A public or legal duty do you believe that not only was it quid pro quo but it was bribery im not a lawyer and im not going to characterize what something was or wasnt legally. You also said in your Opening Statement that secretary perry and your yourself as well as ambassador volcker worked with giuliani on the ukraine matter as an express or direction of the president is that right thats correct you also go on to say that we did not want to work with giuliani simply put we played the hand that we were dealt what did you mean by that and more importantly what did you think would happen if you did not play that hand i think what youre asking me is. Well you asked it i did as well what would happen if we didnt. It was very fragile with ukraine at the time there was no new ambassador the old master had left there was a new president we thought it was very very important to shore up the relationship in fact you actually said you go on to say we all understood that if we were fused to work with mr giuliani we would lose an important opportunity to see many relationships with the United States in ukraine so you so quote we follow the president s orders did you see it as a directive. I side is the only pathway to moving forward on ukraine so you would say that the efforts that mr giuliani was undertaking became a part of the formal u. K. Ukraine u. S. Policy i cant upon that all i can tell you is the president wanted us to communicate with mr giuliani would you went on to say that you in your opening steps to moni that the suggestion that you engage in some quote irregular a rogue diplomacy is absolutely fos so if if in fact what giuliani was doing was ok and proper which is actually what you said initially you all thought that what he was doing was not improper right we did not think it was improper and when i referred to the fact that i was not engaging in rogue diplomacy by definition rogue diplomacy would have met i would not have involved the leadership of the state department in the white house so youre saying that everyone in the chain of command knew about giulianis efforts to try to get the investigations and to bring reason why and to. And you know and so im just trying to figure out what you thought you were actually opining you look the president directed us to work with mr giuliani and the leadership of the state department were and were knowledgeable as was the n. S. C. That we were working with mr giuliani is always interesting is that embassador taylor testified that he knew nothing about it and clearly he would be in the chain of information if he was the ambassador to ukraine at the end of the days or all with all due respect youre the ambassador to the European Union why would he not know about it i dont know he was the one who said that there was both a regular and irregular channel you should have known about it. So although we dont want you said that you did not want to work with mr giuliani you in fact did work with him thats correct and do you think that the. The essence of what he was trying to achieve was accomplished. I dont know what he was trying to achieve it clearly had to have known sir if you think that this was actually going down the center lane is what you said it was clearly important that we that we work with mr giuliani to get what the president asked for because it was a directive in order surely you must know whether or not mission was accomplished well i know what mr giuliani communicated to us and he was that was totally fine did you really think that it was ok for i answer your question or you asked what would mr giuliani was trying to achieve no i asked whether you thought that it was right for mr giuliani to want to accomplish the efforts that he was involved in which was to get. Get them to investigate barisan and the 2016 election as you said all i can testify to is what i know that mr giuliani either told me directly or told him bassett or volcker and others that was relayed to me thank you you know back was turned investor son when i want to walk through some of the portions of your testimony because sometimes you seem to make direct connections and sometimes they seem to be dead in this i kind of want to clear up one of the dead ins and one of the direct connections yesterday ambassador volcker who i consider to be very talented and a man of integrity and i believe you think hes a man of integrity correct i do he testified that the president id states did not talk i either a meeting with the president a phone call or any aid to investigations of breeze and 2016 or the bidens that there were that the president did not do that and you testified that the president did not tell you that he tied them either correct i did testify to that although when ambassador volcker and i were working on the statement and negotiating with the ukrainians it was clear to him bassem or volcker that a meeting would not happen. Without the aris man 2016 that was very clear to invest your vote and how do you know that what did he say to you because he says that was not clear to him in fact he says thats not the case he was working on that he knows that thats what the president wanted but he didnt have it as this was a required oh i strongly disagree with that portion of his testimony it was absolutely a requirement or we would have just had the meeting and been done with it what about the 8 he says that they were tied that the aid was not tied and i didnt say they were they were conclusively tied either i said i was presuming it ok so the president ever told you they were tied so your testimony his testimony is consistent in the president not tie a 2 investigations thats correct ok he also testified that he spoke to giuliani and that giuliani did not relate that the that he was tying on behalf of the president or on the president s behalf aid and then in fact giuliani never said to him that aid was tied to investigations not the question