A normal no now mr di ambassador taylor you testified that there are 2 channels a regular an irregular what did you see as digital eyes rolled in and ukraine policy. Contra i came to see that mr giuliani had a large influence on the irregular channel and was that normal is that normal to have a private citizen of the United States take an active role in diplomacy it is not normal it is is not unusual to ask for people outside the government to give opinions to help form the policies of the Us Government is unusual to have a person. Put input into the channel that goes contrary to u. S. Policy thank you and youll back mr turner and you are going to ask for 5 minutes. Thank you mr this investor to thank you for your service i have a great deal of appreciation for your profession you have very little direct contact with Decision Makers tremendous amount of responsibility and not a lot of authority on to affect u. S. Policy bilateral engagements or multilateral engagements youre trying to shepherd through issues with or with our allies one example of that investor taylor is that you testified in your part testimony that you have not had any contact with the president states that correct the scripture was taylor mr kent have you had any contact with president s aides i have not so not only no conversation with the president s aides about ukraine you have not had any contact with the president stays correct thats correct so you both know that this impeachment inquiry is about the president id say so you i mean the man that neither one of you have had any contact with your the 1st up witnesses i just find that a little mazing that that the 1st up would be to people who have never had contact with the president himself now kurt volker did have contact with the president and condi with president on ukraine mr ambassador doug taylor you said that hes well a man of highest integrity why no current fork or and i know you he served as the nato ambassador you served as the director of the Mccain Institute hes the highest professional ethics or the most knowledgeable people about europe hes absolutely truthful man mr kant would you agree with them bassett or taylor that hes of the highest integrity i believe kurt volker has served the u. S. As a Public Servant very well do either of you have any evidence that mr volcker committed perjury or lied to this committee in his test him in his testimony of this committee do either of you have any evidence that kurt volker perjured himself or lied to this committee in his testimony investor taylor any evidence mr ive no evidence scant. I believe volckers deposition was over 400 pages and i dont have it in front of me so i cant get what you have no evidence that he lied or perjured i have no basis to make that judgment no matter what were not in a court gentleman and if we were the 6th amendment would apply and so would rules on hearsay and opinion and most of your 2 testimonies would not be admissible whatsoever but i understand in your profession you deal in words of understanding words of beliefs and feelings because in your profession thats what you work with to try to pull together policy and to go in and out of meetings to try to formulate opinions that affect other peoples Decision Making and better tailor have you ever prepared for a meeting with a president or a Prime Minister of a country or you were told one thing before you went into the meeting as to what it was to be about and the meeting be about another thing or you get in there and the beliefs or opinions of the president the Prime Minister were other than you believed. The 30 rescue viber learned something new in a year and youre long did it with the belief that you thought about the country that you were serving in and find out that they were wrong. I learned something in every meeting mr turner but i know one and master taylor the reason why the 6th amendment as a lot of hearsay is because its unreliable its unreliable because frequently its untruthful it is not factual it might be believes or understanding and besser you testified about of a number of things that you heard isnt it true possible that the things that you heard were not true that some of the beliefs that understandings that you had are not accurate that in fact youre mistaken about some of the things that you testified today and a factual basis versus a professional assessment miss turner im here to tell you what i know im not going to tell you that anything i dont know im going to tell you everything that i do know suggest learned Natural Hazards exactly thats exactly right you guys wrong right im hearing but since you learned from others you could be wrong correct i am telling you what i heard them tell me and they could be wrong or they could be mistaken or they could have heard it incorrectly right ambassador taylor people make mistakes right so you could be wrong you know the rest of my time to. This is thank you for using ambassador taylor the gentleman asked if you could be wrong and were you wrong when you said you had a clear understanding that presence unless you had to commit to an investigation abides before the a got released and the a got release and he didnt commit to an investigation. Mr i was not wrong about what i told you which is what i heard thats all ive said ive told you what i heard and thats the point what you heard it did not happen it didnt happen you had 3 meetings with the guy he could have told you he didnt announce he was going to do an investigation for the 8 happen its not just could it have been wrong the fact is it was wrong because it didnt happen the whole point was you had a clear understanding that aid will not get released unless theres a commitment not maybe not i think the age might happen and its my hunch is going to get released you use clear language clear understanding and commitment and those 2 things didnt happen