Testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god . Let the record show that the witnesses answered in the affirmative. You may be seated. The microphones are sensitive so you will need to speak directly into them. Without objection, your written statements will made be made part of the record. Mr. Holmes, you are recognized for your Opening Statement and when you conclude, dr. Hill, you will be recognized thereafter for your Opening Statement. Mr. Holmes thank you. Good morning, mr. Chairman. Members of the committee. My name is david holmes. Im a Career Foreign Service officer with the department of state. Since august 2017, i have been a political counselor at the u. S. Embassy in ukraine. While it is an honor to appear before you today, i want to make sure make clear i did not seek this opportunity to testify today. Since you determined i may have something of value to these proceedings and issued a subpoena, it is my obligation to appear and tell you what i know. As secretary pompeo has stated, i hope everyone who testifies will do so truthfully and accurately. When they do, the oversight role will have been performed, and i think america will come to see what took place here. Testifymy only goal, to truthfully and accurately to enable you to perform that role. Into that end, i put together this statement to layout as best i can my recollection of events that may be relevant to this matter. My way of background, i have my entire professional career as a Foreign Service officer. Many of the dedicated Public Servants who have testified, my entire career has been in service of my country. From i am a graduate International Affairs from Princeton University of public and International Affairs. I joined the Foreign Service in 2002, through an apolitical meritbased process under the george w. Bush administration and i have proudly served administrations of both parties and worked for their appointees both political and career. Prior to my current post in kyiv, ukraine, i served in the political and economic sections at the embassies in russia. In washington, i served on the National SecurityCouncil Staff and as a special assistant to the under secretary of state. My prior overseas assignments including india, afghanistan, and kosovo. As the political counselor at the embassy in kyiv, i lead the covering section, ukraines internal politics, foreign relations, and security policies. And i serve as the senior policy and political ambassador to advisor to the ambassador. The job of an Embassy Political counselor is to gather information about the host countries political landscape, to report back to washington, to represent u. S. Policies to foreign contacts, and to advise the ambassador on policy development and implementation. In this role, im a Senior Member of the embassys country team and involved in addressing issues as they arise. Im also often called upon to take notes in meetings involving the ambassador or visiting senior u. S. Officials with ukrainian counterparts. For this reason, ive been president in many of the meetings with president zelensky and his administration, some of which may be germane to this inquiry. While im a political counselor at the embassy, it is important to note that im not a political appointee or engaged in u. S. Politics in any way. It is not my job to cover or or advise cover or advise on u. S. Politics. On the contrary, im an apolitical Foreign Policy professional and my job is to focus on the politics of the country in which i serve so that we can better understand the local landscape and better advance u. S. National interests there. In fact, during the period that will cover today, my colleagues and i followed direct guidance from ambassador yovanovitch and ambassador taylor to focus on doing our jobs as Foreign Policy professionals and to stay clear of washington politics. I arrived in kyiv to take up my assignment as political counselor in august 2017 a year after ambassador yovanovitch received her appointment. From august 2017 until her removal from post, i was ambassador yovanovitchs chief policy adviser and developed a deep respect for her dedication, determination, decency, and professionalism. During this time we worked together closely speaking multiple times her day and i per day and i accompanied ambassador yovanovitch to meetings with her counterparts. Our work in ukraine focused on priorities, peace and security, Economic Growth and reform, and anticorruption and rule of law. These policies match the three consistent priorities of the ukrainian people since 2014 as measured in Public Opinion polling. Namely an end to the conflict with russia that restores National Unity and territorial integrity, responsible economic policies that deliver european standards of growth and opportunity, and effective and impartial rule of law institutions that deliver justice in cases of highlevel official corruption. Our efforts on this third policy priority merit special mention because it was during ambassador yovanovitchs tenure that we achieved the passage of a law establishing a court to try corruption cases. These efforts strained ambassador yovanovitchs relationship with president poroshenko. Who resisted fully empowering truly independent anticorruption institutions that would help ensure no ukrainians however powerful, were above the law. Despite the resistance, the ambassador to the embassy kept pushing anticorruption and other priorities of our policy toward ukraine. Beginning in march 2019, the situation at the embassy and in ukraine changed dramatically. Specifically, the three priorities of security, economy and justice and our support for ukrainian democratic resistance to russian aggression became overshadowed by a political agenda promoted by former new york city mayor Rudy Giuliani and a cadgroup of officials operating with a direct channel to the white house. That change began with the emergence of press reports critical of ambassador yovanovitch and others to discredit her. In midmarch 2019, a colleague learned that mr. Lutsenko complained that ambassador yovanovitch yovanovitch destroyed him until he followed through with his reform commitments and seized using his position for personal gain. In retaliation, mr. Lutsenko made a series of allegations against ambassador yovanovitch mostly suggesting that ambassador yovanovitch improperly used the embassy to advance the political interests of the democratic party. The embassy had ordered the investigation of a former ukrainian official because that official was the main ukrainian contact of the Republican Party and of President Trump personally and that the embassy had allegedly pressured lutsenko predecessor to close a case because of an alleged connection between burisma and former Vice President bidens son. He claimed that he had never received 4. 4 million in u. S. Funds. And there was a tape of ukrainian officials saying he was trying to help Hillary Clinton win the 2016 election. Finally mr. Lutsenko claimed that ambassador yovanovitch had given him a do not prosecute list containing the names of her supposed allies, an allegation the state Department Call add fabrication and mr. Lutsenko later retracted. Mr. Lutsenko said that as a result of these allegations, ambassador yovanovitch would face Serious Problems in the United States. Public opinion polls indicated that ukrainians did not believe mr. Lutsenko allegations and on march 22nd, the president issued a statement in support of ambassador yovanovitch. Following mr. Lutsenko allegations, mr. Giuliani and others made a number of political statements critical of ambassador yovanovitch, questioning her integrity and removing her from office. Mr. Giuliani was also making frequent public statements pushing for ukraine to investigate interference in the 2016 election and issues related to burisma and the bidens. For example, on may 1st, 2019, the New York Times reported that mr. Giuliani had discussed the burisma investigation and its intersection with the bidens with the ousted ukrainian prosecutor general and the current prosecutor. Reported thatas mr. Giuliani said he planned to travel to ukraine to pursue investigations into the 2016 election interference and into the involvement of former Vice President bidens son in a ukrainian gas company. Over the next few months, mr. Giuliani issued a series of tweets asking why biden shouldnt be investigated attacking the new president of ukraine zelensky for being silent on the 2016 election and biden investigations and complaining about the New York Times attacking him for exposing the biden Family History from making millions of ukrainian officials. The ukrainian president ial election was approaching and Volodymyr Zelensky who had played a president on television was surging in the polls ahead of mr. Lutsenko electrical political ally. On april 20, i was present for ambassador yovanovitchs final meeting with then candidate zelensky ahead of his landslide victory the next day. As in her two prior meetings that i also attended, they had a cordial, pleasant number station and signaled their mutual desire pleasant conversation and signaled their mutual desire to work together. However, the negative narratives about ambassador yovanovitch had gained currency in certain segments. On april 26th. Ambassador yovanovitch departed for washington, d. C. , where she learned that she would be recalled early. The allegations directed at ambassador yovanovitch, a career ambassador, is unlike anything i have seen in my professional career. Following president elect zelenskys victory, our attention in the embassy focused on getting to know the incoming Zelensky Administration and on preparations for the inauguration scheduled for may 20th, the same day that ambassador yovanovitch departed post permanently. It quickly became clear that the white house was not prepared to show the level of support for the Zelensky Administration that we had originally anticipated. In early may, mr. Giuliani alleged that mr. Zelensky was, surrounded by enemies of the u. S. President. And canceled a visit to ukraine. Shortly thereafter we learned that Vice President pence no longer planned to led the president ial delegation to the inauguration. The white house whittled down a proposed list for the official delegation from over a dozen individuals to just five. Secretary perry, special representative for ukraine negotiations kurt volker, representing the state department, National SecurityCouncil Director alex vindman, representing the white house, temporary acting affairs Joseph Pennington representing the embassy, and Gordon Sondland. While ambassador sondlands mandate as the accredited ambassador to the European Union did not cover individual member states, let alone nonmember countries like ukraine, he made clear that he had direct and frequent access to President Trump and chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and portrayed himself as the conduit to the president and mr. Mulvaney for this group. Secretary perry, ambassador sondland and ambassador volker later styled themselves the three amigos and made clear they would take the lead on coordinating our policy and engagement with the Zelensky Administration. Around the same time, i became aware that mr. Giuliani, a private lawyer was taking a direct role in ukrainian diplomacy. On april 25th, mr. Zelenskys childhood friend and was appointed the head of the Security Services of ukraine indicated to me privately that he had been contacted by someone named giuliani who said he was an advisor to the Vice President. I reported the message to george kent. Over the following months it became apparent that mr. Giuliani was having a direct influence on the Foreign Policy agenda that the three amigos were executing on the ground in ukraine. In fact at one point, during a preliminary meeting of the inaugural delegation, someone wondered aloud why mr. Giuliani was so active in the meeting with respective to ukraine. My reaction was that ambassador sondland stated, every time rudy gets involved he goes and fs everything up. The inauguration took place and notes in the delegations meeting with president zelensky. During the meeting, there was a list described as people that he trusts. He said he could seek advice for the people on this list which was the topic of subsequent meetings secretary perry and key Ukrainian Energy sector contacts, Embassy Personnel were excluded from some of these meetings. On may 23rd, ambassador volker, ambassador sondland, secretary perry and senator ron johnson who had also attended the inauguration returned to the United States and briefed President Trump. On may 29th, President Trump signed a letter to president zelensky which included an invitation to visit the white house and an unspecified date. It is important to understand that a white house visit was critical to president zelensky. President zelensky needed to show u. S. Support at the highest levels in order to demonstrate to russian president putin that he had u. S. Backing as well as to advance his anticorruption reform agenda at home. President zelenskys team began pressing to set a date for that visit. President zelensky and Senior Members of his team made clear that they wanted president zelenskys first overseas trip to be to washington to send a strong signal of american support and requested a call with President Trump as soon as nsc counterparts confirmed to us there had been no change in our ukrainian policy, but could not determine the cause of the hold or how to lift it. On july 25th, President Trump made a congratulatory phone call to president zelensky, after his party won a commanding majority in ukraines parliamentary election. Contrary to standard procedure, the embassy received no readout of that call and i was unaware of what was discussed until the transcript was released on the 25th. Upon reading the transcript, i was deeply disappointed to see the president raised none of what i understood to be our interagency, agreed upon Foreign Policy priorities in ukraine, and instead raised the Biden Burisma investigation and referred to the theory about crowdstrike and its supposed connection to ukraine in the 2016 election. The next day, july 26th, 2019, i attended meetings the president ial Administration Building in kyiv with ambassador taylor, ambassador volker, ambassador sondland, and i took notes during those meetings. Our first meeting was with president zelenskys chief of staff, it was brief, as he had already been summoned bymoned by president zelensky to prepare for a broader meeting. But he said president zelensky expressed interest in the decisions related to the general prosecutors office. The delegation then met with president zelensky and several other senior officials. During the meeting, president zelensky stated