As of course you understand so no ambassador has yet been or no candidate has yet been named to the position but he certainly has had a decorated career serving his country absolutely a man of the highest integrity. You testified about when you 1st learned that mayor giuliani and some of his associates were. Had a Concerted Campaign against you when did that 1st come to your attention we were picking up rumors from ukrainians i think you know kind of in the November December 20th 100 time period. But then in january february of course march it became more obvious. Its some point i believe you testified that minister of arc of alerted you to this campaign yes when was that. He had. He had a conversation with me in february of 21000 and do remember what he related to you yes he said that mr witt sankoh was working with mayor giuliani. Through these 2 individuals mr parnassus and mr freeman that they. Would basically want to remove me from post and that they were they were working on that and did you have any awareness at that point time of precisely why they were seeking your ouster. You know i didnt i didnt understand that at all because i had never met mr pronounce and mr freeman and so it was unclear to me why why what they were interested in and in doing this were you specially in fact especially influential implementing policies that stymied their interests in ukraine were advocating for the. Some sort of Environmental Policies that would that would be adverse to that i think that. Just just the general idea that obviously u. S. Ambassadors u. S. Embassies one of our most important functions is to facilitate u. S. Business abroad right whether its trade whether its commerce. Thats one of the things that we do and but you know everything has to be about ford we believe in a level playing ground and so forth but we obviously advocate for us business. These 2 individuals you know with hindsight and what we learned later looking to open up a new Energy Company exporting liquefied national gas natural gas to ukraine. Never actually came to the embassy which is unusual because that would usually be a 1st stop going to the American Chamber of commerce going to the u. S. Embassy get the lay of the land see how we could provide assistance. And was that source of frustration ever express to you or did you just learn that separately. Source of frustration. On whose part on firm in part us. I dont know that they were frustrated and i mean i of her straight away well you mentioned that there were there business interests and you know i asked you whether you had been stymied by anything in particular that you had advocated for or your road blocked to them being successful i wondered if there was any connection i had never met them when when i heard those names for the 1st time which was in february of 2019 i asked my team the econ in the commercial sections are the ones who would usually meet with american businessmen and women and nobody had had had heard of them so i can conclude is that it was the general general u. S. Policies that we were implementing about might have been of concern to them and any point did did you ever try to reach out to the prosecutor general mr hood sankoh and find out why he was participating in this Concerted Campaign. And why didnt you do that i didnt feel that there was any purpose to it. And why not he is. He clearly had. I would say a animus for doing this and he was working with americans so i reached out to the american side in this case the state department to try and find out what was going on when did you 1st realize that your relationship with that sankoh added it reached adversarial point. Probably around that time maybe a little bit earlier and this is march and what i would say adversarial thats a really strong word. We at the u. S. Embassy are visiting. Key people from the state department the other agencies we were pushing the ukrainians including mr litvinenko to do what they said that they were going to do in mr lead sankoh entered office that he was going to clean up the picciola make reforms that he was going to bring justice to the what they call the heavenly 100 the people who died on the mind on in 20162014 the revolution of dignity and he was going to prosecute cases to repatriate the 40 approximately 40000000000. 00 its believed that former president yannick ovitz and his cronies fled the country with and he didnt do any of that and we you know kept on trying to encourage him to do the right thing thats what the ukrainian people wanted to do he had to do and we thought it was a good plan and that he should do it. And then you mentioned you contacted the state department in late march was that undersecretary have. So contact about what but the concerns you had about the campaign against you i contacted the state Department Much earlier than that i mean it was an ongoing. Sort of discussion makes it sound very formal we have many ways of going back and forth with washington and so you know on one phone calls or dcs we would have this discussion when did you realize this and if i could just amplify my answer we had the discussion because we were concerned that ukraine policymakers ukrainian leaders were hearing that you know i was going to be leaving that. You know there was maybe somebody else waiting in the wings it cetera and that undermining not only my position but our u. S. Position he didnt know what to think and we need to be out there all the time firing on all cylinders to promote our National Security interests so it was a concern and when did you realize this Concerted Campaign against you was a real threat a threat is relative to your ability to do the job in cuba. Well i would say that the. You know when you go into a meeting with somebody and they ask are you going to be leaving that is concerning. So that. Probably i dont know exactly when that started happening but in that time frame and did you undertake any efforts to push back on this narrative either inside the state department or publicly. Certainly with the ukrainians as you know theres nothing to this this is you know a distraction and we are focused on the job our policy remains the same. And yes we had discussions in the state department about this you know im sorry you think you did enough inside the state department to alert them to this. This mounting campaign against you. I did what i could and what was that. Reached out to the European Bureau i think youve also heard that. Dr fiona hill was aware of of this as well so the n. S. C. And and they had other discussions with more senior people ok. Did you get any feedback from from your chain of command i mean vision huge about should recur either secretary hale yes and yes did you develop sort of a game plan to push back against these allegations so i mean there are there are different time frames here that were talking about so fast forwarding to march i did when when undersecretary hale asked whether i would consider