i have for you is did you ever have a conversation which really only did not involve volcker because your testimony is a lot of we as an os is so did you do you in giuliani have a separate conference separate phone call were giuliani told you that the aide was tied because volcker says if he was on all your phone calls volcker says that never happened. You know i did have a few conversations i dont recall how many because i dont have the records with mr giuliani directly when mr volcker wasnt available and i dont know any city or you say i dont believe i testified that mr giuliani told me that aig was tied by i think see this is part of the problem investors saw and i just want to walk you through this is youve said to us everyone was in the loop and everyone know how to select our state ive listened to you today as a lot of people and not only are in search somewhat circular frequently youve youve contradicted yourself in your own answer now the the Text Messages and emails that you put up there kurt volker walk just 30 has a completely different understanding of what you were saying than what you were saying you were say so im a little confused as to how everyones in the loop because there are there are if giuliani didnt give you an express statement then it cant be that you believe this from giuliani let me tell you right now because he is donald trump your friend no were not friends were going to like the president yes ok well you know after you testified german shifrin out and gave a press conference and said he gets to impeach the president id say its because of your testimony and if you pull up c. N. N. Today right now there banner says someone ties trump to withholding aid is that your testimony today mr blitzer master simon that you have evidence that donald trump tied the investigation because i dont think youre saying that ive said repeatedly. Congressman i was presuming i also said the president trying to know when i heard you not just the president giuliani didnt tell you more when he didnt tell you nobody at the pump a you didnt tell you nobody else on this planet told you that donald trump was tying aid to these investigations is that correct i think already testified to the question is a correct no one on this planet told you that donald trump was tying this aid to the investigation because if your interest yes then the chairmans wrong and the headline on c. N. N. Is wrong no one on this planet told you that President Trump was tying aid to investigations yes or no yes so you really have no testimony today that ties President Trump to a scheme to withhold aid from ukraine in exchange for these investigations other than my own presumption which is nothing i mean thats what i never said you know what hearsay evidence is an ambassador hearsay is what i testify what someone else told me you know what made up testimony is made up testimony is when i just presume it i mean youre just assuming all of these things and then youre giving them the end evidence that theyre running out of doing press conferences and c. N. N. Headline is saying youre saying the president state should be impeached because he tied aid to investigations and you dont know that correct i never said the press the United States should be impeached no but you did you have left people with the confusing impression that you were giving testimony that you did not you do not have any evidence that the president had state was tied to withholding aid from ukraine in exchange for investigations i your back was carson thank you to remember sort of some of them really want to better understand mr giulianis role in carrying out the president s demand for investigation so on may the 23rd sir during a meeting in the oval office to discuss the future of u. S. Foreign relations a President Trump told you and others to quote talk to rudy do i have the rights or correct. Mr ambassador did you listen to the president and talk to rudys or did i talk to mr yes and what did you understand the mr giulianis relationship with President Trump i understood he was the president s personal lawyer. What did you believe to be mr giuliani what do you believe mr giuliani was doing in ukraine for President Trump so i dont know. Ambassador saarland. In august of this year u. N. Ambassador volcker spoke with mr giuliani about the address statement to be issued by the president delivers keep during those discussions it was mr giuliani who suggested in fact insisted that the statement include specific language about the recent corrects are correct and he insisted that the statement include the mention of the 26th elections and mr volcker transmitted this message to a top ukrainian official writes are. Correct. Mr ambassador and this statement was part of the deliverable that President Trump want to correct sir correct to your knowledge serve was pushing the ukrainians to investigate breeze from a 2016 of the bidens part of some official state Department Policies or i never testified that we were pushing anyone to investigate the bidens i said the response. You were involved in ukrainian policy rights or. I told you what my role was which was quite limited and focused was a your understanding mr ambassador that ukraine policy should involve investigations into americans or debunk conspiracy theories about the 26000 elections or what i testified was that in order to get president selenski a white house visit mr giuliani conveyed the notion that President Trump wanted these. Announcements to happen of course it was not it was a part of the president s political agenda and it was done to benefit the president personally and politically. Were you following the president s orders mr ambassador. I was following the president s direction to speak with mr giuliani. Thank you sir theres a term to you but. I think the jeffrey building just want to point out a couple things ambassador in response to my colleagues my colleagues