5 takeaways from Fiona Hill’s and David Holmes’s testimony

The final scheduled hearing in the House’s impeachment inquiry was Thursday, with former National Security Council Russia expert Fiona Hill and Ukraine diplomat David Holmes testifying.

1. Holmes’s succinct explanation of two quid pro quos

The explanation by Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, of how the Ukraine quid pro quos worked got lots of attention Wednesday — remember “2 plus 2 equals 4?” Sondland’s point was basically that everyone understood why a White House meeting and military aid were being withheld, even if President Trump never explicitly told him to convey a quid pro quo.

But Holmes even more methodically and succinctly laid out how the quid pro quos worked, and how they allegedly would have been understood by the Ukrainians to include not just a White House meeting but also military aid.

View the complete November 21 article by Aaron Blake on The Washington Post website here.