so you had to be wrong it was jordan the other thing that went on when that whole without a system was on hold is we shook the competence of a close partner in our reliability and that thats not what this proceeding is about as bad as it jonas is expired message as not what this whole thing started on time the gentleman has expired did you want to finish your answer good. And i recognize mr carson for 5 minutes thank you chairman i yield to the chairman i think that John Fielding so to follow up on some of the earlier questions about ambassador a story about present presence alinsky statements after the scandal came to light when he was asked you know were you pressured how the phone call go except for ukrainians mr kantor pretty sophisticated about u. S. Politics are they not perhaps. You would agree that if president s alinsky contradicted President Trump and said of course i felt pressured they were holding up 400000000 in military assistance we have people dying every day if he were to contradict president directly they would be sophisticated enough to know they may pay a very heavy price with this president were they not thats a fair assessment. And president s lets get not only had to worry about retribution from donald trump should he contradict on the trump publicly he also has to worry about how hes perceived domestically doesnt the investor taylor president is very sensitive to the views of ukrainian people who indeed are very attentive to ukraine and u. S. Politics yes and so if president selenski were to say i had to capitulate and agree to these investigations i was ready to go on c. N. N. Until the age got restored that would obviously be hurtful to him back home would it not he cannot afford to be seen to be deferring to any any foreign leader there he is very confident in his own abilities and hes and he knows that ukrainian people expect him to do to be clear and defend ukraine interests mr carson thank you chairman my colleagues touch briefly on the campaign to remove career diplomat ambassador you vonne of it mr cant you stated in previous testimony that you were aware of the quote campaign of slander against the ambassador in real time which basically unfolded in the media what do you understand this Misinformation Campaign was coming from and who was essentially prepared to waive it to my understanding the then prosecutor general crane now x. Ray your sankoh met Rudy Giuliani in new york on a private visit in january they had a 2nd meeting in february and through the good offices of the former mayor of new york your lead sankoh gave an interview to john solomon then of the hill in early march and the campaign was launched on march 20th. A corrupt ukrainian prosecutor gave an interview to a reporter in the United States and made claims that the embarrass her provided officials with a quote do not prosecute list sort of do you have any reason to believe this is true i have every reason to believe it is not true what was the reputation of the man who made these allegations or. Sankoh was a politician of long standing he had been minister of interior after the orange revolution the u. S. Embassy had good relations with him for years he was imprisoned by a president in a covert came out was elected majority leader of pushing co then president s party and then became prosecutor general in the spring of 2016 what was your experience with embarrassment are you gonna bitch was she working hard to combat corruption in ukraines or she was dedicated as is every u. S. Government official ing ukraine to help ukrainians overcome the legacy of corruption which they actually have made a number of important steps since 2014 so in fact before all of this happened you and your superiors at the state department asked for the embarrass or to extend her time in the ukraine correct sir that is correct did you support her extension i asked her to extend until the end of this year to get through the election cycle in ukraine and then under secretary hale in march asked her to stay until 2020 now some in ukraine probably dislike her efforts to help ukraine root out corruption is that correct as i mentioned my testimony you cant promote principled any corruption action without pissing off corrupt people. Fair enough now some of those people helped giuliani smear her did they not they did so ultimately their Smear Campaign pushed president trying to remove her correct sir. I cannot judge that what i can say is that Rudy Giulianis Smear Campaign was ubiquitous in the spring of 2019 on fox news and on the internet and twitter sphere so ambassador taylor mr cute and all of your combined decades at the state department have you ever before seen an instance where an ambassador was forced out by the president following the Smear Campaign the misinformation orchestrated by the president s allies i have not nor i was a german to you about. Dr webster thank you mr chairman mr taylor this should be easy because im going to use a lot of your words from the previous deposition as we go forward in your deposition you spoke of support for ukraine and its relationship to the United States and how much you support that and 2014 you and im quoting this urge the Obama Administration to provide lethal defensive weapons in order to deter further russian aggression. Did the Obama Administration provide lethal weapons no sir they provided m. R. Eason blankets and things like that in your deposition you also said president obamas objection was because it might provoke the russians and in fact you testified in your deposition that the obama as a bomb administration didnt have a good argument since russia had already provoked and they have invaded ukraine is that correct is correct or. Its a shame we didnt take the advice of a combat veteran like use or someone who understands what deterrence provides because a lot of ukrainian lives could have been saved