President , correct . Its appropriate for the Justice Department and the Prosecutor General to cooperate and to exchange information, yes. But to the extent that the president has concerns and to the extent that the Attorney General is having u. S. Attorney durham look into it, isnt it entirely appropriate for the president to flag this for president zelensky and say that you should be in touch with our official channels . Mr. Castor, i dont know the precise appropriateness of these kind of relations. Now, were you involved, either of you involved with the preparation for the 7 25 call . I was not. I was not. And how do you account for that . I mean, you were the two of the key officials with responsibility for ukrainian policy. If the president of the United States is going to have a call with the leader of the ukraine, why wouldnt
you ordinarily be involved with preparation . Sir, we work for the Department Of State in an embassy overseas and in preparation for a president ial phone
Joe biden, come on over to ukraine its never going to happen spewing all they had to do apparently was announce an investigation. Okay, that is it for us. They hearing is set to resume shortly, but now we have special report up next. Spewing that evening, welcome to washington. I am bret baier. Continuing coverage of the impeachment hearings day 3, nine hours on capitol hill as you look alive at the chairman adam schiff getting ready to gavel into the next round of questions this from the lawmakers themselves, while we wait, we will bring in our panel here. Byron york, chief Political Correspondent of the national and josh holmes, former top advisor to mitch mcconnell, now president of the Cavalry Consultants as you look there at tom morrison, tim morris and heading back in for testimony, and kurt volker right behind him. Quickly down the row, your thoughts on today so far . Today is the day that we
found out there was a difference of opinion about this trumpzelensky call, some officia
Discussing today which involved an irregular channel which is her request that went against u. S. Policy that would undermine the rule of law and our longstanding policy goals in ukraine as in other countries in the postsoviet space. Policies that were indeed championed by ambassador yovanovitch. You also testified in the deposition about fundamental reforms necessary for ukraine to fight corruption and to transform the country and you cited the importance of reforming certain institutions, notably security service. Was investigating President Trumps political opponents a part of those necessary reforms . Was it on that list of yours and was it on any list . No, they werent. In fact, historically is it not true than a major problem in the ukraine is bennetts misuse
of prosecutors, precisely to conduct an investigation of political opponents. Thats a legacy i dare suggest from the soviet era which as you said in your testimony prosecutors like the kgb were and i quote you now instrument
Had already stopped the Trip Planning by that point. And when did that happen . Stopping the Trip Planning . Yeah. On may 13th. Okay. And how did you hear about that . I was called by a colleague in the the Vice President s chief of staffs office and told to stop the Trip Planning. Okay. And as i understand it, it was the assistant to the chief of staff . Thats correct. Okay. And so you didnt hear about it from general kellogg or the chief of staff or the president or the Vice President , you heard about it from mr. Shorts assistant . Thats right. And did you have any knowledge of the reasoning for stopping the trip . I asked my colleague why we should stop Trip Planning and why the Vice President would not be attending, and i was informed that the president had decided the Vice President would not attend the inauguration. Okay. And do you know why the president decided no, she did not have that information. Okay. And ultimately the Vice President went to canada for a usmca event . Tha
About fighting corruption, we should also say specifically, burisma in 2016. Mr. Yermak provided me a statement. I wanted to be assured that this statement would actually correct the perception that mr. Giuliani had of ukraine and what they stand for now so that that would also be conveyed to President Trump and solve this problem that i had observed with our may 23rd meeting with the president. The problem being that he is getting a bad set of information, a Statement Like this could potentially correct that. Was mr. Guiliani satisfied with the statement . No, he was not. He believed it needed to say burisma and 2016 specifically or else it would not be credible, would not mean anything. So in fact, mr. Guiliani wanted a statement that Referenced Burisma and the 2016 elections explicitly. One that would benefit, essentially, President Trump. It is to invest or come here is the text you sent to the ukrainian official on August August 13th. Lets put that up on the screen. You said, hi,