It started with a whistleblower's complaint about President Trump's contact with a foreign leader.

I had a perfect phone call with the president of Ukraine. Like, I mean perfect.

Today, I'm announcing the House of Representatives moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry.

I have no interest in unvancing outcome of your inquiry in any particular direction, except toward the truth.

It's Mike Schmidt in the Washington Bureau of the New York Times.

As we've talked about before, the whole point of these hearings for the Democrats is to create an aha moment for the American public.

A moment that would help build support for impeachment.

But the latest is that what we saw today is that there are also aha moments happening for the players in the store.

Is the microphone on?

I believe it is now. Is that the right? Yes. Perfect.

That as the witnesses are watching each other testify, they themselves are coming to understand what was going on around them during this saga.

Major things that they did not fully understand in the moment.

Thank you again, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, ranking member Nunes and members of the committee.

Thank you for inviting me to testify before you today. I have a short opening statement.

So today's witness was Fiona Hill, one of the top national security officials dealing with Ukraine.

I take great pride in the fact that I'm a non-partisan foreign policy expert who was served under three Republican and Democratic presidents.

She was part of team normal government foreign policy, meaning she was very upset when characters like Rijuliani and specifically Gordon Saunland,

the Trump donor turned you ambassador that we heard from yesterday, showed up and basically started doing her job.

Very unfortunately, I had a bit of a blow up with Ambassador Sondland and I had a couple of testy encounters with him.

One of those was in June 18, when I actually said to him, who put you in charge of Ukraine and I was a bit rude and that's when he told me the president, which shut me up.

She's saying that at the time she experienced Gordon Saunland as this kind of rogue agent as someone operating outside the normal channels of government.

I had to say it, but often when women show anger, it's not fully appreciated.

...