Transcripts For CSPAN2 Impeachment Inquiry House Hearings Impeachment Hearing With Kurt Volker ... 20240713

[inaudible conversations]. We will come to order. Good afternoon this is a fourth in a series of hearings we are holding as part of the inquiry without objection the chairs authorized to declare a recess at any time. There is a quorum present. Well proceed today as an Opening Statement than the Ranking Member can make his Opening Statement and then we will turn to the witnesses and then two questions. Without a now recognize myself to give an Opening Statement into the impeachment inquiry of donald j. Trump the 45th president of the United States. This afternoon well hear from two witnesses Ambassador Special representative for ukraine negotiations and to morrison former senior director for European Affairs at an sei appreciate the minorities request for these witnesses as well as undersecretary of state from whom we will hear tomorrow progress we have heard from other witnesses when joe biden was considered whether to enter the price one the president ial race in 2020 giuliani began a campaign to weaken bidens candidacy by pushing ukraine to investigate him and his son. To clear away any obstacle trump ordered a recall of the American Ambassador who was known for pushing anticorruption efforts. He also canceled the Vice President s participation in the inauguration and sent a delegation by rick perry ambassador to the eu and ambassador voelker. These three returned on their first interactions with the deukrainian administration that trump would agree to a meeting with the president diminished and trump pushback according to voelker he didnt believe that he said he was skeptical he said he has people around him he also said he believed ukraine tried to take him down. He told the three amigos talk to rudy and they did. Those interactions took place before the july 25th phone call voelker had breakfast with giuliani at the trump hotel testifying that hee pushback on the accusation against joe biden just days before trump would talk to t6 and then talk to the ukrainian president so giuliani could be introduced. On july 25th the same day as a call between President Trump that before it took place ambassador voelker sent a text message as long as he says he will get to the bottom of what happened in 2016 we will nail down a visit to washington good luck later that day donald trump would have a famous phone call with president nt zelensky with ukraines appreciation for support and request by president zelensky to buy more antitank missiles to say i would like you to do us a favor and that involve the two investigations giuliani was pushing for into the bidens in 2016 ambassador voelker was not on the call but when asked when it was reflected he said no president of the united oates should ask a four leader to help interfere in a us election. Among those listening in was tim morrison who had taken over as the senior director for European Affairs only days before and was briefed about the irregular Second Channel that was happening in parallel. The Lieutenant Colonel and ms. Williams he emerged from the call troubled so he went to see the advisors the fear was that the president had broken the lawaw potentially but morrison said of his concern that the call could be damaging if it were leaked soon after this discussion with lawyers at the nsc it was hidden away on a d secure server where it remained until late september when the call record was publicly released. Following the july 25th call ambassador voelker worked on a statement to satisfy giuliani with a draft that failed to include the specific word Burisma Giuliani said the statement with that credibility then the maambassador added burisma to the draft statement. Theyey were aware that the Security Assistance had been cut off for the direction of the president. Must personae opening of the investigations and he also said if president zelensky didnt agree to make a Public Statement by u. S. And ukraine would be at a stalemate meaning that wasnt needed in the securityig assistance. There was a sinking feeling after the call as he realized it was being directed not at the prosecutor general as he had related to the ukrainian aid in warsaw on september 1. There was no quid pro quo that he was publicly announcing the investigations whether it be at a stalemate for two official acts in the white house meeting, 400 million in thee military aid and conditioned on the receipt of trump wanted to help his campaign into the scheme only then would b the aid of the release and they now recognize the brink and member the Ranking Member. Welcome back to act to give you a serious, somber and incredible process of attempting to overthrow a duly elected president if they are successful the result would be to disenfranchise tens of millions of americans who fough thought e president was chosen byhe the American People, not by 13 democratic partisans on the committee to oversee the governmentspe intelligence agencies. Isnt it strange how weve morphed into the committee presiding over a matter that has no intelligent component whatsoever. Its the jurisdiction of the Judiciary Committee not the intelligence committee. By putting this in the court provides two advantages for the democrats. It made it easier for them to shroud their deposition in secrecy and allowed them to avoid getting too big of a role to another chair and let him a Democratic Leaders obviously have no confidence. Who can view these proceedings is fair and partial they are being kind by democrats who spent three years saturating the tirwaves with dire warnings president of trump is a russian agent and these outlandish attacks continued to this very day. Just this weekend the chairman of the committee denounced president of trump as a profound threat to our democracy and vowed that people send back charlatan and the white house back to the golden throne. How can anyone believe the people who would utter such dramatic absurdities or conduct in a fair impeachment process after only trying to discover the truth. Its obvious that are trying to topple the president because they despise him, because they promised to to impeach him and they are afraid he will win the reelection next year. No witnesses have identified any crying or Impeachable Offense committed by the president , but that doesnt matter. R. Last week the democrats told us the infraction wa interaction wa quid pro quo. He this week, bribery. Who knows what ridiculous claim ofy will be accusing him next week. As they dont like the ukraine policy even though they acknowledged he provided ukraine with gleeful military aid after the Obama Administration refused to do so. They also present his conduct and policyef through channels outside of their own authority and control. These actions they argue contradict the socalled inter agency consensus. They dont seem to understand the president on this constituted to set the policy and the American People elect the president , not an inter agency consensus. And of course the previous witnesses have very little new information to share p in these. Thats because they were not designed to uncover new information. They are meant to showcase and picked group of witnesses to determine who the secret auditioned this and provide testimony that is conducive to their accusations. In fact by the time any witness says anything here people are actually hearing it for the third time. First to the media sympathizers and second when they published the deposition transcripts in a highly staged manner. Of course there are no transcripts from crucial witnesses like hunter biden who could testify about his wellpaying job on the part of a Ukrainian Company or on the scheme with ukrainian officials on behalf of the Democratic National committee and Clinton Campaign. Thats because the democrats refused to let us hear from them. As for evidence, we are left with the transcript of the phone call the president made public. That means americans can read for themselves and unremarkable conversation with president zelensky who expressed satisfaction with the call afterwards. Afterwards. Democrats however claimed that he was being bribed and therefore he must be lying when he says the call was friendly and posed no problem. There is some irony here. For weeks weve heard the democrats bemoan the damage president of trump supposedly caused the u. S. Ukrainian relations. But when the ukrainian president contradicts their accusations and they publicly dismissed him as a liar. I may be wrong but im fairly sure it violates the socalled inter agency consensus. Overall they would have you believe president zelensky was being blackmailed by paula zahn and militarmilitary aid he didnw about. President trump did not mention to him and diplomats testified they always assumed would be lifted, which it was. Without undertaking the actions they were supposedly being coerced into doing. The process isnt it is an ambitious attempt to deprive the American People of the right to elect a president. As i mentioned the chairman of the committee claimed democracy is under threat. If that is true its not the president the poses the danger. I think the gentleman. We are joined this afternoon by kurt volker and timothy morrison. Served in the u. S. Foreign service for nearly 30 years working on european and eurasian political and Security Issues under the president ial administrations. During the george w. Bush thenistration he served as acting director for european and Eurasian Affairs and the National Security council and later as th as Deputy Assistant secretary of state for european and Eurasian Affairs. In 2008, he appointed ambassador volker to the permanent representative to nato where he served until may of 2009. July 2017 he was appointed to be a specialma representative for e ukraine negotiations serving in that position until he resigned inap september. Its a pleasure to welcome you back to the legislative branch where he served for almost two decades. He was a professional staff member for mark kennedy in minnesota and john kyl of arizona. Later hek served as the longtie policy director for the republican staff of the House Armed Services committee. July, 2018 he joined the National Security council is the senior director for countering weapons of mass destruction while in 2019 mr. Morrison assumed the position of the scene or directora for russia ad europe. The two final points before the witnesses are sworn in,n the first witness deposition as part of the inquiry is unclassified in nature and all open hearings will also be held at the unclassified level. Any information will be addressed separately. Second, congress will vote for any reprisal, threat or attempt to retaliate against any u. S. Government official testifying before congress including you or any of your colleagues. If you both please rise and raise your right hand, i will begin by swearing un. Do you swear or affirm that the testimony youre about to give us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god . What the record show the witnesses answered in the affirmative. Thank you and please be seated. The microphones are sensitive, speak directly into them and without objection or written statements also be made a part of the record. With that, mr. Morrison, youre recognized for your Opening Statement and immediately thereafter, ambassador volker, you are recognized for your Opening Statement. Hispanic chair and schiff, members, i appear under subpoena to answer questions about my time as the director for European Affairs at the white house and the National Security council and is related to ukraine and u. S. Security sector the system to the country. I will provide the most complete and Accurate Information i can, consistent with my obligations to protect classified and privileged information. Whether the conduct that is the subject of the inquiry merits impeachment is a question for the u. S. House of representatives. I appear only to provide factual information based upon my knowledge and recollection of the event. I will not waste time restating the the details for my deposition which has recently been made public. Io however i will highlight the following key points. First, as i previously stated, i do not know who the whistleblower is, nor do i intend to speculate as to the individual may be. Second, io have Great Respect r my former colleagues from the nsc and the rest of the agency. I am not here today to question their character or integrity. My recollection of the judgments are my own. Some of my colleagues are collections of conversations may differ from mine but i do not view those differences is the result of a purpose. Third, i continue to believe ukraine is on the frontline frof a strategic competition between the west and Vladimir Putins russia. Russia is a failing power and still a dangerous one. The unitedra states aid ukraine and her people and they can fight russia over there and we dont have to fight russia here. Support for ukraines territorial integrity and sovereignty has been a bipartisanss object of the military invasionof themilitary. It must continue to be. As i stated during my deposition, i fear that the time of the call on july 25 how its disclosure would play in washingtons Political Climate, my fear has not been realized. I understand the gravity of the proceedings but i beg you not to speak to the ongoing occupation in crimea and the importance of the reform with the politics and the economy. Every day that the focus of the discussion involving ukraine is centered on these proceedings instead of those matters is a day when we are not focused on the interest of ukraine, the United States and western style rules. I concluded my active service at the nationals at the council today after the they must appear before you. I left the nsc on my own volition. I felt no pressure to resign, nor have i fear any retaliation for my testimony. I made this choice sometime before i decided to testify on october 31. Im prepared to answer your questions to the best of my ability and recollection. Thank you. Ambassador volker. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman, Ranking Member. Thank you very much for the opportunity to provide this testimony today. As you know, i was the first person to come forward to testify as part of this inquiry. I did so voluntarily, and likewise, voluntarily provided relevant documentation in my possession in order to be as cooperative, clear and complete as possible. E. Im here today voluntarily and i remain committed to cooperating truthfully with this committee. All i can do this provide the facts as i understood them at the time. October 3 in private and i will do so again today. Like many others have testified on this inquiry, i am a career foreignpolicy professional. I began my career as an Intelligence Analyst for Northern Europe for the Central Intelligence agency in 1986. Before joining the state department in 1988. I served in diplomatic postings permanently focused on european political and Security Issues for over 20 years under president ronald reagan, george h. W. Bush, clinton, george w. Bush and barack obama. My last three possessions before leaving the Senior Foreign Service in 2009 was director for nato and west here in European Affairs and Principal Deputy secretary for the European Affairs at the state department and finally as u. S. Ambassador to nato. In the spring of 2017, then secretary of state colors and asked if i would come back to service as u. S. Special representative for the ukraine negotiations. I did this on a part time voluntary basis with no salary paid by the u. S. Taxpayer simply because they believed it was important to serve the country in this way. I believe i could steer u. S. Policy in the right direction. For over two years as the special representative for the ukraine negotiations, my singular focus was advancing the foreignpolicy and National Security interest of the United States. In particular, that meant pushing back on russian aggression and supporting the development of a strong resilient committed against prosperous ukraine, one that overcomes a legacy of corruption and becomes integrated into a transatlantic community. This is critically important for u. S. National security. If we can stop and reverse russian aggression in ukraine, we can prevent it elsewhere. If ukraine, the cradle of the civilization succeeds as a freedom loving prosperous and securera democracy, it gives us enormous hope that russia may one day change providing a better life for the russian people and overcoming its plague of corruption, aggression towards neighbors and threats towards nato and the United States. The stakes in the United States and ukraine couldnt be higher. L at no time was i aware of or e knowingly take part in the effort to urge ukraine to investigate the former Vice President played in. As you know from the extensive realtime documentation i have provided, vic, Vice President bn wasnt a topic for discussions. I wasnt on the july 25 phone call between President Trump and president zelensky. Ii wasnt made aware of any reference to Vice President biden nor his son by President Trump. Until the transcript was released on september 25, 2019. From july 7, 2017. Fullstop tenumber 27, 2019, i was the led u. S. Diplomat dealing with russias war on ukraine. The rol role was in some of your regular channel, but the official channel. I reported directly to the oecretaries of state to listen and pompeo cummock at the National Security adviser and secretary of defense wellinformed of my efforts and work closely with the ambassador yovanovitch, and more and morrn assistant secretary mitchell and his successor, Deputy Assistant secretary george kent o under Deputy Assistant secretary defense laura cooper come nsc director and many others. Ive known many of them for several years. It was a team effort. When ambassador yovanovitch left, i identified and recommended bill taylor to secretary pompeo, though we would still have a strong seasoned professional on the ground. For two years before the advent of the heart of this investigation took place to live is the most senior u. S. Diplomat visiting the conflict zone meeting with victims of russiah aggression, urging increased u. S. Security assistance including lethal defensive weapons. Working with ukrainian president ended in his president zelensky and their teams,ni working with france and germany and the socalled norm in the process, pressing for support from nato, the eu and osce, supporting the special Monitoring Mission and engaging in negotiations with other contacts with russian officials. At the time i took the position summer of 2017, there were major competitive questions swirling in the public debate about the direction of u. S. Policy towards ukraine. Whawould the administration of sanctions againstut russia backs to make something of some kindd bargain with russia in which it would train if youou could trade the seizure of ukrainian tterritory for some other deal n syria or elsewhere. But the administration recognize the claim to annexation in crimea . Wouldve become another frozen conflicts . There were a vast number of vacancies in the positions so no one was representing the United States in the process of ending the war in eastern ukraine. During over two years of my tenuren in the u. S. Special representative, we fundamentally turn to the u. S. Policy around. The policy towards ukraine was strong, consistent, and had support across the administration, bipartisan support in Congress Come and support among our allies and ukraine. He changed the languagthey chane commonly used to describe russias aggression. I was the administrations most outspoken figure highlighting russias invasion and occupation of parts of ukraine, calling out russias responsibility to end the war. I visited the war zone three timesin meeting with soldiers ad civilians alike always bringing the media with me to try to raise the publics visibility of russias aggression and the humanitarian impact on the lives i the citizens. We coordinated closely with our european allies in canada to maintain a united front against bush and aggression and four ukraines democracy reform and sovereignty and territorial integrity. Ukraine policy is perhaps the one are area where the u. S. Ands european allies have been in lockstep. This coordination helped to strengthen u. S. Sanctions against russia and to maintain the eu sanctions as well. Along with others in the administration i strongly advocated for lifting the ban on the sale of the Lethal Weapons were at least the arms to ukraine advocating for increasing the Security Assistance and urged other countries to follow suit. My team and i drafted the pompeo declaration of july 25, 2018 in which the secretary clearly and definitively lay out the u. S. Policy of non recognition of russias claim to annexation of korea. I engaged with our allies in ukraine and russia and negotiations to implement the minsk agreement holding a firm line on existing the withdrawal of forces, dismantlin the forcee socalled peoples republics and restoring ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity. Together with others in the administration, we kept the policy study through president ial and parliamentary election in ukraine and worked hard to strengthen bilateral relationship under the new president and government helping to shepherd in a peaceful transition of power in ukraine. In short, whereas two years ago most have said time is on russias side, but 2019 when i departed, we turned the tables and time was now on ukraine side. Its a tragedy in the United States and ukraine that our efforts in this area which were bearing fruit have now been thrown into disarray. One of the critical aspects as my goal is the special representative was at its most senior u. S. Official to work on the ukraine portfolio and he did as she steppedhe forward to provide leadership. If we needed to adopt a position i made the case for it. If we needed to, if anyone needed to speak out publicly, i would do it. When we failed to get a timely statement about russias illegal attack on the navy and the seizure of the ukraine sailors, i said to condemn the act. The problem arose i knew it was fix it. O try to perspective when i learned in may of 2019 that we have a significant problem that was impeding our ability to strengthen our support for the new president in his efforts to ramp up ukraines fight against corruption and implementation of the needed reforms. Afound myself faced with choice to be aware of the problem and ignore it or to accept its my responsibility to try to fix it. I tried to fix it. Cc the problem was that despite the unanimous positive assessment and recommendations of those of us who are part of the delegation that attended the inauguration of president zelensky, president o of trump s receiving a different negative narrative about ukrainian president zelensky. That narrative was fueled by accusations from ukraines prosecutor general and conveyed to the president by a former mayor Rudy Giuliani. As i previouslyy told the committee, i became aware of the negative impact this was having on our policyy efforts when four of us were part of the president ial delegation to theim inauguration meant as a group of President Trump on may 23. We stress our finding that the president zelensky represented the best chance for getting ukraine out of the corruption over 20y have been for years. We urged him to invite president zelensky to the white house. The president was very skeptical. Given ukraines history of corruption, thats understandable. He said ukraine was a corrupt country full of terrible people. He said they tried to take me down. In the t course of the that conversation, he referenced conversations with mayor giuliani. It was clear to me that despite the news and recommendations being conveyed by this official publication about the new president , President Trump have a deeply rooted view in the past. He was receiving other information from other sources including mayor giuliani was more negative, causing him to retain the negative view. Within a few days, may 29, President Trump indeed signed the congratulatory letter to president zelensky which included an invitation to visit him at the white house. However, more than four weeks past, and we didnt nail down a date for the meeting. I came to believe that the president s long hailed negative view towards ukraine was causing hesitation and actually scheduling the meeting. Much as we have seen in our oval office discussion. After weeks of reassuring the ukrainians that it was just a scheduling issue, i decided to tell president zelensky that we had a problem with the information reaching President Trump from mayor giuliani. I did so in a bilateral meeting in a conference on ukrainian economic reform in toronto on ialy 2, 2019, where i lead the u. S. Delegation. Iju suggested that he called President Trump directly in order to renew the personal relationship and to sure President Trump feud is committekeeps committedto invesg corruption, things which he had based the president ial campaign. I was convinced getting them to talk with each other would overcome the negative perception of ukraine that President Trumpa still harbored. The senior aide approached me several days later to ask to be connected to mayor giuliani. I agreed to make the connection. I did so because i understood that the new ukrainian leadershi wanted to convince those like mayor giuliani who believe such a negative narrative about ukraine that the times have changed antimes havet under president zelensky, ukraine is worthy of u. S. Support. Ukrainians believe that they can get their own narrative across in a way that convinced mayor giuliani that they were serious about fighting corruption and advancing reform, mayor giuliani would convey that assessment to s President Trump, thus correctg previous negative narratives. That made sense to