Former NSC official Fiona Hill testifies in the impeachment hearings into Donald Trump, House Intelligence Committee, US Capitol, November 21, 2019 (Chip Somodevilla/Getty)

Fiona Hill, formerly a senior official in the National Security Council, piles on evidence of the “domestic political errand” by Donald Trump and his attorney Rudy Giuliani to get Ukraine’s announcement of investigations tarnishing Joe Biden and covering up Russia’s interference in the 2016 US election.

Hill and David Holmes, a US officer in the Embassy in Kyiv, testified on Thursday in the last scheduled public hearings in the impeachment inquiry into Trump. Legislators are now on Thanksgiving recess and will return to Washington in early December, with the possibility of an impeachment vote by the end of the year.

Systemically laying out facts and brushing aside Republican legislators trying to undermine her, Hill reinforced the case of Trump’s quid pro quo: denial of a White House visit to new Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy unless he gave the public statement against Trump’s political rivals.

Hill added to this with her denunciation of the “fictional narrative” of Trump and his allies that Ukraine, not Russia, intervened in the 2016 election. She explained that by doing so, the Trump camp were promoting a fabrication by the Russian State to undermine the American electoral system, sow divisions, and damage US diplomacy.

She explained that “right now” Russia is looking to affect the 2020 election — “we are running out of time to stop them” — as she appealed to the House Intelligence Committee: “In the course of this investigation, I would ask that you please not promote politically driven falsehoods that so clearly advance Russian interests.”

Hill oversaw Russia and Eastern Europe for the NSC until leaving the Administration in July, a week before the Trump call with Zelenskiy that sparked a formal complaint and later the impeachment inquiry.

Hill and Holmes brought together the multiple strands of evidence from other witnesses in the public hearings, beginning with the top US diplomat in Ukraine William Taylor and culminating on Wednesday with the dramatic testimony of US Ambassador Gordon Sondland, a central figure in the Trump-Giuliani campaign.

Hill summarized the quid pro quo — “Investigations for a Meeting” — and left no doubt that Trump and Giuliani were running an “irregular channel” of US foreign policy. In a precise recollection, she spoke of a July 10 meeting with Ukrainian officials in which Sondland declared the precondition of a statement of investigations. The encounter pushed National Security Advisor John Bolton to deride the “drug deal” and to consult the NSC’s top lawyer to protect the agency.

She said she confronted Sondland about his failure to coordinate with officials. But with Sondland saying that he represented Trump, Hill understood later that the Ambassador — a political appointee serving as Ambassador to the European Union — was part of a group including White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and Secretary of State Pompeo, “involved in a domestic political errand, and we were being involved in national security, foreign policy — and those two things had just diverged”.

She told Sondland, “I do think this is all going to blow up. And here we are.”

That explanation both underlined the threat to US and Ukrainian security and reinforced Sondland’s statement on Wednesday that the Trump-Giuliani campaign was at least accepted, if not endorsed, by senior White House officials.

Repelling the Attackers

Republican representatives initially tried to rebuff Hill’s account and analysis. Shouting, Rep. Jim Jordan accused Democrats of advancing Russia’s interests through the impeachment process.

But the UK-born Hill firmly withstood the pressure, at one point recounting how a classmate set her ponytail on fire during an examination — and she never stopped writing.

The GOP attackers gave up questioning the official, instead using five-minute slots to rail against Democrats.
Rep. Devin Nunes, the ranking Republican, clung to the discredited conspiracy theory: “Needless to say, it’s entirely possible for two separate nations to engage in election meddling at the same time, and Republicans believe we should take meddling seriously by all foreign countries.”

Hill’s evidence was limited only by the date of her departure, just before Trump cut off $391 million in security assistance to Ukraine.

But Holmes testified that it was his “clear understanding” by the end of August that the aid freeze was to pressure Ukraine into the statement of investigations, including into Joe Biden’s son Hunter, a board member of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma.

My clear impression was that the security assistance hold was likely intended by the president either as an expression of dissatisfaction with the Ukrainians who had not yet agreed to the Burisma-Biden investigation or as an effort to increase the pressure on them to do so.

He said that, at one point, Zelenskiy was being urged to make the statement in an appearance on CNN.

Holmes first revealed a phone conversation between Trump and Sondland on July 26, the day after the Trump-Zelenskiy call.

He said that Trump, over an unsecured mobile phone link, asked Sondland if Zelensky would conduct the investigations. Sondland assured Mr. Trump that “he’s going to do it”, as Zelenskiy would do “anything you ask him to”.

Sondland told Holmes Trump “did not give a shit” about Ukraine, but cared only about “big things” like the investigations.

Preparing for a Trial

The House Intelligence Committee will now begin preparing its report for the House Judiciary Committee, which will formally prepare any articles of impeachment.

Republican legislators began turning their attention to a likely impeachment trial in the Senate in early 2020.

GOP senators loyal to Trump conferred with senior White House staff, including the top lawyer. Trump had lunch with another group of senators, where the topic of impeachment briefly came up.

Trump’s friend Sen. Lindsey Graham said he would press the House Judiciary Committee to focus on Biden. In a letter to Secretary of State Pompeo, Graham asked for documents and communications with the former Vice President, Hunter Biden, other officials from the Obama administration, and former Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko.

The request is being made as the White House continues to stonewall on provision of documents and appearances by senior officials such as Pompeo before House committees — a tactic that could lead to an article of impeachment alleging Trump’s obstruction of justice.