if he had taken your advice in your deposition you said and i quote happy you were happy with trump administrations that assistance and it provided both lethal and Financial Aid did it not it did sir and you you also stated that it was a substantial improvement is that correct thats correct so now were providing jaylen switch kill russian tanks emerys and blankets do not do that today you said i was beginning to fear that the long standing u. S. Policy of strong support for ukraine was shifting i have a little trouble with long standing based on what we just talked about because it wasnt really long standing strong support it seems to me this strong support came with this administration would you agree with that sir. Unless you consider m. R. Reason blanket strong support i wouldnt call it long standing the long standing that im referring to there. Is the long standing Political Support economic support and increasing military as well certainly that strong support came from congress but didnt get it from the Previous Administration as compared to what this administration has just has decided to do the strong support came with this administration not the Obama Administration and maybe now we understand what president obama meant when he told russian president medvedev that hed have more flexibility after his election maybe that flexibility was to deny lethal aid to the ukraine allowing russia to march right in and kill ukrainians again in your deposition you urged the Obama Administration officials to provide lethal defensive weapons to ukraine in order to deter further russian aggression and now they have that under this administration dont they mr ambassador they have the job im just sir thank you and i would like to yield the remainder of my time to mr reckless i thank the gentleman for yielding so. No pressure no demands no conditions nothing corrupt no nothing nothing on the call thats what we heard president zelinsky say and because House Democrats charges against President Trump have been publicly repeatedly consistently been denied by president alinsky you heard the defense now from chairmanship hes lying because he has to he has to lie because. The threats the demands the blackmail the extortion that House Democrats are alleging if if he didnt do that. He couldnt possibly risk military aid he would have to do anything he had to secure it the problem with that the hole in that argument is you have to ask yourself what did president zelinsky actually do to get the aid the answer is nothing he did nothing he didnt open any investigations he didnt call attorney general bill barr he didnt do any of the things that House Democrats say that he was being forced and co worst and threaten to do he didnt do anything because he didnt have to yield back the spirit as for 5 minutes thank you mr chairman thank you both for your true heroic efforts both to die today and also throughout your careers id like to start with you mr kent and your testimony. That. You had in mid august it became clear to me that giulianis efforts to gin up politically motivated investigations were now in fact in u. S. Engagement with ukraine leveraging president zilinskas desire for a white house meeting. Mr kant did you actually write a memo documenting your concerns that there was an effort underway to pressure ukraine to open it and investigation to benefit President Trump yes maam i wrote a memo to the file on august 16th but we dont have access to that memo doing i submitted it to the state department subject to the september 27th subpoena and we have not received one. Piece of paper from the state department relative to this investigation both of you have made compelling cases of the importance of ukraine to europe to the 70 years of peace the benefit that it has to the United StatesNational Security and our goal to continue to support sovereignty of nations meanwhile russia is violently attacked tacking people in ukraine in the done boss area so withholding military aid does that weaken ukraine. Well i think it sends the wrong signal and it did for a short period of time again the assistance from a foreign 19 was released and is in the process of heading towards ukraine as it involved in russia when there was no aid being sent to ukraine i think the signal that there is controversy and question about the u. S. Support of ukraine sends the signal to Vladimir Putin that he can leverage that as he seeks to negotiate with not only ukraine but other countries i think you ambassador taylor i think you mentioned that a white house meeting for zelinsky would boost his ability to negotiate for a peaceful settlement with Vladimir Putin and russia in general is that true mysterious certainly true that. The u. S. Support for mr dylan to be present in his negotiations with with the russians is very important and will will enable him to get a better agreement with the support from the United States both from the military says but also just from the political systems that we can provide but he has not yet have that white house meeting has he is not i think its ironic that soviet born love parnassus who has now been indicted had a meeting with the president in the white house after participating in a number of Campaign Events for the president and contributing 325000. 