me and i tried to be helpful. I made clear to the ukrainians neither giuliani was a private citizen, the president s personal lawyer and not representing the u. S. Government. Likewise come in my conversations with mayoror giuliani i never considered him to be speaking on the president s behalf are giving wg instructions. Rather, the information flow was the other way. From ukraine to mayor giuliani in the hopes that this would clear up the information reaching President Trump. On july 10, after hearing from him, i wrote to mayor giuliani to seek to get together and on july 19 we met for breakfast for a longer discussion. At that meeting, i told mr. Giuliani that in my view the prosecutor general with whom he had been speaking was not credible and was acting in a selfserving capacity. Toak my surprise, mayor giuliani said that he had already come to the same conclusion. He also mentioned both the accusation about Vice President joe biden and interference in the 2,016th election and stressed that all he wanted to see this for ukraine to was foro investigate what happened in the past and apply its own small. Concerning the allegations, i stressed that no one in the team governing ukraine had anything to do with anything that we have happened in 2016. They were making Television Shows of the time. I also said it isnt credible to me that the former Vice President ial biden would have been influenced in any way by financial or personal motives in carrying out his duty as Vice President. Met a person in conversations and Mister Giuliani said he stressed these investigations of what happened into the past and told Mister Giuliani to root out corruption and implement reforms and they would be part of the process anyway. And that he had discussed this and i said i did not think this would be a problem since that is the governments position anyway. But indeed to be prepared to make a statement and that would reference burisma with a wider context to weed out corruption there was no mention of Vice President biden. Rather than referencing burisma it was clear to me that they were only talking about whether ukrainians had acted inappropriately. And getting President Trump and lt. Col. Vindman together to that would have the chronically negative view he had against ukraine was seeking to solve the problem we met with President Trump on d in the oval office for as a professional diplomat i was comfortable iru exploring the statement ukraine could make with its own intentions to investigate corruption that helpful to convince to Mister Giuliani of president mann a positive assessment. But they did not mention burisma and then to have further6 conversation that giuliani said in his view to represent real change in ukraine with a specific reference to burisma in 2016 there was no mention of Vice President biden in these conversations i edited the statement to include these points to see how it looked for then discuss this further when he said for a number of reasons even though the prosecutor general he did not want to mention 2016 or burisma. I agreed and the idea to put out a statement was shelved. These are the last conversations i had about this on or about august 17 or 18. My last contact with Mister Giuliani was on august 13 trying to reach me on septemberh when the inquiry was launched work at thiss time in the middle of august i thought the idea of issuing the statement was scrapped. Was surprised to learn there were discussions about lt. Col. Vindman making a statement similar to what we had discussed in august. Since i gave the testimony in october 3rd i have learned many things i did not know at the time in question. First at the time discussing with the ambassador and Mister Giuliani about the ukrainian president i did not know of any linkage between the hold of Security Assistance and ukraine pursuing investigations nobody said that to me i never linked that to the ukrainians. I opposed it as soon as i learned about it and i thought we could turn it around before they ever knew or became alarmed for i did not know thehe reason but i viewed it as us policy problem we needed to fix internally and i was confident we would do so. I believe the ukrainians became aware of the hold on augh and not before that is the first time any of them asked me by forwarding an article published in politico. F a when i spoke to ukrainians about the hold after the 29th instead of telling them they need to do something to get it released i told them the opposite dont be alarmed it was an internal us problem and we were working to get it fixed for quite didnt know others were conveying a different message around the tge time. Second, i did not know about the strong concerns expressed by National Security advisor john bolton regarding the discussion of investigations for quite participated in the jh meeting between National Security advisor bolton and ukrainian german of the Security Defense counsel and i remember it was over when the ambassador a made a general comment about investigations we thought it was appropriate but it did not continue in the meeting concluded. Later on i may have been engaged in a side conversation or already left the complex because i dont recall further discussions of burisma. Third i did not understand as others believe any investigation of a Ukrainian Company burisma had a history of accusations of corruption that was tantamount to investigate joe biden id draw a sharp distinction have long been us policy under multiple demonstrations to urge ukraine to fight internal corruption i was quite comfortable with ukraine making its own statement about its own policy of investigating fighting corruption at home. At the one in person meeting i had on july 19 mayor giuliani raised i rejected the Conspiracy Theory he wouldve been influenced of his dutieson. I previously testified i have known Vice President biden 24 years he is honorable and hold him in the highest regard. As you know from the extended documentation provided biden was not a topic of discussion he was not on the phone call and i was not made aware of any references by President Trump until the transcript was released on september 25th. Throughout this time i understood there was an important distinctionsept and i urged ukrainians to maintain a distinction i did not know the president or others had raised biden or had conflated the investigation of ukrainian corruption with the former Vice President. In retrospect for the ukrainians that would have been confusing. In hindsight i now understand that others saw that idea with the possible corruption as equivalent to investigating former Vice President biden the former remarkable the last one if i wouldve seen that connection differently it would have raised my own questions much is made of the termon three amigos i never use that term and i cringe when i hear it because that would always refer to senator mccain and senator lieberman and senator graham reference to their work to support the surge in iraq. I was never aware of any one putting the three of us in charge of ukraine policy. Rather as i understood it each of us their own respective official capacities continue to Work Together after the president s inauguration to push for greater support for ukraine. Sksking diplomacy run ukraine negotiations along with my official responsibility with the added support and influence of a cabinet member cod you ambassador. Fifth, is not aware that investor spoke with President Trump on july 26 or ambassador taylor while we were visiting the conflict his own. Allow me to thank you again for the opportunity to provide this testimony i leave us foreignpolicy and National Security interest in ukraine are of critical importancece and im pleased to answer your questions. Thank you. Thank you for your Opening Statementsth will now proceed to the first round of questions 45 minutes of questions conducted by the chairman followed by 45 minutes of the Ranking Member minority counsel time will proceed under the five minute rule. I now recognize myself for counsel for the first round of questions. Ambassador volker a was going to yield but there are a couple points you made in your Opening Statement i want to ask about first. First you saidd that now former attorney general was not credible. The author of a number of allegations against the ambassador that was shared on the hill the number of allegations that have been repeatedly brought up by my republican colleagues. Why is it that you found him nott credible and told Mister Giuliani so . First off the allegations themselves including the ambassador did not appear to be credible at all. I know her to be incredibly competent professional paraguay have worked with her many years that suggestions that she was acting in an inappropriate manner were not credible to me pick rhino Vice President biden for a long time those accusations were not credible. Separate i was aware of the political situation in ukraine. Situation where not appearing to be in a favorable position going into the elections it was increasingly apparent the other candidate would win. As is often the case a change of power means a change of prosecutorial powers as well their efforts of the past to prosecute the previous government. In my estimation it was interested in preserving his own position he wanted to avoid being fired by a new government to prevent prosecution of himself possibly it also something that wouldve wanted as well because avoiding any efforts to go after the president so making allegations like this to make sure it reaches the us media he is trying to make himself appear to be an important and influential player in the United States. Let me ask about the allegations against joe biden because that is being continued to be framed why did you find those allegations related to his son burisma not to be believed . I know former Vice President biden for a long time. He respects his duties of Higher Office and thats not credible to me that a Vice President of the United States would do anything other than how he sees best of nationalng interest. That you said in hindsight i now understand others saw looking at the Ukrainian Company burisma to investigate former Vice President biden i saw themmpa different one unremarkable the latter unacceptable. In retrospect you said i should have seen a connection differently and had i done so i would have raised my own objections. What is it now in retrospect you recognize that you didnt at the time that lead you to conclude what or should have raised these objections quick. I did not see the distinction between things as i thought. As i said there is a history of corruption in ukraine and with burisma that has been investigated that is well known. The Vice President son was a board member of the company that those were distinct and what i was trying to do working with the ukrainians is to thread the needle to see what they could do that were do i wappropriate but as it turs out i understand the most of the other people did not see this or consider that distinction. One of those people who turned out to be the president of the United States i take it you didnt know until the call record was released that the president doesnt raise burisma he asks for investigation of the bidens. Correct. You acknowledge that asking for an investigation of the bidens would have been unacceptable and objectionable that had the president ask you to get ukraine to investigate that you would have told them so. Didt would have a jeff well objected. As a followup meeting thread the needle that you understood the relationship between biden son and burisma but youre trying to separate the two of them in your mind quick. I believe they were separate. As referenced to the calm conversation of giuliani that it was selfserving and not credible. A separate question if it is appropriate for ukraine to investigate possible corruption of ukrainians that have tried to corrupt things and to me those are very Different Things and therr former is on v unacceptable but you knew of that relationship. I knew hed. Was a board member thats why i made that distinction. Focus on the july 25th call for a why moment. What day was that for you as a senior director overseeing ukraine . Approximately ten days may be a few days in the office. You testified in your deposition you received an email on the morning of july 2h from the ambassador shortly before the call on the morning of july 25th from the ambassador shortly before the call. I believe the ambassador told you he had briefedve President Trump quick. Yes. You also said the ambassador told you on another occasion he could call the president whenever he wanted . Yes. On july 25th did you make an effort to confirm whether or not the phone call between the president actually occurred quick. Did it happen quick. Yes. On other occasions when they said they spoke with President Trump did you also seek confirmation of that fact and when you did seek to confirm that they had spoken what did you find quick. That they had. Pulling up a text message on the morning of july 25th between ambassador sondland with you ambassador volkerr at 754 ambassador sondland says call asap and then you respond is the screen working in front of you . Go ahead and read what you said. Who is andre quick. The Senior Advisor to the apresident of ukraine. What was the message you had received quick. That president zelensky was forthright about his commitment to fight corruption and investigate and if he does that President Trump was prepared to be reassured that he was say yes as scheduled. Did you understand that ambassador sondland had spoken to President Trump . And wasnt sure if he had or not hed said he had a knew he had conversations in general i didnt know specifically about what leading up tone this. Now here is another text message from you that save morning at 8 36 a. M. To andre. Because of the time difference actually this is in the afternoon in ukraine. This is east coast time slightly less than half an hour before between the call of President Trump and president zelensky and could you just read what you you there . Yes. Just after the lunch i had with Andriy Yermak. Says good lunch. Thanks. Heard from white house. Assuming president z. Convinces trump hell investigate, get to the bottom of what happened in 2016, we will nail dow does this accurately relay the message you had received from ambassador sondland . Yes did the National Security council also prepare talking points for President Trump for this call quick. Yes. Per usual custom were they based on the official United States policy objectives . They were spent there is a dispute what that means so can you explain how official us policy is determined through the interagency process . We offer one operate under National President ial memorandum number four there are options for his decisions. There is an extensive process to finalize any policy. Sometimes. You listen to this call on the 25th quick. From the white house situation room. In your deposition you testified the call was not what you were hoping to hear. What did you mean by that quick. Ing was hoping for more support from the president regarding the reform agenda given where we were at the time with respect of the overwhelming mandate president zelensky from the support of people. That is the Ukrainian Parliament the election was four days earlier and president Zelensky Party won in a landslide. They received more than a majority. So in ukraine there was tremendous support for president zelensky anticorruption agenda. At the time. Within the interagency National Security agency here states was there broad support for president zelensky . There was broad support to give president zelensky a chance. To that point he had t shown he put his money where his mouth was for those three months he was in office. Approximately three months yes. Want to show a couple of excerpts from the call record. The first is President Trump responding to a comment but to president zelensky related to support from the United States and the purchase of javelin and the president says i would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and ukraine knows a lot about it. Find out what happened with the whole situation withh ukraine i guess you have one of your wealthy people the server they say ukraine has it. Go to the next excerpt where President Trump says the other thing theres a lot of talk about biden son he stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great biden went around bragging he stopped the prosecution if you could look do t t into that it sounds horrible to me. Are these references to crowd strike the server 2016 election where they included in the president s talking points . They were not. Where they consistent with what you understood to be official us policy quick. I was not aware of any at the time. Subsequent to this call you did nothing to implement the investigations that President Trump or the request that he asked for. I did not understand any instruction to do so. You are not aware of anyone else that you coordinate the interagency process or anyone else that was doing that either. Correct. You testified in your deposition hearing this call confirmed the parallell process that your predecessor fiona hill had warned you about. What did you mean quick. During the period of which doctor hill and i were conducting a handoff meeting so i could be up to speed on the various things occurring in the portfolio at the time, she mentioned the traditional process and the parallel process and in the context of discussing the parallel process she mentioned issues like burisma which was noteworthy to me at the time because i had never heard of them before and upon hearing them in the call ended up confirming that there is something here. Who did she inform he was involved in the parallel process quick. Mister giuliani and ambassador sondland. After she informed you of this Company Burisma what did you do to determine what that was quick. After that handoff meeting i proceeded to look it up on the internet and i google that. Did you see that association . Yes. Ambassador volcker you did not listen to the call but you testified you were surprised and troubled when you read the call record after it was released september 25th. And afterwards it is clear to you the biden and Burisma Burisma 2016 elections discussed were designed to serve the president s political interest not the national interest. I dont recall that language for my testimony was that from october 3rd quick. I would like to phrase it and my words now. I dont think that raising 2016 elections over Vice President biden what i consider a Conspiracy Theory circulated by the prosecutor general ukrainian are not things we should be pursuing as part of our National Security strategy witht ukraine we should be supporting their democracy and reforms and its own fight against corruption domestically in the struggle against russia, defense capabilities. These are the heart of what we should be doing i dont think this serves the national interest. Shortly after you heard the h call, you testified you alerted John Eisenberg right away. And in your openingen statement you went out of concern for the pollen on potential political fallout as the call record became public not because you thought it was illegal. L rd correct. But you would agree asking a Foreign Government to investigate a domestic political rival is an appropriate. Would you a not. Is not what we would recommend the president discuss. In the second meeting with mister eisenberg what would you recommend we do to prevent the call records from leakingou recommended strict access. Have you ever asked them to restrict access before quick. Knows but did you speak to your supervisor before you went quick. No. Did you learn the call record was put in a highly classified system quick. I did what reason did he give you why it was put in a highly classified system quick. It was a mistake. It was an administrative error. Isnt it also true you have authority to restrict access on the regular system if you wanted to quick. I believe i could have instructed the appropriate staf staff. So why did you go to the Legal Advisor . I was also concerned based on the participants in the listening room that day that i did not then or now recall anyone from the i nsc office and i wanted to make sure the Legal Advisor and his deputy were aware to review this particular transcript. You wanted them to review it because you were concerned about the potential political consequences not because of anything was wrong. Correctti political consequences was a umbrella statement of the effects i feared what would happen if and when the content of the transcript became public. Just to make sure i understand this correctly, you heard the call. You recognize that President Trump is not discussing the talking points that was prepared based on official us policy instead talking about the investigations that fiona hill had warned you about and then you reported it immediately to the nsc legalal advisor. Is that the correct chain of events . Now ambassador volcker on the july 25 call president zelinski said Rudy Giuliani had already spoken with one of his associates and that he hopes he will come to ukraine and then President Trump mentions Mister Giuliani on three separate occasions of this call. You testifiedonli on may 23rd meeting in the oval office where the president c spoke quite negatively about ukraine and how it would try to take him down. And that he repeated some of the allegations that Mister Giuliani was making. Correct. Yes. Those allegations were in the media. Is yes. During that meeting President Trump told you and secretary perry and ambassador sondland to talk toid him. I didnt take it as an instruction book i want to be clear about that he said thats not what i hear. When we were giving him our assessment of president zelensky thats not what i hear. I hear terrible things he has terrible people around him. Talk to rudy. I understood it and that context saying thats where he rr from not as an instruction. When he said talk to rudy you did take that to mean to talk to rudy quick. I did not take it that way. Just part of the dialogue. I hear other things i hurt i hear that from other people thats not what i talked to rudy it was just like part of the dialogue. After that meeting did you quick. Not immediately. Know. This was may 23rd and we continued to proceed with our effort to get the visit scheduled for the new ukrainian president. I did however on july 2nd as i was becoming concerned we were not succeedingg and said i think we have a problem being this negative feet of information from misterin giuliani. Ultimately as you testified omth your statement you introduce them to Mister Giuliani and then they met. So now during this time when they met, ukraine still desperately wanted that oval offices meeting. Correct. And you wanted that for president zelensky. Ov correct. Why was that so important to president zelensky quick. He felt he was not well understood by President Trump is a charismatic leader campaigning in ukraine against the legacy of corruption that had been there with a massive showing in the president ial election. He believed he was leading a movement of major change in ukraine and President Trump did not see that or appreciate that. But if he had a chance to sit down and speak with President Trump facetoface he believed he could be very convincing about that and i agree witht him. That was your assessment. And i believe it was also others. And as you understood from your experience in ukraine there would be a significant boost of legitimately one legitimacy at home if he had photos in the oval office. Yes. Testified Mister Giuliani andur president zelensky aid meet on august 2nd. Did you learn Mister Giuliani requested anything of ukrainians at that meeting quick. Only when i spoke afterwards Mister Giuliani said he thought ukraine should issue a statement and then i spoke with the assistant after that and said yes we are prepared to make a statement and then that kicks off a series of discussions in my testimony. That Mister Giuliani did not explain to you what needed to be included in the statement . He said something more general i recall him saying something about fighting corruption but as i recall speaking with the assistant the statement would include specific mention of burisma and 2016. Lets go through some of those Text Messages so we know who said why it. First on august 9th, this is a Text Exchange between you and ambassador sondland where ambassador sondland writes at the top more said ready as soon as it is confirmed. I said excellent. Land respon i did. I think potus really wants the deliverable. But does he know that . Ambassador sondland s so now you are referenced in this text message have you discussed confirming a date for a white house visit with president zelensky around this time quick. I likely would have. Did you have any discussions with him about a statement that ukraine that they were trying to get them to make quick. I did not. Do you yourself know what ambassador sondland meant by that deliverable . I did not at the time but i think i have an understanding now. With the discussions of various drafts from the various proceedings. But to your knowledge it was part of that parallellbe process . Yes. Next exhibit which is another Text Exchange a few minutes later where ambassador sondland says to avoid misunderstanding of might be helpful to ask andre for a draft statement embargo so we can see exactly what they propose toto cover even though president zelensky can still summarize in a brief statement. Agree. This relates to the statement giuliani wanted quick. Now to the next day s tost 10 there is another Text Exchange between you and andre the same aid from madrid and if you can read what you wrote at the top. I agree with your approach use that to get president zelensky to move forward. We will call for a press briefing announcing