that during the july 25th call, President Trump had, quote, three times raised some very sensitive issues, and that he would have to follow up, he, zelensky, would have to follow up on the issues when he and President Trump met in person. Not having received a readout of the july 25th call, i did not know at the time what those sensitive issues were. After the meeting with president zelensky, ambassador volker and ambassador taylor quickly left the president ial Administration Building for a trip to the front lines. Ambassador sondland, who was to fly out that afternoon, stayed behind to have a meeting with andriy yermak. As i was leaving the meeting with president zelensky, i was told to join the meeting with ambassador sondland and mr. Yermak to take notes. I had not expected to join that meeting and was a flight of stairs behind mr. Sondland as he reached mr. Yermak. When he reached mr. Yermaks office, ambassador sondland had already gone into the meeting, i explained to mr. Yermaks assistant i was to join the meeting as the embassys representative and strongly urged her to let me in, but she told me ambassador sondland and mr. Yermak insisted the meeting be one on one with no note taker. I then waited in the ante room until the meeting ended with a member of ambassador sondlands staff and a member of the kyiv staff. When the meeting ended, the two staffs and i accompanied ambassador sondland out of the building, ambassador sondland said he wanted to go to lunch and i told ambassador sondland i would be happy to join him and the two staffers for lunch if he wanted to brief me out on his meeting with mr. Yermak or discuss other issues. Ambassador sondland said i should join. The four of us went to a nearby restaurant and sat on an outdoor terrace. I sat directly across from ambassador sondland. The two staffers sat off to our sides. At first the lunch was largely social, ambassador sondland selected a bottle of wine he shared among the four of us and we discussed topics such as Marketing Strategies for his hotel business. During the lunch, ambassador sondland said he was going to call President Trump to give him an update. Ambassador sondland placed a call on his mobile phone, i heard him announce himself several times along the lines of Gordon Sondland holding for the president. It appeared that he was being transferred through several layers of switch boards and assistants, and i then noticed ambassador sondlands demeanor changed, and i understood he had been connected to President Trump. While ambassador sondlands phone was not on speakerphone, i could hear the president s voice through the ear piece of the phone. The president s voice was loud and recognizable. And ambassador sondland held the phone away from his ear for a period of time, presumably because of the loud volume. I heard ambassador sondland greet the president and explain he was calling from kyiv, i heard President Trump then clarify that ambassador sondland was in ukraine. Ambassador sondland replied, yes, he was in ukraine and went on to state president zelensky, quote, loves your ass. I then heard President Trump ask so hes going to do the investigation. And ambassador sondland replied hes going to do it. Adding that president zelensky will do anything you ask him to do. Even though i did not take notes of the statements, i had a clear recollection of these statements were made. I believe my colleagues were sitting at the table also knew that ambassador sondland was speaking with the president. The conversation then shifted to ambassador sondlands efforts on behalf of the president to assist a rapper jailed in sweden and i can only hear ambassador sondlands side of the conversation. Ambassador sondland told the president that the rapper was, quote, kind of fd there and should have pled guilty. He recommended the president , quote, wait until after the sentencing or only make it worse, and he added that the president should let him get sentenced, play the racism card, give him a tickertape when he comes home. Ambassador sondland further told the president that sweden, quote, should have released him on your word, but you can tell the kardashians you tried. After the call ended, ambassador sondland remarked the president was in a bad mood, as ambassador sondland stated was often the case early in the morning. I took the opportunity to ask him for his candid impression of the president s views on ukraine. In particular, i asked ambassador sondland if it was true that the president did not give an expletive about ukraine. Ambassador sondland agreed the president did not give an expletive about ukraine. I asked why not. Ambassador sondland stated the president only cares about big stuff. I noted there was big stuff going on in ukraine, like a war with russia. Ambassador sondland replied he meant big stuff that benefits the president , like the biden investigation, that mr. Giuliani was pushing. The conversation then moved on to other topics. Upon returning to the embassy, i immediately briefed my direct supervisor, the deputy chief of mission, about ambassador sondlands call with President Trump and my conversation with ambassador sondland. I told others at the embassy about the call as well. I also emailed an Embassy Official in sweden regarding the issue with u. S. Rapper discussed on the call. July 26th was my last day in the office ahead of a long planned vacation that ended on august 6th. After returning to the embassy, i told ambassador taylor about the july 26th call. I also repeatedly ferved edly i referred to the call in meetings and conversations where the issue of the president s interest in ukraine was potentially relevant. At that time, ambassador sondlands statement to the president , statement of the president s lack of interest in ukraine was of particular focus. We understood that in order to secure a meeting between President Trump and president zelensky we would have to work hard to find a way to explain ukraines importance to President Trump in terms he found compelling. Over the ensuing weeks, we continued to try to identify ways to frame the importance of ukraine in ways that would appeal to the president. To determine how to lift the hold on Security Assistance and to move forward on the scheduling of a white house visit by president zelensky. Ukrainian independence day, august 24th, presented another Good Opportunity to show support for ukraine. Secretary pompeo had considered attending, as National Security adviser bolton had attended in 2018 and defense secretary mattis in 2017. Nobody senior to ambassador volker attended. Shortly there after on august 27th, ambassador bolton visited ukraine and brought welcome news that President Trump had agreed to meet president zelensky on september 1st in warsaw. Ambassador bolton further indicated that the hold on Security Assistance would not be lifted prior to the warsaw meeting, where it would hang on whether president zelensky was able to, quote, favorably impress President Trump. I took notes and ambassador ambassador boltons meetings that day with president zelensky and his chief of staff. Ambassador bolton told the chief of staff that the meeting would be crucial to cementing their relationship. However, President Trump ultimately pulled out of the warsaw trip and the hold remained in place with no clear means to get it lifted. Between the meetings on august 27th, i heard ambassador bolton express to ambassador taylor and National Security director morrison his frustration, making about mr. Giulianis influence with the president making clear there was nothing , he could do about it. He recommended that mr. Lieutenant lutsenkos replacement. Ambassador bolton expressed frustration about ambassador sondlands expansive interpretation about his mandate. After President Trump canceled his visit to warsaw, we finned to try to appeal to the president and Foreign Policy and National Security terms. To that end, ambassador taylor told me that ambassador bolton recommended that he and ambassador taylor send a first person cable to secretary pompeo, articulating the importance of the Security Assistance. And ambassador taylorsssador direction, i drafted and transmated the cable on ambassador taylors behalf on august 29th, which further attempted to explain the importance of ukraine and the Security Assistance to u. S. National security. By this point, however, my clear impression was that the Security Assistance hold was likely intended by the president either as an expression of dissatisfaction with the ukrainians, who had not yet agreed to the Burisma Biden investigation, or as an effort to increase the pressure on them to do so. On september 5th, i took notes at senator johnson and senator Chris Murphys meetings where president zelensky asked about the Security Assistance. Although both senators stressed strong bipartisan congressional support for ukraine, senator johnson cautioned president zelensky that President Trump has a negative view of ukraine and that president zelensky would have a difficult time overcoming it. Senator johnson further explained that he had been, quote, shocked by President Trumps negative reaction during an Oval Office Meeting on may 23rd when he and the three amigos proposed that President Trump meet president zelensky and show support for ukraine. On september 8th, ambassador taylor told me, quote, now theyre insisting zelensky commit to the investigation in an interview with cnn, which i took to refer to the three amigos. I was shocked the requirement was so specific and concrete, while we had advised our ukrainian counterparts to voice a commitment to following the rule of law and generally investigating credible corruption allegations, this was a demand that president zelensky personally commit on a cable news channel to a specific investigation of President Trumps political rival. On september 11th, the hold was finally lifted, after significant press coverage and bipartisan congressional expressions of concern about the withholding of Security Assistance. Although we knew the hold was lifted, we were still concerned that president zelensky had committed in exchange for the lifting to give the request to cnn interview. We had several indications that the interview would occur. First, the conference in kyiv was held from september 12th to 14th and Cnns Fareed Zakaria was one of the moderators. Second, en september 13th, acolleague received a phone call, from another colleague, who worked for ambassador sondland, my colleague texted me regarding that call that, quote, said the zelensky interview is supposed to be today or monday, and they plan to announce an certain investigation on hold would progress. Sondlands aid did not know if this was decided or if he was advocating for it. Apaurntparently he hes been discussing this with yermak. On 13th, ambassador taylor and i ran into mr. Yermak. Ambassador taylor stressed the importance of staying out of u. S. Politics and said he hoped no interview was planned. Mr. Yermak did not answer, but shrugged in resignation as if to indicate that he had no choice. In short, everybody thought there was going to be an interview and that the ukrainians believed they had to do it. The interview ultimately did not occur. On september 21st, ambassador taylor and i collaborated on input he sent to mr. Morrison to brief President Trump ahead of a september 25th meeting, that had been scheduled with president zelensky in new york on the margins of the u. N. General assembly. The transcript of the july 25th call was released the same day. As of today i still not seen a readout of the 25th meeting. As the impeachment inquiry has progressed, i have followed press reports and reviewed the statements of ambassadors taylor and yovanovitch. Based on my experiences in ukraine, my election is is generallyn consistent with their testimony. And i believe that the relevant facts were therefore being laid out for the American People. However, in the last couple weeks i read press reports expressing for first time that Certain Senior officials may have been acting without the president s knowledge or freelancing in their dealings with ukraine. At the same time i also read reports noting the lack of firsthand evidence in the investigation and suggesting that the only evidence being elicited at hearings was hearsay. I came to realize that i had firsthand knowledge regarding certain events on july 26th that had not otherwise been reported. And that those events potentially bore on the question of whether the president did in fact have knowledge that those senior officials were using levers of diplomatic power to influence the new ukrainian president to announce the opening of a criminal investigation against President Trumps political opponent. It is at that point that i made the observation to ambassador taylor that the incident i had witnessed on july 26th had acquired greater significance, which is what he reported in his testimony last week and is what led to the subpoena for me to appear here today. In conclusion, id like to take a moment to turn back to ukraine. Today, this very day, marks exactly six years since throngs of pro western ukrainians spontaneously gathered on kyivs Independence Square to launch the revolution of dignity. While the protests began in opposition to a turn towards russia and away from the west, they expanded over three months to reject the entire corrupt repressive system that had been sustained by russian influence in the country. Those events were followed by russias occupation of romeo peninsula and the dont box region and ensuing war that to date has caused almost 14,000 lives. Despite the russian aggression over the past five years, ukraineians built a shattered shatteredns rebuilt a economy, adhered to a Peace Process and moved closer to the west, toward our way of life. Earlier this year, large majorities of ukrainians again chose a fresh start by voting for a political newcomer as president. Replacing 80 of the parliament, and endorsing a platform consistent with our democratic values, our reform priorities and our strategic interests. This years revolution at the ballot box underscores that despite its imperfections, ukraine is a genuine and vibrant democracy and an example to other post soviet countries and beyond from moscow to hong kong. How we respond to this historic opportunity will set the trajectory of our relationship with ukraine and will define our willingness to defend our Bedrock International principles and our leadership role in the world. Ukrainians want to hear a clear and unambiguous reaffirmation that our longstanding bipartisan policy of strong support for ukraine remains unchanged, and that we fully back it at the highest levels. Now is not the time to recreate retreat frome to our relationship with ukraine. But rather to double down on it. As we sit here, as we sit here today, ukrainians are fighting a hot war on ukrainian territory against russian aggression. This week alone since i have been here in washington, two ukrainian soldiers were killed and two injured by russian led forces in Eastern Ukraine despite a declared ceasefire. I learned overnight that seven more were injured yesterday. As Vice President pence said after his meeting with president zelensky in warsaw, the u. S. Ukraine relationship has never been stronger. Ukrainian new government earnestly want to believe that. Ukrainians cherish their bipartisan american support and sustained their euro atlantic aspirations and recoil at the thought of playing a role in u. S. Domestic politics or elections. At a time of shifting allegiances and rising competitors in the world, we have no better friends than ukraine. A scrappy, unbowed, determined and above all dignified people who are standing up against russian authoritarianism and aggression. They deserve better. Were now at a point in ukraine Inflection Point in ukraine and it is critical to our National Security that we stand in strong support of our ukrainian partners. Ukrainians and freedomloving people everywhere are watching the example we set here of democracy and the rule of law. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Holmes. Dr. Hill. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Do i need to adjust the microphone . I believe it is now. Is that yes, perfect. Dr. Hill thank you, again, mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member nunes and members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to testify before you today. I have a short Opening Statement. I appreciate the importance of Congress Impeachment inquiry and im appearing today as a fact witness. As i did during my deposition on october 14th. To answer your questions about what i saw, what i did, what i knew, and what i know with regard to the subject of your inquiry. I believe that those who have information that the congress deems relevant have a legal and moral obligation to provide it. I take great pride in the fact that im a nonpartisan Foreign Policy expert who served under three republican and democratic president s. I have no interest in advancing outcome of your inquiry in any particular direction except toward the truth. I will not provide a long statement because i believe the interest of congress and the American People is best served by allowing you to ask me your questions. And im happy to expand upon my october 14th deposition testimony in response to your questions today. But before i do so, id like to communicate two things. First, id like to show a little bit who i am, im an american by choice, and ive become a citizen in 2002. I was born in northeast of england in the same region that George Washingtons ancestors came from. My region and my family have deep ties to the United States. My paternal grandfather fought through world war i in the royal field artillery, surviving being shot, shelled and gassed before american troops intervened to end the war in 1918. During the second world war, other members of my family fought to defend the free world from fascism alongside american soldiers, sailers and airmen. The men in my fathers family were coal miners whose family always struggled with poverty. When my father was 14, he joined his father, brothers, brother, uncles and cousins in the coal mine to help put food on the table. When the last of the local mines closed in the 1960s, my father wanted to emigrate to the United States to work in the coal mines in West Virginia and pennsylvania. But his mother, my grandmother, was crippled from hard labor and my father couldnt leave. So he stayed in Northern England until he died in 2012. My mother still lives in my hometown today. While his dream of emigrating to america was thwarted, my father loved america, its culture, history, its role as a beacon of hope for the world. He always wanted someone in the family to make it to the United States. I began my University Studies in 1984 when i just learned i went to the same university as my colleague here, mr. Holmes. Just thought i would add that. And in 1987, i won a place on an Academic Exchange to the soviet union. I was there for the signing of the intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty and when president Ronald Reagan met Mikail Gorbachev in moscow this was a turning point for me, an american professor who i met there told me about graduate student scholarships to the United States and the very next year thanks to his advice i arrived in america to start my advanced studies at harvard. Years later, i can say with confidence that this country offered me opportunities i never would have had in england. I grew up poor, with a very distinctive working class accent. In england, in the 1980s and 1990s this would have impeded my professional advancement. This background never set me back in america. For best part of three decades ive built a career as a nonpartisan, nonpolitical National Security professional focused on europe and eurasia and the former soviet union. I served our country under three president s and my most recent capacity under President Trump as well as in my former position under National Intelligence officer for russia and irasia under president s george w. Bush and barack obama. In that role i was the Intelligence CommunitySenior Expert on russia and the former soviet republics including ukraine. It was because of my background and experience that i was asked to join the National Security council in 2017. At the nsc, russia was part of my portfolio, but i was also responsible for coordinating u. S. Policy for all of western europe, all of eastern europe, including ukraine, and o and the European Union. I was hired by general michael flynn, Katie Mcfarland and general Keith Kellogg but i started work april 2017 when general mcmaster was the National Security adviser. I and they thought i could help them with President Trumps stated goal of improving relations with russia, while still implementing policies designed to deter russian conduct that threatened the United States. Including the unprecedented and successful russian operation to interfere in the 2016 president ial election. This relates to the second thing i want to communicate. Based on questions and statements i have heard, some of you on this committee appear to believe that russia and its Security Services did not conduct campaign against our country and that perhaps somehow for some reason ukraine did. This is a fictional narrative that is being perpetrated and propagated by the russian Security Services themselves. The unfortunate truth is that russia was the foreign power that systematically attacked our Democratic Institutions in 2016. This is the public conclusion of our intelligence agencies, confirmed in bipartisan congressional reports. It is beyond dispute. Even if some of the underlying details must remain classified. The impact of the successful 2016 Russian Campaign remains evident today. Our nation is being torn apart, truth is questioned, our highly professional expert Career Foreign Service is being undermined. U. S. Support for ukraine, which continues to face aggression is being politicized. The russian governments goal is to weaken our country. To diminish americas global role and to neutralize a perceived u. S. Threat to russian interests. President putin and the russian Security Services aim to counter u. S. Foreign policy objectives including in ukraine where moscow wishes to reassert political dominance. I say this as a realist. I do not think longterm conflict with russia is desirable or inevitable. I continue to believe that we need to seek ways of stabilizing our relationship with moscow even as we counter their efforts to harm us. Right now Russia Security Service under proxies have geared up to repeat their interference in the 2020 election. Were running out of time to stop them. In the course of this investigation, i ask that you please not promote falsehoods that clearly advance russian interests. As republicans and democrats agree toward decades, ukraine is a valued partner of the United States and plays an Important Role in our National Security. As i told the Committee Last month, i refuse to be port of an effort to legitimize an alternate narrative that the Ukrainian Government is an adversary and ukraine, not russia, attacked us in 2016. These fictions are harmful even if for purely domestic political purposes. President putin acts look a super pac. They deploy millions of dollars to weaponize our own Political Opposition Research and false narratives. When we are consumed by partisan rancor, we cannot combat these external forces as they seek to divide us against each other to degrade our institutions and destroy the American People and destroy the faith of the American People in our democracy. I respect the work that this congress does in carrying out its Constitutional Responsibilities including this inquiry. Im here to help you to the best of my ability. If the president or anyone else impedes or subverts the National Security of the United States, in order to further domestic political or personal interest, thats more than worthy of your attention. But we must not let domestic politics stop us from defending ourselves against a foreign powers who truly wish us harm. Im ready to answer your questions. Thank you. Thank you, dr. Hill. I will in mid june ambassador sondland told you he was in charge of ukraine policy, is that right . Dr. Hill yes thats right. Who did he tell you put him in charge of ukraine policy . Dr. Hill tommy is a present. Did you understand better homes heavy given 30 of ukraine policy by the president. We understood him and told to work with mr. Giuliani. Did he hold him self out as having direct knowledge and of the president s parties and interest . Yes sir. Mr. Holmes, im going to go to the july 26 date when you overheard the conversation between ambassador sondland and President Trump. Im going to ask you a little bit about the lead up to that conversation. The lunch you described, you said you accompanied ambassador sondland, volker and taylor to a meeting with president zelensky, is that right . Thats right. And you took notes at that meeting . Yes sir. And you reviewed those notes before you came to testify here today. And they were helpful to refresh your recollection as to what happened is that right . Yes sir. During that meeting president zelensky said on his phone call with President Trump the previous day, three times President Trump mentioned sensitive issues. Did you understand what president slutsky was referring to when he said the sensitive issues . What he wasbe sure referring to until i later read the transcript of the july 25 call. Of variousware contacts between the three amigos and his government about the set of issues. After you read the call, what did you determine to be the sensitive issues referenced . The burisma widen issue. He had astify oneonone meeting with andre earmark the eight is lets get an you are prohibited from going into that meeting to take notes, is that right. Yes. Yesterday ambassador sondland testified he probably discussed the investigations with mr. Your mock. Yermak. Did investors on the to tell you what he discussed . He did not. He went to lunch. Can you describe where you were sitting in the restaurant . Yes sir. The restaurant has glass doors that open onto iteris. Onto a terrace appeared we were at the first outsidet immediately the restaurant the doors were wide open. Fore were tables, table four though i recall it being two tables were to push together, it was a wide table. The table was set, with a table runner down the middle. I was directly across from ambassador sondland. We were close enough that we could share an appetizer between us. The two staffers were off to our right at the next table. You said at some point ambassador sondland pulled out a cell phone and called President Trump. This was an unsecure cell phone, is that right . Yes there. In the middle the restaurant in keefe . Yes sir. Toyou said you were able hear President Trumps was through the receiver. How are you able to hear if it was not on speakerphone . Several things. It was quite loud when the president came on, quite distinctive. I believe ambassador sondland also said yesterday he often speaks loudly over the phone. And i certainly experienced that. When the president came on he sort of winced and held the phone away from his air like this. He did that for the first couple exchanges. I do not know if he then turned the volume down or got used to it or if the president bought moderated his volume, i do not know. But that is how i was able to hear. So you were able to hear some of what President Trump said to president to lenski, is that zelensky,o president sorry notght im to president zelensky to abbasid or sondland. Yes he clarified whether he was in ukraine or not he said yes, im here in ukraine. Then ambassador sondland said he loves your asked. Hes going to do the investigation. Trump askrd president ambassador sondland, is he going to do the investigation . Yes sir. What was abbasid or sondland response what was ambassador sondland response . It,e said he is going to do he will do anything to ask. Was at the end of that portion of the conversation . Yes. He discover followup conversation you had with a master or sondland where you asked him i think generally what did President Trump think of ukraine, is that right . Yes. What did ambassador sondland say to you . He does not care about ukraine. Did he use more colorful language . Yes. He says he cares about what he say cares about. Is as cares about big stuff. I asked him what kind of big stuff. We have a war going on with russia. He said no, the investigation like giuliani is pushing. Where you familiar with the biden investigation that he referenced at that point . Yes sir. How do you have such ace this weekend clear recollection of this conversation with the president and your conversation with ambassador sondland . Yes, this was a very distinctive experience. I have never seen anything like this in my Foreign Service career, some of the avalanche and restaurants making a call on a cell phone to the president of the United States. Being able to hear his voice. It is very distinct personality. We have all seen on television. Very colorful language. Was used. They were directly addressing something that i had been wondering about and working on for weeks and even months. A topic that had led to the recall of my former boss, the former ambassador. Whoso here was a person said he had direct contact with the president and had said that over the course of time, here he is actually having that contact with the president. Hearing the