-You watch these impeachment hearings,
you feel a little bit like it's,
"Yeah, there's a lot at stake, but nobody's dying, right?
Nobody's gonna die." Well, guess what?
In Ukraine, people have been dying.
-This morning, more unidentified pro-Russia armed militias
controlling the streets of Crimea's capital.
-Since Russia took over Crimea, basically,
they have also had de facto control
over access to Sea of Azov.
-Commander Pavel Sergeevich tells us one of his men
was shot dead by a sniper ten days ago.
-Ukraine is the number-one place
where Russian and Western interests clash today.
This attempt by the President
to leverage American influence in Ukraine
for the purposes of his election campaign is very problematic
because by complicating the private and the public,
he has created confusion about our goals.
He's undermined the American case for democracy in Ukraine,
for rule of law.
And Russia, I think, is quite happy about that.
-He takes Crimea.
He's sort of, I mean --
-But you said you might recognize that.
-I'm gonna take a look at it,
but, you know, the people of Crimea, from what I've heard,
would rather be with Russia than where they were.
And you have to look at that, also.
-The main tendency of American foreign policy
since 1945 has been to promote a liberal order,
an order in which countries are democratic,
obey the rule of law, do not allow their governments,
their states to be undermined by corruption.
One of the best examples of an American recommitment
to these ideals,
these democratic, rule-of-law ideals,
has actually been our support for Ukraine.
-I worked to advance US policy, fully embraced by Democrats
and Republicans alike, to help Ukraine become a stable
and independent democratic state,
with a market economy integrated into Europe.
-The security assistance that we provide takes many forms.
These weapons and this assistance
allows the Ukrainian military
to deter further incursions by the Russians.
-A secure, democratic, and free Ukraine serves
not just the Ukrainian people
but the American people, as well.
-To withhold that assistance for no good reason
other than help with a political campaign made no sense.
It was counterproductive
to all of what we had been trying to do.
-President Trump is facing impeachment proceedings
because there is evidence to suggest that he tried
to leverage the power of his office for personal gain.
It is in fact perfectly normal for American presidents
to pressure other leaders or other countries
to do things we'd like them to do.
The distinction, however, is when an American president
is pressuring a country to do something
that he wants them to do for his own personal benefit,
in this case winning an election.
That is a big no-no.
-You heard the President's voice
on the call. -I did.
-And you heard him raise that subject again
that Ambassador Sondland had raised before,
about investigating the Bidens, right?
-Frankly, I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
It was probably an element of shock
that maybe in certain regards my worst fear
of how our Ukraine policy could play out was playing out,
how this was likely to have significant implications
for US national security.
-What really worries me is that you end up
with the personalization of American foreign policy.
Foreign powers begin to assume
that they're not reacting to a coherent set of policies
or a coherent set of principles.
They figure out it's all about this one guy.
-The President-elect's new luxury hotel
seems to be the new "in" spot,
the place for foreign governments
and special interests to show loyalty to Donald Trump.
The kingdom of Bahrain rented out the presidential ballroom
at an estimated cost around $100,000
to celebrate its national holiday.
-The Chinese government has given a preliminary green light
to Ivanka Trump's company for five more trademarks.
-We've seen the example of President Zelensky
and the rough transcript of that phone call,
trying to basically abase himself to President Trump,
to flatter him, to push all the right buttons.
The then-US Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch,
was withdrawn at the request of the Trump Administration
before her term was actually up.
She was targeted by Rudy Giuliani
and his parallel foreign policy.
She wasn't doing what the President wanted,
and so, she was forced out.
But if ambassadors are dispatched, fired, terminated
because this person is perceived to not be
implementing the President's personal agenda,
that sets a terrible precedent for US foreign policy.
If the ambassador in a particular country
is pursuing some personal agenda,
asking the other country to do him or her little favors,
well, guess what?
The other country will take advantage of that.
-All of the issues that we started to discuss today
and that you on the committee have been deeply involved
in began with Russia's illegal annexation
of the peninsula of Crimea from Ukraine.
There is a great deal of hostility
and malign intent towards Ukraine,
and it suits the Russian government very much
if we are also looking at Ukraine
as somehow a perpetrator of malign acts against us.
-Privately, some Ukrainian soldiers
admit to feeling uneasy.
They fear that the White House's fickle behavior
may strengthen Russia's position.
-I think a lot of people have lost sight of the fact
that Ukraine is fighting for its existence
as an independent, free and independent nation.
Russia has invaded it.
It's bitten off a huge chunk of Ukrainian territory,
the first time that that has happened
since the end of the Second World War in Europe,
that one country has simply annexed part of another country.
And as we sit here and talk about this
in our comfortable office,
Ukrainian troops are on the front lines
in eastern Ukraine, fighting and dying.
Anything we can do to enable the Ukrainians
to defend themselves against aggression
is something to be welcomed.
Instead, we have the story of an American president
undermining our effort to assist them
in resisting that aggression.
At any level, that's extremely dangerous,
and having it come from the highest level
is most dangerous of all.