the upcoming visit for the reboot of us ukraine relationship including burisma and election meddling and investigations. What did you respond quick. Sounds great. The date he is referring to is the date for the white house visit quick. Correct. Two days later you receive another text message from andre which read special attention should be paid to the problem of interference in the political process of the United States especially with the alleged involvementnt of some ukrainian politicians prick i want to declare this is unacceptable we want to initiate with the and the investigation which will in turn prevent the recurrence of this problem in the future. This was a draft of the statement that youou and Mister Giuliani and mister t14 were discussing quick. This was after that discussion. It doesnt mention burisma. Know. You testified in the deposition to have a conversation about this draft after you received it and Mister Giuliani said the statement did not include burisma then it would not have any credibility. Thats correct. This is the same Rudy Giuliani that president nt trump was discussing that may 23rd meeting. That is the same. Even at that point you were aware of these investigations he was publicly promoting . I knew he was is interested in those conspiracy theories. He was is insisting on a public commitment from president zelensky to do these investigations. M what do we mean quick. T three and 2016, yes. At the time you were engaged in coordinating for the statement did you find it unusual there was such an emphasis on a Public Statement to carry out the investigations the president was seeking quick. I didnt find it that unusual when you deal with a situation where i believe the president was highlyk skeptical about president zelensky to be committed to really changing ukraine after his entirely negative view of the country he would want to hear something moreer to be convinced that i will give this guy a chance. Perhaps he also wanted a Public Statement because that would lock him into these investigations that would benefit him quick. When you say these investigation i understood us to be talking about ukraine corruption. But we are talking burisma and 2016. So when i say these investigations is a tickly rePublic Statement would be important to Mister Giuliani because it was useful to the president quick. The way i saw it would be helpful and the way to be convincing to mayor giuliani and also the president that the team in ukraine is serious about fighting corruption and if that wouldte be helpful to getting a more positive attitude with the meeting schedule that would be useful. Because that is a necessary condition. I wouldnt call it necessary condition in fact when it became clearhe later we to agree i agree to drop it. Its not worth it. But is it your testimony based on the text that you erote linking the investigation of the 2016 election you say by this point in august with this backandforth that you arere unaware this Public Statement was a condition quick. I wouldnt call it a condition. Nuance. I viewed it as very helpful if we can get this done it would help to improve the perception that President Trump and others had and we would get the date for auld meeting if we didnt have a statement i wasnt thinking we will never get a meeting. Go to the next day with another Text Exchange. At the top just read the first. Hi andre next is the two key items we will work on official request. Then you see the highlighted portion it is identical to the previous including those with the 2016 election. Correct. That is what he insisted on adding to the statement. He said that would be. Ecessary to make it credible the ukrainians ultimately did not issue the statement. Correct and president zelensky did not get the Oval Office Meeting. Not yet. Moving forward to september when the Security Assistance and to pressure the ukrainians you accompanied Vice President pentz to warsaw. I was in warsaw as designated as the president s representative accompanying ambassadoren bolton. In that meeting with ukrainians concerned about the hold on securitynd clearance what do they say quick. The first issue that president zelensky raisedd with the Vice President they were very interested. And the importance to the relationship. And that working to address and the president s prior to his asian getting the europeans to contribute more. Did he directly explain those were the reasons for the hold or just general concerns of the president . I dont know if he acknowledged a hold but they were reviewing the assistance. And those are the points that he raised to understand where we were in the process. But to your knowledge and with ukraine Security Assistance. And running a review. And then for the president s consideration. And that entire inter agencies supported. Correct. After the larger meeting with the Vice President and president zelensky you testified that you saw ambassador sondland immediately go over to pulli Mister Yermak aside and have a conversation. Vice president left the zroom then ambassador sondland and advisor yermak had a discussion. What did ambassador sondland tell you that he told Mister Yermak. That the ukrainians would have to have the prosecutor generald make a statement with reese back to the investigation for the aid. You testified you were not comfortable with what ambassador sondland had told you. Why not . And then to accomplish. Theres a whole other bank goal. And you tell ambassador taylor. I promptly reached out to secure a phone call. And then you with one small distinction between the prosecutor general and president zelensky was accurate. About that conversation yes. And then you confirmed everything the ambassador told you minus the ministerial matter. Correct. I reached out for a secure phone call. Tell the lawyer. When i returned i did. Did they explain why so on december 7 and you expect one speak again that he had just gotten off the phone with d President Trump. And what did he say to him quick. If i recall it is where ambassador sondland related that there was no quid pro quo. President zelensky had to make the statement and want to do it. Do you see the statement. I think i did. That was a condition for the Security Assistance to be released. I think that is what ambassador sondland believed that is what he represented after talking to the president. Why did you have a sinking feeling . On september 7 these are one year dollars the dod and the funds theres only so much time because a Congress Imposed a 15 day notification requirement and then to have the funds to go forward. Did you tell him about this conversation as well quick. Yes he said tell the lawyer. Why did he sads that. But he doesnt tell you to tell the lawyers because you are running up on the eight day deadline. Again i dont know why but it seemede reasonable for what i would do anyway. You wouldnt tell them that because of what you were hearin hearing. Just so we are clear you reported conversations you had with ambassador sondland to the lawyers Early September in which you understood from him the president was withholding Security Assistance has additional leverage to get ukraine to publicly announce the political investigations that President Trump hadto discussed on the july 25th call. I was concerned about what ambassador sondland wasas sayin. You understood the investigation that was being referred to was what President Trump referenced. At this pointns yes. Did you have any conversations with ambassador voelker quick. What do you recall quick. Or or about september 5th ambassador voelker was in town to provide an update on activities and provided dad update with a one on one conversation. What do you recall. With his understanding of events. Do you explain what your understanding of events was quick. I was on receive mode. Do you recall this conversation quick. I do remember im not sure about the timing. I was leaving to go on a trip it may be a little earlier. Not sure about the timing. And that was asking me what is my impression and to find it helpful to have political contacts of the white house. And the diplomatic front or to have that political context and with those goals and i view that as helpful. So the next exhibit the Text Exchange with you with the ambassador sondland who saysys multiple conversations with president zelensky and potus lets talk. Than 60 minutes later says we just spoke if you and gordon dont connect. One hour later ambassador taylor says the nightmare is they gave the interview and dont get the Security Assistance the russians love and i quit and then five hours later how do you respond. Im not in the loop talk monday. C were not in the loop with all of these conversations hs that ambassador taylor were having quick. Now ultimately the hold was lifted on september 11 quick. Thats my understanding. So prior to september 11 there was a whistleblower complaint circulating around the white house . That you are aware of our request to preserve records. We received a number of those request i have a general. When was that lifted quick. He get that direction the evening of september 11. Were you aware of thatga quick. I yield spirit that concludes the majority 45 minutes is the council okay or do you need a break . Ranking member you are recognized for 45 minutes. I have some bad news for you tv ratings are way down. Way down dont take it personally but whatever drug deal the democrats are cooking up on the dais the American People are not buying it. I know you answer this in your Opening Statement but i want to bring a little more clarity i will startng with you if anyone ever asked you to bribe or distort extort anyone at any time quick. No sir. Personare the top reporting to ambassador bolton quick. You have a storied career thank you for your service you were the speciali envoy to ukraine quick. Did anyone at the white house ever ask you to bribe or extort anything out of anyone at any time. Thank you for being here i will yield. Thank you for participating depositions you are the first one on october 3rd so thank you for your participation as a long time hill staffer nearly 20 years and ambassador voelker just want to walk through your positions and then you are at the state department and the portfolios bands. I was a principal deficit Deputy Assistant in that particular responsibility and then met the nationalad Security Council and then the senior director for european and Eurasian Affairs. And to note that all the witnesses we have attracted with saying that you were a brilliant diplomat which is very high praise. Serving as a special representative for ukraine negotiations for free quick. On aa voluntary basis and you put a lot of time and effort into that job and they certainly got their moneys worth as a taxpayer. [laughter] do you believe americas policy has been strengthened as a special representative quick. Looking back we did a lot to support ukraine. President trump approved each decision made along the way and then the nonrecognition statement. For many years there was an initiative for a Legal Defense weapon. Correct. Not until the president and his administration cameal in. Correct delegation to pres zelenskys inauguration in may, i believe you testified it was one of the largest delegations . I believe it was. I cant be 100 sure, but i believe it was the large of the national delegation. Included in the delegation was secretary perry. Secretary perry, ambassador sondland, myself, senator ron johnson was there, and also the affair at the u. S. Embassy at the time joe pennington. Okay. The we talked a little bit this morning, but president zelenskys inauguration came together rather quickly . It did. We had three days notice in which to put the delegation together . There was discussion as to whether the Vice President would lead that effort and as it turned out he was not able to lead it. Do you have information as to why the Vice President was unable to join . I dont. Mr. Morrison, do you have any information as to why the Vice President was unable to participate in the delegation . No. Ambassador volker, you testified during your deposition that aid, in fact, does get held up from time to time for a whole assortment of reasons. Is that your understanding . That is true. Sometimes the holdups are rooted in something at omb, sometimes its at the Defense Department, sometimes its at the state department and sometimes its on the hill, correct . That is correct. And so when the aid was held up for 55 days for ukraine, that didnt in and of itself strike you as uncommon. No. Its something that had happened in my career in the past. Ive seen holdups of assistance. I just assumed it was part of the Decision Making progress, someone had an objection and we had to overcome it. In fact, there were concerns that perhaps president zelensky wasnt going to be the reformer that he campaigned on . That was a sub session that i made because of the meeting with the president on may 23rd. I thought that could be whats behind it. And in fact the aid was lifted shortly after he was able to convene at parliament . I believe he let me get the day straight. I believe he was able to convene on the 8th of september. When he was able to convene a parliament he was able to push through anticorruption initiatives. Than began with the parliament seated on that day and it continued for some time. That was annen are encouraging sign . It started off in a very encouraging way, yes. And other than these things going on in the background with the pause in the aid the u. S. Relations with ukraine, you testified, are you stated it was about as good as youd want them to be . Can you repeat the question . Im sorry. You testified at your deposition that once the aid was lifted, despite all of the things going on in the background that u. S. Ukrainian relations were strong and where youd want them to be. Yes. Yes. You referenced that the Security Sector assistance was lifted and any hold on that, that there was a positive meeting in new york. Thats correct. At the unga, and there was momentum in putting pressure on the russians, is that correct . That is correct. In your deposition you made it clear that President Trump had a deeprooted negative view in ukraine and their corruption environment . Yes. And you first became aware of his views back in september 2017 . Thats correct. Can you tell us about that . Yes. In september 2017 i was invited by secretary tillerson to do a prebrief with President Trump before his meeting with president poroshenko on the General Assembly. I did the prebrief and i took part in the bilateral meeting. And so long before president zelensky was elected, President Trump had a negative view of yes. He had a very strongly negative view. Back in 2017, do you remember anything he said or did that gave you a feeling that he had these negative feelings . Yes. I want to be very careful here because this was a bilateral meeting between the two president s and i dont want to strain the classified material, but i can tell you my impression is that he had a strongly negative view of ukraine at the time. Fair enough. And you described the president s skepticism at your deposition as a reasonable position . Yes. And i believe you said most people who know anything about ukraine would possibly think that . Yes. And you viewed it as part of your role that helped change his mind that president zelensky was a genuine reformer and he wasnt running for office for selfenrichment. That he was, indeed, a good person. Thats correct. During the may 23rd meeting with the president in the oval office, could you just relate to us the concerns the president articulated with the ukraine. The president came into the meeting and immediately started speaking. He had just a string of comments that ukraine is a terrible place. Theyre all corrupt and theyre terrible people and they tried to take me down. I tried to explain along with the others that were there. Each of us took turns speaking. I tried to explain that president zelensky agrees with you. He was elected because of that situation in ukraine and he has a strong mandate from the people of ukraine to change it, and thats why its important that we actually show him very strong support now, but the president was not convinced and he said that zelensky is no different, that he has terrible people around him, you know, its not what i hear about ukraine, what were telling him. You know, i hear nothing has changed. Talk to rudy. That kind of dialogue as i described. And when the president said that the ukrainians tried to take him down, did you have any good what he was referring to . I did. I believe he was referring to the rumors of efforts interfering in the 2016 election by providing damaging information about the election or Paul Manafort to the Hillary Clinton campaign and that was one of the rumors that had been out there and had gotten some support from the ukrainian prosecutor general. To the best of your knowledge the president genuinely believed that, right . I believe hes concerned about it. I dont know what he actually believed, but he brought it up. Okay. Mr. Morrison, you were also aware of the president s skeptical view of foreign aid, generally . Yes. And that there was an initiative that he was looking at foreign aid pretty broadly in. Yes. And trying to scrutinize to make sure the u. S. Taxpayers were getting their moneys worth . Yes. And the president was also interested, was he not, in a better understanding opportunities for increased burden sharing among the europeans . Yes. And what can you tell us about that . The president was concerned that the United States seemed to bear the exclusive brunt of Security Assistance to ukraine. He wanted to see the europeans step up and contribute more Security Assistance. And was there any inner Agency Activity whether it be with the state department or the Defense Department in coordination with the National Security council to look into that for the president . We were sur vague the data to understand who was contributing what and sort of in what categories. And so the president , he concerns the inner agency tried to address them. By late august, we just discussed, and it could give some hope that hed be able to push through some of these reforms rjs and during this 55day period when the aid was paused, do you think eid be able to strain ooh and to get the president to lift the aid . Yes. In fact, you you traveled with ambassador bolton to the ukraine right around labor day weekend, correct . Yes. And you met with president zelensky on, i believe, it was august 29th . Ambassador bolton had a meeting with president zelensky and i staffed that meeting. And thats right around the time that rata had met and they started to push through their reforms . As i recall the date of the meeting between ambassador bolton and president zelensky was the new day of the new rata. And some of these reforms included naming a new prosecutor general. A brandnew cabinet. Yes. And they pushed through some legislation that eliminated members, and i believe you provided some color into this experience, this meeting and you said that the ukrainian his been up all night working on some of these legislative initiatives. Yes. The ukrainians with whom we met were by all periods exhausted by the activity. Was ambassador bolton encouraged by the activity . Yes, he was. Was the meeting altogether favorable . Quite. And at that point in time after the meeting ambassador bolton, did he head off to warsaw with the Vice President or did he just i know you went to warsaw. Well, we had a few stops between ukraine and poland, but yes, ambassador bolton proceeded to warsaw where we were expecting to ensure everything was staged properly for the president s arrival. And did you have an opportunity to brief the Vice President on i did not. Did ambassador bolton . He did. What do you remember from what ambassador bolton shared with the Vice President about the zelensky meeting . I was not there. The issue i remember most starkly was ambassador was quite annoyed that ambassador sondland crashed the prebrief, but the ambassador had everything he needed to ensure that either the president or the Vice President were well prepared. But did you brief ambassador bolton before he had an opportunity to meet with the Vice President . I didnt need to. Ambassador bolton was there. As far as you know ambassador bolton communicated that the goings on were positive . At this time, ambassador bolton was advocating for the lifting of the aid . He had been for some time, yes. And did you participate in the warsaw meetings . We had a reduced schedule from what had been arranged for the president for the Vice President , but the Vice President met with president duda of poland and i participated in both meetings. What do you remember from the meetings with president zelensky . It seemed very positive. President zelensky raised the issue of the aid, right . Yes. How did the Vice President respond . He represented his support for the aid. He represented the strong commitment of the United States to ukraine and he explained that President Trump, because this is after the politico article had come out that made clear there was a hold, he explained that what we were doing, the United States government and the inner agency was examining what more europe could do in the security space and taking a look at how ukraine was reforming what has been a history of corruption. And was there any discussion during the meeting with president zelensky on the part of the Vice President about any of these investigations weve come to talk about . No. So burisma wasnt raised . No. 2016 election wasnt raised . No. And the Vice President didnt mention any investigations at all, did he . No. You mentioned the august 28th politico article. Was that the first time that you believe the ukrainians may have had a real sense that the aid was on hold . Yes. So from the 55day period spanning july 18th through september 11th, it didnt really become public until august 28th . Thats correct. Ambassador taylor and i had a number of phone calls where we, in fact, talked about did the ukrainians know yet because we both felt very strongly that it was important that we ensure that the president was able to make the decision to release the aid before the ukrainians found out about it. Ambassador volker. Is that also your recollection . Yes, it is. That it wasnt until the political article . Thats correct. I received a text message from one of my ukrainian counterparts on may 29th forwarding the article and that was the first they shared it with me. Can you share with us about your communications during that time period about withholing the aid . Yes. I didnt have any communications with the ukrainians about the hold on aid until after they raised it with me for the same reason that tim just gave in the hope that we could get it taken care of ourselves before it became something that they became aware of. Inside the u. S. Government i was aware that the hold was placed i was aware of that on july 18th. It was referenced that an inner Agency Meeting and i got a readout, and i then immediately spoke with several people in the administration to object. I thought this was a bad decision or a bad hold and maybe not a decision, but a process and all of the arguments were marshalled to get it lifted and i spoke with the assistant state department and they were going to have the state department and i believe i spoke with the bureau and the National Security council staff. So i was actively trying to convey that this needed to be lifted, and i wanted them to be able to use my name in doing so because i felt that the best prospect for positioning ourselves for negotiations with russia is the strongest defense capability for ukraine. And during this time period did you come to believe that any of these investigations were part of the holdup in the aid . No, i did not. Backtracking in july 3rd you met in toronto with president zelensky and theres been some, you know, ambassador taylor and mr. Kebnt provided some information that part of this irregular channel that ambassador taylor referenced would would rear its head in toronto. Im just wondering if you can tell us whether that, in fact, happened. Yes. Thank you. I can only tell you what i know. There may have been other conversations or other things, but i know that we had a conversation, bill taylor and i believe Gordon Sondland, i believe, around the 28th of june that later was a conversation with president zelensky, although i may not have been part of the latter. That being said, i was convinced after that conversation wed gotten nowhere. We had a White House Briefing on President Trump on may 23rd and he signed a letter on may 29th and for several weeks we were just temperizing with the ukrainians saying were working on it. Its a scheduling issue. Well get there. Dont worry, and i told bill and gordon that i was going to see president zelensky in toronto. I feel an obligation to tell him the truth. We have a problem here and were not getting a date scheduled and heres where i think the problem is and its the negative information flow from mayor giuliani and that he would i read also that i would advise him that he should call President Trump personally because he needed to renew that personal relationship and be able to convey to President Trump about fighting corruption that happened in the past and so forth. So i did all of that with president zelensky in after a formal, bilateral meeting. Okay. During that meeting in stront owe or the series of meetings, was there no discussion of preconditions and invest gagds or preconditions or anything of that sort . No. You were there with mr. Kent . Yes. I believe so. Did you have discussions with him about preconditions or investigations . Not at that time. Later on these things came up when we were talking about a statement whether there were investigation, but i believe at this time in toronto it was more