president s voice, and then talking about this issue of the biden investigation that i had been hearing about. Just to summarize, during the phone call you overheard ambassador sondland have with President Trump, you heard President Trump himself ask the only question that you really heard them ask, i believe is, whether he was going to do the investigation, to which ambassador sondland responded that he would and he would in fact do anything that president zelensky wants, is that an accurate recitation of what happened . That is correct. After the call you had a subsequent conversation with a master sondland were he in sum and substance told you that the president does not care about ukraine, hilly cares about big stuff related to himself and particularly the biden investigation that giuliani was pushing . Correct. Now a day before your lunch with a bass or sondland, President Trump did speak with president zelensky as he referred, the present made it clear to president the lenski he cared about the biden investigation. Now, neither of you did listen to this call, but as you testified, you both read it subsequent to its publication. Time to aduring her half years in the white house, listened to a number of president ial phone calls, is that right . Thats right. Can you estimate how many . I cannot, sometimes there would be most because during a week. I was there more than two years. So it is a fair number. Have you ever heard a call like this when you read . I do not want to comment on this call because this is in my view exec and privilege. S of the testimony i think as a threshold matter there are issues of classification regarding head of state communications that we do want to be sensitive to in this forum among other issues. Understood. I am focused on this one call that has been declassified and published and im asking whether you have ever heard any president ial phone call along these lines. Again, i would like to focus in this testimony on this particular call. I would say i found this particular call subject matter and the wait was conducted surprising. Getting back to abbasid or sondland, you testified every of and then he made a habit name dropping his interactions with the president. Thats correct. And there were instances where you would run into him on the campus and he would say im here to see the president or have been into see the president and you had occasion to circle back and found out that was not the case. Thats correct. And i want to give you an opportunity, he testified about a coffee he had with you on your last day and i think when the deposition transcript was your counselr, indicated that was completely fabricated on abbasid or sondlands part and i want to give you an opportunity to address that. Is the federal government. We do not have coffee machines in our office. If you have come to my office in that time the best i wouldve offered you was a cup of from the water fountain by my office. The coffee that ambassador sondland and i shared was actually, we ran into each other or he found out i was going to be there and then asked me to meet him for coffee at jackson hole, wyoming in 2018 in august. This is a full year before i left. Sot was very nice coffee perhaps he conflated those two meetings together. The meeting he was referring to he had come in to meet with our director for the European Union. This was my last week in the office. I was in the office of the same time for brief. Before going into another meeting. It was my last week in the office. We agreed to sit down with the director of the European Union, Andel Benjamin vindman the assistant the investor had brought from the state department. There were four of us in that meeting the assistant the ambassador brought from the state department. There were four of us in the meeting. It was not over coffee. He indicated you are upset. You were upset. Five of us in the meeting. Sorry, i cannot do math. He said you were upset. In my deposition on october 14 unfortunately i had a blowup with ambassador sondland and had a couple of testy encounters paired what was in june, 2018 when i said who puts you in charge of ukraine peered i was a bit rude. He told me the president , which shook me up. Was about 15ting or 20 minutes, as he depicted it , i was actually, to be honest angry with him. Know, i hate to say it but often when women show anger is not fully appreciated. It is often pushed onto emotional issues perhaps are deflected onto other people. What i was angry about was that he was not coordinating with us. I realized having listen to his deposition that he was absently right. That he was not with us because we were not doing the same thing he was doing. So i was upset with him that he was not fully telling us about all of the meetings he was having. And he said to me, but i am briefing the president. I am briefing chief of staff mulvaney. I am briefing secretary pompeo and i have talked to a bass or bolton. Who else to have to deal with . And the point is we have a robust interagency process that deals with ukraine. It includes mr. Holmes, and beth are taylor, shar j in it ukraine. It includes a whole lot of other people. But it struck me yesterday when you put up on the screen ambassador sondlands emails, and who was on these emails and he said these are the people who need to know that he was absolutely right because he was being involved in a domestic political errands. And we were being involved in National Security and Foreign Policy. And those two things had just diverged. So he was correct. And i had not put my finger on that at the moment. But i was irritated with him and angry with him that he was not fully coordinating. And i did say to him, investor sat ambassador sondland, gordon, i think this is all going to blow up. And here we are. After i left my next meeting, our director for the European Union talk to him further for a full halfhour later. Trying to ask him about how we could coordinate better or how others could coordinate better after i had left the office. His feeling was that the National Security council was always try to block him. What we were trying to do was lock us from straying into domestic or personal politics. That was precisely what im trying to do. But ambassador sondland was not wrong that he had been given a different remit than we had been. It was at that moment i started to realize how those things had the verged i realized that i was not really being fair to a bass or sondland. Because he was caring out what he thought he had been instructed to carry out and we were doing something we thought moreust, or perhaps even important. But was not in the same channel. Dr. Hill, i want to drill down on this. The president of the United States, the commanderinchief was concerned about the 20 16 elections embracement and burisma. He had his personal attorney working these issues because he was under investigation by Robert Mueller special counsel, partly beginning with an investigation that started with the steele dossier weve established the democrats had paid for and had been fed into the fbi. So at the end of the day, the commanderinchief, concern about 20,016 election meddling by ukraine, sounds like you earlier testified you are not aware of that, but if that was the concern of the president , to try to get to the bottom of it, and is the concern of abbasid or sondland who is trying to set up ensures on behalf, to that meetings occurred and phone calls occurred to strengthen the , and i understand that the people at the nsc and the people at the state department had issues with that, but at the end of the day is it the commanderinchief makes those decisions . That we at the National Security council were not told either by the president or through a bass or bolton that we were to be focused on these issues as a matter of u. S. Foreign policy toward ukraine. So when youre talking about ukraine in 2016, i never personally heard the president say anything specific about 2016 and ukraine. Have heard him say funny things publicly but i was not given a directive. I was given a director by investor bolton to stay out of mystic politics a directive by ambassador bolton to stay out of domestic politics. You may be aware of some of the attacks on colonel vindman, suggesting he has a dual loyalty, that he is not loyal to america that he is loyal to ukraine. I want to ask you as a fellow immigrant, what you think of those kind of accusations when their leveled against colonel vindman or other americans . It is unfortunate, this is a country of immigrants, with the exception of very few people still here. Everyone immigrated at some point to the United States and the Family History. To me this is what does make america great. Everything a person here, some people perhaps came reluctantly, others came by choice as i did. But this is, for me, this is the essence of america. It is why i wanted to be here and why i wanted to stay here. It is unfair to castigate anyone. Has some kind of [i am american or naturalized citizen. My loyalty is to the United States, the country i serve. I know for fact that everything a one of my colleagues and there were many nationalized naturalized citizens, felt the same way. It is deeply unfair. Thank you. You mention something in her testimony. I may not have this exactly right, that ambassador sondland told you his role was to make deals, is that right . Yes and he told other people out as well, to be clear. I want to ask you is one of those deals, the one investor bolton described as a drug deal. I had the suggestion or indication that when yuri asked questions about the july tent meetings, and there were two meetings, one in investor boltons presence and another in the wardroom that there was more you had to say about that. You want to walk us through that in more detail . Dr. Hill the reference abbasid or bolton made was after i returned from the boardroom and related to him what i heard. There was a sequencing of meetings which i know there has been some concern about the sequencing here and discrepancies between various depositions. What happened immediately after the meeting that investor bolton called a little short was he told me to hold back in the room. He was escorting out the along withisitors secretary perry and ambassadors volker and sondland. I guess they wanted to take a quick photograph outside his office. I know secretary perry and others tweeted out that photograph. Theres a picture of all of them standing just outside of a boltons office. He came back in and at that point, i guess they were already moving down to the boardroom. Because on the way out of investor boltons office, besser sondland had said, lets regroup in the boardroom for quick huddle on next steps, which, to be honest was quite unusual. You do not usually huddle in a room in the white house to discuss next steps with foreign allegations. We took it to be next steps on setting up the meeting, which already as i had said, and besser bolton was not prepared to do. When a besser bolton came back in to the office, that is when he gave in the very strong instruction to go downstairs, find out what was been discussed and come right back up and report to him. Boardroom,nto the colonel vindland and besser sondland were in and exchanged. Notice the colonel looked alarmed. Sondland wasador asked yesterday because i watched his test money carefully that there was a question about yelling and shouting. I certainly never said that and there was no yelling and shouting. That is an embellishment that has packed in crept in perhaps and media depictions or how people like to do the retellings. When i came in, ambassador sondland was an exchange with vindman, men along the lines of, we have an agreement to have this meeting. I came in and asked what is going on here and he said, this is again, the ukrainians are there and investor volker was there. At this point also want to stress sector. Had left. It was not in the wardroom when i came. As i was coming in, secretary perry and his colleagues were leaving. So secretary perry has no recollection of this meeting because he was not in it. When i came in, Gordon Sondland was basically saying look, we have a deal here, that there will be a meeting. I have a deal here with the chief of staff mulvaney, there will be a meeting if the ukrainians open up or announce these investigations into 2016 and burisma. I cut it off immediately there. By this point, having heard mr. Giuliani over and over again on the television and all of the issues that he was asserting, by this point it was clear that burisma was code for the bidens because giuliani was laying it out there. I could see why colonel vindman was alarmed. He said this is an appropriate. Where the National Security council, we cannot be involved in this. I have learned since from mr. Holmes rendition today that colonel vindman has already ned the acquaintance ukrainians or president zelensky to stay out of american politics. So i cut off this line and said to ambassador sondland about look, we need procedures. Ambassador bolton made it clear we cannot set up the meeting now. We have to properly prepare this grid we have a process. It may sound boring. We have National Security procedures to do this. We really should not be litigating this or talking about this in front of our colleagues from ukraine. It is completely inappropriate for us to be thrashing out in front of them. He agreed we asked our ukrainian colleagues to move into the corridor outside the wardroom. I explained where this is in the deposition. Which is also extraordinarily awkward because they should not of been standing in a court or in the west wing at this juncture in a corridor in the west wing at this juncture. Thats when i push backed at ambassador sondland saying you know their differences when we should have this meeting, after the ukrainian parliamentary elections, which by that point had been set for july 21st, it must have been because this is july 10 at this point. And investor bolton would like to wait until after that, to see whether resident zelensky thats the majority in the parliament, which would enable him to form a cabinet and then we can move forward. Fairsador sondland said enough, he realized he was not going to be able to push this further. A besser volker did not say anything at this juncture ambassador volker did not say anything at this juncture. Then he said he had another meeting and they all laughed i went back up and related this they all left. I related this to investor bolton where he gave me the instruction to talk to John Eisenberg in the nsc councils office. Nunez. K you, mr. Mr. Nunes, i do not call cut off a witness in the middle of their answer. Why didnt your boss bring up the call that you overheard . The reason youre here today. You are the closing witness. Their