump. (Credit: Drew Angerer / Getty Images)
9. Volker reveals why Trump considered Ukraine so negative
Volker reported a meeting held in May at the Oval Office, during which he and others argued to Trump that he should work to build a relationship with the newly elected Volodymyr Zelensky.
Volker told the House Intelligence Commission on Tuesday afternoon that Trump was not receptive to those recommendations. "He said that Ukraine was a corrupt country, full of terrible people," Volker said. "He said: 'They tried to knock me down.'"
Volker explained that he was convinced that Trump's stubbornness was based on what his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani had said. Volker said: “It was clear to me that despite the positive news and recommendations conveyed by this official delegation on the new president (Zelensky), President Trump had a deep-rooted negative opinion about Ukraine in the past. He was evidently receiving information from other sources, including Mayor Giuliani, that was more negative, which made him maintain this negative vision. ”
Volker dismissed Trump's belief that Joe Biden was trying to protect his son in Ukraine or that the country owned the hacked server to the National Democratic Committee and called them "conspiracy theories."
10. Volker changed his testimony behind closed doors significantly
Volker, who was a witness for which the Republicans pressed, delivered a very different testimony on Tuesday compared to when he spoke behind closed doors with the House of Representatives investigators.
"Since these events, and since I gave my testimony on October 3, a great deal of information and additional perspectives have come to light," Volker told the House Intelligence Commission. "I have known many things that I did not know at the time of the events in question."
Among the changes:
* Volker initially said that investigations into Trump's conspiracy theories and the delivery of nearly $ 400 million in military aid to Ukraine were not mentioned in a meeting held at the White House on July 10. But on Tuesday, Volker said he now knows that the investigations were mentioned.
* During his October testimony, Volker noted that any conversation with Ukrainians about making an announcement about the opening of an investigation against the Biden had ended in August. However, on Tuesday, Volker acknowledged that the US ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, had told a senior Ukrainian official on September 1 that he believed military aid was linked to the announcement of an investigation.
The two points are big business, and undermine the points that Republicans expected Volker to support in public hearings.
11. Morrison says that the July call was placed on a server classified by accident
Morrison, the former former advisor to the National Security Council specializing in Russia and Europe, revealed a story when he said that this council's lawyer John Eisenberg had told him that the transcript of the phone call between Trump and Zelensky on July 25 was located at a safer server solely because of an "error" of the lawyer's executive secretary.
"John said he did not ask to be put there, but that the staff of the Executive Secretariat did not understand his recommendation on how to restrict access," Morrison explained to the committee.
That directly contradicts what Vindman told the Intelligence Committee today. Here is the exchange between Vindman and Democratic lawyer Dan Goldman:
GOLDMAN: Was it intended for lawyers to put it in the highly classified system or was it a mistake to be located there?
VINDMAN: I think it was intended. But, again, it was intended to prevent leaks and limit access.
Morrison was subsequently asked about the specific instructions given about the place where the transcript should be located. He made it clear that he was in favor of limiting the number of people with access, but that he did not specifically request that he be put on the server where it finally ended.
InvestigationPolitical Judgment to Donald TrumpPoliticsInternational RelationsUkraineVolodymyr Zelensky