00 to the president s pack so maybe its actually the requirement that you give money to the president s pac in order to get that meeting at the white house. Ambassador taylor is it true that the pop prosecutor general now has opened an investigation in ukraine. Mr the new prosecutor general that presents alinsky has appointed is indeed investigating crimes in general is that is that your question yes that if he is there and he is in in office and is investigating. Criminal activity has he specified what investigation seasons are taken no he has not all right i yield the rest of my time to him chairmanship. Just a quick question my colleagues a couple my colleagues reference the conversation the hot mike conversation between president obama and president medvedev of that was in 2012 theres a suggestion that he was saying he was going to go easy on russia over the invasion of ukraine but out of asia took place 2 years after that conversation but every reason to believe the president obama was referring to go easy on russia for innovation that hadnt happened yet do. I have no touch of what was and it was more or less a rhetorical question. I will. Yield now to mr. Stuart im sorry mr you thank you to the witnesses saying q time is precious so im going to go very very quickly welcome i think to your 4 of the ongoing impeachment of President Trump im sorry that you have been dragged into this i think the sign behind me says it very well by the whistleblowers attorney who has started an impeachment will fall but after listening for what is going on now 4 hours and 21 minutes after all of the secret hearings after all of the leaks after hearing witnesses such as yourselves give your opinions it really comes down to this one thing. One thing that comes down to this is the transcript of the president has released of this phone call there is one sentence one phone call that is what this entire impeachment per preceeding is based upon and i got to tell you if youre impeachment case is so weak that you have to lie and exaggerate about it to convince the American People that they need to remove this president then youve got a problem in the American People have been lied to again and again on this we 1st heard a lot about quid pro quo and then many people realized i was meaningless so they said lets go for the fences and lets talk about extortionist talk about bribery this talk about cover up and obstruction for which there is 0 evidence of any of that we heard a characterization of the president s phone call that was so outrageously inaccurate had to be described as a parody and none of those things matter none of it matters it comes down to this we appreciate your insight we appreciate your opinion but all you can do is give your opinion of this this one phone call let me ask you gentlemen both of you who said here today youve testified corruption in ukraine is endemic would we agree on that simple question problem is is not its a problem and theyre taking steps to address it ok earlier in the early in the in the in the hearing both of you said use or did not make or agreed to it its in the courts its all the guards its prosecutors its everywhere and i think we can also agree that thats not the only place in the world where we experience and see kruschen theres dozens and dozens of nations around the world that is steeped in correction would you agree with that. Its true i would say that theres corruption in every country including up ok thank you and some are clearly more concerned about than others so in these corrupt nations of which there are probably hundreds of corrupt individuals hundreds of corrupt government officials can you give me an example any time where the Vice President i state shows up and demand that a specific prosecutor be fired and gives them a 6 hour time limit to do that are you aware of that ever happening in any other place i guess the answer is no and i just think its interesting that out of hundreds of corrupt individuals dozens of credit nations that happened one time and it happened with the individual whose son was being paid by the organization it was under investigation one of the thing very quickly if someone was a candidate for Political Office even for a president of the United States should they be immune from investigation no one is above the law sir thank you i agree with that i think we all would agree with that and yeah i think some presume that because some of the individual were talking about here were candidates that they are immune from any questions or any any investigation i think its absurd for heavens sakes if those of us in Public Office those of us who have find ourselves up for reelection or all the time as a candidate i think we have a higher standard not immunity from asking these types of questions the last thing that im going to yield my Time Availability of funds im quoting from the m. T. A. In 2019 the language is specific availability of funds under assistance to the crane it has to be certified and what has to be certified quote for the purposes of decreasing corruption. Are you surprised that there would be questions about corruption in ukraine and it would be discussed withholding some of the save thats actually required by law that it be withheld if they cant certify that corruption has been eliminated or is being addressed. The sort of cation in that case is done by the secretary of defense upon the vice of his staff in consultation with the Interagency Community we were fully supportive of that conditionality and the secretary of defense had already certified that that conditionality had been met and so we agreed that we should hold funds if theres if theres questions about corruption that have not been addressed im going to yield my rest of my time mr jordan. 