Trump officials could not have been 'completely clueless' about what he was doing: CNN correspondent

On Thursday's edition of CNN's "The Situation Room," White House correspondent Abby Phillip highlighted how Fiona Hill's testimony made the claim by other officials that they weren't aware of the scheme to extort dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden from Ukraine much less plausible.

"The idea Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election is completely unfounded," said Phillip. "This is important because it puts in context some of the other testimony we heard ... from Ambassador [Kurt] Volker and another top NSC official, Tim Morrison, who replaced Fiona Hill, that the conspiracy theory was a legitimate function of the government, it was okay for President Trump to seek that kind of investigation, was perfectly normal to them. And it wasn't until they learned 'Burisma' equaled 'Biden' they learned there was something weird or nefarious going on."

"She makes it very plain that the Ukraine conspiracy theory is not normal, that is not true, and that it is not a normal and appropriate function for the government to be pursuing an investigation into something that did not happen," continued Phillip. "It really undermines this idea all these people were completely clueless what was going on for months and months, until finally they woke up and recognized Burisma investigation had to do with Biden. Both elements of this were inappropriate."

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