WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump's
former Russia adviser Fiona Hill urged lawmakers in the House of
Representatives impeachment inquiry on Thursday not to promote
"politically driven falsehoods" that cast doubt on Russia's
interference in the 2016 U.S. election.
In her prepared testimony, Hill said some members of the
House Intelligence Committee, based on their questions and
statements, appear to believe that Russia and its security
services did not conduct a campaign against the United States
during the 2016 presidential race and that perhaps Ukraine did.
Hill appeared to be referring to some of President Donald
Trump's Republican allies and defenders on the committee in the
impeachment inquiry focusing on his actions toward Ukraine.
"This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and
propagated by the Russian security services themselves," said
Hill, who until July served as the director for European and
Russian affairs at the White House National Security Council.
"In the course of this investigation, I would ask that you
please not promote politically driven falsehoods that so clearly
advance Russian interests," she said.
Some Republican members of the committee have advanced a
discredited conspiracy theory, embraced by Trump and some of his
allies in Congress and the conservative media, that Ukraine, not
Russia, interfered in the last presidential election.
Thursday's hearing marks the fifth and last scheduled day of
public hearings by the Democratic-led House Intelligence
Committee. The inquiry is focused on Trump's June 25 telephone
request that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy investigate
former Vice President Joe Biden, a leading contender in the
field of Democrats seeking to challenge Trump in the 2020
election. Trump also asked Zelenskiy to investigate the debunked
conspiracy theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election.
Lawmakers also will question David Holmes, a staffer from
the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, as they seek to learn more about a
July 26 phone call in which he says he overheard Trump ask about
the status of the investigation.
In his opening statement, Holmes said his work at the
embassy started to become overshadowed in March 2019 by the work
of Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who was pushing
Ukraine to carry out the two probes.
"I became aware that Mr. Giuliani, a private lawyer, was
taking a direct role in Ukrainian diplomacy," Holmes said.
HACKING AND PROPAGANDA
U.S. intelligence agencies and former Special Counsel Robert
Mueller have determined that Russia interfered in the 2016
election with a campaign of hacking and propaganda intended to
sow discord in the United States, boost Trump's candidacy and
harm his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.
Mueller's team brought criminal charges against 12 Russian
intelligence officers in the hacking effort, accusing them of
covertly monitoring employee computers and planting malicious
code, as well as stealing emails and other documents.
Hill warned lawmakers that Russia is gearing up to repeat
its election interference activities in 2020.
"We are running out of time to stop them," she said.
The committee's top Republican, Devin Nunes, took issue with
Hill's prepared testimony.
Nunes said Hill "claimed that some committee members deny
that Russia meddled in the 2016 election" but said a March 2018
report by Intelligence Committee Republicans "analyzed the 2016
Russia meddling campaign."
"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, regardless of which campaign is the target,"
Nunes said, appearing to embrace the notion of Ukrainian
election meddling.
Like a number of career government officials who have
already testified, Hill said she prides herself as a nonpartisan
foreign policy expert who has served Republican and Democratic
presidents. A naturalized U.S. citizen from Britain, Hill
describes herself as an "American by choice," tracing her poor
family's roots to the same area of England as George Washington.
In closed door testimony last month, Hill recalled a July 10
meeting between U.S. and Ukrainian officials that then-White
House national security adviser John Bolton cut short after
Gordon Sondland, U.S. ambassador to the European Union, said
there was an agreement for an Oval Office visit for Ukraine's
president if his government started certain investigations.
She said Bolton told her to attend a follow-up meeting at
which she heard Sondland say there was an agreement with acting
White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney for the meeting. She
said she heard Sondland mention the Ukrainian energy company
Burisma, which she considered inappropriate. Burisma had Joe
Biden's son, Hunter, on its board.
After reporting to Bolton what she heard, he told her to go
to National Security Council lawyer John Eisenberg.
"You go and tell Eisenberg that I am not part of whatever
drug deal Sondland and Mulvaney are cooking up on this," Bolton
said.
Holmes has told lawmakers in closed-door testimony that he
heard Trump's voice on the July 26 phone call with Sondland at a
Kiev restaurant in which Trump asked about Ukraine's willingness
to carry out an investigation.
"So, he's gonna do the investigation?" Trump asked Sondland,
referring to Zelenskiy, according to Holmes' previous testimony.
"He's gonna do it," replied Sondland, according to Holmes.
Sondland added that the Ukrainian president would do
"anything you ask him to," Holmes said.
Trump has denied wrongdoing, publicly criticized witnesses
and described the impeachment proceedings as a "witch hunt." He
also says he does not remember the call with Sondland.