extending i did raise because i wasnt sure that he was aware of that i wanted to make sure that he knew that mayor giuliani had been out there saying things about me untrue things and i wanted him to be aware of that he said you know he understood he still. I was hoping that i could extend for another year. That was early march and then fast forward to you know late march and you know the discussions about this issue continued but obviously it became once it became a public political story here in the United States the tenor of everything changed because i think that the state department felt that it wasnt manageable anybody anymore and that the more prudent thing would be for me to come back in july do you think theres anything you couldve done differently to get ahead of the story and lobby the secretary and his counsel or mr grech people are these there was a Concerted Campaign against you that you didnt believe the allegations lodged were accurate and you needed their assistance. I think that sure maybe i could have done that but i think they were aware and as i subsequently learned from deputy secretary sullivan. The secretary of state had been well aware of this since the summer of 2018. The corruption is endemic in the country of ukraine right i would say that corruption is a serious issue everywhere in the former soviet union its a post soviet legacy and we talk about it a lot in ukraine because theres actually an opportunity to to do something to actually help the ukrainians tackle the issue they want to tackle the issue in other countries like russia you cant even talk about it so i think its a post soviet legacy and its important to deal with it and you testified rampant corruption as long permeated ukraines political and economic systems yes thats a fair statement and its your belief that it should be the u. S. Foreign policy to help ukraine curb its corruption problem yes because its good for the ukrainians but its also on our interests. And i corruption efforts you mentioned serve a National Security purpose i believe that to be true. Or oligarchy a big part of the problem in ukraine probably because so much wealth is concentrated in the hands of a very very few 6 or 7 individuals and they also have political power and control the media and a lot of their power has been acquired through what we here in the us we consider him improperly improper ways yeah i think thats a fair comment the head of barisan mr so cesky. I dont know him but i know who youre talking about and you know your dog cant test fired a couple days ago that was he was investigating for stealing millions and millions of dollars some of which had been fired by the u. S. Repression subject to an investigation. Trying to get the money back that was a big part of mr kent initiatives when he was he was there that a bribe was paid. To the prosecutors and so jeff ski was was let off the hook this was in 2014 is this something that youre familiar with ive heard about it this was before my arrival and i would just say my understanding but man please correct me if im wrong is that. The u. S. Money that youre referring to was the money that we that we used to fund an f. B. I. Team that was imbedded with the Prosecutor Generals Office to go after. You not to go after but to to do the investigation. And such asthe. Mister can testify the this does bribe was paid the prosecution. Went away and you know essentially nothing has been you know further done with regards to barisan as you know during your tenure in ukraine has has there ever been any focus on on reexamining allegations whether its a prison or other. Powerful interests like like so cesky reexamining it is that on the part of the training ever it is that im not trying to lean on the on the various prosecutors general the clean up the oligarchy whole system. I think yes there have been some some efforts and as i mentioned earlier in my testimony the u. S. Was welcoming of mr lute sinkers nomination to the position of prosecutor general because we were hoping he would clean that up. That in fact is is not what happened and because you know its kind of hard to explain to. A u. S. Audience but in ukraine in the former and in the former soviet union more broadly including in russia. Justice the Justice System whether its the whether its you know cops on the v. Whether its investigators whether it is prosecutors whether it is judges are used as a tool of the political system to be used against your political adversaries and so i think that going back to your question about risk and such esky my understanding this this was as i told you earlier in the previous deposition this did not loom large when i arrived i arrived in. 2016 august 26th scene but over time my understanding was that the. That the case for was basically a sort of on a pause that it was is. Wasnt an active case but it also was not fully closed and that is a way as i mentioned before for those in power to keep a little hook in to mr that check such asking and then right around the time of the bribe was paid made prisoner under took an effort to spruce up their board and they had i believe the president of poland and some other luminaries. Yeah i dont exactly know what the timing of all of this was ok but yes i mean to the elements and you know what folks say out of the room to the board was those president s on her biden. Which you know raises questions is it a genius on the Corporate Governance front as the genius with the ukrainian garko systems and maintaining that up or is he just added to the board because hes Vice President son it was that ever. You know a concern or the least the perception of that concern address. As i said i arrived in august of 2016. You know several months before the elections and several months before president trant took office and it was not a focus of what i was doing and in that 6 month period ok. Was was the issue ever raised at all. He did not you know still on the board i think at the time yeah my understanding from newspaper accounts is that he just recently left and right 19 i never met him never never talked to him. And im sorry what was your question. He was still on the board when you arrived at post and was just wondering if at least the perception problem was it was brought to your attention as the ambassador. We i was aware of it because as i told you before and in the deposition there had been a. In terms of the preparation for my Senate Confirmation hearings for ukraine. It was that a question about that and a select answer so i was aware of it no press. In your deposition you you acknowledged that the president has longstanding concerns about corruption in ukraine is that true. Thats thats thats what he says. Or going back to there is a meeting with president partially and go into february 2017 in the oval office and i believe you testified that you know he expressed his concerns then yeah he said that a friend of his had told him that ukraine was the most