referring to investigations generically that that is how you go about fighting corruption and president zelensky should reaffirm his commitment to President Trump in a direct phone call. Okay. At any point in time had mr. Kent raised any concerns to you about any of this . Not at that time. Next event i want to cover is the july 10th meeting at ambassador bottoms office and talked a little bit about it this morning and i dont know if you caught the coverage, but there was testimony that at some point ambassador sondland mentioned investigations and reportedly that the meeting ended abruptly. What can you tell us about that fact . Thank you. Let me ask you that question, and i would like to go back to the question, if i may, but on the july 10th meeting, this was a meeting that we had arranged between alex demmeliuk and the National Security adviser bolton. Attending to the meeting was also secretary perry, ambassador sondland, myself, i believe fiona hill and also andre yermak. The purpose was a counter part visit. I thought that this would be the first opportunity and the first highlevel meeting that we were having in washington with a senior u. S. Official ambassador bolton after president zelenskys inauguration. I thought it would be a great opportunity for the ukrainians to make their case. They are the new team in town, real deal about fighting corruption. I was rather disappointed with the meeting as it trance transpired and it was about reform of National Security structures in ukraine and legislation that they were working on and not the big picture and not the bilateral relationship. So i was a bit disappointed by that. At the end of the meeting, i do recall seeing some of the testimony and i believe ambassador sondland did it in a generic way and i think all of us taught it was the conversation did not pick up. The meeting was over and we had a picture taken inside of the white house and all of this, ambassador bolton went to the war room about how do we follow up tp keep the relationship, and i remember having a conversation with secretary perry and one of his assistance, and i dont recall following up on investigations or burisma. And to the best of your knowledge, there was certainly no precondition discussed, right . No. No. Again, the issue of the Security Assistance was one where i thought that this was really related to a general negative view about ukraine. There was Nothing Specific ever communicated to me about it or the reasons why it was held and we certainly didnt want to talk about it with the ukrainians. We wanted to fix it. Okay. And a couple of weeks later the july 25th phone call happened and you were headed to ukraine during that time period . Yes. I was actually already on my way to ukraine i think two days prior to that. And you received readouts both from the u. S. Side and the ukrainian side. Can you tell us about that . I was not on the phone call. I had arrived from ukraine and id had the lunch with mr. Yermak on the day of the phone call. Id been pushing for the phone call because i thought it was important to renew the personal connection between the two leaders and to congratulate president zelensky on the parliamentary election. The readout that i received from mr. Yermak and on the u. S. Side, although im not sure who it was on the u. S. Side, but there was a, crani ukrainian and u. S. Read out. It was a congratulatory phone call for the president winning the parliamentary election. President zelensky did reiterate his commitment to fighting reform and corruption in ukraine and President Trump did reiterate his invitation to president zelensky to come to visit him in the white house. Its exactly what i thought the phone call would be so i was not surprised as getting that as the readout. Did you ever have any discussions with ambassador taylor about this . At that time we were together in ukraine at that time. We went the very next day to visit the conflict zone, and im sure he heard the same readout that did i. You had a meeting with president zelensky on the tricksth . We had the meeting before heading out to conflict zones. Werent they about the call with president zelensky and only the bare bones readout how i was received and thats what i remember of president zelensky. President trump zelensky was let me turn that around and say he was very positive about the phone call. I dont recall him saying anything about demand, but he was upbeat about the phone call. There was no discussion on the part of president zelensky about how to navigate the concerns i dont recall. Things that people are the articulated about the call . I dont remember that. Mr. Zeldin asked you in the deposition in any way, shape or form in readouts from the United States or ukraine did you receive any indication whatsoever or anything that resembled a quid pro quo, is that correct . Thats correct. And the same would would go for this new allegation of bribery . Ive only seen an allegation of bribery in the last week. Its the same comment and instead of quid pro quo it is bribery. Ive never been involved in bribery at all. Or extortion . Or extortion. Mr. Castor, may i address two specific points . Of course. One is i am reminded that the meeting with ambassador bolton took place on july 10th and i did not become aware of the withholding of Security Assistance until july 18th and that was another reason why that did not come up. At that point in time you did not know that the potential pause in the Security Assistance was brewing . I did not, no. I heard about it for the first time on the 18th of july. May i make a second observation, as well . Absolutely. I do remember having seen some of the testimony of mr. Kent a conversation in which he had asked me about the conspiracy theories that were out there in ukraine. I dont remember what the date of this conversation was, and my view was well, if there are things like that then why not investigate them . I dont believe that theres anything to them. If there is 2016 election interfere sense what i was thinking about, and i didnt think anything there to begin with. Do you believe the ukrainians were going to investigate other ukrainians for wrongdoing that was perfectly acceptable . Correct. That was u. S. Policy for years. If there were ukrainians involved in the Burisma Company that, i think, is the only plausible thing to look at there. As i said, i dont find it plausible or credible that Vice President biden would have been influenced in his duty, but individual ukrainians in the society that ukraine has been for decades were trying to act in a corrupt way or to buy it, thats plausible. Deputy assistant secretary kent last wednesday told us about there was an investigation into burisma trying to recoop taxpayer dollars and there was a bribe paid. Were you tracking that . I was aware of those kinds of things. I couldnt give you those kinds of details. I just know that there was a reputation around the company. Okay. And sew subsequent to the to those facts and the bribe being paid, the Burisma Company wanted to improve their image and added some folks to their board including the president of poland and hunter biden. Are you familiar with that . Thats what i understand. And to the extent the ukrainians and the folks affiliated with burisma wanted to hire those people for their board for protection purposes so they could continue to engage in misdeeds, if that was a fact worth investigating you certainly would be supportive of ukrainians trying to get to the bottom of that, correct . I cant speculate as to the specifics of what was motivating burisma or not. Ukrainian government authorities investigating possible corruption is a perfectly proper thing to do. Mr. Morrison, i want to turn our attention back to the july 25th call. You were in the room. Did anything concern you on the call . No, and after the call ended you, like colonel vindman one of your next steps was to engage the nsc lawyers and your reasons for doing that were slightly different than colonel vindmans and you articulated three concerns and do you want to share them with us or would you rather i do it . So, i think i articulated two concerns and if im forgetting one, please remind me, but the two concerns i had, was one i did not see representatives of sc legal on the call and i wanted to make sure that the Legal Adviser and his deputy were aware of the call and i was also concerned about taking steps to protect the memcon limited disclosure for fear of the consequences of it leaking. And you were concerned about it leaking because you were worried about how it would play out in washingtons polarized political environment, correct . Yes. And you were also worried how that would lead to the bipartisan support here in congress of towards ukraine, right . Yes. And you were also concerned that it might affect the ukrainians perception negatively. Yes. And in fact all three of those things have played out. Havent they . Yes. You didnt ask the lawyers to put her on the code word system, correct . I want to be precise about the lexicon here. I did not ask for it to be moved to a compartmented system. Okay. You just wanted the transcript to be controlled. I wanted access to be restricted. Okay. And when you learned that the transcript had been stored on the compartmented server, you believe that was a mistake, correct . Well, it was represented to me that it was a mistake. I was trying to pull up that memcon because we were in the process of pulling together ambassador boltons materials and the president s materials for what was a planned bilat 21 potus and president zelensky and when i went to do that i could not pull up the package in our system and i did not understand why. I spoke with the nsc executive secretariat staff, asked them why and they did their research and they informed me that it had been moved to the higher classification system at the direction of John Eisenberg whom i then asked why. If that wases judgment he made that wasnt necessarily mine to question and i didnt understand it and he said i gave no such direction. He did his own inquiry and he represented back to me that it was his understanding was that it was an administrative error that when he also gave direction to restrict access the secretary of state understood that as an a prehedge that there was something in the content of the memcon that could not exist on the lower classification system. To the best your knowledge, theres no malicious intent in moving the transcript to the compartmented server . Correct. Do you know anybody on the nsc staff that needed for the official duties and always was able to access it, correct . People that had a need to know and a need to access it . Once it was moved to the compartmented system . Yes. The memcon of the july 25th call was, in your experience, prepared normally . Yes. That there isnt an exact transcription of whats said on the call, correct . Correct. That theres no takers and the situation room and then they prepare a draft and theyre circulated among irrelevant parties . Essentially. Yes. You have responsibility for coordinating any edits . Yes. We look at the the shorthand well call it a transcription and we make sure that that transcription is close to accurate as possible given our confidential records act. Okay. Colonel vindman testified that he thought it was very accurate. Did you, as well . I viewed it as complete and accurate. Colonel vindman did articulate he had a couple edits and he wanted burisma inserted, i think it was page 3 or 4 in place of the company in one of the sections where president zelensky was talking . Are you aware of that edit request . I understand that he said in either this proceeding or the deposition that he wanted that request, yes. At the time did you understand that he had asked for that . I i dont recall that. It was my practice if i waived an edit. I would accept it. If i didnt hear it in the call, if i didnt exist in my notes i wouldnt have made the edit. On page 4 he wanted to swap out the word company for burisma. And when that edit from colonel vindman was not installed did he give you any negative feedback that it was crucial that that edit get in the document . Not that i can recall. Okay. Did he ever raise any concerns about the accuracy of the transcript . Not that i can recall. Did he ever raise any concerns to you generally about the call . When we were discussing the the track changes version of the memcon. I believe he had some concerns about the call. I believe we both agreed we wanted that more fullthroated embrace of president zelensky and his reform agenda and we didnt get it. Okay. You indicated in your deposition that when you took over the portfolio for dr. Hill july 15th you were alerted to potential issues in colonel vindmans judgment . Yes. Did she relay anything specifically to you . Why she thought that . Not in such. It was more of a overarching statement from her and her deputy who became my deputy that they had concerns about judgment. Okay. Did any other nsc personnel raise concerns with you about mr. Vindman . Yes. All right. Im sorry, colonel vindman, and what were some of those concerns that were brought to your attention . There were im sorry. We are not going to im going to instruct him not to answer. Im going to instruct him not to answer because i think that its beyond the scope of what youre asking for. These concerns, mr. Castor, predated any involvement with ukrainian secretary assistance. Well, during the deposition i asked you, mr. Morrison, whether others raised the concern that colonel vindman may have leaked information . You did ask that, yes. And your answer was . Others had represented that, yes. And i asked you whether you were concerned colonel vindman did not keep you in the loop at all times with his official duties . Yes. And, in fact, when he went to the National Security Council Lawyers following the july 25th call, he did not first come to you, is that correct . Correct. And you were his supervisor in the chain of command, correct . Correct. In hindsight, did you wish that he had come to you first before going to the lawyers . Yes. And why is that . One, if he had concerns about something, about the content of the call thats something i would expect to have been notified of and i also think just as a matter of practice since we both went to the lawyers we didnt both need to and the economy of, fort may have prevailed. Okay. At any point subsequently, did he become frustrated that he felt cut out of the ukraine portfolio . Yes. And what was the nature of his concerns . Well. He he was concerned with the ukraine trip that he did not go. He asked me why its my practice to have the conversations with ambassador taylor oneonone and there were certain other matters. Okay. Did you ever get a sense that you absolved his concerns or did they linger . I explained to him my thinking, and that was that. Okay. Before my time expire, ambassador volker i want to turn quickly to the what ambassador taylor describes as the irregular channel. He he was a participant with you and ambassador sondland with hundreds of Text Messages, correct . Correct. Did he ever raise concerns about what was going on during the time period during the early august time period . Only as you saw reflected in the Text Messages themselves where he said is this now a linkage or are we doing this . He had a concern about a concern of just in general with Rudy Giuliani and all of us had and the issue is what do you do about it, about the role that hes playing and as you note, we were in frequent contact, near daily contact throughout the entire period. Did he ever engage you on a oneonone telephone calls . He did not raise those concerns that way, no. Okay. And this i mean your experienced at one point in time and ambassador sondland is the ambassador to the European Union and secretary perry is the secretary of energy, certainly not and it didnt sound like an irregular bunch. Did he ever articulate that he thought that the three of you working on the ukraine policy was a problem . No, he did not. Were you surprised during his testimony when he came in for the deposition when he sort of established these two tracks that one was a regular channel that he was in charge of and the other was a yes. I dont agree with his characterization of that because i had been in my role for a couple of years. Id been the lead on u. S. Ukraine negotiations and negotiating with russia and the inner agency work and the work with our allies and we have a secretary of energy which is a cabinet official and having support from various u. S. Officials for our strengthening our engagement with ukraine i view as a very positive thing, and if the concern is not us so much then because were all u. S. Officials, but mayor giuliani, i dont view that as a channel at all because hes not a representative of the u. S. Government. Hes a private citizen. I viewed him as perhaps a useful barometer in understanding what may be helpful communication from the Ukrainian Government, but not someone in a position to represent the u. S. Govern the at all. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Why dont we take a five or tenminute break. If i ask the audience to allow the witnesses to leave the room first. We are in recess. Come to order. We are not going to proceed to a 15minute round by either chair majority or minority. Mr. Goldman you would be recognized for. I want to correct the record from the first round, you were right to point out, you asked if a quote that i represented you made in the deposition was your words and i actually read the wrong part of the quote. What you actually said was, it creates a problem again where all of the things that we are trying to do to advance the bilateral relationship strengthen our support for ukraine, strengthen our position against russia, it is now getting sick sucked into a domestic political debate. A domestic political narrative that overshadows that. You are right to point out, i apologize for the mistake. I want to go back to a couple of things you said during the minorities around. Can you repeat again, the readout that you got of the july 25th call. I received a readout from both the ukrainian colleague as well from a u. S. Person, i cannot remember if it was my staffer, and the read out was that it was a good phone call, that was a congratulatory phone call for the president s win. The president zelensky did reiterate his commitment to fighting corruption and advancing reform in ukraine. And that President Trump renewed his invitation for zelensky to come to the white house. I believe you said that readout was exactly as you expected the call to go. Was that right . I just want to show you once again the july 25th taxed that you wrote to Andriy Yermak which was the message you are relating to him so that he could prepare president zelensky. You will recall this, right . Where you said this was the message, good luck thanks. Assuming president zelensky convinces trump will investigate, get to the bottom of what happened in 2016, we will nail down date for a visit to washington, that is what you expected from the call, right . I expected that president zelensky would be convincing in his statements, comments on President Trump, that he was exactly that. That he would investigate, get to the bottom of things that had happened in 2016. And that he was strong in conveying who he is as a person, in doing that, that President Trump would be convinced and renew the invitation to the white house. You do not mention corruption in this text. This is the word corruption is not in this taxed. The word corruption is not there. Investigating things that have happened in the past that would be corrupt would be investigating corruption. You say a couple times in your Opening Statement and you said it again, he is investigating things that happened in the past, you are aware of course that most investigations relate to things that happened in the past, right . Yes. So that doesnt move the needle. Whether its current or past. In terms of the subject of the investigation. Yes an investigation is saying that happened in the past. You also talked a little bit about the meeting that you had on july 26th where the president zelensky and ambassador sondland in kiev, is that correct . It on the 26th . We had a meeting with president zelensky. Yes. And i believe you testified that the topic of investigation, did not come up at all, is that correct . I do not recall them coming up. Just the general phone call. You did not take notes of that call, of that meeting, right . There were staffers there to do that. So if there are two staffers who took notes of that meeting and testified that the subject of either sensitive topics or investigations came up, are we better off taking their word for it then yours . I have no reason to doubt their notes. If there were notes taking. Another witness testified before us, laura cooper, about a meeting that she had with you on august 20th. Do you recall having that meeting with her . You did not mention it in your deposition. I did mention that i had been making the rounds to weigh in on lifting the hold on Security Assistance to do that with all of our agency players. She recalled with some specificity at that meeting, which i believe was also based on her, notes that you described the statement that you were trying to get president s lewinsky to make two, and i will quote what she said, disavow interference in u. S. Elections and commit to the prosecution of individuals involved in election interference. And if he were to agree to do that, she testified, then you thought it might help to lift the hold on Security Assistance. Is that your recollection of that conversation . How does yours differ . I recall talking about the state and we had discussed earlier. The one that had been the subject of these exchanges between mr. Yermak and myself, myself and ambassador sondland, giuliani, and then back to sondland. This is an effort we are doing that could be helpful in getting a reset in the thinking of the president. The negative view of ukraine that he had. If we did that, i thought that would also be helpful in unblocking whatever hold there was on Security Assistance. If there is this negative perceptions about ukraine getting this stuff on track would be helpful. Thats a different interpretation, you do not doubt that what she testified is inaccurate, do you . It i believe she accurately reflected what she understood from the conversation. You testified a little bit about the june 28th Conference Call that you had with ambassador sondland, ambassador taylor, im not sure if that was deputy was on the, line and secretary perry, before you moved in president zelensky, and i right about the participants in that . I am pretty sure that Deputy Assistant secretary cant was not on it. I dont remember whether secretary perry was on it. And i dont remember if i stayed on for president zelensky to join the call or not. Whether any Staff Members or no takers on the call . I dont believe. So why . We were having a call to talk about what the messages were that we thought we needed to convey. At that point we have that other testimony from people who did take notes that there was a discussion about the investigations. Or white president zelensky needed to do in order to get the white house meeting. Do you recall that . I recall seeing that in ambassador taylors testimony. There may have even been a text message that affect. Again it comes down to what are we talking about in terms of these investigations . Because what i certainly understood is we are talking about ukraine looking into and fighting corruption internally and being convincing about this, presenting the new president and new team as a change in ukraine. You understood that the investigations with bernie smollett in the 2016 election. Yes. You interpreted those to be okay because in theory they were looking into ukraine . Yes. And we can agree that the investigations were talking about today with burisma in the 2016 election . Correct. So then what you admitted in your testimony today is that in retrospect, if you did not realize that the purpose for mr. Giuliani and President Trump to want the burisma investigation was for political benefits in digging up dirt or getting information on Vice President biden. That is what you learned subsequently, correct . Its correct that i learned about the president s interest investigating Vice President biden from the phone call transcript, which became came much later from giuliani i knew that he was actively pursuing this. I did know that he raised this with me directly and i push back on. It you knew that ambassador sondland was pursuing this in the july 10th meeting when he raised the investigations himself. He didnt specify biden, he didnt specify burisma as i recall it and it was a generic comment in something not appropriate. I understand but biden wasnt mentioned and you do agree that the investigation is referenced in this context it is burisma in the 2016 election . Yes, thats what i understand. On that july 10th call, when ambassador sondland raised the investigation he did that in response to a question from the ukrainians about white house meeting is, that right . Can you repeat the question . You said that ambassador sondland mentioned the specific investigation of the july 10th meeting at the ambassadors office and you said that you thought that was inappropriate. Yes. Didnt he make that comment in response to the question from the ukrainian officials about when they could schedule at the white house meeting . That im not sure about. I remember the meeting essentially being already over and ambassador sondland bringing that up. In the july 2nd or third meeting in toronto, with president zelensky you also mentioned investigation to him again and referred to the 2016 . Burisma 2016. Thats when the ukrainians interpreted and reference to the investigation to be related to burisma and the 2016 