Trump disregarded the advice of his senior advisers when they told him a theory that Ukraine tried to help Democrats during the 2016 election was false, says Fiona Hill, adding that he listened to his lawyer Rudy Giuliani instead.
Hill tells the committee the conspiracy theory has no basis.
Democratic lawyer Daniel Goldman asks her: “Isn’t it also true that some of President Trump’s most senior advisers had informed him that this theory of Ukraine interference in the 2016 election was false?”
Hill: “That’s correct.”
Goldman: “So is it your understanding then that President Trump disregarded the advice of his senior officials about this theory and instead listened to Rudy Giuliani’s views?”
Hill: “That appears to be the case, yes.”
According to the theory, a hack on the Democratic National Committee in 2016 – which leaked emails that politically embarrassed Hillary Clinton’s campaign – was actually perpetrated by the Ukrainians, and falsely blamed on the Russians.
The mention of “CrowdStrike” that we heard earlier from the other witness, David Holmes, also refers to this theory.
Holmes said he was “deeply disappointed” to learn that Trump, on his July call with President Zelensky, had expressed interest in this idea.
Holmes, a diplomat in Kyiv, said the clams are propagated by the Kremlin “to deflect from the allegations of Russian inference… to besmirch Ukraine and its political leadership”.
The BBC’s Kyiv correspondent Jonah Fisher explains how Ukraine became ensnared in these collusion claims here.
And our Reality Check team fact-checked the claims here.