seem to be under the impression that unless the president spoke the words. Being ukrainian president that there is no evidence of bribery if he didnt say investors silent im telling you im not going to give the aid unless they do this that theres no evidence of a quid pro quo on military aid but nonetheless ambassador youve given us a lot of evidence a precisely that conditionality of both the white house meeting and the military assistance you told us about or have you not that you emailed the secretary of state and said that if these investigations were announced the new justice person was put in place that the ukrainians would be paired to give the president what he wants and that would break the logjam you testified in showed us the documents about this have you not a baster and in your written say you say that the log jam your firm to includes the logjam on Security Assistance correct correct as my presumption yes and we also have seen and you testified that you have also seen ambassador rather acting chief of staff will they any himself acknowledge that the military aid was withheld in part over the investigation into 2016 that youve talked about you referenced that as well correct. Now they also seem to say that well they got the money the money may have been conditioned but they got the money yes they got caught. They got caught now the stone have a white house meeting they made no statement they got no meeting the way that this statement and the rescue missions was the condition to get the meeting they did make the statement they got no meeting. But they got caught youre aware arguing baster that 2 days before the aid was lifted this inexplicable aid was lifted congress announced it was investigating this scheme youre aware of that arent you bastard i am now yes dr wants to thank you mr chairman its john id like to address something you claim that you made this morning claiming that republicans deny russian attempts to influence our elections that is false and you know it in this committee the Intel Committee not the Impeachment Committee but in this Committee Time and time again we all agree that russia has tried to influence american elections as far back as the soviet union so i wish you would quit stop it we quit making that comment yesterday we established with mr volcker something quite obvious more than one country can try to influence our elections you see mr schiff we didnt agree with your russian collusion narrative your d. N. C. Clinton campaign coup attempt that occurred in conjunction with members of the f. B. I. And d. O. J. And foreign sources something that you have conveniently ignored as chairman of the Intelligence Committee as you became the chairman of the Impeachment Committee but in this process today im interested in facts im not a prosecutor or defense attorney im not an attorney like mr turner investor son when you honestly have used the words presumed presumption presuming some form of the verb to presume repeatedly today and today you said that was the problem is for goldman no one ever told me the aid was tied to anything i was presuming it was you see in mathematics fact 2 plus 2 does equal 4. But in reality 2 presumptions plus 2 presumptions does not equal even one fact. And the fact is the president did tell you investors on no quid pro quo thats a fact and another fact no quid pro quo occurred this time id like to yield to mr connelly examined. You have to go since the internet to record a Washington Post article from today that headline shifts claim that the whistleblower has a statutory right and emit the you see 3 nokia. Meeting that where we all know procures me deter taisha that would be that to interpretations the one that my colleagues on the other side would argue as are trying to protect the whistleblower an equally valid incredible. Interpretation is that there is something to hide and that this unlevel Playing Field thats been created by the chairmans system is that there is a statutory right to anonymity maintains that unlevel Playing Field in the in the advantages that gives them now the term it also announces or at every hearing that he will not tolerate and i agree with him any witness intimidation any threats or any issues of trying to bully a witness investor sonnen have you your family or your businesses received any threats or reprisals or attempts to harm you in any way many could you give us an example or 2 we have countless emails apparently to my wife are our properties are being picketed and boycotted west allis explore that one. Our own colleague congressman Earl Blumenauer from oregon has in fact call for a boycott of your hotel chains are your hotels and. In oregon im assuming here that it believes that that will harm you to the point that you will then be bullied into doing whatever he wants done out of a colleague and i know that usually word bully an Earl Blumenauer the same sentence is a bit over the top but never has he intended to harm you and your business as that would you would do. Surmisal thats my understanding and that the boycott drank his coffee gave rise to demonstrations in front of your hotels it made your customers have to weave in and out of the demonstrators to try to actually get in the hotels as i understand theyre going on as we speak well the words are better put by a couple of other orgone and as congressman blew it i was irresponsible to have to hurt a home grown business that supports hundreds of jobs in our local economy is just shameful and ought to be an outrage to all orgone and some phony mcdermott and theres a lady named Ellen Carmichael who doubly works for you said we are saddened to have our congressman earl bloom and our call for a boycott that would put the livelihoods of thousands of his constituents in peril the attack on our employees on work and i couldnt agree more mr ambassador mr blue and our should not be using the vast influence is that we