first witness, investor taylor did not bring it up. When we deposed you you said this was an extremely distinctive experience, one of the most remark laments of my life you describe it like this. He said after the call happened, i made atlee told the deputy chief of mission and others about the call. Then you said when on vacation and told friends and family about the call. Then you come back on august 6 and tele besser taylor about the call. In your deposition statement you said in your Statement Today as well, i repeatedly referred to the call in meetings and conversations where the issue of interest of president s interests in ukraine was relevant. That sounds like government speak for you told everybody. Yet their star never once mentioning this call. Reesed, conversations, never once mentioning this call, july 19th, dr. Hill, colonel vind july 20th, sondland told taylor what he told trump. July 28th, morrison tells taylor what happened on the trump zelensky call. August 24th, talks to taylor, august 22nd, morrison talks to taylor, august 29th, september 2nd, morrison tells taylor, september 7th morrison tells taylor what sondland told trump, and september 8th, sondland tells taylor what trump told sondland. Nowhere is there a holmes tells taylor what the president of the United States told sondland. May i answer that question. Ill give you a chance in a second, but 13 conversations, 13 conversations from their star witness, youre their closing witness, and he cant remember a call from a guy he works with every single day. Why . Yes, sir. So immediately when i went back to the embassy after this lunch on the 26th, i told my direct supervisor, the deputy chief admission. I would have told ambassador taylor immediately except he was on the front lines that afternoon. I then went on as i testified my vacation on saturday, came back the following monday, and on tuesday, i was back in the ambassadors office where i referred to the call. In that week plus that i was away, it was my assumption that the deputy chief admission would have informed other people about the call as well. So my recollection is when i did refer to the call in that meeting that ambassador taylor nodded knowingly as though he had been briefed on it. So i referred to the call and i mentioned some of my take aways from the call, and at the time, the main take away from the call was the president doesnt care about ukraine so were going to have a tough road ahead to convince him that its important enough for him to schedule an Oval Office Meeting nor president zelensky and release the hold on Security Assistance. That was the take away, and thats what i referred to repeatedly in the coming weeks, whenever it became relevant. Ill remind you that one more important point, throughout this time, as i testified, we were trying to find a formula, things we could do with yukrainians tht would convince the president they were worth talking to. Maybe the take away was he thought it was no big deal because he already knew. He didnt remember it because we already had the transcript. He didnt remember. We had the trump zelensky transcript had been out for two months, even though youre repeatedly bringing this conversation up, anytime theres talk about ukraine, you recall this conversation. Maybe it was the transcript, the call happened on the july 25th, thats four months ago, the transcript has been out for two months, maybe the ambassador thought this is nothing new here but last week, you come forward with supposedly this new information. There is nothing different in there than what we had on the transcript. Maybe thats the reason their star witness, their first witness didnt bring it up. But they had to have something so youre theyre closing witness because you overheard the president talking to ambassador sondland. If i could answer, i see four seconds left on the clock. Mr. Holmes, you may take as long as you need. Thank you, sir. I believe ambassador taylor did know when i briefed him when i returned from vacation on the 6th. It was not news to him that the president was pressing for a biden investigation. Thats not what i asked. I asked why he didnt share it with us. Please do not interrupt the witness any further. Mr. Holmes. His time has expired, yours has not. You may answer the question. Its exactly my point. I briefed the call in detail to the deputy chief admission, if we come back, i refer to the call and everyone is nodding, of course thats whats going on. Of course the president is pressing for a biden investigation before hell do these things the ukraines want theres nothing agreement. Did i go through every word in the call, everyone by that point agreed, it was obvious what the president was pressing for and ambassador taylor had all those other interactions. He didnt share it with us. But sir, my vivid recollection of an event i was involved with was a touch stone experience that to me validated what mr. Jordan, please, do not interrupt. What we believed and ambassador taylor was not in that call. And all of a sudden last week mr. Jordan, you will allow the witness to answer the question. Ill finish with this. Thank you. He was involved in a number of other interactions as youve outlined that brought him to the same conclusion. It is quite possible that that he doesnt share with the guy he worked with he doesnt share that one. You may not like the witnesss answer. There wasnt an answer. Mr. Jordan, we will hear the witnesss answer. Have you concluded mr. Holmes. I think, thank you. You made a fairly dramatic comment in your Opening Statement to which the Ranking Member took exceptionment some appear to believe that russia and Security Services did not conduct a campaign against our country and perhaps somehow for some reason ukraine did. Im more interested in the ukraine piece of this, but i want to defend you briefly. I dont know what my colleagues believe but i do have a pretty good sense of what the effects are of creating ambiguity, of lacking clarity and conviction around the russian attack on the election of 2016. In response to your comment, the Ranking Member offered up a report which varies in material respect from the report that was creating by the 17 agencies of the Intelligence Community, a day does not go by in which Ranking Member nunes does not speak of the russia hoax and this is an area in which context is pretty important. Dr. Hill, let me read you a comment by another senior official. Why did Democratic National committee turn down the dhs offer to protect against tax. Its all a big dem hoax, why did the dnc refuse to turn over the server to the fbi, its all a big dem scam, dr. Hill, do you know who said those things. Its the president of the United States, donald j. Trump. I must have missed that. You didnt miss much. The point is, ambiguity, a failure to name and shame the russians for the attack in 2016, that is not in the service of our National Security, is it. Its not, no. So lets turn to ukraine. Dr. Hill, have you seen you characterized the idea that ukraine interfered in the election as a fictional narrative. Have you seen any evidence at all that ukraine interfered in the 2016 election. I brought with me two exhibits that i was pointed to by our colleagues during the deposition that i gave on october 14. Im grateful they pointed me in this direction. I was pointed with two articles or at least two pieces of information. One was an oped that the Ukrainian Ambassador charlie wrote in 2016 in the hill, so this is during the president ial campaign when President Trump was then the nominee for the Republican Party. And this is ambassador charlie who was then, you know, still the Ukrainian Ambassador to the United States being critical of President Trump who was then the nominee for the Republican Party for making comments about ukraine, crimea and russia. May i interrupt you. Let me be specific about what those comments were. The president when he was a candidate said quote, the people of crimea from what i have heard would rather be with russia than where they were. So ambassador charlie is responding to that in that article, correct . Thats correct. And he uses this as a peg because to be honest the whole article is actually about ukraine and this is classic standard for anyone who wants to write an oped, ive written plenty myself, you pick a peg and proceed to say what you want to say, this is what ambassador charlie does is talks about ukraines position, v. Candidate trump has suggested the crimeans would rather be with russia. Even if the comments are speculative, they call for appeasement of an aggressor and support the violation of a sovereign country easts territ integrity and a breach of law. Thats the attack on candidate trump. Thats correct. Does that sound like election interference to you. I would say that its probably not the most advisable thing to do for an ambassador because you never know whos going to win, and i think that the second piece that was presented to me at great length and i want to thank mr. Custer for making me go back and read it. I did remember the piece, Kenneth Vogel is a well know and extremely good journalist and i remembered reading this back in the day in january of 2017. But it had been a long time between then and october. And you gave me a copy and i went back and read it again because i think it actually is extraordinarily important. It gets to this issue here. Mr. Vogel points out that the Ukrainian Government, again, you know, they wouldnt have done very well at the bookies picking up the issue i pointed out in the beginning of today. They bet on the wrong horse. They bet on Hillary Clinton winning the election. And so, you know, they were trying to curry favor with the Clinton Campaign. Its quite evident here. And he relates, you know, to some extent, individuals and some ukrainian officials like the interior minister and a number of other people that he names here and that have been named at various points and talks about how they were trying to collect information as Ranking Member nunes said on mr. Manafort and other people as well. I do want to point out that the crux of the article here by mr. Vogel is he said there was little evidence of a top down effort by ukraine, and he makes a distinction between the russian effort that was personally directed by russian president putin, and involved the countrys military, and foreign intelligence services. Now, i dont think that those two things are exactly the same. I also mentioned in my deposition of october 14th, that in fact many officials from many countries, including ukraine, bet on the wrong horse. They believed that secretary clinton, former senator clinton, former first lady clinton was going to win, and many said some pretty disparaging and hurtful things about President Trump, and i cant blame him for feeling aggrieved about them, and when we were setting visits, i have a portfolio of 50 plus countries and nato and the European Union, we thought it prudent to collect as much as possible about comments that people might have said about the president during the campaign when he was either one of the candidates to be the nominee for the Republican Party or when he was actually the candidate running against Hillary Clinton, and an awful lot, and perhaps i shouldnt name them here because it would have, some senior officials said some pretty hurtful things about the president , and i would also personally take offense at some of the things that were said if i was the president. The difference here however is that that hasnt had any major impact on his feelings towards those countries. Not that i have seen. But ive also heard the president say, and he said it in public, so im not revealing any kind of executive privilege here that ukraine tried to take me down. What i have seen is some ill advised ukrainian officials, ambassador charlie has been removed as being the ambassador from here, made some pretty, you know, unpleasant statements or some ill advised opeds, but i could list a whole host of ambassadors from allied countries who tweeted out, who had Public Comments about the president as well, and it did not affect Security Assistance, having meetings with them, if it would, there would have been a lot of people he wouldnt have met with. Thank you, dr. Hill. Mr. Chairman, i seek unanimous consent to the add to the record a politico article of december 1st, 2016, entitled russia accuses ukraine of sabotaging trump, it outlines russian senior officials making allegations that there was ukrainian interference in the 2016 election. Without objection. Mr. Conway. I yield to ms. Ratcliff five minutes. I want to pick up where my colleague across the aisle, congressman himes left off earlier. He was not defending you. He was defending himself and democrats. I want to make sure the record is very clear. Ranking member nunes was correct, he correctly noted in his opening that republicans, not democrats on this committee were the first ones, the first ones to raise the issue of russian interference in the 2016 election. The disagreement wasnt about russian meddling, the disagreement was about whether or not President Trump conspired with russia, a false allegation peddled by the democrats, generally, and specifically by some democrats on this committee. With that, i want to turn to you and the part of the conversation, your testimony where you said you heard President Trump say is he going to do the investigation and ambassador sondland said hes going to do it, hell do anything you ask him to. Is that right . Yes, sir. What did President Trump say next . He said good, what about sweden. He said what . Im sorry. I need to look back where we are in the middle of the conversation here. Where are we in the testimony . Exactly. Then they turned to the sweden conversation. What did President Trump say next. He said, good, what about sweden. Good, what about sweden. Good, what about sweden. Why isnt that in your statement . Its not a word for word, every single word in the conversation. Its the most important part of the conversation . Then they turned to sweden. They turned to the other topic. Respectfully. Mr. Holmes, this impeachment inquiry is based on the call the day before where President Trump as part of a bribery scheme, as part of an extortion scheme, as part of the a quid pro quo, according to the democrats, demanded investigations in exchange for either military aid or a white house meeting and the next day you were witness to President Trump receiving word that the bribery scheme was successful, the extortion scheme was successful. And his response was good, what about sweden . Yes, sir. The ukraine portion of that conversation was extremely brief. What was the first thing the president said on the call . You had a clear recollection of this conversation. Yes, sir. Please allow mr. Holmes to answer. Sondland greeted the president. How . He said hello, mr. President , im in kiev, and the president said, are you in ukraine. You think he said i think youre in ukraine. He said are you in ukraine. What did you hear President Trump say about asap rocky. I did not hear President Trumps side of the conversation about asap rocky. The conversation was loud, and his voice was recognizable to hear, when the conversation shifted, i could only hear ambassador sondlands side of the conversation. As i have said. The initial part of the call, ambassador sondland, when the president came on the call, he sort of winced and held the phone away from his ear for the initial portion of the call and at some point in the call, he stopped doing that. And i dont know why. I dont know if he turned the volume down. I dont know if the president spoke quietly. I dont know if he got used to the volume. I dont know what changed. What did change . It was important. I dont know. Ambassador sondland stopped moving the phone away from his ear. Thats what it was . Yes. Okay. How did the conversation end . I only heard ambassador sondlands side of the conversation, and at the end of the conversation, he said he was giving the president advice on how to deal with the asap rocky situation and said they should have released him on their word, and you can tell the cash da kardashians you tried. When President Trump received word that president zelensky had agreed to the investigations, he said good. What about sweden. Yes. Okay. When exactly did Gordon Sondland ask president zelensky about the investigations . Im sorry, sir . When did he ask about the investigations. When did Gordon Sondland ask zelensky about the investigations . Yeah. In which meeting did he raise the investigations. It was raised the day before on the call, and the next day Gordon Sondland said the answer was hes going to do the investigation. When did he ask about the investigations investigations. I appreciate that. I want to make sure the record is clear that yesterday ambassador sondland testified that the topic of conversations did not come up on that day. I yield back. Time is expired. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I would like to thank both of our witnesses for being here today. I would like to turn our discussion to the campaign to remove career diplomat ambassador yovanovitch. Both of you in your various capacities had to work with her, and both of you witnessed what i would call a Smear Campaign. I wanted to know your thoughts, dr. Hill. What was your view of ambassador yovanovitchs experience and quality of her work in the ukraine, and do you consider it to be a Smear Campaign . I had the highest regard for ambassador yovanovitch, both in terms of her integrity and the high standards of work that she was carrying out as ambassador in ukraine, and because of her whole career. I do believe that there was a Smear Campaign, and i just want to say, again for the record that i think it was unnecessary. If there was a decision to have a political ambassador put in place in ukraine, that would be perfectly acceptable. Its exactly the right of the president to be able to do that. I just did not see why it was necessary to malign ambassador yovanovitch to such an extent. Mr. Holmes, would you agree with that, and can you talk about the character, integrity, and performance of ambassador yovanovitch, both in ukraine. Yes, maam. She was extremely professional, respected in ukraine, by ukrainians, i think also by visiting american senior officials, including members of this committee and congress who came to visit. She is extremely dedicated, hard working. Did you see it as a Smear Campaign as well . I did, yes. And what was the effect that it had on the morale of other professionals you worked with in ukraine. It was a very confusing time as i said before, the president has the right to remove an ambassador for any or no reason at all. It was not clear to us why this was happening or why people werent standing up for her. Id like to now turn dr. Hill to your boss. Your boss was ambassador bolton, right . Thats correct, yes. Did your boss, ambassador bolton tell you that giuliani was quote a hand grenade. He did, yes. What do you think he meant by his characterization of giuliani as a hand grenade . What he meant by this was pretty clear to me in the context of all the statements that mr. Giuliani was making publicly that the investigations that he was promoting, that the story line he was promoting, the narrative he was promoting was going to backfire. I think it has backfired. Was that narrative also inclusive of falsehoods about ambassador yovanovitch . At the particular juncture that ambassador bolton made that comment, absolutely because that was in the context of my discussions with him about what was happening to ambassador yovanovitch. I was particularly struck by your testimony, dr. Hill, about receiving hateful calls and being accused of being a source, mole in the white house. Are you a never trumper or have you been true to your profession and remain nonpartisan. I honestly dont know what the definition of a never trumper is, as i think many of my colleagues are feeling the same way. Its a puzzling term to be applied to career or nonpartisan officials. And i chose to come into the administration. I could easily have said no when i was approached. Yes, but you didnt sign up to have hateful calls and the like. I guess, unfortunately, where we are today in america, thats coming with the territory. Theyre continuing honestly, were constantly having to block twitter posts of my name and address on the internet. We have been doing this over the last couple of days. And as i said in my deposition, this could happen to any Single Person this this room be it members of the press, be it members of congress, and be it the staff. And i think we have to find ways of combatting this, and again, this gets back certainly to things that our adversaries can also exploit. Exactly. I think you would agree with me that this shouldnt become the new normal, would you agree. This should not. I also think that this kind of behavior, instead of keeping you down, would make you undeterred, are you more determined to continue to do your work and to do it professionally . I am, and i think all of my colleagues are as well. Just as you said, we cant let this stand, and i dont think anyone here wants to let this stand. I actually dont believe this is a partisan issue, i dont think anyone wants to come under personal attack. I think this has become a new norm, and were being led by the very top of the food chain, which is our president , which is unfortunate. Im especially disheartened by his treatment of women and i think that the fact of the matter is that theres a long line of strong, talented women who have been smeared and victimized by this president , and we can either choose to ignore or do something about it. And frankly, i think that whether you voted for him or whether you supported him or not, that doing so is wrong. You could simply just remove someone. You dont have to smear them. Thank you, and i yield back my time. Mr. Turner. Right. I want to echo that sentiment and lament the attacks that have been levied against our colleague, lee stephonic on this panel which has been vile and hateful. For those of you keeping score at home, the effort to accuse our president of coercion, extortion or bribery with these witnesses as we come to the closing session of this basically break down as follows, we have kent and ambassador taylor who spoke of hearsay, their hearsay of matters they said they heard were all statements that they had heard from others who have also testified in front of us, so theres no one thats missing. Theres no one thats out there. Kent and taylor basically said they had heard it from morrison and sondland, morrison indicated he heard it from sondland, sondland testified he had heard it from no one on the planet. Vindman and morrison have direct testimony of the phone call with the president of the United States. Beyond that, they only had contact with sondland, and again, sondland indicated he had contact with no one on the planet. Volker testified that he did have direct contact, both with the ukrainians and the president of the United States, and indicated that the president of the United States did not condition either a phone call, a meeting or aid upon ukraine undertaking investigations, and also testified that the ukrainians did not believe that either. We also have the direct statements from the president of ukraine and the foreign minister that they did not feel any pressure to undertake investigations and we also have the evidence that were all very much aware of which is they did not undertake any investigations. We also yovanovitch and dr. Hill. Yovanovitch obviously left before the time period. Dr. Hill, we appreciate you being with us today. And mr. Holmes. Dr. Hill, you have provided me probably the greatest piece of evidence thats before us to illustrate the problem with hearsay. So you said based on questions and statements i have heard some of you on this committee, that would be us appear to believe that russia and its Security Services did not conduct a campaign against our country. And perhaps somehow for some reason it was ukraine. This evidence was held up by devin nunes as the report of active measures voted on by all of us, it begins in this sentence, in 2015, russia began engaging in a covert influence campaign, aimed at the u. S. President ial election. Every one of us, small effort on your part, dr. Hill, and you would have known, what you just said was not true, what you had heard but you felt the need to put it in your eightpage statement before you went on to tell us other things that you heard about other people no matter how convinced you were of also which were not necessarily true, one of which was that you said that ambassador sondland met with giuliani, actually, ambassador sondland testified that he had not as ambassador met with giuliani, he briefly met him in his lifetime, and giuliani issued a statement they had never met either. No matter how convinced we are, dr. Hill, no matter how much we believe we know that what weve heard is true, it is still just what weve heard. But so far, in this hearing, in these series of hearings, the only thing that we have is volker saying i spoke to the president and ive spoke to the ukrainians, neither of which believe aid was conditioned, neither of which believed that the president was requiring it. And ambassador sondland, which said no one on the planet told him that that was the case. Thats the sole evidence. Ambassador sondland believed a meeting was conditioned upon investigations, ambassador volker who i think is a man of very significant integrity said that was not the case. Even if ambassador sondland is correct, that somebody and dr. Hill, you testified, and again its hearsay, you dont know, that supposedly mulvaney told him that, because he didnt testify to that, but lets say somebody besides the president told him that, you guys want to be the laughing stock of history to impeach a president of the United States because he didnt take a meeting. Oh, please, dear god. Please undertake that. Now, mr. Holmes, i got to tell you. Is there a question for dr. Hill . Mr. Holmes, in your testimony, you said that sondland said he loves your ass, and also said hell do anything that you want. Mr. Holmes, that information had nothing whatsoever to do with the subject matter of any of these hearings. It was anecdotal, it was extraneous, your statements that your interests are protecting ukraine, are very dubious when you embarrass president zelensky by making those statements that you didnt have to make. Who cares that ambassador sondland said that, and you didnt embarrass ambassador sondland, you embarrassed zelensky because you know he got asked this question in his own country and people are hearing that statement as if it is true, and its thank you, chairman, both for thank you, chairman, both for your service. Dr. Hill, i would like to talk a little bit more indepth about chief of staff Mick Mulvaneys role in the events under investigation. You testified, maam, that mr. Mulvaney, and ambassador sondland were both involved with a letter President Trump sent to the ukrainian president on may 29th, congratulationing himng him on his inauguration. Do you recall that, maam . Dr. Hill i did, yes. And towards the end of that letter, President Trump closed with quote, i would like to invite you to meet me at the white house in washington, d. C. As soon as we can find a mutually convenient time end quote. Dr. Hill, was this congratulatory letter drafted through the normal procedures at the nfc that the nfc uses to send foreign letters to heads of state. Dr. Hill the first part of it was, except the last paragraph. You also testified that ambassador sondland told you that he had dictated that line to the president and that mr. Mulvaney, you told mr. Mulvaney to add that to the letter, is that correct, maam. Dr. Hill thats correct. You said that you were nervous about that. Why were you nervous, dr. Hill . Because at this juncture, it had become quite apparent that the president wasnt very keen on having a meeting with mr. Zelensky for all the reasons that we have been trying to lay out today. And once one puts in a letter like that, you raise the expectation of an invitation coming shortly. Dr. Hill, you also testified, maam, that ambassador sondland was frequently meeting with mr. Mulvaney. Mr. Giulianis campaign of lies ultimately led to ambassador yovanovitch being recalled from her post in april of 2019. Youve also testified, maam, that her removal was pretty disspiriting, and a turning point for you. Can you explain to us why, maam. Dr. Hill again, as we have all made clear, ambassador yovanovitch and you saw for yourself in her deposition is a person of great integrity. Shes one of our finest Foreign Service officers, Career Foreign Service officers and if there had been a decision to remove her to replace her with a political appointee, again, that was perfectly within the rights of the president. Sometimes its highly advisable, in fact, to emphasize to a country just exactly how close the relationship is likely to be to have an appointee who is close to the president , if its an important relationship, but what was dispiriting was all of the accusations that were being fired at ambassador yovanovitch leading her to be tweeted, including by members of the president s family. We all firmly believe that mr. Giuliani and others including the people who were recently indicted, the ukrainian american gentleman had for some reason decided that ambassador yovanovitch was some kind of personal problem for them and that they had then decided to engage in just the kind of things we were discussing. And she was an easy target as a woman. And im sorry to hear about what has happened to congress man stefanik, and this illustrates the point and problem were dealing with today. Certainly. I was struck by your testimony that you were the target of false accusations during your time in the Trump Administration. You testified, maam, about receiving hateful calls and being accused of being quote a mole in the white house. You testified about Death Threats and calls at your home, is that right . Dr. Hill thats correct. That was in 2017. Im sorry youve had to go through all of this maam. You dont strike me as a woman who is easily deterred. Youre not easily deterred, are you, dr. Hill . Dr. Hill im not, no. Thank you both for your service. Thank you, sir. I thank the gentleman for yielding, just another fact check and my caution that representations about what prior witnesses said or what you have even said may not be consistent with the facts. This was from ambassador sondlands Opening Statement, after the zelensky meeting, i also met with zelenskys senior aide, andre yermach, i believe the issue of investigations was probably a part of the agenda or meeting. Now recognize dr. Winstrop. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you both for being here. You know in 1998, i voluntarily joined the United States army reserve because i saw our country under attack time and time again. Bill clinton was the president. I didnt vote for bill clinton. But he was my commander in chief. It didnt matter that i didnt vote for him. I was grateful to live in a country that gets to legitimately elect our leaders. And i have been to places where people dont get to. And its not pretty, and i respect our system and i accept the results that are determined by the American People. I deployed to iraq, 2005, 2006 as an army surgeon with soldiers from many backgrounds. The most important thing was we were all americans. That was first and foremost. In our mission, we treated our troops, we treated the enemy, winning over the hearts and minds of people that never knew us because of their dictator, saddam hussein, who told them that we were responsible for all their problems and that was his narrative. And speaking of narratives, dr. Hill, im sorry, i have to say this, you said based on statements, some in the committee believe russia did not conduct a campaign against this country is false. Thats mr. Schiffs narrative. Thats where youve heard it. We did a whole report on it. And we agree that russia has done this since the soviet union, and they have actually gotten better at it. Thats a problem. But at the same time, certain ukrainians did work against candidate trump. Some with the dnc, and if thats de debunked why is it mr. Schiff has denied dnc operative chalupa to testify and come forward and debunk it. Was it good for the country for the dnc and Clinton Campaign to pay Christopher Steele to dig up dirt on their political rival. Was it good for america to claim having evidence of the president colluding with russians when he did not. Costing the taxpayer millions, and being debunked by special counsel. Id say the false narrative got caught. Was it good for the country for americans and foreigners alike to attempt to entrap members of a United States president ial campaign, specifically the trump campaign, sadly, i have come to believe through all of this that some in power do think its good. They think its okay. Now were here if an impeachment at an impeachment proceeding, certainly a right that congress has and apparently even with very partisan rules. But im curious, the impeachment inquiry was announced by the speaker before the whistleblower complaint was even out. Im curious why the lawyer for the whistleblower announced that the coup to impeach the president , that he announced that right after trump won. Thats pretty damming. Damning. I know it hurts after losing an election, especially as americans. We usually get over it. And i imagine it would hurt even more if you were promised a position in the next administration and lost. And your hopes and your dreams are dashed. Ive seen hatred for political reasons. Specifically on june 14th, 2017, at a ball field in virginia, and i have seen hatred in war. And i know that hatred blinds people. Ive been in war, and ive studied war and coups create division. And its time for this phase of the publicly announced and proclaimed democrat coup to end. Thank you for your service. Thanks for being here, and i yield back. Dr. Hill could i actually Say Something because we have had three i was going it ask you if you would like respond. [laughter] i yielded back. I didnt ask a question. Dr. Hill, you may respond. Dr. Hill no, i think that what dr. Winstrop said was very powerful about the importance of overcoming hatred and certainly partisan division, and its unfortunate that Congressmans Turner and ratcliff have both left as well because i think all of us who came here under legal obligations thought we had a moral obligation to do so, we came as fact witnesses. When i was referring to questions that id heard, it was in the context of the deposition that i gave on october 14th because i was very worried about the turn in which some of the questions were taking. And i understand that the point is being made about individuals, as you have just said, dr. Winstrop and that these articles lay out, taking definite positions in our elections. I dont think there should be any interference of any kind in our election, i think it was unfair for people to already call the election, and make attacks also on candidate trump and President Trump, and i know that this has put a huge cloud over this presidency and also over our whole democratic system. Thats actually why as a nonpartisan person, and as an expert on russia and an expert on Vladimir Putin and on the Russian Security service, i wanted to come in to serve the country to try to see if i could help. I heard President Trump said that he wanted to improve the relations with russia. I believe we have to. We cant be in this unending confrontation with russia. We have to find a way to stabilize our relationship and to professionalize our relationship as well as to stop them from doing what they did in 2016 again in 2020. This is really the crux of the issue that i and others are trying to put across, and i think that you have put across very eloquently. The other matters related to this inquiry, were here just to provide what we know, and what we have heard. I understand that for many members this may be hearsay. I have talked about things i heard with my own ears. I understand that ambassador sondland has said a lot of things. I have told you what he told me, and what others told me. A lot of other people have said things to me, again, as well, and also to mr. Holmes and were hear to relate to you what we heard, what we saw, and what we did. And to be of some help to all of you in really making a very momentous decision here. We are not the people who make that decision. And i do, again, want to underscore what you said here, dr. Winstrop, it was very eloquent and very moving about your service, and trying to bring us all together as americans. We need to be together again in 2020 so the American People can make a choice about the future and make their vote in a president ial election without any fear that this is being interfered in from any quarter whatsoever, so i just want to thank you for making what i think was also a very elegant and eloquent and heartfelt defense. Thank you, dr. Hill. Ms. Spear. Mr. Chairman, thank you, and dr. Hill, mr. Holmes, thank you both for being fact witnesses. We are here as fact finders, and we appreciate very much your presentations. Dr. Hill, i want to verify this story, and i understand that when you were 11 years old, there was a schoolboy who set your pigtails on fire and you were taking a test, you turned around and with your hands snuffed out the fire and then proceeded to finish your test. Is that a true story . Dr. Hill it is a true story. I was a bit surprised to see that pop up today. Its one of the stories i occasionally tell because it had unfortunate consequences afterwards, my mother gave me a bowl haircut so for the school [laughter] photograph later in that week, i look like richard iii. I think it underscores the fact that you speak truth, that you are steely, and i truly respect that. Let me move to your testimony in your deposition. You had indicated you were deeply troubled by ambassador yovanovitchs, the attacks on her, and you underscored again today that all ambassadors serve at the pleasure of the president , and certainly in the case of ambassador yovanovitch, he could have just asked her to come home. But that didnt happen. In fact, there was a systematic character assassination that went on. And went on from 2018, if im not mistaken. But you say, and the most obvious explanation at this point, it has to be said, seemed to be business dealings of individuals who wanted to improve their investment positions inside of ukraine itself. You were then asked who do you understand was responsible for her removal . And you said, i understand this to be the result of the campaign that mr. Giuliani had set in motion in conjunction with people who were writing articles and you know, publications that i have expected better of, and also, you know, just the constant drum beat of these accusations that he was making on the television. So Rudy Giuliani was playing fast and furious in ukraine, it would appear, is that correct . Dr. Hill thats correct. And he had no official tasking within the administration, is that correct. Dr. Hill not that i had been told of. But he frequently met with ukrainian officials to request they open an investigation . Dr. Hill so i was led to understand, yes. You testified that mr. Giulianis involvement was quote a massive complication in terms of our engagement with ukraine. Dr. Hill thats correct. Would you like to explain that . Dr. Hill i think i already laid that out in the earlier part of response to some of the questions. We were actually conducting which, you know, for a lot of the American People might seem to be a rather boring, standard bilateral policy toward ukraine, pushing them on issues of reform in the energy sector, and more broadly, we were concerned obviously about corruption in ukraine. We were trying to help ukraine regain its sovereignty after the attacks by russia. How did mr. Giulianis involvement affect . Dr. Hill we basically had worked out over the course of two years in conjunction, close conjunction with the embassy in kiev, an interagency agreed action plan, and these are things that in fact colonel vindman were working on, moving forward on the various issues on the list of items. Clearly Rudy Giuliani and other people didnt care at all about this. Ambassador sondland wasnt particularly interested in it either. It was quite boring, wouldnt make for good copy in the press and the kind of thing everybody in a routine moves forward on. Mr. Holmes, you talked about the extraordinary power russia tries to assert against ukraine, so since president zelensky never got his white house meeting, doesnt that make ukraine look weak, and doesnt that benefit russia . Absolutely, it does. All right. So promoting putins false claim of ukraine intervention into the u. S. Election also benefits russia, doesnt it . It does. So when President Trump meets privately with Vladimir Putin at the g20 summit, who does that benefit . It doesnt help ukraine. It doesnt help ukraine. And by President Trump calling ukraine corrupt and not north korea, for instance, does that accrue to russias benefit. Again, doesnt help ukraine. All right. I thank you and mr. Chairman, ill yield the rest of my time to you. Youre yielding me three seconds, not even i can make use of three seconds, mr. Stewart. Thank you. Dr. Hill, mr. Holmes, thank you for being here. I dont have any questions that havent been asked or made any points that havent already been made. I guess ill conclude by something i have said before, this impeach palooza, finally comes to an end. A year of resistance. Two and a half years of these absurd accusations against the president of russian collusion. We have gone from quid pro quo to bribery to extortion, seven weeks of hearings, 16 secret closed door sessions, 12 public hearings, now of which you are the last. Hundreds of hours of testimony, and i really think that for those who hate the president , they havent changed their minds but theres a lot of americans who look at this and think is that it, really, youre going to impeach and remove a president for this. Now, like i said, if you dont like the president , you have already come to that conclusion, many people wanted this three years ago. But for a lot of americans, they look at that, and they can see this, no evidence, zero evidence of any bribery. Zero evidence of extortion. Zero evidence, firsthand of any quid pro quo. And yet, impeachment is almost inevitable, and why . Because the leadership of this committee has been unfair and dishonest, and i know we hear these crocodile tears from some of my colleagues who are heartbroken because they finally have to impeach this president. And we know thats absurd, theres no heartbroken, theres no prayerful tears over this. They are giddy over there, and and theres not a person in the country who doesnt know that. Everyone knows what theyre going to do next. Theyre going to impeach the president and theyre going to send it on to the senate, but that is the good news. Thats good news. You know, we have all been to a concert. You got the warm up band, and then you got the main act, and what we have seen here is the warm up band. This is kind of like the sioux city crooners, this is a band that no ones ever heard of but the warm up band is over, and now were going on to the main event and thats in the u. S. Senate, and in the u. S. Senate there wont be secret testimony. Theres not going to be a chairman that refuses to let us ask appropriate questions or deny a defense. Where in the world, where this the country do you have a trial where the prosecution presents their case and the defense isnt able to. So well finally be able to get to the truth. So im talking to my colleagues in the senate, these are some of the witnesses that you need to call and these are some of the questions that you need to ask. First, you have to hear from the whistleblower. Now, they can choose to do that in closed session if they want to. I leave that up to them. But you cant initiate an impeachment of the president of the United States and not have to answer some questions. Who did he get his information from . Did he have the classification and the clearances to get that information. Whats his relationship with Vice President biden. Who has he shared that information with, including some members of the committee here. I think our own chairman needs to be called. What interactions did he or his staff have with the whistleblower . Did they help to coordinate or in any way facilitate the complaint . Did they coordinate and facilitate council, what about hunter biden, how did he get his job . What did he do to earn his salary, and heres the key to this, look if he goes there and makes money, knock yourself out. I dont care, but i want to know did he have officials or conversations with government officials and was government policy changed at a particularly high level because of some of those . Devin archer, former board member from burisma, alexandria cha lieu , provided antitrump information to the dnc and hardship, nelly orr from fusion gps who helped create the ridiculous steele dossier the American People expect a lot in politics. They understand the tussle, the fight, the debate, but they also expect basic fairness, and these proceedings have been anything but fair. The senate has an opportunity to fix that. I am confident they will. And i look forward to them completing the job that we could have done here. And with that, i will yield back. Mr. Quigley. Thank you mr. Chairman, thank you both for being here. Dr. Hill, when we last left july 109th, i believe ambassador bolton said to you you go and tell eisenberg that im not part of whatever drug deal sondland and mulvaney are cooking up on this, and tell him what you have heard and what i said. Thats correct, is that right . Thats correct, sir, yes. And John Eisenberg, the chief lawyer for the National Security council correct. He is, yes. And you went to see him. I did. What did you say. Dr. Hill i gave him the same summary i have given to you on the 10th of july july. Of what took place. Dr. Hill of what took place, including some of the details i shared with you as well, the sequencing and what transpired as i was walking in. Now, did i have one or two meetings with him about that . Dr. Hill he did not have a great deal of time on the 10th, and i gave him the quick summary, and we agreed that we would meet again on the 11th, on july 11th, the next day, and i also wanted to bring in with me my colleague, wells griffith, senior director for energy who had been sitting with me on the sofa for the first portion of the meeting. And i also suggested that he speak to colonel vindman separately as well because colonel vindman was in the board ward room when i arrived and obviously had been engaged in discussion before i got there because as i got into the room, they were clearly in the course of, sorry with the microphone, clearly within the course of conversation and i thought it was important for John Eisenberg to hear from colonel vindman himself what his recollections of the meetings were. Did you raise the concerns that ambassador bolton had raised to you to mr. Eisenberg. Dr. Hill i certainly did. The first thing i related to him was exactly and precisely what ambassador bolton had asked me to. In the course of the two meetings, what was mr. Eisenbergs response. Dr. Hill mr. Eisenberg took it all very seriously. He said, for example, that colonel vindman should feel free, he said this to this to me in future to go and bring any concerns to him about these these meetings. Similarly, myself and any others if there was any subsequent followup in terms of these issues being raised again with any of the parties in the future. He didnt say anything in response about how he took that meeting or how he would describe it or if he had any did he raise any concerns about what you told him that took place . Dr. Hill no, he did not. He listened very carefully to all the information we imparted. Now back to that july 0th 10th meeting, the second meeting in the ward room, correct. Dr. Hill thats correct. Who is in that meeting besides yourself, the two ukrainians . Dr. Hill mr. Donalup mr. Yermak. Mr. Yerms aide. Ambassador volker and ambassador sondland. And a couple of people from the state department. I wonder if one of secretary perrys group had been there too. I cant remember. But ambassador volker was there during the entire time. Dr. Hill he was. He didnt actually speak very much during the meeting. And and i heard his deposition and i read his deposition where he didnt really recall that encounter the again, he didnt really speak. It was mostly ambassador sondland. You described it sondland was talking about a meeting with chief mulvaney if they were Going Forward with the investigations. While this was taking place and afterwards, how were the ukrainians reacting to what was being said. Dr. Hill at the time mr. Yermak was quite impassive. I said he had an aide with him and his aide was next to him in the original meeting with ambassador bolton and was from time to time actually on this side whispering to him. I wasnt sure myself. Because i had not met mr. Yermak before about how good his english was. I wasnt sure perhaps mr. Holmes might be able to reflect on that whether he was having points of clarification from the aide. He understood what was happening i wasnt sure if he was following all of the back and forth. Mr. Luko who speaks good english was alarmed. I think he was more alarmed at the back and forth between could colonel vindman and ambassador sondland. And here are some u. S. Officials arguing about the meeting in front of him. And that was obviously very uncomfortable for him. Did you have any follow up to that, sir . I just added donuluk speaks perfect english but yermak often asks for clarifications. Given the time i would yield back. Miss stafanik. Before i turn to the witnesses i want to say to the democratic colleagues not a single republican member of in committee has said that russia did not meddle in the elections. We published a report focused on russian active measures in 2016 with policy recommendations as to how we strengthen our cyber resiliency and Election Security to counter russia. I worked with member of this committee on the issue but also on the House Armed Services committee. To have our democratic colleagues say the untruthful statements reeks of political desperation in the continued obsession to manipulate maritimes media coverage. But the good news people understand this has been a partisan process from the start. The democratic coordination with the whistleblower, the incestant and astounding leaks, the unprecedented closed door process, closed to the majority of members, closed to press, the people. Starting this inquiry without taking a vote, and then when finally forced to take a vote the vote was with bipartisan opposition. Now with four minutes left i turn to the two witnesses thank you both for your service. Thank you, dr. Hill for comments on the personal attacks. I wanted to ask you each factbased questions. Dr. Hill, you testified that you handed over your duties on the nsc to tim morrison on july 15th and that you physically left the white house on july 19th, correct. Dr. Hill that is correct, yes. That means by the time of the july 25th call with President Trump and president zelensky you were no longer on the nsc correct. Dr. Hill actually i was still technically on the payroll of the nsc until the end of august. August 30th of 2019. But i was not physically in the building and i handed over my duties to mr. Morrison. And you were not on the call. Dr. Hill i was not on the call. That is absolutely correct. And also correct that you did not participate in the preparation of talking points or the specific coordination of setting up the call. Dr. Hill not for that call but say for the record there had been a long anticipation that eventually there would be a call. So there was a call package prepared in advance. I cant say how much of that call package that had perhaps been prepared since, for example, the inauguration of president zelensky was used as the basic material for that call. I did take part in the preparation of the standard call package. But i did not take part in preparation for the specific call on july 25th. The first time you read the transcript of the call was when it was released to the public dr. Hill that is correct. Mr. Holmes, i wanted to turn to you. Good to see you again. Thank you for mentioning the bipartisan delegation that i led on behalf of the House Armed Services committee with my friend representative Anthony Brown are from maryland. We do have an exception the informative visit where we highlighted the bipartisan congressional support for ukraine, in particular the importance of countering russian aggression. And we discussed in the discuss briefing at the embassy the importance of lethal aid in the form of javelins which you stated is an important Strategic Deterrent to russia. I wanted to highlight on the record i know its been asked pb the javelin were provided by the Trump Administration and not the Obama Administration, correct. Thats correct. And i would say i think we discussed the importance of all Security Assistance not just the javelins. All of the Security Assistance which i strongly support. Thank you for being a host on that. Dr. Hill turning back to you, theres been discussion about that is correct. There was speculation in ukraine and outside that he might not be able to get the majority that he needed to form a cabinet. That is correct. You also testified that it was based on broader concerns related to his ability to implement anticorruption reforms. This was in relation to ukrainian oligarchs who owned the tv company that is program had been a part of. The distilling this down to facts, i wanted to ask both of you three key questions. The fact of the matter is ukraine ultimately did receive ea. Correct, ultimately. And there was no investigation into the bidens. Correct . They did not open a new investigation into the bidens. There was in fact a meeting between President Trump and president zelensky at the u. N. . Tothe president invited him the oval office at a date and determined which is not yet happened. They met at the u. N. . They did but not in the oval office. I yield back. A lot of americans were scratching their heads as ambassador sondland testified that on september 9 he called the president of the United States and said broadly, what do you want from ukraine . In the president says, there is no quid pro quo. Like being pulled over for speeding and being asked, do you know how fast youre going . And saying, i did not rob the bank . Onr testimony today is that july 10 of this year, you told one of the president s lawyers that you had concerns that a white house meeting was linked to investigations, is that right . That is correct. The president s lawyers had concerns about the linkage . That is correct. We are trying to account for all of the president s men. You had that same concern when you saw sondlands emails. People were outside details that you had been working on. I want to walk you through something you told is earlier. You believed that there was someone as the ukraine director. I want to be very clear. I was asked a question about this in my deposition. I did not raise it and i was surprised i was asked the question. But you heard that name . I did, but it was in passing. And that explains the circumstances in which you came up. The only person at the time who worked at the National Security council was him. There, heorking worked for nunes. I only found that out after. You cautioned us on the dangers of members of this committee perhaps peddling any ukrainian conspiracy theories that could benefit russia. I want to ask you if you have heard the name lev parnas. Someone who was influencing President Trump and Rudy Giuliani. I have heard his name, yes. Are you aware that he was indicted on october 10 for making foreign contributions to republicans in u. S. Election . Yes. Are you aware of yesterdays daily beast story it saying that he has been working on investigations. I asked for unanimous consent to ,ut the story from yesterday first two paragraphs, and indicted associate of Rudy Giuliani helped arrange meetings and calls in europe for nunes. In a meetingsd which were arranged to help his investigative work. Specification of what those investigations detail. You have been falsely accused throughout these proceedings by the Ranking Member as being a fact witness. Now, if this story is correct, the Ranking Member might have been projecting. He may be the fact witness if he is working with indicted individuals. I want to go to what this is all about. It is your credibility. Can you confirm that in 2014 you received the constructive dissent award from the Obama Administration . Yes. That was for dissents that you brought up against an Administration Policy . That is right. Congratulations, and thank you for speaking up in the way that you did. What we are here about is what you are working on in ukraine. I want to take a look at the picture. Could you see in the foreground . President zelensky. That is a photograph in may 2019 where newly elected president zelensky visited this region in Eastern Ukraine. It was his first visit to the frontlines as president. Americansll taxpaying why it is so important that our hard earned taxpaying dollars help president zelensky and the men standing beside him fight against russian . President celeste he was elected on an overwhelming majority. Two defend ukrainian interests. This is a time when they are fromding their integrity russian back soldiers who are attacking them. Been 14,000 ukrainian lives lost in this war so far. This is a hot war. This is not a frozen conflict. People are shooting each other and dying and being injured every single week. Despite the ongoing war, they are still trying to pursue peace. Zelensky is trying to pursue a summit meeting with putin in order to put this war to a conclusion. So they can move on with the difficult things they need to do in terms of building the economy. There was a suggestion earlier that it somehow embarrassed president zelensky. I have the deepest respect for him. He made himself one of the most popular entertainers in the country. He will not miss that opportunity. He is a patriot. He is a tough guy. He was study law to pressure from a very long time. The deepest respect for him and the ukrainian people. Deliver a him to help full measure of promise of the revolution of dignity. I think he merits all of our respect. Aboutmakers were asked what is next in the impeachment inquiry and looking ahead to a trial in the senate. We begin with house intelligence chair adam schiff on moving the process forward despite another Court Challenge by the Trump Administration. The administration will draw this out for months and months. We are not willing to let