prosecutor general would go to the mic and announce he was opening the burisma investigation. sondland told taylor he had made a mistake by telling ukrainians that an oval office meeting was dependent on a public announcement of investigations. in fact, everything was dependent on such an announcement, including security assistance. but even the announcement by the prosecutor general would not satisfy the president. on september 7th, sondland spoke to the president and told morrison and taylor about the call shortly thereafter. the president said that although this was not a quid pro quo, if president zelensky did not clear things up in public, we would be at a stalemate. an announcement by the prosecutor general wouldn t be enough. president zelensky must personally that he would open the investigations. sondland told taylor that president trump is a
you have testified today that you came to believe that the request for investigations into burisma was in fact a request to investigate the bidens. former vice president and hunter. the transcript of the july 25 call makes specific reference to that, including hunter biden and today even the ranking member said we could clear all of this up if we could have hunter biden in then i am a simple question. what ukrainian law did hunter biden violate? i m not aware. what evidence is there that he may have violated any ukrainian law? i m not aware. that s because there is none, sir. finally. also from your opening statement, you said as you know, i ve already provided ten hours of deposition testimony. i did so despite directives from the white house and state department that i refused to appear, as many others have done. i agreed to testify because i respect the gravity of the moment. i believe i have an obligation to account fully for my role in
president trump told you and others to talk to rudy. do i have that right, sir? correct. mr. ambassador, did you listen to the president and talk to rudy, sir? did i talk to rudy? yes. what did you understand to be mr. giuliani s relationship with president trump. and understood he was the president s personal lawyer. what did you believe to what did you believe mr. giuliani was doing in ukraine for president trump? stick i don t know. ambassador sondland, in august of this year, you and ambassador volker spoke to mr. giuliani about a draft statement to be issued by president zelensky. mr. giuliani suggested, insisted that the statement include specific language about burisma. correct? correct. and he insisted the statement include the mention of the 2016
no. it was a short conversation. to reconfirm that the three of us would be working on the ukraine file and so on. back to rudy in this seemingly contradictory message. you now recall the prerequisite mentioned in the july 10 meeting, right? you are having this discussion, the first meeting is john bolton s office. you reference if there was condition. i believe someone else testified that i raised that they didn t dispute the testimony that i said it s my understanding that in order to get this visit done, there needs to be an announcement done i don t know if i said investigations or specifically burisma. in your opening, you mentioned at the very same time
investigation before this meeting. correct. i know announcement after the meeting. correct. you been clear when chairman schiff has asked you broadly about investigations, you have corrected that essay specifically your understanding of investigations are investigation into the 2016 elections and investigations into burisma. that s correct? correct. are you aware that during the obama administration, the u.s. partnered with the u.k. and ukraine on an investigation into the owner of burisma as part of ukraine s anticorruption efforts. i became aware of it today during the hearing. other witnesses have testified but yes. and in fact, the obama administration s state department was concerned about the potential appearance of conflict of interest with hunter biden serving as the board of on the board of burisma because they raised it as they were preparing ambassador yovanovitch for her senate confirmation. i m not aware of it. she testified and when i