election. I dont know specifically at that time if we had talked about that specific thing in 2016 but that was my assumption of thinking that. Mr. Morrison, when did you have that conversation with fiona hill about burisma and the parallel track involving the process involving ambassador sondland and giuliani . Do you recall . We have a number of call discussions in july or on the 15th of july. So, in that period of time, you are certainly aware of this effort to promote this burisma investigation that ambassador sondland and Rudy Giuliani who were going about rallies to have heard about it from doctor hill . I heard about it from dr. Hill. I want to pull up another excerpt from the wall street journal article that quotes an email on july 13th that ambassador sondland descent to you. He wrote to you, quote, the sole purpose is for zelensky to give the assurances of a new sheriff in town. Corruption ending and bundling moving forward in any hampered investigation will be allowed to move forward transparently. You responded tracking. What did you understand ambassador sondland mean when he wrote to you and he hampered the investigation will be allowed to move forward transparently . I dont know that i had an understanding about the email. I wasnt even in the seat yet but i knew that among the meetings we were attempting to schedule was was the president and zelensky. It before this that dr. Hill had told you about burisma and ambassador sondland in particular and his desire for this parallel process to investigate burisma, right . Yes. You had that association when you received this email asking you about the investigations, correct . Not necessarily. No . No. Why not . Because, ambassador among the discussions i had with dr. Hill about ambassador sondland as you pointed was the gordon problem and i had to sided to keep track of what ambassador sondland was doing and didnt necessarily always act on the accordance that they had so he wanted to get a meeting, i understood that the president wanted to do and agreed to a meeting so i was tracking that we need to schedule a meeting. You are not endorsing the notion of president zelensky about this investigation . Is that your testimony . Thats my testimony. Ambassador volker, i want to jump ahead after the aid was released you got to the s conference in ukraine . Are you aware that ambassador taylor who testified based on quite detailed notes indicated that earlier, a few days before that ambassador sondland told him that President Trump was a businessman and before he writes a check he likes to see people pay up, something to that effect. Are you aware of that . Im familiar with that testimony. Youre familiar that ambassador taylor said that you said something very similar to him when you were in ukraine for that conference. Do you remember saying that . Yes i do. I was repeating what was said to explain to bill taylor what that understanding was. In what context and ambassador sondland say that to you . I think we were talking about the release of the hold on Security Assistance and he was saying that the president he already has a negative view of ukraine and sees the check on his desk thats going to ukrainians and is not sure about that so he wants to hold until it ensured. The payout is to get to the investigation that he wants, is that correct . Thats not clear. What do you think it meant . I dont think there is a payoff as you said the, language is similar but i had heard from gordon that he sees the czech and not sure that he wants to make sure that he has a deal with the ukrainians and we didnt know specifically about this formation. Mister chairman i yield back. 15 minutes to ranking ever nunez. Do you expect any more of these magical 15minute things that you come up with in the back . No matter how magical they are there prescribed so that we can have six successive rounds of up to 45 minutes so this is part of the prescribed procedure on the house resolution. Do you expect we will have more this evening . I do not expect that will be necessary. I thank the gentleman. For everyone watching, this is another example of how out of some coal out of control this process has become. The democrats magic they give themselves additional minutes which their little special rules that they wrote and do but the thing that they would have to decency that they were going to have 15 minutes more. I would say that you can go four hours, five hours can we give you all you want and you can keep digging if you want and it will only dig. The viewers will turn up because people start to buy the drug deal that you guys are trying to sell. I would add that we are getting into primetime, these are two witnesses that were youre witnesses that you called. We still ask for witnesses that you not proposed as a whistle blower who you and others claim not to know. Which we still need to get to the bottom of that because it is the most important material fact witness to how this whole mess began in the first place. Secondly, we asked for the dnc operatives who are working with ukrainians to dig up dirt from what you call or what the left calls conspiracy theories which they are right there conspiracies that they have dirt dug up to spend on their own and attack the Trump Campaign of the 2016 election. I have no more questions for these witnesses. I know our members knew and to have a little bit of a cleanup here . Ill try to be quick and yield sometime back. Ill use every last minute ambassador volker, are you aware last week from foreign minister bush day go that he said no one told the ukrainians and certainly not him that there was any linkage between the Security Assistance funds and the investigations . I saw that statement yes. Do you know the foreign minister . And during relevant times did you ever get any discussion with him about the investigation and links . Not about investigations, with, him i believe i kept that discussion to being with mr. Yermak, we did discuss with foreign minister poroshenko at the time, Security Systems after it was raised august 29th and i discussed that with him. The primary person you worked with was mr. Yermak . Correct. And mr. Yermak also had some meetings with ambassador sondland, did mr. Yermak ever give you any feedback from his interactions with ambassador sondland . I cannot say whether he did or didnt we were in frequent contact and we talked about the issues as we went along. The episode at warsaw where inherently about his nerve sondland pulled the ambassador does aside did mr. Yermak give you any feedback on that . I did not get anything specific after that. This was around september 1st or second. And it was at that time that i had been texted by mr. Yermak and was subsequently in touch with him where i told them both i told them all, do not worry, we know about this, we are trying to fix it. And i think i left the conversation at that. What do ukrainian officials, the best of your knowledge, they trusted you . Very much so. We had a close relationship. So when you made statements like that to them do you think they believe you . I think they believe me i think they would also have other conversations and they would hear things from other people, but i also think that i was sincere with them . And they trusted ambassador taylor . Yes. I would just like to demystify a little bit of the whole mayor giuliani role here, you met with him one time . Correct. And you had some exchange tax messages with him, correct . Yes between the 10th of july and it around the 13th of august. And during your deposition in the counting of your communications with giuliani, it wasnt that many, we accounted for them all and then ambassador sondland when he came in, he didnt have he didnt have any oneonone meetings with giuliani to your knowledge, is that correct . I dont believe he did, but i do not know. I think ambassador sondland testified that there were a couple Conference Calls that he may have been on with you. That is true. Getting back to the regular channel that ambassador taylor coined, in his deposition testimony, did you ever have an opportunity to close the loop with him about any concerns whatsoever . Or is it all just the specific incidents raised in those texts . Its only those specific instances. Do you believe that those communications with sondland and giuliani do believe giuliani wasnt better contact with you then sondland and perry . What i believe he was. Thats all i have. I would like to yield to one of our members who would like to go. Yield back. We will now go to a five minute member questions. I recognize myself for five minutes. What volker i want to ask you something in our Opening Statement with respect to the july 10th meeting, you testified and participated in the july 10th meeting with bolton and when i realized the meeting was essentially over one ambassador sondland made a generic come meant about investigations, i think all of us thought it was an appropriate, conversation did not continue in the meeting concluded. Mr. Volker, we asked you about that meeting during your deposition, you told us nothing about this. I believe we ask you about why, the meeting came to an end and why you had earlier indicated that it did not go well. And her answer was that denmark was in the weeds on National Security policy. Why did you not tell us about this . That is what i remembered from the meeting. What i provided in my october 3rd statement. As i said, i learned other things including seeing the statements from alex vindman and from fiona hill. That reminded me that at the very end of that meeting as was were counted in colonel vindman statement, i did remember that, according to bring that up and that was it. At the time, we were there for six or seven eight hours. What we are asking you specifically what you knew about these investigations. You did not remember the Gordon Sondland and brought this up at the july 10th meeting with the ukrainians an ambassador bolton called an end to the meeting. Ambassador bolton describe that meeting as a drug dealer that solid and mulvaney cooked up and you have no recollection of that . In terms of gordon bringing it up. No i did not remember that at the time, and my october 3rd testimony, and i read the account by alex, and jog my memory and i remember that that happened. I do not still remember being an abrupt end to the meeting. The meeting was essentially over. And we got up, we went out to the little circle in front of the white house. We took a photograph. It did not strike me as abrupt. Mr. Volker, you said in your testimony today, i think all of us thought it was inappropriate. If as you say, ambassador sondland only mention the investigations in the bolton meeting, and you do not recall hearing him being specific, although others have testified that he wasnt the boardroom. Why did you think it was inappropriate . I thought, i will put it this way, it was a bit of an eye roll moment. Where you have a meeting, you are trying to advance the substance of the bilateral relationship. You have the head of the National Security defense council. It was a disappointing meeting because i dont think that you the ukrainians got as much out of that in terms of their presentation as they could have. And then this comes up at the very end of the meeting. This is not what we should be talking about. You think it was appropriate to ask the ukrainians to do investigations of burisma and the 2016 election as long as far as much did not mean the bidens. Something that you should understand. But nonetheless if it was appropriate why are you saying today that all of us thought it was inappropriate . Because it was not the place or the time to bring up that. This was a meeting between the National Security adviser and the chairman of the National Security defense counsel. The first high level meeting we are having between ukraine and the United States after president zelenskys election. Part of the reason it was inappropriate was that because it was part of the context of trying to get the white house meeting . Possibly although i do not recall that being, this is the councils question, i dont remember the exact context of what that came up, i viewed it as the meeting essentially having ended. I think you said in your updated testimony that you do you think it is inappropriate and objectionable to seek to get a Foreign Government to investigate a political rival, am i correct . To investigate the Vice President of the United States or someone who is a u. S. Official, i dont think we should be asking Foreign Governments to do that, i would also say that is true for a political rival. And you recognized when you got the call record, and you finally did see the call record, thats what took place in that call, is that correct . That is correct. Mr. Morrison, mr. Rock i think thats inappropriate to ask a foreign head of state to investigate a u. S. Person let alone a political rival, but you said you had no concern with, that do you think thats appropriate. As a hypothetical matter i do not. Im not talking about a hypothetical matter. Read the transcript. In that transcript was the president not wetaskiwin the landscape to look into the bidens. Mister chairman i can only tell you what i was thinking at the time. That is not what i understood the president to be doing. But nonetheless this was the first and only time where you went from listening to a president ial call directly to the National Security lawyers. Thats correct. And i think you have said that concern was not that it was unlawful but that it might leak, is that correct . That is correct. The problem is leaking is that what would be leaking as the president asking a foreign head of state to investigate mr. Biden, isnt that the problem . I believe i stated i have three concerns about what the impact of the colleague might be. If it was a perfect call would you have a concern of leaking. No. Well it still have some concern about lead. What do you have thought it was appropriate if president zelensky had asked the president to investigate john or to investigate nancy pelosi or to investigate volker. In these hypothetical cases no. Not appropriate. But youre not sure about biden. Well again i can only speak to what i understood at the time. And why i acted the way i did at the time. Finally, my colleagues asked about well, doesnt aid get held up for all kinds of reasons. Ambassador volker, have you seen military aid held up because the president wanted his rival investigated . No. Mr. Morrison, im sorry . I yield to the Ranking Member. You took a two additional minutes . Of course. I now recognize ambassador turner. Ambassador volker, mr. Morrison good to see you again and i appreciate your service and government and our country is safe today because of the work of both of you. And all the testimony that weve had weve allege that either of you and our improper and everyone has just spoken and high level of professionalism and ambassador volker i appreciate your Opening Statement and your comments of your work where you focus on russia as an invasion of ukraine and your work on legal defensive arms. Ambassador volker is that right . Thats right. To that make a difference . A very big difference. Mr. Morrison, talk about israel Terry Service . Mr. Turner, im a u. S. Naval reserve officer and an intelligence officer. Where do ottawa school. George washington university. Gentlemen, theres been a talk about a lot of people that these are like short periods of time that we have for these portion of questions. A lot of people are talking about the perceptions, their beliefs their feelings about what they heard and their understandings and their thoughts. Ambassador taylor and yovanovitch and all had conversations with each other and had a whole bunch of hearsay. I can assure you this boils down to one thing in this is an impeachment inquiry with the president of the United States and really think that matters and theyre talking to each others and all their thoughts senator standings and what did the president of the United States intend and what the say and what did the ukrainians understand and ambassador volker you are one of the first people weve had in these open public testimonys. And youve had conversations with both so i get to ask you. You had a meeting with the president of the United States and you believe policy issues that he raised concerning ukraine were valid, correct . Yes. Did he ever say to you that he was not going to allow aide with the United States to go to ukraine unless there were investigations into burisma, the bidens or the 2016 election . No he did not. Did the ukrainians ever tell you that they understood that they would not get a meeting with the president of the United States or a phone call or military aid or foreign aid from the United States unless they undertook investigations of burisma, bidens or the 2016 election . No they did not. Ambassador volker you took apart their entire case. If the president of the United States is unattended and ukrainians dont understand it. And you are the only one who actually stands in between them. Ambassador volker, the three amigo thing that theyre trying to to splurge you with, you are not part of a regular channel right ambassador volker . Are you the official channel . Thats correct. Explain how youre the official channel on this. I was appointed by the secretary of state tillerson in july of 2017. With the u. S. Representative of ukraine negotiation. This is different from secretary of state or different from ambassador in ukraine. That role is focused on the diplomatic activity surrounding to reverse rushes and basement and occupation in ukraine. It was the minsk agreement that was in the process with france and germany to support from nato which was sanction from the European Union has the monetary missions and the efforts of individual allies like canada who are supporting ukraine and it is at a level with the secretary. Ambassador volker, youre one of the few people who actually spoke to giuliani at a regular channel and people have feelings and understandings but did giuliani ever tell you that new United States aid or a meeting with the president of the United States would not clear for the ukrainians a tilapia green to lay an investigation of burisma the, bidens or the 2016 election . Everything i heard from giuliani i told. Excellent. I would say the ukrainians never told you that giuliani had told them that in order to get a meeting with the president or a phone call or military aid or a foreign aid from the United States that they would not be in these investigations. No. Mr. Morrison, you testified that you spoke to ambassador sondland and he told you conversations he had with the president of the United States. On page 1 28 of his testimony, he relates the content of the conversation he had with the president. He was asked about it and its the only one he relates and he said, he was asked whether or not there was a quid pro quo. I didnt framed the question to the president that way as a link and unfortunately i asked the openended question of what do you want to mr. Sondland and his testimony asking this question to the president of the United States this is what he reports to the president of the United States. He said i want nothing. I dont want to give them anything and i dont want anything from them. I want zelensky to do the right thing and thats what he and he kept repeating no quid pro quo over and over again. Do you have any reason to believe mr. Sondland is not telling the truth as the content of this conversation with the president of United States . No counsel. Do either of you have any information of anyone who has testified before this committee and the secret dungeon testimony that have been released or in this open testimony that as perjured them selves on the light of this committee . No reason to think that. Mr. Morrison . No sir. Mr. Morrison, you planning colonel vindman reported is that correct . He did sir. Now, you have a legal background. He said he listen to the phone call which you saw nothing that occurred and believe the president of the United States demanded to president zelensky that these investigations move forward. He was only telling us his opinion do, you believe youre opinion but the president of the United States demanded president zelensky to take these investigations . No sir. To both of you. Ukraine is aspiring to the eu and ambassador sondland is the ambassador to the eu. Is the ukraine in the ambassador for four leo . Volker . Yes because the eu sanctions are under importance. Mr. Morrison . I agree sir. I yield back. Mr. Himes. Thank you mister chairman and thank you gentlemen for your testimony today. President trump has described his july 25th phone call with president zelensky as perfect. I think hes done that on twitter and not once but twice but my my count 11 times. It feels to me like this characterization of perfect is of a piece with the idea that we hear the defense of the president s request to the ukrainians but thats just normal course of business with corruption and concerns from the start this is not about going after corruption, it is in fact about aiming corruption at the Vice President. Mr. Morrison, knew listen in on the call in the room, to hear the president mentioned the crowdstrike and the server . I believe so yes or. Did you hear trump mention the bidens . Yes sir. Did you hear President Trump in the length of that phone call used the word corruption . I dont believe he did. Was the request that ukraine investigate crowdstrike and the bidens consistent with what you understood to be official u. S. Policy towards corruption in ukraine . Sir, it was the first i heard of much of this. And your deposition, you testified that you want to stay away from what you described as this bucket of investigations. Why did you want to stay away from those issues . That was what i was advised by doctor hill. I also testified that the president s call and this is quoting, the full endorsement of the ukraine and agenda that i was hoping to hear. What did you mean by that . Sir, myself, colonel vindman and others had prepared in the what we provided to the president was background on president zelensky and background on his position about performing its institutions and ringing out corruption and hoping that we recommended the president very clearly to support president zelensky and went on in this current election and certainly the party has run on and received a majority. That didnt come up in the called it . No sir. Are you aware of any other discussion that they actually raise those things with the new ukrainian president . Its been said its been sometime since ive had this discussion of the un general General Assembly and i hesitate to say to the ever raise it but he did not raise at the time of the july 25th phone call. Switching gears a little bit. New strike me as a process guy. Its nagging at me because you characterize ambassador sondlands leaking and whatever happened of aid to an investigation as the problem that caused you to roll your eyes and bolton said it was in the tenth meeting and john bolton characterize this as the drug deal. It seems like everyone in the room understands is a huge problem here. My understanding it would be normal course of business too often visitor out theyre going rogue as apparently there was consensus that ambassador sondland was doing and the security adviser john bolton and where the secretary of state might ring the men. Why didnt that happen . I cant speak to that but i would believe that ambassadors work for the secretary of state. You dont have any idea why john bolton was saying this was a drug deal and would not rain him in . They do not work with the security advisers are. John bolton presumably spends time and its a puzzle that everyone in the room is characterizing is as the gordon problem and a drug deal and the secretary of state does nothing. Was your question . You dont have any insight on the . No sir. Ambassador volker, you testified for the record that the president s july 25th call, he testified that asking the president of ukraine to Work Together with attorney general to look into this, you could see as it as happened it is explosive in our politics and our new testimony you called is unacceptable. What specifically in that call to the ukrainian president did you find unacceptable or trouble . Its the reference to Vice President biden. Thank you and i yield back the rest of my time. Mr. Connolly. Thank you chairman. At this point we heard much about the july 25th call and he asked for a favor and in vindmans mine that was an order or requirement and yet without the last part of the conversation between the two heads of state, President Trump talks about the prosecutor hes particularly in favor of and zelensky says that since weve won the absolute majority, the next prosecutor general will be 100 bipartisan candidate. Does that sound like a head of state who was bullied or is under the thumb of the president . Not at all. No sir. The impact on the pause of the Legal Systems or the Security Systems none of us of understood exactly what happened in that timeframe. No one knew about it other than the votes until late august where the russians were not necessarily known about it and the impact of russias interpretation for ukraine. Wasnt known until the last 14 days. They packed on their lethal aid that they already had and should russia had tried to move the line of contact further west with their tanks . What the lethal of already been available to them to push back on that . Yes it would. Mr. Morrison . I agree with that but the hold as i understand it applies to the Security Assistance, uas i and they did not apply and they provided under faes. The Lethal Weapon that mr. Trump provided with president obama and his National Policy set was available to them should they push their tanks west . The javelins . Yes sir. Even with the pause, even with all this stuff going on . Yes