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Key impeachment witness Fiona Hill told Congress the Russians targeted both President Trump and Hillary Clinton in 2016 to ensure whoever won the presidency would be damaged when taking office.

Hill, the Trump administration's former Russia expert on the National Security Council, said Thursday the Russians targeted both presidential candidates in 2016 "to delegitimize our entire presidency.

The goal of the Russians was really to put whoever became the president, by trying to tip their hands on one side of the scale, under a cloud, she said.

And the political conflict that has resulted was just what Russia wanted.

They seed misinformation, they seed doubt, they have everybody questioning the legitimacy of a presidential candidate, be it President Trump or potentially President [Hillary] Clinton, that they would pit one side of our electorate against the other, that they would pit one party against the other, she said.

The Russians essentially bet on both sides, hoping whoever won the presidential election in 2016 would also experience some discomfort, that they would be beholden to them in some way, that they would create just the kind of chaos that we've seen in our politics. And she warned against giving the Russians more fodder that they can use against us in 2020. Hill said continued efforts to paint Trump's 2016 win as illegitimate played into Russian President Vladimir Putin's hands.

The U.S. intelligence community concluded in 2017 that Russian military intelligence was responsible for hacking thousands of Democratic emails and providing those stolen records to WikiLeaks to harm Clinton, a claim bolstered by special counsel Robert Muellers investigation. Independent investigations by the House and Senate also concluded the Kremlin interfered in 2016.

Hill testified behind closed doors last month that British ex-spy Christopher Steeles controversial dossier was a rabbit hole that very likely contained Russian disinformation and Steele could have been played by the Russians. Republicans raised her prior testimony only briefly during Thursday's hearing.

Steele's salacious and unverified dossier was used extensively by the FBI to obtain surveillance warrants to monitor Trump campaign associate Carter Page beginning in October 2016. Those warrants are now part of the investigation by Michael Horowitz, Justice Department inspector general, into allegations of abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Attorney General William Barr told the Senate in May that he was concerned about possible Russian disinformation in Steeles dossier, and former CIA Moscow station chief Daniel Hoffman told the Washington Examiner the Steele dossier was likely disinformation from FSB, the successor agency to the KGB.

Hill said Thursday she'd been shown a copy of Steele's dossier by Strobe Talbott of the Brookings Institution, where she'd worked, a day before BuzzFeed published it in January 2017.

I almost fell over when I discovered that he was doing this report, Hill said in October of Steele, who she worked with when he led MI6's Russia desk a decade ago.

Hill said she met with Steele in 2016 and said Steele was clearly very interested in building up a client base," which she said made him a target for Russia.

"Hes obviously out there soliciting information, Hill said. What a great opportunity to, basically, you know, present him with information that hes looking for that can be couched in some truth and some disinformation.

The Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee hired the opposition research firm Fusion GPS for $50,000 per month through the Perkins Coie law firm. Fusion GPS then hired Steele, who was paid roughly $168,000. But watchdog groups allege the Clinton campaign purposely concealed the hiring of Fusion GPS and Steele. Perkins Coie was paid more than $12 million between 2016 and 2017 for its work representing Clinton and the DNC.

Steeles Democratic funding, his strong desire for Trump to lose, and possible flaws with his dossier were not revealed to the FISA court.

I don't believe it's appropriate for him to have been hired to do this, Hill said in October. And, again, I think I already expressed my shock and surprise when I learned that he had been involved in this.

On Thursday, Hill also condemned what she saw as the "fictional narrative" advocated by some Republicans that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in 2016. Republican Rep. Devin Nunes pushed back by pointing to the March 2018 "Report on Russian Active Measures" put together by himself and the Republicans who led the House Intelligence Committee at the time, and said it was possible Russia and Ukraine both meddled, pointing in particular to the release of the so-called "Black Ledger," which purported to show millions of dollars of payments connecting Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort to pro-Kremlin former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

Hill followed up Thursday afternoon about Ukrainian government officials who made disparaging comments about then-candidate Trump in 2016, noting they'd likely guessed wrong about who would win, but attempted to distinguish that from what Mueller called Russia's "sweeping and systematic" interference efforts.

During a July 25 phone call, which sparked a whistleblower complaint and impeachment proceedings, Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky "to do us a favor by looking into a CrowdStrike conspiracy theory. Trump then urged Zelensky to investigate the other thing, referring to allegations of corruption in Ukraine related to Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.

Hill testified Thursday there was no basis for the CrowdStrike conspiracy theory and said it was likely Trump believed it because he was listening to his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, instead of his senior advisers.

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Impeachment witness Fiona Hill: Russia tried to damage both Trump and Clinton - Washington Examiner