ukraine s future and the important u.s. interests there. when secretary pompeo asked me to go back to kiev, i wanted to say yes, but it was not an easy decision. the former ambassador masha yovanovitch has been treated poorly, caught in political machinations both in kiev and washington. i feared those problems were still present. consulted both my wife and the respected former senior republican official who has been a mentor. i will tell you that my wife in no uncertain terms strongly opposed the idea. the mentor counseled, if your country asks you to do something, you do it if you can be effective. i could be effective only if the u.s. policy of strong support for ukraine, strong diplomatic support along with robust security, economic and technical assistance were to continue. if i had the backing of the secretary of state to implement that policy. i worried about what iol of rud
strategic asset and that president zelensky should not jeopardize that bipartisan support by getting drawn into u.s. domestic politics. i had been making and continued to make this point to all of my official ukrainian contacts, but the odd push to make president zelensky publicly commit to investigations of burisma and alleged interference in the 2016 electi election showed how the official policy of the united states was undercut by the irregular efforts led by mr. giuliani. two days later, september 7th, i had a conversation with mr. morrison in which he described a phone conversation earlier that day between ambassador sondland and president trump. mr. morrison said he had a singing feeling about learning about this conversation from ambassador sondland. according to mr. morrison president trump said he was not asking for a quid pro quo.
a political campaign made no sense. it was counterproductive to all of what we had been trying to do. it was illogical. could not be explained. it was crazy. when you say all of what we were trying to do, what do you mean by we? i mean that the united states was trying to support ukraine as a front line state against russian attack. again, the whole notion of a rules-based order was being threatened by the russians in ukraine. so our security assistance was designed to support ukraine. it was not just the united states, it was all of our allies. when you reference help with a political campaign in this text message, what did you mean? i meant that the investigation of burisma and the bidens was clearly identified by mr. giuliani in public for
it was also clear that this condition was driven by the irregular policy channel i had come to understand was guided by mr. giuliani. in a regular nsc secure video conference call i heard a staff person from the office of management and budget say there was a hold on security assistance to ukraine but could not say why. toward the end of and other wise normal meeting, a voice on the call, the person was off screen, said she was from omb and her boss had instructed her not to approve any additional spending on security systems for ukraine until further notice. i and others sat in astonishment. ukrainians were fighting russians and counted on not only the training and weapons, but also the assurance of u.s. support. all that the omb staff person said was that the directive had come from the president to the chief of staff to omb.
dr. hill s recent replacement at the nsc on july 28th. mr. morrison told me that the call could have been better and that president trump suggested that president zelensky or his staff meet with mr. giuliani and attorney general william barr. i didn t see any official readout of the call until it was publicly released. by august i was more concerned. on august 16 i exchanged text messages with ambassador volker in which i learned that a senior advisor to president zelensky asked that the united states submit an official request for an investigation into burisma s alleged violations of ukrainian law if that is what the united states desired. a formal u.s. request to the ukrainians to conduct an investigation based on violations of their own law struck me as improper and i