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 that? in my mind, there was not. it s also true, is it not, that these two investigations that the president asked zelensky for into 2016 and into the bidens were precisely the two investigations that rudy giuliani was calling for publicly, were they not? that is correct. so when people suggest, well, maybe rudy giuliani was acting on his own and maybe he was a freelancer or whatever, the president referred to exactly the same two investigations rudy giuliani was out pushing on his behalf. is that correct? that is correct. now, miss williams, you were asked about the meeting the vice president had with zelensky in september. in which the ukrainians brought up their concern about the hold on the security assistance. is that right? that s right. and you were asked about whether in that meeting between the vice president zelensky, the
you a position of defense minister? he did. how many times did he do that? i believe it was three times. do you have any reason why he asked you to do that? i don t know, but every single time i dismissed it, upon returning i notified my chain of command and the appropriate counter intelligence folks about the offer. ukraine s a country that s experienced a war with russia, certainly their minister of defense is a pretty key position for the ukrainians, president, zelensky, that was a big honor, correct? i think it would be a great honor, and frankly i m aware of service members that have left service to help nurture the developing democracies in that part of the world. if i recall correctly, it was an air force officer that became a
with president zelensky. in concert with that, multiple democratic members of this committee gave tv and radio interviews over this past week expressing how the president s conduct supported impeachment for committing bribery. all of which struck me as odd because for the longest time this was about quid pro quo according to the whistle-blower complaint. after witness after witness said there was no quid pro quo or even that quid pro quo was not even possible, we saw a shift from the democrats. they briefly started to refer to the president s conduct on the july 25th call as extortion. and now it s shifted again last week to bribery. ms. williams, you used the word unusual to describe the president s call last on july 25th. lieutenant colonel vindman, you used the word inappropriate and improper. i ve word searched each of your
so at the big public meeting it didn t come up, and you can t speak to the private meeting that was held immediately thereafter? correct. the vice president moved on with his schedule immediately after his meeting with president zelensky. now colonel vindman, i want to go back to that july 10th meeting or meetings the one with ambassador bolton and then the one in the ward room that followed quickly on its heels. were you aware that ambassador bolton instructed your superior dr. hill to go talk to the lawyers after that meeting? i learned shortly after she was finished talking to ambassador bolton and after we wrapped up with the ward room that she did have a meeting with him, and that s what was expressed. now, you thought you should go talk to the lawyers on your own, correct? that is my recollection, yes. but bolton also thought that