18 seconds you can let that go thank you for that case i will yield back i think you just quickly so that certification that took place in may is that correct mr cant do not believe it was certified by may i would defer to my colleague laura cooper testified in court it was a bit with an earlier time and it had not been done by may because when i was visiting in may i was asked by laura to raise a specific issue that would meet the conditionality d. O. D. Did meet say that they met the certification yes or i think it may have been in the july timeframe thank you so its interesting curious that were talking about hearsay evidence and its extraordinary to me that the committees been able to get as much information as they had direct or hearsay given the obstruction you gentlemen were both asked by the state department not to appear for your depositions is that correct we both received i believe i received initially a letter directing me not to appear and once the committees issued a subpoena i was under legal obligation to appear and i am here today under subpoena. Embassador where you also asked not to be part of the deposition. I was told by the state department dont appear under these circumstances that was in the letter to me and when i got the subpoena exactly is going to that was different circumstances and obeyed a legal subpoena so that im here for that reason absolutely but we we were not able to hear testimony by chief of staff any John EisenbergMichael Ellis john bolton more than a dozen witnesses so i suspect if you have a problem with hearsay youd have a lot more direct testimony and direct evidence if you werent blocking that ability you have a lot more documents documents that you referred to with my colleagues questions that have not yet been turned over by state or any other agency is that correct to your knowledge gentlemen were both here under subpoena i dont think either of us is going to comment why others have not shown up but has any of the documents that you turned over to your knowledge been turned over to the committee no. Mr cant following the july 25th call and through the 1st 2 weeks of august were you involved in any efforts to arrange for president selenski to make a statement announcing the 2 investigations that the president President Trump had talked about in the july 25th call i was not and i would never participate in an arrangement to have them announce investigations ambassador taylor we were involved in any such efforts i want to show you a text of the exchange this ones between ambassador volcker and andre yamato the same a does a lengthy that volcker texted before the july 25th call you are involved its all read it the 1st taxes from august 10th ambassador volcker text i agree with your approach lets iron out the statement and use that to get data and pres can go forward with it then at 542 mr mock responds once we have a day well call for a press briefing announcing upcoming visit and outline vision for a reboot of u. S. Ukraine relationship including among other things barrys my election mentally investigations under your mike says that once we have a date they will announce the investigations and recent election meddling mr ken are these the same 2 investigations President Trump asked ukrainian president to initiate in the july 25th meeting of the 25th call those appear to be the same issues that were mentioned in the call as well as the Media Campaign that started in march led by Rudy Giuliani is to can as the day to day state Department Point person in washington on ukraine policy well where of this effort to persuade president selenski to issue a statement in order to get a white house meeting while they were happening when this exchange happened in august 10th that was known when did you learn about them. As a master taylor referenced earlier in his testimony in oral answering. He heard on august 16th he then called me and we had a conversation and at that point memorialized my concerns and a note to the file ambassador taylor is the point person on the ground in ukraine were you aware of this. Effort to get ukraine to issue this written statement in early august not the written statement those are so the entire discussion about a Public Statement about the 2 investigation frezza trump one and what i wanted was done in what you have described as an irregular channel involving ambassador sagal and volcker and a task to take on ukraine policy by the president isnt that correct mr kant that would be my understanding ambassador. And if it gets to close to a primer on hearsay i think the American Public needs to be reminded that countless people have been convicted on hearsay because the courts have routinely allowed and created needed exceptions to hearsay heres say can be much better evidence then direct as we have learned in painful instances and certainly valid in an in this and because none of those exceptions would apply to vista estimate its not the time for call a quick. Mr representatives to find a cure recognized. Thank you for the millions of americans viewing today the 2 most important facts are the following number one ukraine received the aid number 2 there was in fact no investigation into biden mr kent and ambassador taylor you both spoke eloquently and passionately about the need to support ukraine to counter russian aggression particularly during this very critical time i agree with you in that assessment and isnt it the case that the trumpet ministration has indeed provided substantial aid to ukraine in the form of defense of lethal aid correct. And that is more so than the Obama Administration correct. Procurement of lethal aid. And in the transcript of the president s july 25th call with president selenski president selenski tells trump they are ready to buy more javelins this is indeed the most effective weapon for fighting insurgent armor russian tanks is that correct. And those javelins were not made available to europe to ukraine under the Obama Administration the javelins were not made available they were not correct shifting gears to corruption one of the themes here today is that of rooting out corruption which is an important tool for the president as we provide taxpayer funded aid to Foreign Countries mr kent you would characterize ukraine as having longstanding corruption issues correct i did and in fact you testified quote i would say that corruption is part of the reason why ukrainians came out to the streets in both 2004 when somebody tried to steal the election and again in 2014 because of a corrupt kleptocratic pro russian government which avenged