corrupt country in the world ok. Several witnesses have testified that the president has concerns that there are certain elements of the ukrainian establishment that during 2016 were out together. Is that something you were aware of at any point in time. Well im certainly aware of it now obviously theres been a lot of press attention on that it was not it was not brought to my attention during the 2 and a half years that i served under President Trump as our ambassador to ukraine weve gone through the deposition some of these these elements that you know maybe they loom larger now but you know in hindsight was there any discussion at the embassy that there is these indications of. So ukrainians trying to you know at least advocate against then candidate try. Actually there were i mean we didnt really see it that way. Were you aware of mr dean has mentioned this earlier that the console now xander chalupa had reportedly at least according to her and according to. The can vote politico. Was trying to work with the Ukrainian Embassy in d. C. To. Trade information share leads of that or sort of thing i thought the article i you know didnt have any further information. About that and did you see the article at the time war did you only did that only come to your attention subsequently its certainly been brought to my attention subsequently i think i did Say Something to that effect at the time as well and you know youre them bassett are in country at this point and did. Get to the bottom of that because you know if true if theyre reporting true or for this trooper told mr vogel is accurate. That would be concerning correct while i was the ambassador in ukraine starting in august of 2016 and what youre describing if true as as he said what youre describing took place in the United States so if there were concerns about. What miss julie but was doing i think that that would have been handled here and you know michel of i dont believe sound here matter i dont think so i mean if she worked for the ukraine and embassy its possible that i met her in a large group or something but i dont i dont believe i know her. Or you were the role the investigative journalist mr le shango played in publicizing me the man of 4 black letters yes and he he publicized some information in a pretty pretty grand way and august 2016 and almost immediately. Coincided with mr madoff for leaving the drum campaign. Was there anything about. That issue when it was occurring that concerned you well i certainly noticed it because i was you know a week or so away from arriving in ukraine. I think that from a ukrainian perspective i realize we are looking at this from an American Perspective from ukrainian perspective i think that what. Mr bush and co and others who are looking into the black ledger were most concerned about was actually not mr mann of for. Former president in a covert and his Political Party and the amount of money that they allegedly stole and where it went and so forth i mean i think theres just a difference in perspective depending on which country youre in. But you can understand the president at least from his perspective looking at these facts certainly is reasonable to conclude that there are elements of the ukrainian establishment that are are advocating against them at this point time correct well you know just speaking about mr schank oh hes an investigative journalist as you said and he got access to the black ledger and he published he published it as i think journalists would do and i gan i am not sure that that i dont have any information to suggest that that was being that was targeting President Trump. But the way the events unfolded. Mr madoff or it was you know subsequently left the campaign and it certainly did begin a period of interest in you know man affords ties to to russia and so forth i think again i think that that may have been the effect here in the United States and obviously it was of interest to journalists and others here that mr man of war was a former president not a covert as a political advisor and he was the political advisor head of a campaign here. And so we all know that there have been court cases and so forth where mr metaphor it was found guilty of certain actions but at the end of the day President Trump when the elections with mr the shank of reporting i mean theres been a question of whether all the information that he he published was authentic correct. Theres been a good sum of question whether the Information Mr le shango published was all correct or whether it was doctored ok i wasnt aware of that ok. You know ambassador charlie during the august timeframe the you wrote an op ed in the hell. Taking issue with then candidate trump were you aware that when it occurred yes and did you have any communications with the ambassador to express concerns now. And how frequently did you communicate with with the ambassador obviously or in a different post in different countries. We didnt actually see him or talked in that you werent in frequent communication where he can you see have you know writing an op ed and you know given the substance you know weve discussed the substance of it theres sensitivities. But can you see out just the simple fact of writing an op ed the Ukrainian Ambassador to the u. S. Might create a perception that there are elements of the ukrainian establishment that were advocating against then candidate from my recollection of the of that bad or was that he was taking a. He was critical of a policy position that President Trump had with regard to crimea and whether crimea was you know a part of ukraine or part of russia thats a tremendously sensitive issue in ukraine and my recollection is that that is what ambassador chali was writing about and do you know whether the bassett or anybody from the embassy tried to make contact with the trump kept. Talk about their concerns before lodging an op ed i dont know. You know during the same time period of the run up to the election me the minister of iraq off had said so and especially. And did things about then candidate trump on some very social media platforms or are you aware that. Yes as a result of the deposition the previous deposition but but the during the relevant time period when it was happening you are aware of the you know i dont recall an ok he hes one of the more influential officials in the ukraine correct yes. I believe hes one of the few that spanned both a portion go ministration and his landscape ministration yes thats correct he looked looking back on his comments in hindsight did you see how that might create a perception that a very influential ukrainian was was you know how to katie against engender drum that he was doing what moms are just advocating he was use out to get him i mean he was he was he said some real nasty things well you know sometimes that happens in social media and. You know are you asking me whether its appropriate
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