sir. Associated press is reporting that ambassador volker you mentioned earlier that the russians had to gunships at a time and 24 sailors last november and the russians have now given those sailors back in september and Associated Press said today that theyre giving the gunboats in a tug back. That sounds like ukraine is inept to negotiate with the russians with their actions . No, i would not say that the ukrainians are inept. Thank you sir. Mister chairman i would like as a personal request that you or whatever your lawyers put into the record the federal statute that is revised from the absolute immunity that exerted over and over again. If it is in fact federal statute that you can cite in the record so we all know that and before you get mad and accuse me of the whistleblower, you get upset every time someone excuses you of who the whistleblower is. I got upset every time you and excuse me every time you accuse me because i want to know the whistleblower of whats going on and we went out that person that is unfair of you and i had just as mad. This is about leveling the Playing Field and your team has a whistle blower and the ig icy and even mentioned the ceo and our team should fully understand that and level the Playing Field and new overrun might request for a closed door subpoena and i understand that but i think that you put it in the record the basis of which you continue to assert your right to anonymity and to the whistleblower. The speaker on september the 23rd issued their colleague and thats a document that we all use and with the members of congress and was intended to be straightforward and she says in that colleague that the whistleblower has by law required to testify in the house in the senate and the intelligence committee. You are justifying the speaker and thats between you and her but if she is correct when defying the law that if she misled us and thinking that was something that wasnt true and i think you need to tell the speaker and needs to attract to at least set the record straight that the whistleblower is required by law to testify to us or not and what his the right to anonymity and i yield back. The time of the gentleman has expired and waiapi to enter into the record the whistle blower statute that was made an ominous and the prior comments talking about the whistleblower and i now recognize stool. Thank you mister chairman. Ambassador volker, it seems by early july its become pretty clear that wrister giuliani has become a major problem for the u. S. Ukraine relations and you testified on july 2nd, we met with ukrainian president and his aide in toronto is that right . I had a bilateral meeting between the u. S. And the delegations and with the president s chief of staff. You then discuss mr. Giulianis quote negative view quote of the ukraine based on a Conspiracy Theory of the 2016 election. He was repeating the narrative based on accusations of the prosecutor general. Are you saying you didnt think that there were negative views. They were negative views. That wasnt your description . Im sorry ive lost a question. I was trying to get at who said the negative views . The prosecutor general of ukraine was putting out the series of conspiracy theories that i believe were self serving and inaccurate. Mr. Giuliani, had repeated these to me and he was at least affected by those and was concerned. He believe that they were negative . They were conveying them to the president. Was it problematic that he had negative views . There is a true . Yes. The whole thing is problematic. Ambassador taylor testified that they told ukrainians that they need to cooperate on investigations and quote. You are now saying that you dont recall seeing those words, is that correct . I dont believe i said the words cooperate on the investigations. Did you see investigations . I believe i did, yes. What did you mean by investigations . Burisma in 2016 was in my mind and wanted to keep in general. Ukraine in being convincing to also the president was serious about corruption would engage in whatever in negotiations necessary to clean up the country. Moving to july 10th, ambassador volker sent you a text message. Who was sent to giuliani and its on the screen now. You said mister mayor, can we meet for coffee or lunch in the next week or so . Id like to update you on my conversations about ukraine. I think we have an opportunity to get you what you need. Did you say that . Is that accurate . That is an accurate text message. What did you mean by what you need . Contacts with the actual government to ukraine that are not representing prepresident ial and see. Later that day you and ambassador sondland met with ukraine officials at the white house. We heard from several witnesses that ambassador sondland told ukraine that they needed to cooperate with the investigation. In order to get the Oval Office Meeting scheduled on the books. Were these investigations apart of the official u. S. Policy towards ukraine . U. S. Policy towards ukraine was about fighting corruption. Was it specifically about these kinds of investigations which was burisma . In order to fight corruption you need to conduct the investigation any to see what they are doing. Was that the purpose of that . Or was it because the president that the president wanted the investigation to be done as a condition of them to have a meeting with the white house . First off, we have to be clear will were talking about in terms of the investigation. Were not talking about Vice President biden charisma has nothing to do im saying the ukrainians within burisma had acted in a corrupt way. Were insulted by the reference and if ukraine can make a statement of their intentions on fighting corruption that is helpful in order to convince President Trump ultimately with all due respect ambassador volker, we heard from two witnesses this morning that those investigations were not official u. S. Policy. Ambassador volker, i dont know if you understand what you are getting yourself into and sitting here today. I trust that you understand that pressuring ukraine to involve itself in this domestic policy is simply wrong. I yield back the balance of my time. inaudible mr. Turner. I yield my time to jim jordan. I thank the gentleman. Ambassador volker, youre the special ambassador to ukraine is that right . Thats right. Use worked at the nsc and the deck that is a decade terry of state and ambassador you distinguish the diplomatic career. It may not bother you when you referred to as the channel but it bothers represent eternal it turner and it bothers me. Youre the envoy to ukraine in that role you said and her Opening Statement that the administrations most outspoken public figure highlighting russias invasion and occupation of ukraine and calling out the responsibility, is all right . Thats correct. In that capacity, new strongly advocated for the debate on legal defensive arms ukraine, right . Thats correct. President trump did it in the . He did. President trump was still skeptical of giving hard earned tax dollars ukraine, right . Yes. You said that the testimony you said that in the skeptical is because he doesnt like foreign aid, right . Thats one reason and ukraines history of corruption is another. There is a third most corrupt country in the planet. Europe isnt doing enough and by the way in the president s mind, he did think ukraine was trying to influence the 2016 election. Things have happened and democrats will tonight but the ambassador of ukraine writes an oped on august 4th 2016 criticizing President Trump, that is trying to influence the election. When a key minister in the government says negative things about had the trouble that looks like a strike to influence the election and when they state and the Financial Times during the campaign that the political figures arnold want Hillary Clinton to win that sticks in the candidates mind. We all run campaigns, we see bad things about us but we dont necessarily think about them and when you are convinced that the lewinsky was a real deal, right . Thats correct. You spent a lot of time with a guy. Guess what . When it was frozen, you get these guys together to work out when it was frozen what did you say . You told the crane ukrainians dont worry about it and he said dont be alarmed, right . Thats correct. Guess what happened . When aides were frozen when, it was released all kinds of interactions between president zelensky and senior u. S. Officials, right . Thats correct. Start with the call with President Trump and zelensky. Next day you eat with president zelensky in ukraine. Then we have ambassador bolton meeting with that we have pence meeting with, u. S. And johnson and murphy meeting with them and guess what . And none of those meetings, not a single one did Security Assistance tell in exchange for the investigation, not once they come up in that conversation, is all right . Thats correct. Not once. No discussion of foreign investigation and as you testified, you never bleed aid was ever being talked about either in any of these conversations. Thats correct. But what happened in those meetings . They all became convinced of the same thing you knew. They all saw the same darn thing and that it was a real deal. Hes a legitimate reformer and they all came back and we all came back to tell the president hey mister president , this guy is real. Go ahead and release the dollars and by the way at that same timeframe you, know it else up and . Their newly elected parliament was mr. Morrison stayed up all night to cast the reform measures to get the prosecutor, put in this supreme a High Anticorruption Court and to get rid of this this ability to that no one in their congress or ever be hit with it and that is all that happens where they come back until President Trump, hey, guess what . Time to release the dollars and he did it, right . Dollars were released. He did your job. And you gotta put up with all this because the democrats are about to get the president. You did the way your job turner described it. All these years and the democrats put you through this. You have served our country well and the kind of diplomat we want serving but here is the saddest things about all of this with the democrats are putting us through. You two guys or hell tunneling it straight are decided youre going to step out because of what these guys are doing. That is the thad telling people like volker and morrison who have served well and are stepping up because of what these guys are doing. Thats why mr. Turner got so fired up a few minutes ago because we appreciate we appreciate what you guys did it and i yield back. Mr. Carson. Thank you chairman schiff. Ambassador volker, how to focus on a statement that President Trump and Rudy Giuliani wanted to announce with the investigations to benefit President Trump. On august 9th, ambassador sondland had this exchange. Ambassador sondland says, morrison, ready to get dates as soon as you no confirms. You reply excellent, how did you sway him . Ambassador sondland said not sure i did i think potus really wants the deliverable. The deliverable here was the announcement that ukraine was going to conduct the investigation and alleged the 2016 election with ukraine is, that correct sir . Thank you. I understand the deliverable to be the statements that we are talking about. On august 13th, ambassador sondland discussed the statement from ukraine to mr. Giuliani. Sir, why did you discuss the statement would really giuliani . The idea in the statement came up from the meeting with mr. Giuliani and when mr. Yermak asked me to connect him to mr. Giuliani i did and they both called me afterwards, mr. Giuliani said ukraine should make a statement about the corruption then we will say specifically burisma in 2016. You are bogged the statement and i wanted it to beach assured that this statement would actually correct the perception that mr. Giuliani had of ukraine with what they stand for now. So that would also be conveyed to President Trump and solve this problem that i observed with the meeting with the president. The problem being, these getting the bad set of information that could potentially correct that. Was mr. Giuliani satisfied . He was not. He believed that he needed to see burisma and 2016 specifically or else it would not be credible or not mean anything. In fact, mr. Giuliani that the statement was referenced and the 2016 election explicitly, that would benefit President Trump. Ambassador, here is the text you sent to the ukrainian official on august 13th i will put that up on the screen. You said, i andre, good talking as the text with an insert at the end with the two key items. Mister ambassador, those two key items specifically reference to investigations a burisma and the 2016 election, is all right sir . Is that correct. They did take those two key items. I just had a conversation with prince or mr. Yermak with the conversation we had just had would mr. Giuliani mr. Giuliani said that we need to include these things to be convincing to him. We put them in so he understood what he was talking about and shared it with andre to say this is what. He is talking about. You had clue the if the proposal with the ukrainians . We told ukrainians this is what the conversation was. Mister ambassador, if you believe that Rudy Giuliani did in august was not that idea, why were the ukrainian still considering giving an interview with the same themes in september . If i may, congressman, i conveyed this to ukrainians to be clear so we knew what the conversation was about and following out the prior conversation. The ukrainians then they had reasons not to do that and disrupt those reasons and i agreed with them to just scrap the statement. From that point on, i had had further conversations about this statement. So i dont know how it came up or will you keep up with president zelensky doing an interview in saying Something Like this at a do that here. Thank you sir. Mr. Morrison, you said that the president s request in july 25th call about the assistant u. S. Policy that i agree with you sir. This Text Messages show that volker spent much of august pressing ukraine to meet those requests. We can only be grateful. The president essentially got caught and Congress Passed a law to ensure the footage was released ukraine for his too late. I thank you both for your service and terminate yield back. Thank you mister chairman. Both gentlemen thank you very much for being here. I want to start with you mr. Morrison. And discussing the 7 25 phone call and vindman came to aids for the transcript and you stated that you accepted all of that evidence is that correct . I would have selected all of the evidence that we were faithful to what was discussed. Did he come to you with something that said they would demand what should be in there . I dont recall know. How soon after the phone call was there that particular issue . We got the draft that was enrolled fairly quickly after the call. That same day. Today he said, i reported my concerns to mr. Eisenberg and the president of the United States to handle Foreign Government investigate the opponent. We were going to mr. Eisenberg to observe the conversation that he did not in any point say that there should be a demand and you know, he didnt do that at you did say he did cup to you with his concerns because you were available but that same day he came to you with evidence. Was that correct . I believe thats generally correct, yes or. You werent available and you heard the president s demand did you . No sir. Sometime between the call and today Lieutenant Colonel vindman must of heard some voices and her demand at the time i didnt hear that day and didnt make an addition that day but today he does. I think that is pretty reason are. When Lieutenant Colonel went to mr. Eisenberg. Did you know he was advised not to speak to you . I dont have any firsthand knowledge on that. You dont know he was advised to contact itchy and see . I have no firsthand knowledge of that. You dont know that he was advised . I do not. I appreciate that. Mister volker, i want to tell you that i enjoyed your testimony today i know its long but i thought it was extremely well done and i appreciate it. You talk about sharing concerns about leadership and your country and about agreeing with sometimes agreeing with the leadership of your own country when you felt was appropriate. Youre the boots on the ground for the administration and youre part of that team and its there to preserve the country in that way. That all to me sounded like works of a very good diplomat i want to thank you for that. Its truly appreciated. Corruption was a concern legitimately in the ukraine and in many ways mr. Jordan pointed out some of the things that were done by ukrainians in plain sight if you want to use that term by having a beds and it certainly more than one country can be trying to influence our election, would you agree with . That i agree with that. We keep hearing that that whole thing about the ukrainians is all been debunked. That comes from an icy community where some of the people that have come up with those conclusions are some of the very people that were going to find out if we have an already with this whole russian collusion hoax. I want to say, you did a great job with president zelenskys intention and what you say thats accurate . Yes, in fact one of the key facts of the litigation of the inauguration to take your own judgment. Thats what your job should be. You got comfortable with this president correct . Yes i did. You work to assure our president that you are comfortable with this . Correct . Thats correct. In some ways new had to work sometimes with any means available and that might include working with Rudy Giuliani if it could be helpful to get that advice to the president , would not be correct . The message is being conveyed by giuliani because they were they were at variance with the message to what the president was and not conveying that assessment that we had. I thought it was important to step in and fix the problem. With that i think you turned a useful barometer of where things were. The barometers can come in a lot of different fashions like dennis robin in north korea and i think youve got a friend. If they can help to cause and in that situation, its a good job ambassador and thank you very much. Miss spear. Chairman, thank you and thank you both for your participation and for your service. All in a takeout 30,000 feet for a minute and talk about coverups. But for the fact that the whistleblower came forward and we didnt know anything about this but for the fact that the Inspector General of the cia founded to be urgent and credible and he would know anything about it and mr. Morrison and he said that after you heard the call he went directly to the attorneys and the Security Council and recommended that they be limited access and they were put into a special server. The white house has not released any documents whatsoever to this committee do you mr. Volker thank you but for the fact that you as a private citizen with your own personal phone and youre Text Messages with mr. Giuliani and sondland i mister my yak and whoever else. For those Text Messages that weve been putting up on screen all day, we would have nothing. Nothing. This coverup would be complete. That is something we should think about. Now, on july 19th, you had breakfast with Rudy Giuliani at the trump hotel, correct . Thats correct. In that conversation at one point he brought up mr. Was saying go and lets send goat was saying was not credible. Massacre act . Yes. You brought up mr. Biden and ive known him for a long time and hes a person of integrity to giuliani. Hes simply not credible to me and joe biden would be influenced in his duties as Vice President by money hour for his son or anything like that. Weve had many discussions over the last few days about these investigations into burisma and biden and the 2016 crowdstrike server. You in that conversation with mr. Giuliani basically debunked all of that. Ipad time at that breakfast who else was with you at that breakfast . There was someone that giuliani brought along and it was someone we learned a lot about soon stead. Mr. Look parnas was at this lunch and mr. Parnas was indicted for Campaign Contribution to President Trumps political committee. Is that correct . I havent seen that. On may 23rd, you were in that discussion with the president and at one point he referred to zelensky adding terrible people around him. Who do you think he was calling terrible people around him . There were two people that came to mind. One of them was a former investigative journalist name Yuriy Lutsenko who is seen as bringing forth the black ledger for Paul Manafort sector and ukraine and the other person that it was referred to was a person who is being named president zelenskys chief of administration andre poked on. He was a lawyer for one of the oligarchs and a lot of controversy at the time. Do you think of the most terrible people . I dont think either one of them is terrible people. Thank you. Mr. Morrison, earlier and a testimony that we had from our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, you indicated that others had represented to you that colonel ben men leaked. Tomorrow saying that . Yes maam. All right, colonel vindman this morning under oath said that he did not and does not leak. Now, what you therefore want to make a brief rearrange of your comments of the references you made to colonel vindman . No maam. Even though under oath he said that he has never leaked do, you believe that people who said to you that he may have leaked. Maam, i didnt believe or disbelieve thats what they told me. Thats what they told you and then you decided to continue to put that forward even though you had no evidence. No maam. Im sorry, if i could answer. That is incorrect. Dr. Hill, he rough and others raise concerned and they were noted and i took them for face value and i was on alert and i had my own judgments and took no judgments at that i couldnt independently validate. Mr. Stewart. Thank you gentlemen and welcome to the impeachmentpalooza 2019 which is the democratic plan to tell america to impeach president Donald J Trump to the sheer force because its been a long day and it turns out its very boring if you dont have anything compelling or get any evidence. Good news is bad news. Ill be very brief undergoing on ten plus hours on this. I will yield back some of my time because most of my colleagues after me wont. So weve soaks got some time to go. Ambassador volker, very quickly. Do you think that someone should be immune from investigations on the suspect of ethical or criminal activity just because they were a candidate for office or for office of the president of the United States . I dont think anyone should be above the law. Of course not that would be absurd to address that and what if someone was was a ethical or criminal investigations overseas in the country. Would it be improper to seek the host countries help which we entered poll or any other Law Enforcement . There are channels for doing that for american citizens in the crimes abroad. Again, the host nation in their governments help is not unusual at all . We often have treaties for that. Thank you. Thats painfully obvious so all the things that the president was doing. Mr. Morrison, i want to go to colonel vindmans testimony where he described the six people i believe it was five or six people in a situation where he listed the phone call between the two president s. Vindman described the succession and said there was no reason to question the integrity or professionalism. This is the exchange he had it in close testimony. Do you agree with the description of the National Security . They are patriots, yes. Great integrity and professionalism . Yes sir. Do any did any of these Exceptional Individuals people of unquestionable integrity and professionalism indicate that the president of the United States was not engaged in any illegal or unethical behavior as a result of this phone call . Not that im aware of congressman. Did they suggest to you in any way that they thought the president was involved in bribery or anything associated with that . Im not aware congressman. At only leaves two possible explanations of these individuals that we described as integrity, either thats not true that i will dont believe or they just determined an ambiguous conversation that colonel vindman. Just as a side of an air force officer we dont know why president obama was against legal aid and why they refused to do that. I would only point to the statement of the administration at the time. There. Was a perception that our allies that germany would oppose it and perception that germany should be in the lead and that it could be provocative to russia or deescalate the conflict. As ive said extensively at the time, as i dont agree with those arguments and the record is out that the defensive arms are very important. I agree with you ambassador youve got a right in the president got a right and with that i yield back. Mr. Quigley thank you mister chairman. Ambassador, i want to direct your attention to the meeting you had with ambassador taylor and you are back in keith. Remember the meeting sir . It was about the time of the u. S. Conference. Do you remember discussing with mr. Yermak you ukraine intend to investigate their former president mr. Yuriy lutsenko. I remember the possibility of prosecution. They raised it and you talked about it. Excuse me congressman im sorry. To be clear, there was a lot of talk in kiev at that time about whether the new team would be prosecuting the former president. I had met with the president before any opposition as well. I wanted to call mr. Earmarks attention to the problems and im very familiar with other examples that have gone for prosecutions of the former government. These have created deep divisions in the society. So i cited president zelenskys