Fiona Hill Took Over Thursday’s Impeachment Hearing. That Was Bad for Trump.

Sondland pursued “a domestic political errand” for Trump, Hill testifies.

Fiona Hill, the National Security Council’s former senior director for Europe and Russia testifies before the House Intelligence Committee in the Longworth House Office Building on November 21, 2019.Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Fiona Hill, the National Security Council’s former top Russia expert, admitted on Thursday afternoon that she had been unfair to Gordon Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union who pushed Ukraine to open investigations that would be harmful to his President Donald Trump’s opponents. But in explaining how, Hill offered a withering depiction of Sondland and a damning take on Trump’s approach to Ukraine.

“What I was angry with is that he wasn’t coordinating with us,” Hill said after a question from Republican lawyer Stephen Castor, describing a testy encounter she had with Sondland last summer. She then explained that she has since realized that Sondland—who was briefing Trump, White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on his efforts—“wasn’t coordinating with” the National Security Counsel “because we weren’t doing the same thing,” she said.

“He was being involved in a domestic political errand, and we were being involved in national security foreign policy,” she added.

To be clear, this is not a kind description of Sondland or the president’s actions. And it is striking that Hill’s testimony came in response to questions from Republicans attempting to drive lines of inquiry helpful to Trump. But the British-born Hill effectively took control, elaborating without interruption on subjects damaging to the president.

Hill said, quite clearly, that Sondland, at Trump’s behest, had sidestepped official, purposefully nonpartisan US foreign policy organs so that he could more effectively try to hijack US policy toward Ukraine to help Trump pursue domestic political aims.

Sondland complained at the time that the NSC was was “always trying to block him,” Hill said. “What we were trying to do was always trying to block us from straying into domestic or personal politics. And that was precisely what I was trying to do. But Ambassador Sondland is not wrong that he had been given a different remit than we had been.”

During the impeachment hearings, Republicans have tried to argue that Trump’s to request that Ukraine announce investigations damaging to his political opponents reflected legitimate policy concern or Trump’s general dislike of corruption abroad. But Rep. Devin Nunes, (R-Calif.) the top Republican on the Intelligence Committee, accidentally helped Hill demolish his own party’s talking point by pressing her further on her concerns about Sondland’s activity, trying to establish that he was duly acting under the president’s authority.

“At the end of the day, isn’t it the commander and chief that makes those decisions?” Nunes asked.

“My point, Mr. Nunes, is that we are the National Security Council were not told by the president, directly or through Ambassador Bolton, that we were to be focused on these issues as a matter of U.S. policy toward Ukraine,” Hill explained. In fact, she said, “I was given a directive to clearly state that I should stay out of politics.”

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate