The Daily - The Latest: The Irregular Channel

Episode Date: November 21, 2019

Throughout the impeachment inquiry, an image has surfaced of the Trump administration’s two policymaking channels on Ukraine — one regular, one not. Today’s testimony from Fiona Hill, President Trump’s former top adviser on Russia and Europe, raised the question: Which was which?“The Latest” is a new series on the impeachment inquiry, from the team behind “The Daily.” You can find more information about it here.

It started with a whistleblower's complaint about President Trump's contact with a foreign leader. I had a perfect phone call with the president of Ukraine. Like, I mean perfect. Today, I'm announcing the House of Representatives moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry. I have no interest in advancing the outcome of your inquiry in any particular direction except toward the truth. interest in advancing the outcome of your inquiry in any particular direction except toward the truth. It's Mike Schmidt in the Washington Bureau of the New York Times. As we've talked about before, the whole point of these hearings for the Democrats is to create an aha moment for the American public, a moment that would help build support for impeachment. But the latest is that what we saw today is that there are also aha moments happening

for the players in the store. Is the microphone on? I believe it is now. Is that correct? Yes, perfect. That as the witnesses are watching each other testify, they themselves are coming to understand what was going on around them during this saga. Major things that they did not fully understand in the moment.

Thank you again, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Nunes and members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to testify before you today. I have a short opening statement. So today's witness was Fiona Hill, one of the top national security officials dealing with Ukraine. I take great pride in the fact that I'm a non-partisan foreign policy expert This was Fiona Hill, one of the top national security officials dealing with Ukraine. I take great pride in the fact that I'm a non-partisan foreign policy expert who has served under three Republican and Democratic presidents. She was part of Team Normal Government Foreign Policy, meaning she was very upset when characters like Rudy Giuliani and specifically Gordon Sondland, the Trump donor turned EU ambassador that we heard from yesterday,

showed up and basically started doing her job. Very unfortunately, I had a bit of a blow up with Ambassador Sondland and I had a couple of testy encounters with him. One of those was in June 18 when I actually said to him, who put you in charge of Ukraine? And I'll admit I was a bit rude. And that's when he told me the president, which shut me up. She's saying that at the time, she experienced Gordon Sondland as this kind of rogue agent,

as someone operating outside the normal channels of government. I hate to say it, but often when women show anger, it's not fully appreciated. It's often, you know, pushed onto emotional issues, perhaps, or deflected onto other people. And what I was angry about was that he wasn't coordinating with us. So I was upset with him that he wasn't fully telling us about all of the meetings that he was having. And he said to me, but I'm briefing the President. I'm briefing Chief of Staff Mulvaney. I'm briefing Secretary Pompeo, and I've talked Staff Mulvaney. I'm briefing Secretary Pompeo. And I've talked to Ambassador Bolton.

Who else do I have to deal with? And he's telling her at the time, I'm telling everyone who needs to know. And the point is we have a robust interagency process that deals with Ukraine. It includes Mr. Holmes. It includes Ambassador Taylor as the charge in Ukraine. It includes a whole load of other people. But she's not getting it. She thinks that he's hiding things from her, that he's not telling other diplomats,

that he's just off on his own, having his own policy. It's only when Sondland starts to testify yesterday that she realizes. But it struck me when yesterday, when you put up on the screen Ambassador Sondland's emails and who was on these emails and he said, these are the people who need to know that he was absolutely right. Her anger at Sondland was misplaced and kind of missed the point. From Sondland's perspective, he's the normal channel. There's nothing irregular about it. He's just doing what the president told him to.

Because he 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. So he was correct. And I had not put my finger on that at the moment. But I was irritated with him. And I did say to him, Ambassador Sondland, Gordon, I think this is all going to blow up. And here we are. So it's pretty remarkable. In her testimony today, Fiona Hill is saying that as she watched Gordon Sondland testify yesterday, she realized that Fiona Hill and the other career diplomats, they were the ones who were on the outside looking in.

They had become the irregular channel. And it was at that moment that I started to realize how those things had diverged. And I realized, in fact, that I wasn't really being fair to Ambassador Sondland, because he was carrying out what he thought he had been instructed to carry out. And we were doing something that we thought was just as, or perhaps even more important,

but it wasn't in the same channel. So it's sort of this incredible image. You have all these characters in this drama. Some of them have worked closely alongside one another. Some of them briefly intersected. Some have never even actually met before. But they are now forever linked because they're witnesses in this impeachment inquiry. And what we saw, at least today, is that by bringing them all together in this forum,

they are learning about their own shared story at the same time that Americans are learning about it themselves. It speaks to the complexity of this whole thing. If we are finding this hard to understand, we should be humbled by the fact that so are the people who were there. So that's the latest.