inauguration speech im sorry, his National Speech from august 24th and it was all about unifying the country. I cautioned mr. Yermak saying that pursuing prosecution of president pushing go risks deepening the opposite of president zelensky as he wants to do. Its fair to describe that you discouraged him from such action . I discouraged him on the potential impact and what was mr. Yermaks response. I am professionals in saying that an ambassador taylor and mr. Kent. Based on that testimony there would be like asking us to have a saint clinton biden. It was something along the lines of its okay for you to ask us to investigate in the matter in which you are in these socalled investigations but you dont want us to investigate our own is that fair to describe it . I dont understand what he was referring to because it was looking to have as a clinton or biden so i was puzzled by the remark. Did you investigate what he might have been asking anybody . I took it something of a deflection from a point i was making. And all this time mr. Giuliani mentioned the biden investigation and mentioned biden over 50 times and 20 something times in the relationship with ukraine and it sir your curiosity . That you have now finally come to this point . I met with giuliani once and Vice President biden and i maintained a clear distinction that ukraine investigating its own corruption would be fine and going beyond that to investigate the Vice President is not fine. Did you have any discussions with anyone in the state department or anywhere else and administration about concerns in two poroshenko. I raised this was ambassador taylor and weve been in some of the same meetings with the country team there. I dont remember whether i had racist with george cant or not. But it was something that we had discussed as part of our meetings in kiev at that time. I yield to the chairman. Ambassador, we had this conversation when you urged ukrainians not to investigate and prosecute to the former president , their response was you mean like youre asking us to investigate the clinton and the bidens. That was the response . Thats what i recall now from seeing them. You didnt understand that at the time but you are at the call record . You read the call record which makes more sense . Yes. I was curious what sudden you said earlier when you said the 2016 Conspiracy Theory had no merit but you didnt see any harm if they wanted to investigate it. Is that right . Yes. Dont they have enough legitimate option to investigate without spending time investigating a debunk Conspiracy Theory . Theres all kinds of corruptions to investigate . You propose that new to this investigation with something without merit because this is part of an effort to fix the problem that giuliani was creating . I did not propose it. Well, i think you said you are okay with it or in the statement weve seen to include it. Because, if it would help the giuliani problem was at the thinking . Thats correct. It threads the needle between whats reasonable for ukraine and resets the negative perception by mr. Giuliani and the president then why not. This is what you described in your Opening Statement as an effort to see a problem and fix it. Hes a clearly now ambassador volker, based on the september 25th call that you are not able to fix it . Based on the transcripts released on the 25th, i can see now that there was a lot else going on with Vice President biden at the time and the efforts that i was making or not in the context of what had already been discussed with the president on july 25th. Its fair to say you can fix the giuliani problem . Thats correct. Missed fanatic. Thank you ambassador volker and four years of service and youre professional expertise and leadership on Security Issues and i want to thank mr. Morrison for his great work on the House Committee which i served and i want to start with the july 25th call between President Trump and zelensky. Mr. Morrison you are on that call and there was no mention of withholding aid on alcohol, correct . Correct. There was no quid pro quo, correct . Correct. No bribery . Correct. No extortion . Correct. Ambassador volker, i presume you were out on the call, is that correct . Yes. In this tertiary readout ambassador from the withhold from aid . There was not. Any reference to quid pro quo . No. Extortion . There was not. I presume we got feedback from ukrainian counterparts on how that went. They mentioned the withhold . They did not. Did they mention any quid pro quo . They did not. Any bribery . They did not. In fact, the day after the call you met with president zelensky on july 26. In that meeting, he made no mention of quid pro quo. He made no pension of aid . No. Bribery . No. The fact is that ukrainians were not even aware of this is that correct . The app. In the upcoming weeks you are in touch with the official duties and this included talking to ukrainians over the phone and, by text and ukrainians never brought up the investigation into the bidens, zach wrecked . Thats correct. They never brought up withholding of the aid . Thats correct. They never brought up paraded quid pro quo bribery . They did after it appeared. Until the political article dated not bring it up. You said in your closeddoor deposition it never came up in conversation and i believe they had to trust in me that they would ask until it was really what they were worried about is, that correct . It is. As you pointed out, the ukrainians never even knew their foreign aid was on pause until the article was published in august. Thats correct. They did not know during the call. Thats correct. In fact, you had to correct chairman schiff on this timeline in the closeddoor deposition. The chairman of this committee asked you, when they became aware that military assistance was being withheld for a reason you cannot explain, no one could explain, they were under greater pressure to give the president he asked for in the call. You answer ambassador volker to, my knowledge the, news about the hold on Security Assistance to not get to the Ukrainian Government circles as indicated to me by the current foreign minister and academic advisor in august. Its higher testimony . Yes it is. Chairman schiff also got the facts wrong again when he asked to do this. Quote, at the point they learned about this pause, wouldnt they give wooden that give them the emergency to beat the president s quest on the bidens. You bad certain bass and volker, the ukrainians felt like theyre going in the right direction and they had not done anything. They had not done anything on the investigation end quote. Is in this the case ambassador volker at one point chairman schiff said to you, you are truly testifying but ambassador you are making this much more complicated than it has to be end quote. Its page 1 27 from the deposition. I remember that. The truth is the facts are they are not complicated. I will close up with two questions for both of you. Did ukraine open investigation into bidens . Mr. Morrison . Not to my knowledge. Ambassador volker . Not to my knowledge either. Did either of you ever have any evidence of quid pro quo . Mr. Morrison . No man. Ambassador volker . No maam. Bribery . No maam. No. Any evidence of treason . No maam. No evidence of treason. With that i yield back. inaudible mr. Swalwell. Mr. Morrison, did ambassador bolton want the security hole lifted . He did. New testified that bolton had a oneonone meeting with President Trump in late august related to the ukraine assistance is, that correct . Can you point to our testify to that. Page two 66 you said bolton had a oneonone meeting with President Trump in august 2019, but the president was not ready to approve the release of the assistance, to remember that . 2 26 . Yes. Two 66 and to 68. Im asking you did that happen or did not . I want to be clear characterizing it. Yes sir i see. You testified to that. What was the outcome of that meeting with bolton and trump . Ambassador bolton was ready to approve the assistance. Did ambassador both inform you for the end gone going ways of his speech . No sir. Mr. Morrison, do you consider yourself loyal to the president . Yes sir. And the president executes before both feel you stated, how right . I would say he designs yes sir. As a staffer on National Security council and someone who served in the military, its your job to faithfully executed Foreign Policy priorities of the president , is that right . Its to obey all orders. On july 25, the president of the United States talked about ukraine, is that correct . Yes sir. Regardless of what you had prepared as, far as talking points for that call from the president , you heard the president of the United States asked the president of ukraine to investigate the bidens, to correct . Yes sir, he made a request. After the july 25 call between trump and ukrainian president is it fair to say that you talk to the ukrainian counterparts enough times . Sir. How many times when you talk to the ukrainian counterparts did you ask them to investigate the bidens . Never sir. Why not . Sir, there was not a policy objective that i was aware of. With all due respect mr. Morrison, you are not in the white house to carry out the policy objectives. You testified that the president sets the Foreign Policy objective for the United States and the one call that you listen to between the president of United States and the president of ukraine, the president of United States priorities were to investigate the bidens. Im asking you sir, why didnt you follow up on the president s priorities when you talk to ukrainians . I did not understand the policy objective. Mr. Morrison, i know that you put that conversation in the server because as you said, you fear the political consequences of some of the reasons that you gave. You also chose to define the president s request to not come here as others have like mr. Mulvaney and bolton, you have come here and been truthful, i appreciate that and mr. Morrison whether you acknowledge or publicly or not, i believe that you knew that what the president asked the ukrainians to do was wrong. As you just described, your duty as to follow the Foreign Policy of the president but to also only follow something that is a lawful order and i dont believe it was a lawful order which is why you did not follow up on his priority. Mr. Vulgar. Weve heard a lot today about this president being an Anti Corruption president. He cares about fighting corruption and is russia a corrupt country . President zelensky . President trump . Its russia corrupt country . Yes it is. Trump has met a number of times with the president is, that right . Yes a few times. He said a number of phone calls, i right . Yes. His turkey a corrupt country . I believe so. Just last week despite their corruption, at the white house president erdogan had lunch with the president United States is, that right . Yes. Finally, mr. Giuliani on may 9th told the New York Times President Trump basically knows what im doing as his lawyer. Are you familiar with that statement . Im not. But you agree as a lawyer is sitting next to you, a lawyer acts on a client behalf. And only ana kleins behalf, is all right . I believe that a lawyer acts on his clients behalf. Im not sure about only on a clients behalf because as i understood mayor giuliani, in this case he was doing what i dont believe he was always a instructed. We are not meddling in an election, or meddling on an investigation. Correct . Im taking it from the statement. I yield back. Mr. Morrison, my colleague from california suggest he knows your opinions, and your thoughts but he didnt give you the opportunity to respond. Do have a response or want to give a response . No sir. I hope i heard the president s request and to lead a policy process different by deposition. I was directed by mr. Cooper bid to ensure a unity of opinion and the importance of continuing and thats what i did. I advocated what i was given. Copy. While we are with you mr. Morrison and we appreciate your testimony today. Did you participate in your conversations with political information directed by ukraine on the bidens and the user political gain . No sir. Ambassador volker, same question. Did you participate or over here any conversations about essential information by the ukraine and the bidens for the use a political gain . No. Theres been lots of discussions of text change that you had with mr. Yermak that talked about this statement. Mayor giuliani provided some feedback on what needed to be included on that. Did mayor giuliani get feedback on the proposed meant . I have no reason to think that they had discussed that. But based on your recollection ambassador volker, has mayor giuliani interacted with in addition to mr. Yermak who already talked about and the former attorney general. I do not know who else he had worked with other than zelensky government. Im aware of him having believed that mr. Yuriy lutsenko but is not a current regime of which were talking about. I dont know who else he wouldve met with. Is it possible what was your understanding of ambassador sondlands role . He cared about ukraine. He wanted to see ukraine increased and wanted to see European Union support increase but the sanctions and wanted to be helpful. Was ambassador sondland having conversations without letting people know . I dont believe that he was not letting people know, i think he may have had some conversations where he was acting and i think we circled back frequently with my bell myself. Can you say that you have a clear understanding and what ambassador sondland and mayor giuliani were doing with all other interactions with ukrainian officials . I cant say i had a clear understanding. I thought that ambassador sondland and i were working from the same objective which was getting a meeting between zelensky and President Trump. And a statement as i understood from 2016 would be potentially helpful and anything more than their interactions. You didnt have a clear understanding of the special representative to ukraine. Do you think they have a clear understanding. No i dont. He thought there was a difference between biden and his 2016 election . Thats correct. And you think the ukrainians had some similar understanding . Yes i did. There is also a perception that when ambassador yovanovitch with her 33 years of being an often ambassador. When she left kiev, that the u. S. Position on corruption would weaken the narrative thats floating around. Who was the person that took over for her . Who was the charge a after . Immediately after, was this individual strong or weak . I would say with the rest of our policy. Who is that person in place with . Thats all you suggested for the position . Was tailor strong or weak . Very strong. Mr. Morrison, in my last 23 minutes he said u. S. Policy . The president. Not some other staffer within the nfc process . Thats to ensure the president has the full process for this decision. Thank you and i yield back. Its a castro. Thank you chairman, thank you gentlemen for your testimony today, is a crack to say that both of you gentlemen or appointed or hired by the white house in the trump ministration . Yes sir. In my case by secretary tillerson. But part of the Trump Administration . Yes. Sure. Ambassador volker, you testified that Gordon Sondland but we just know and in one text message on july 26 ambassador sondland was a great photo, can you get this to potus without intermediaries. July 26 with the same day that sunlen spoke to the president from a restaurant in kiev, design right . The date again . July 26 . I know that to be correct now. Were you aware of that call. Were you aware that in visitor sondland . He claimed he spoke to the president frequently. Ambassador sondland is a Big Personality he was a political appointee. He had also been a large donor to one of trump President Trumps campaign committees. I have learned that yes. Mr. Morrison mutate stated during your testimony that when you met ambassador song and for the first time, he represented the president which was to donate youth. In fact, you testified with the july 25th and so to number 11 of this year that they learned that ambassador sondland and President Trump spoken several of occasions. Is it accurate that every time you checked you were able to confirm and they had in fact spoken to the president . Mr. Morrison, you testified that sunlen emailed you of several staff that they breathed President Trump in advance of the july 25th call with the ukrainian president. Is that correct . Thats correct. Then ambassador sondland tell you about the president at all . He sent me an email sir and it was less distinct in the item with respect to ukraine. New testified that you confirmed that ambassador sondland and trump has spoken before the july 25th call. Thats correct congressman. The white house situation keeps a record of those calls. That it follows able to confirm it they suggested points for the question for the president i u. S. Policy is i correct . Yes. Putin uses point, did he . He did not. And you prepared materials for the president and they do not include references on the 2016 election. Thats right. Ambassador sondland, the guy who is be gordon problem whos got a direct link to the president. The guy whos talking about making deals, beat President Trump. Correct congressman. President trump raised the 2016 election and his son to the ukrainian president after he was briefed by ambassador sondland. Is that right . Thats correct. It sounds like ambassador sondland who are on the same page. They both were working to the political interests even when it undermined u. S. Foreign policy. I wanna ask you in a short time i have to serve the United States, whether putting President Trump aside that you believe that is proper to a Foreign Government to investigate u. S. Citizens ambassador . I dont believe its appropriate for the president to do that. We have Law Enforcement concerns with a u. S. Citizen generally and the channels are for that. Mr. Morrison . I agree with passer bolger sir. Thank you chairman, i yield back. Mr. Ratcliffe. Thank you chairman. Gentlemen, i appreciate both of you being here today i know its been a long day for you. Mr. Morrison im, trying to summarize some of what we heard to shorten this. Who are on the july 25th call, correct . Yes congressman. I will tell you that he testified earlier today that he heard what he thought was a demand of the call that was improper and felt we had a duty to report back. I think we establish already and didnt discuss any of that. But you did have a discussion about other concerns with the call and i believe the fidelity of the translation and the fact that they both shared the discussion about not being a fullthroated is that fair . Yes congressman. With respect and something improper and specifically and no point did he come to you and say that i heard something that was improper. I have no recollection of doing that. No quid pro quo and everything that they asked you . No sir. As you were listening, did you hear President Trump make a demand of anything that constituted a crime . I was trying to stay on the same side, you have a law degree. With bribery and extortion but is it fair to say that as you are listening and bribing the president of ukraine or he was extort sorting the president of ukraine. Or doing anything improper. Have you heard where president zelensky agrees with you and repeatedly consisting of any conditions and he didnt feel any pressure and experience anything improper on the call. I attended the line in new york and felt that he is under pressure. Did anyone on the National Security council after this call expressed to you in some crime or bribery or expand potion anything occurred . No sir. I want to ask you, mr. Morrison about the whistleblower complaint. I dont want to ask as the identity but i want to ask you about the accusation that started about this. The whistleblower was not on the call as the igic that he or she was concerned about the president s conduct that constituted under section 30 33, a serious problem for violation of law or executive order. Again, to be clear, you didnt hear a violation of law or executive order as you listen to the call . Sir, i made no judgment about anything. The whistleblower also reported in the start of the inquiry that the president sought to pressure the ukrainian leadership to take action to help the president s 2020 reelection. President trump does not mention 2020 in the call, does he . No sir, i dont believe he did. President trump doesnt mention his reelection bullet bid in the call . I dont believe he did. You did not hear President Trump pressured or have a demand of any kind as established, correct . Yes. A colonel vindman uses the word demand i dont think council you shoes the microphone. With all due respect, i believe you just said the whistleblower. Like vindman also and ambassador volker are both providing advice to ukrainian leadership on how to demand the president who invaded zelensky and quote. There were no demands from the perspective mr. Morrison . Thats correct. Speculation about the whistleblower aside the fact is that the whistleblower was wrong about the facts as well, correct . Im not familiar with this complaint but i did not hear a demand. I yield back. Mr. Heck. Thank you mister chairman. Ambassador volker, i want to thank you for being here today and we found some of your Opening Statement to be not just genuine but downright eloquent. We noted the particular passages of the aggression and the strong resilient parts of ukraine and this is important for National Security and some of them believe that theyre not Strong Enough in russia and are not supportive enough of ukraine and one of the challenges is help explain to them why it is in our National Security interest. You will never have again to look into the camera and tell the american public, why it is important to support ukraine. Why should it matter to them it the Biggest Issue in their life its getting their kids to school and paying their bills and the like. Sir . Thank you so much congressman. I agree with you completely doubt we are not pushing back hard enough on russia and that we owe ukraine a great deal of support. Why does it matter . Russia is trying to upheld the security in new york and reassert its domination and it has led to war in europe. And the war in ukraine have left more people dead with the balkans and are being to splays by war and europe since world war ii and these are people that stand up for freedom and democracy and wont reform and want to see their country be successful like germany, like sweden, like us and are fighting a war of aggression that are designed to hold them back and if we want to live in a world of freedom that we ought to be supportive for them around the world. Thank you for that. More here in part because of the cover of concern for general corruption and in fact there was something quite nefarious as the alternative. There wasnt a concern about general corruption. Revealing the record on that, is not true that in march of this year, he department of defense certified ukraine as having sufficient progress that continue to receive military assistance . I dont know the details of that. Is it true that on april 24 as president zelensky was an overwhelming mandate which was largely on its effort and corruption . Thats correct. It is not true this mandate was expanding july 21st as Party Control began on Anti Corruption . Thats correct. In fact, he was sweeping forms of Anti Corruption did, he not . Yes he did. Its not true everyone in the ground thought it was filled with optimism that ukraine was getting serious about combatting corruption . Thats correct. Ambassador volker, did you know that one of the very first Anti Corruption measures asked in the ukraine which was a lot to provide for the impeachment of the president . I did not. Its true. He thought we should start with himself. I raised this because my friends on the other side of the aisle characterize this impeachment inquiry as wrong because and im quoting them, it will overturn an election. It will overturn an election but impeachment is an Anti Corruption tool. Four people on the other side of the aisle, it does overturn an election by definition it overturns an election. I dont know if they got a problem with the constitution or provisions for impeachment but we recommend they really read the bell them relevance and passages in one, two and three and some of the history but none of us want to be here despite whats being said. None of us came to this easily. Were a call for the rest of my life to 40 hours i spent here literally plunged in self reflection and literally deliberation about this whole matter. Collectively, we are going to have to go with this decision and its going to get hard and its hard in proportion to its importance to our great republic. A republic if we can keep it. I yield back mister chairman. Mr. Jordan. Thank you mister chairman ambassador volker, and the transcript on the bottom of page three President Trump said this. I heard you had a prosecutor and he was shut down and just for clarification. Do you believe trump was talking about shokin . Shokin. Thank you so much thats what i thought as well. Mr. Morgan new talked about issues with colonel vindmans judgment, is that right . It is sir. You said specifically you had concerns about vindmans appropriate judgment as to who we said what is, all right . Yes sir. You testified doctor hill that she had concerns about colonel vindmans judgment is, that right . It is her. You testified colonel vindman was not just only the chief of command . I believe so, yes or. You are aware the issues with trying to access information outside is that correct . I believe as i stated, that there were those who were concerned about that. You just like colonel vindman it was not included on trips a . Right yes or. And he testified that colleagues expressed concern to you about