The Morning Joe crew was very excited about the Fiona Hill testimony on the Hill yesterday, probably because they're dreaming of the day Trump is irrelevant and they can go back to underming Democrats. Still, this is a very large crack in the executive privilege law Trump has constructed around his self-serving administration.
"Former White House aide Fiona Hill testified for more than nine hours behind closed doors yesterday in the impeachment inquiry. A source tells NBC News that she told lawmakers that after John Bolton learned of the efforts to get Ukraine's government to investigate President Trump's political opponents, Bolton told Hill that he wanted no part quote, of the, quote, 'drug deal,' " Mika Brzezinski said.
"The effort reportedly also involved acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney. Hill also reportedly testified that Bolton called Giuliani a, quote, 'hand grenade' and told her to report the situation to the national security adviser's top lawyer. Details of her testimony were first reported by the New York Times. Hill also reportedly told lawmakers that Giuliani ran a shadow foreign policy on Ukraine and that she considered what was happening to be a clear counterintelligence risk to the United States.
"People familiar with her testimony tell the Washington Post that Hill told lawmakers Giuliani's policies circumvented U.S. officials and career diplomats in order to personally benefit President Trump and was not coordinated with the officials responsible for carrying out U.S. foreign policy. It's just incredible," Brzezinski said.
"And NBC News also learned that the White House tried to limit Hill's testimony by raising the issue of executive privilege. In response, Giuliani told NBC News, quote, 'I always liked and respected John. I'm very disappointed that his bitterness drives him to attack a friend falsely and in a very personal way. It's really ironic that John Bolton is calling anyone else a hand grenade.'"
"We don't need to hear anymore of this, because what's fascinating and what Rudy still doesn't understand is, they went to the lawyers right after the meeting. They've got the transcripts. They got all the details. He can go on any, like, Trumpist crank talk radio show, they've got the transcripts. They've got the evidence. This is like the end of Matlock or Perry Mason," Joe Scarborough said.
"If you think about it, the national security counsel lawyer that she was advised to go to, that is the same person as well as the CIA general counsel who called the Justice Department before we even had a whistleblower complaint," Julia Ainsley said.
"So when the president focuses on this whistleblower, it's this disloyal person who has created this experience against him, it wasn't one person, it was all of these people and it dates before this complaint. I think if it wasn't for the complaint itself, this would have surfaced.