as members of congress has to bully you and your businesses into harm the hundreds or thousands of employees that they are that theyre operating your business by trying to take business away from you to force you into doing something that that they want to do which actually testified you actually done that but thats a shame for that and im hopeful that my colleagues on the other south there will join me and say mr blewitt our you really shouldnt be using your congressional influence to try to bully and threaten a witness before these proceedings and that is just wrong and we look forward to my colleagues response and your back thank you congressman mr. I was somewhat humored by your request that mr bloom an hour not bully. To get something done when were talking about is the president bullying to get something he wants done but having said that. Id like to clarify one point about the whistleblower protection from the article that mr conway just provided the law reads. Expressly restricts the Inspector Generals Office from disclosing whistleblowers identities it says quote the Inspector General shall not disclose the identity of the employee without the consent of the employee unless the Inspector General determines that such disclosure is unavoidable during the course of the investigation or the disclosure is made to an official of the department of justice responsible for determining whether a prosecution should be undertaken and that appears to be the lone statutory restriction on disclosing a whistle blowers identity applicable only to the Inspector Generals Office we found no Court Rulings on whether whistleblowers have a right to anonymity under the i. C. The u. P. A. Or related statute latics said it is nonetheless a best practice to avoid disclosure of the ukraine whistleblowers identity given the concerns about retaliation the khaled said weve stepped into bizarro and when senior policymakers are trying to yank a cia employee into the public spotlight in retaliation for making a whistleblower blowing complaint especially when they are Credible Threats to that employees personal safety and i dont know why our colleagues on the other side and the only way youll be you know im im afraid i only have 3 minutes and i have some other issues but thank you in the article does go through that and also searches 3 pinocchios in spite of the company or mr. The present United States has pipe nokias on a daily basis so lets not go there. Thank you bass your son in your deposition. Meant to quote i was truly disappointed that the state department prevented me at the last minute from testifying earlier on october 8th 2001000 but your issuance of a subpoena has supported my appearance here today and im pleased to provide the following testimony so it is clear that the white house the state department did not want you to testify at that deposition is that correct thats correct and since then you have on numerous occasions during your Opening Statement today indicated that you have not been able to access documents in the state department is that correct so you have been hampered in your ability to provide testimony to this committee is that correct ive been hampered to provide completely accurate testimony without the benefit of those documents in terms of your conversations with the present the United States what percentage of your conversations were about ukraine as compared to your other duties i dont recall well youve only had 6 conversations or 7 conversations with the president you said so about ukraine i think so youve had many other conversation yeah about unrelated completely unrelated matters so how many conversations with the pres the United States have you had again i dont want to give you a number because its going to be wrong if i dont have the records is that less than 20 its probably in that range. Would you say that delay in military aid and the lack of a meeting in the white house works to the benefit of russia repeat the question again please would you say that the delayed delay in military aid to ukraine and the reluctance to have a white house meeting. Has a benefit to russia i think it could be looked that way yes looked at that way right im going to just speak very briefly about code. When Michael Cohen was before the Oversight Committee he was asked you suggest the president sometimes communicates is wishes to him directly for example you say quote mr trump did not directly tell me to lie to congress thats not how he operates it would be different he said. Nice he doesnt give you questions he doesnt give you orders he speaks in code and i understand the code because ive been around him for a decade so do you think that the president was speaking in code when he would talk about wanting investigations i dont i cant characterize how the president was speaking every conversation ive had with the president has been fairly direct and straightforward all right youll back mr stewart if youre going to have a unanimous consent request. Mr your quest to deal with the response to ambassador saddams killing comments for the house Intelligence Committee attributable to the dios the secretary of the press secretary ambassador songlines testimony today misrepresented both secretary kerrys interaction and with Rudy Giuliani and direction the secretary received from President Trump as previously stated secretary perry spoke to really doing on only once at the president s request no one else was on that call at no point before during or after the phone call did the words biden or bridgeman ever come up in the presence of the secretary perry. Again as id be entered into the record without objection it would note that theyve also refused to come and testify under oath the American People expect a lot of things out of politics arguments protests we certainly see that clash of principles and ideas i think sometimes eventually they actually would like to see some