colonel vindman leaking information is, that right . Yes sir. When i asked curdled about what he did go to you with his concerns about the call, even though new had no concerns about anything in your language which was nothing improper anything illegal on the call. I asked him in earlier this morning and well talk to the lawyers his, brother, secretary cant and one other person that he wouldnt tell us and chairman schiff when i tell us. Im asking why he did that and he indicated that the lawyer said that youre trying to get a hold of you. Is that fair . Sir, i watched part of the proceedings was boarding. Something chairman schiff brought up this morning was that he pointed out that colonel vindmans boss also went to the lawyers. But your reason to go into the lawyer is a little bit different. Yes sir. I think you had a few things that you talked about earlier but i think at the top of your list was you were concerned about the contents of the call leaking out. Is that fair . Yes sir. Thats exactly what happened. Isnt it . Sir, i dont know i dont know that the context was a whistleblower complaint and the president chose to classify. It seems to me you were prophetic because you said in your Statement Today as i stated during my deposition that the time of the call on july 25th, how disclosure of the contest would play in washingtons Political Climate. My fears have been realized and you saw what might happen and it sure did. Its a fair to say . Yes sir. We get all of this, we give all of this and was it worth it . We get all of this and in the hearings this week and we spent a bunker in the basement and for facts that we kept coming back to ive never changed and will never change from both of us today and these facts with the call transcript and no linkage to Security System in the transcript and the two individuals who were on the call who said no linkage, no pressure, no pushing and got the fact that the ukrainians didnt go and nominate and were withheld until august 29th and most importantly they did nothing as far as starting and congress didnt start announcing theyre going to start an investigation did nothing and they got released. I believe he got released because we were talking about the good work of the ambassador volker. And others who saw this might happen in here we are. You called it all, knew saw this coming and thats why you went to the lawyers and thats why thats why the concern was there. And thats the part thats most troubling and i yield back. I yield to the gentleman from ohio. Ambassador volker until male you said Ukraine Special on kirk volker walks back is closed door testimony and says, in quote as now learned there, was a link between the u. S. Military aid and that is not your testimony today is . It that is not in my testimony. Mr. Welch . Thank you. Just following up on mr. Jordan, the easiest way to avoid investigation is to not do anything wrong. I want to talk a little bit about why we are here. Official government actions cannot be traded for help in a political campaign. Let me give an analogy and ask if you if you agree. Could a mayor of a city withhold funding for the Police Department budget unless they agree to open up investigation into a political rival. Mr. Morrison . No, i dont take a chief think he should do that. Ambassador volker . Yes. The same will be true if it were a governor withholding the budget request of the state, unless the state agreed to conduct an investigation into a political rival. Would you agree . Correct. Yes, sir. Isnt a difference for a member of congress of course not, right . Would you agree that the president has the same obligation, as the mayor, as the governor and a member of congress to not withhold aid unless he gets an investigation into a political rival. Mr. Morrison . Yes, i would agree with that hypothetical. I agree. We are having a debate here, both sides, as to how to read what is plainly before us. The president ial phone call where the president ignored the advisers and talking point, and instead chose to talk about the bidens and hunter biden, and asked for an investigation. So we are going to have to debate that. Isnt the principle that no person, including the president is above the law absolutely essential and worth the effort to make certain that we can guarantee. Im sorry, ambassador volker . Yes. The rule of law central to our democracy. Thats so true. We had some discussions and challenge from the other side, that the president has the authority in Foreign Policy to do what he likes. In fact, he does. A recent president by President Trump to take our troops out of syria and allow the Turkish Forces to go in literally meant that some kurdish families went to bed saturday night and look up sunday morning, pack their kids and fled for their lives. A lot of people, including both sides of the aisle disagreed with that. The president has the authority to do it. Impulsive asset has been about threatening our National Security. We are not talking about that here. Master volker, i listened to your testimony and i take it and thank you for making efforts to try to advance what had been a bipartisan party, to help ukraine get rid of corruption, help resist russian aggression. But you came to learn was that there was a sidebar ukraine policy with giuliani as an advocate, is that correct . I dont know anything about that. As you have been involved, while you were working on what he thought was stopping aggression and eliminating corruption, there was a sigh deal here to get investigations going, correct . Yes. My objective was purely focused on support for ukraine, National Security and i have now learned from other testimony about the president s statement about investigating biden and other conversations that i did not know about. Thank you for that, and thank you for your candor about the Vice President s and hagerty and service. But the bottom line here is that, at the end of the day, we will have to make a judgment about what the president was up to with respect to that request for the favor, and how it repudiated the policy that it was the bipartisan effort in ukraine, and raises questions about he and that hypothetical example i gave of the mayor, held himself to be above the law. I yield back. Mr. Mulroney . Thank you for being here. Ambassador volker, i was struck by her Opening Statement. It moved a long way from the testimony you presented to us in october. I know you gave a reason for that, which is that you were in the dark about a lot of these things, is that fair to say . That is one thing, i learned a lot you learned a lot. What you said on page eight, that i did not know, this is a quote, i did not know that President Trump or others had raised Vice President , biden, or conflated the investigation with the former Vice President. You did no breeze moment biden, thats what you say . I had separated the two. You were there on may 23rd for the meeting with the president when he said talk to rudy, and rudy care about the investigations, which we now know met biden, right . You miss that on may 23rd . I understood at the time that hunter biden has been a board member you did not read that as a request to investigate the bidens at the time . Correct. And you were in meetings were ambassador sondland rates the investigations, like you did know was about the violence, that your testimony, right . I did not think he was talking about anything specific. You thought it was inappropriate, and the chairman asked you about that, but he said i did know was the bidens, i just thought it was inappropriate, and then when they were in the war room, and ambassador sondland race burisma and the violent in 2016, you missed that two as i understand. On july 18th you knew aid was withheld and an august hes been a good part of the time with this statement. You are the guy making the changes, and interacting with the ukrainians. Youre putting and british changes, which included a call for investigating burisma, and the 2016 elections, which you now know meant biden, right . You do note at the time, but now we know. On september 1st, you were in warsaw. You are at every point of this. You were there when ambassador sondland told andre yermak that he was not going to get Security Assistance or a white house meeting unless there were investigations. You missed that, you are out of the loop then . I was not in warsaw at these meetings. You heard it from sondland . No, it was sometime later. Now you know what it meant, and you said in retrospect, i should have seen that connection differently, and had i done, so i would have raised my own objections. That is correct. What are the objections you would have raised . What i would have raises that people are conflating investigating the bidens with investigating this Ukrainian Company, burisma. When you objected to the president asking for an investigation of the bidens as you sit here now, you should i would have raised my own objections if i knew it was the bidens. If i knew we were talking about investigating Vice President biting in asking the ukrainians, that would be inappropriate. I would have objected to. That its if you heard him ask for it on the call, and enrich inspect, the ukrainians would have been confusing. Its confusing the right word . It would put them in the position of having to do something inappropriate, right . I think confusing is the right word because they were hearing Something Different from the president in one conversation and different from me as a u. S. Special representative. Maybe they understood that investigating burisma and investigating 2016, and documented biden,s even though you did not. You were talking to yermak and putting the changes in the statement, he had talk to sondland at the same time. So the point being, they were putting an impossible decision. They were being asked to do something inappropriate, and you now know that and you would have raised your own objections . In the conversations that i had with the, ukrainians we were not asking them to do that. The iranians, perhaps with the knowledge of the phone call, which i did not object to object to at the time said we do not want to go. Theyre in retrospect, you would have raised objections, you said it was inappropriate for the president to do this, and mr. Morrison, can i ask you . Im stuck on this issue of, you didnt see anything wrong with the call, but you went straight to nfc legal to report it. Is that your testimony to us today . Yes. To both of you, thank you so much for your service, and thank you for being here, its been a long day. Mr. Morrison, just to follow up on the question from my colleague, you responded earlier to a series of questions about the call, and basically saw nothing wrong with it, yet you skipped your chain of command to go to Legal Counsel to find out what to do, because you were concerned about the political fallout, not about anything being inappropriate or wrong with the call, is that correct . I dont agree with the premise, no. Can you tell me why you felt the need you saw nothing wrong with the call, yet you skipped your chain of command to go to council, because of what . What was the reason for that . I dont know i dont think i skipped my chain of command. If i had seen something wrong who should direct report . The deputy National Security adviser. The name of the person . Doctor charles kupperman. Did you speak with him before he spoke with Legal Counsel . No. But you dont feel that you skip your chain of command by going directly to council . If i may, i feed my engagement with the and i see Legal Counsel one and investigating legal matters. I was interested in making sure that the Legal Adviser was aware of the call, because i did not see anybody from the Legal Advisers office where you start concerned about the Legal Adviser being aware of this call that you saw nothing wrong with, basically the substance or content of the call . I did not see anybody from the Legal Advisers office in the listening room, and i wanted to make sure somebody from the Legal Advisers office was aware. I want to make sure was a senior person . What did you want them to be aware of, specifically . I wanted them to be aware of the call, because i wanted them to know what had transpired. What concerns you to the point where you wanted them to know what had transpired,directl counsel to inform them of . My equivalent, was and then John Eisenberg, he is my equivalent in that position, i wouldnt go to somebody subordinate to him you said that you were concerned about the political fallout based on the Political Climate in d. C. . Yes maam. So how long have you supervise Lieutenant Colonel vindman . July 15th two october 31st or so. Okay, thank you. Ambassador volker, you testified that you believe congressional pressure helped unfreeze the Security Systems being released. Do you still stand by that testimony . I believe it was important. I met with the Staff Members of the armed forces committee, and that solved a letter that several senators signed and sent to chief of staff mulvaney, and i was briefed about possibilities of a couple of phone calls from senior members of the senate as well. Thank you. I yield my remaining time you. Ambassador volker, i just want to follow up on a couple of questions about the ukrainians not being aware of the meeting that was held. Youre aware of the testimony of colonel vindman that in fact he was contacted by someone in the Ukrainian Embassy that was concerned about the whole thing being public. I was not aware of that. Are you aware of mrs. Crofts testimony that ukrainians found out quite quickly after the hold was placed in july that she was priced with trade craft, and that they had a reason to keep it silent . I saw that in her testimony. You have any reason to question the fact that the testimony was accurate . No, i dont. So they did find out before with public, according to these two witnesses. Nevertheless, the ukrainians found out it was public when he was published in the newspaper, right . That is correct. August 29th. When they found out from the newspaper, they still have not had the white house meeting, and they still did not have the aid, and at that point, they had already had a conversation with the president in which she asked them to investigate the bidens is, that correct . That is correct. Mr. Krishnamoorthi . He said that since events surrounding your earlier testimony, october 3rd, quote unquote a great deal of perspective come to light, i have learned many things that i did not know at the time of the time of the investigation, correct . That includes conversations that occurred as well as meetings that occurred of what you were not airport, correct . Correct. You obviously were not a part of the july 25th call, is that right . Thats correct. You were not aware of ambassador sondland, according to your Opening Statement, had a call with President Trump on july 26th, right . Thats correct. On september 1st you were not present for the sidebar meeting between ambassador sondland and special advisor yermak, is that right . Thats correct. And you were not part of the phone call between ambassador taylor and ambassador sondland in which ambassador sondland, according to multiple people now, said that everything a, white house meeting as well as military aid were dependent on public announcement of investigations, is that right . Thats correct. And you are not part of the phone call on september 7th between ambassador sondland and President Trump, in which President Trump insisted that president zelensky go to a mic and publicly announce investigations a President Trumps domestic rivals, is that right . Thats correct you are not part of the september 8th phone call between ambassador sondland and ambassador sorry, President Trump, where he insists that these announcements have to happen, is that right . Correct. You say that you were not a witness to any kind of quid pro quo, or conditionality between military assistance and investigations, when someone called missiles for misinformation today, is that right . Thats correct. But you werent present for many, if not all of the phone calls and conversations where these alleged instances of quid pro quo occurred, is that right . That is correct. Let me turn your attention to another topic that has come up today actually, a came up last friday. You have high regard for ambassador yovanovitch, correct . Yes. I presume that you were aware that, as the ambassador was testifying, President Trump actually tweeted very disparaging remarks about her. I saw that. And you disapprove . That is not appropriate. Youve supervised many people during your career in the foreign service, right . And you would never do that for one of your direct reports, or anybody who worked in your organization . No, i would not. Its just wrong. Even when you feel like you need to criticize, criticism is private, praises public. I also believe the youre a man of, honor and you would not attack a veteran, or someone who is currently serving in the military, who is doing their duty, correct . I respect the service of our members in uniform. There is a certain man that we both admire, the late senator john mccain, who unfortunately was attacked, not only when he was alive, but after he died. I presume that he would disapprove of all those attacks on john mccain. I knew him for a very long time, hes very much a war hero in this country. As Lieutenant Colonel vindman was testifying, our president used the official twitter account to attack Lieutenant Colonel vindmans credibility. I presume you dont approve of those types of tweets either, to you . I was not aware. And as with a master even if its, not appropriate. Thank you for your service, and thank you for you as well. I recognize Ranking Member for closing comments. I like to remind the American People what we are watching. The public hearings are the combination of three years of incessant democrat efforts to find a crime to impeach the president. First, they tried to manufacture evidence that the president colluded with russia to accomplish this task, the dnc and Clinton Campaign worked with a former british spy, christopher steele. Steel assembled a dossier of false information, alleging the Trump Campaign colluded with russia. That dossier was largely a symbol from russia and ukrainian sources, that the democratic contractors work. They find their hopes on the work of robert mueller, mueller spent two years and millions of taxpayer dollars that we know was not committed. Muellers failure was a devastating blow to democrats, who clearly hoped his work to be the basis for the removal of the president. Today, we are witnessing the ukraine hoax, a direct to tvs equal to the russia collusion hoax. The plot of the ukraine hoax is hard to follow, it shift from day to day. First they claimed evidence of a quid pro quo, and extortion, and witness intimidation, now democrats are pinning their hopes on bribery. Like any good hollywood production, democrats needed a screen test before releasing the latest attack on the president. They leveraged the secrecy of the House Intelligence Committee to interview a cast of characters, in preparation for these public hearings. They built a narrative based on selectively leaked testimony. Speaker pelosi, the democrats on this committee, are seeking the truth, they want to know the answer to the following questions that they refused to ask. To what extent to the whistleblower coordinate with the democrats on this committee and our staff . What is the full extent of ukraines election meddling against the Trump Campaign in 2016 . Why the burisma hunt higher hunter biden and what did he do for him, and it is actions impact the United States under the Obama Administration . The American People were promised a grave and somber impeachment inquiry, instead, they got a salacious comedy that they have been working on for three years. Good night, ill see you in the morning. I thank the gentleman, and i thank you both for your testimony today. I would highlight a couple of things about what we have heard this afternoon. First, ambassador volker, youre written testimony in which you say, in hindsight, i now understand that others saw the idea of investigating possible corruption involving burisma as equivalent to investigating former Vice President biden. I saw them as very different. The former being appropriate an unremarkable, the latter being unacceptable. And retrospect, you said i should have seen that in connection differently, and had i done so, i would have raised my own objections. Thats where we appreciate you are ability to an end your testimony. Knowing what you know today, that the president saw an investigation of his political rival, Vice President biden, you would not have countenance any versions of the ukrainians to engage in this conduct. I appreciate also that you are able to debunk, i hope for the last time, the idea that joe biden did something wrong, and that he in accordance with u. S. Policy, sought to replace a corrupt prosecutor, something that not only the u. S. State department wanted, and not only the European Union want it, and not only the imf wanted, but it was the consensus position of the United States National Security infrastructure. You did not get a lot of questions about that, because i think you effectively said that was all nonsense. We appreciate your candor about that. Mr. Morrison, i think whats most remarkable about your testimony is the acknowledgment that, immediately after the Vice President met with president zelensky in warsaw, you witnessed Gordon Sondland meeting with andrea yermak, a top advisor to president zelensky, and then immediately thereafter, sondland told you that he had informed the ukrainians that, if they wanted that 400 million in military aid, they were going to have to do those investigations that the president wanted. You were later informed, this is also significant as you testified here today, that the ambassador sondland and his subsequent conversations with President Trump had informed you that it wasnt going to be enough for the ukrainian prosecutor general to announce the investigations the president wanted, president zelensky had to do it himself if he wanted to get that aid in the meeting with the white house. Youve been asked to opine on the meaning of the term bribery, although you werent asked to opine on the terms high crimes and misdemeanors. Bribery, for those at home, is the conditioning of acts an exchange for something of value. The acts are a white house meeting that president zelensky desperately sought and was deeply important to this country at war with russia, to show the United States had this new president s back. That meeting was important, that meeting is an official act. The military assistance is even more significant, because ukrainians are dying every day in their war with russia. And so the withholding of military assistance to get these investigations, which you now have acknowledged ambassador volker, was wrong, the president to request, the idea of withholding that military aid to get these political investigations, should be anathema to every american. It means the sacrifice, not just to ukrainian ashton security, but america National Security, for the interests of the president personally and politically. Now, my republican colleagues all seem to be upset about, not that the president sought investigation of his rival, not that he held a white house meeting to pressure ukraine, the objection is that he got caught. There objection is that someone blew the whistle, and they would like this whistleblower identified. The president wants this whistleblower punished. Thats their objection, not that the president engaged in this conduct, that he got caught. Their defense is, as well, the in the policing the aid. Yes, after he got caught. It doesnt make this any less odious. Americans maybe watching this and asking, why should the United States care about ukraine . Why should we care about ukraine . And this was the import of the conversation in that kiev restaurant with Gordon Sondland away from us and, because the president was talking so loud, what does the president asking that call a day after that call he had with zelensky, what is he asked on that cell phone call . Not whether they had passed Anti Corruption reform, no, are the cranes going to do the investigation. Silent answer is, theyre going to do it. They do anything the president wants. Whats more telling is the conversation with homes afterwards, in which the president says that, basically, donald trump does not give an expletive about ukraine. He cares about the big things. Mr. Holmes says, well, ukraines at war with the russians, thats a big thing. And sondland answer is, no, he cares about big things that affect his personal interests. Thats why americans should care about this. Americans should care about what happened to our allies, who die, but they should also carry about their own president and constitution, and they will need to ask themselves as we will have to ask ourselves in congress, are we prepared to accept that the president of the United States can leverage official acts of military assistance, white house meetings to get an investigation of a political rival . Are we prepared to say, well, i get thats what we should expect of a president . I dont think we want to go there. I dont think our Founding Fathers would have wanted us to go there. Indeed, when the Founding Fathers provided a remedy, that remedy being impeachment, they had a very concerned that the president made may portray the National Security interests of the country for personal interests. They put that remedy in the constitution, not because they wanted to willynilly, overturn elections, but because they wanted a powerful Anti Corruption mechanism, when that corruption came from the highest office in the land. We are adjourned. I asked the audience to leave the witness to leave the room before they exit