Dr. Fiona Hill, former National Security Council Russia expert, has sharp words for Republicans in her opening statement, and a critical warning.
"Some of you on this committee," Hill says, "appear to believe that Russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country—and that perhaps, somehow, for some reason Ukraine did." This, she says, "is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves." That Russia was behind the interference, she says, "is beyond dispute, even if some of the underlying details must remain classified." She adds that even now "Russia's security services and their proxies have geared up to repeat their interference in the 2020 election. We are running out of time to stop them."
She asks of committee members that they "please not promote politically driven falsehoods that so clearly advance Russian interests. […] If the President, or anyone else, impedes or subverts the national security of the United States in order to further domestic political or personal interests, that is more than worthy of your attention. But we must not let domestic politics stop us from defending ourselves against the foreign powers who truly wish us harm."