compromise but i think something they expect above Everything Else fundamental they expect there is a sense of fairness about it and i want to read part of a text i received from someone i have tremendous respect for just a few hours ago she wrote crafting a story to hurt another human being can never be right the means of destroying and hurting another individual just does not justify the end politics does not give anyone a free pass to destroy other people now you can say a lot about the treatment of President Trump over the last few years but i think one thing you cannot argue is that it has been fair there were those calling for his impeachment literally before he was inaugurated for 2 and a half years we were told every single day he has betrayed our country he is a russian asset he has committed treason accusations that we know now are not true and for which we never have any evidence to support that he was accused of obstruction and now here we are actually impeaching the president over well 1st quid pro quo until we found out that didnt poll very well with focus groups and then with bribery until virtually every witness before us was asked the question said they had no evidence of bribery and now its extortion i mean again the American People expect some sense of fairness so nancy pelosi goes before she has seen a shred of evidence and she announces the president has betrayed his oath of office he has betrayed the American People he did potato National Security without seeing any evidence again the American People say well what is fair about that so the. Question before us now is again extortion thats the thats the latest version of the charges against the president im not an attorney extortion sounds pretty scary kind of serious i had to look it up what it means it means obtaining money or property by threat to a victims property or loved ones mr ambassador im going to read you a couple quotes from president ski and then i ask you a question 1st from ukrainian press release donald trump is convinced that the new Ukrainian Government will be able to quickly improve the image of ukraine complete investigation of corruption which inhibited the interaction with ukraine and the usa does that sound like prisons alinsky is being bribed or extorted in that comment. As i testified previously im not a lawyer either and i dont want to characterize well ok any legal terms badly divided fine i think most people would read that and say that doesnt sound like hes under severe pressure he makes it very clear in his own words in ukrainian president zelinsky told reporters during a joint press conference with donald trump that he was not pressured by the u. S. President again i was not pressured to use another side time there was no blackmail i would ask you do you think he felt like he was being extorted by the president based on these comments i really think thats for the committee and the congress to well you know what a bass or its really for the American People i agree the American People arent stupid and the American People can hear that and they can say i dont think he was under duress i dont think he was being extorted i dont think there was an exchange of a bribe and i would conclude with this last observation it is common. For an r. B. I. Policy to withhold aid for various reasons you know thats true as an ambassador is that not true thats true its frequent isnt it that we will withhold aid for various reasons its correct it is a policy i mean for example president bush did it he suspended military aid to 35 countries over there a lack of support for the International Criminal court ill bet that helped his political standing back home but i dont remember anyone suggesting we should impeach him for it President Trump did it last year with afghanistan over corruption we did it with pakistan over much the same thing and no one suggested that we impeach them for this is a common occurrence in International Relations it is hardly an impeachable offense. Tony jones expired mr quickly thank mr chairman thank you sir for being here today you know there are things we can agree with our colleagues on things we can disagree i can agree that with my colleague that we should turn over all the the documents should be turned over to mr ambassador i think you agree that would have helped your testimony help you understood that the state Department White house hasnt turned over a single document white house one of the president s april phone conversations but millions more out there so on that we can agree as we can disagree d as to particular as it relates to the whistleblower. It distresses me because i begin to wonder about the motivations in the final analysis the way i look at this is if we were investigating an arson you all would. Indict the person who pulled the fire alarm. That persons job is done and weve seen the smoke and weve seen the fire. Whatever the whistleblower did doesnt change the president s actions doesnt change the president s own words which are in our testimony or in our our body about events it doesnt change mr mo veiny zone words it doesnt change the body of evidence here all it does is put this person at risk back to the documents in what you know and clearly mr ambassador you seem to have your memory jogged by documents lets talk about may 23rd and see if this one helps you senator johnson in referencing the may 23rd meeting in his letter sir says. I have no recollection the press and say the president saying that during the meeting it is entirely possible he did because i do not work for the president if made the comment simply did not register with me he also says i also remember signing on staying behind to talk to the president as the rest of the delegation left the oval office sir do you recall this later conversation and what you do in the president discussed i do and what was that just are again recapping what it was sort of a free for all