that an ally of the United States

do anything in particular to help

his or her political ambitions as a condition of receiving

help from our country.

So obviously we've been through several weeks, almost a month

of private hearings in the SCIF, the secure room of the Capitol,

where the Intelligence Committee has been

asking for hours and hours.

And some of these daylong hearings

have been 10, 12 hours behind closed doors.

Those have almost run their course.

We are starting to get people who

are appearing, testifying to the same thing over and over again.

So we have a pretty good sense of what

happened in two incidents.

One is the famous call between Zelensky,

the president of Ukraine, and Donald Trump,

and whether there was a quid pro quo there in terms of money,

military aid for assistance to dig up dirt

on Democrats inside Ukraine, but also, the broader scheme that

has been going on run largely by Rudy Giuliani, the president's

private attorney, and what that looked like.

So we basically have had testimony in private.

People begin to repeat the narrative so that the Democrats

have felt we've gone this far.

We have the vote on the Hill in the House

this week where they have now formally set

the rules for public hearings.

So I think we're actually going to get to a point

where we actually might have fireworks.

It has been all these hearings in the past.

When we talk about impeachment, and we talk about big scandals,

the big drama the big theatre happens in these big public

hearings.

And I think that's going to the next thing we're

going to watch for and to what extent

the Democrats can make hay of this one

and start winning over more of the public.

But also, more importantly, are there

Republicans, particularly in the Senate,

which would have to judge any impeachment hearing?

Are there Republicans in the Senate that will be peeled off

by some of these revelations?

Do you think it's ever appropriate for the president

to use his office to solicit investigations

into a domestic political opponent?

Soliciting investigations into a domestic political opponent.

I don't think that would be in accord with our values.

What we've learned from the hearings,

not only in the last week, but in the last two weeks,

really, is incidents that focus around that

call again, that famous call that Trump made

to the new president in Ukraine, demanding -

for lack of a better word - that they dig up

some dirt both on the Bidens but also this strange conspiracy

theory where a lot of Trump allies

think that the Ukrainians were somehow involved in hacking

the Democratic party.

That phone call, we've had people testifying who were

on that call, including Alexander Vindman,

who was a lieutenant-colonel in US army,

who basically has testified and said that there was...he was

disturbed by it enough to go to the lawyers at the NSC.

We've also heard testimony from the acting ambassador

to the Ukraine, William Taylor, who has said there was indeed

a quid pro quo that in his eyes, the president was withholding

military aid.

And remember, the Ukrainians are in a shooting war

with the Russians right now and Russian-backed separatists,

withheld that military aid in exchange for that digging

up of dirt on the Democrats.

So we have a lot of meat put on the bones of what we're

initially just a whistleblower complaint, which

include a lot of supposition, a lot of second-hand accounts.

We now have primary accounts of what the president and his men

did to basically push the Ukrainians to do

his own political dirty work inside Ukraine.

Today, the country just witnessed

the only bipartisan vote on that floor was against.

The question to the speaker are the same questions

I provided in a letter about the unfair process that we had.

What has changed since March?

In all the hearings, there's nothing compelling,

nothing overwhelming.

So the speaker should follow her own words

on what bipartisan vote on that floor

and in the sham that has been putting this country

through this nightmare.

There has been White House talking points

on the president's call being of no issue

and of being not particularly controversial.

You haven't heard the Republicans on the Hill

eat that line that much when you've heard them saying

is that they're attacking the process.

The other interesting thing on this

is to watch the Senate Republicans.

Again, when you talk about White House talking points,

what you've heard from a lot of Senate

Republicans now is I don't want to comment because I

could be a juror, right?

If the House impeaches, it is the Senate

that will hear the evidence and decide whether to eject

the president from office.

And the fact that Republicans in the Senate, many of them

now are saying, I'm not going to comment

because I want to be a juror means they're

keeping their powder dry.

They're not instinctively falling into line.

Now, the vote in the House this week

was a strict party-line vote.

We had the Democrats almost unanimously voting

to set up the procedure to have a public hearing on impeachment

- yet almost every Republican on the other side

- but it's been interesting to watch the Senate Republicans.

Mitt Romney has been the most prominent one

to break from the president on this.

But even ones who we suspect to be more loyal and more partisan

are keeping their powder dry.

They're not commenting.

They're not coming out in favour of the president.

And they're using this phrase - I am a juror.

I don't want to comment - which I think is very telling.