mulvaney heard about these investigations into burisma and the 2016 election, is that right? i don t know what mr. mulvaney heard or didn t hear. i think there s been a huge amount of exaggeration over my contact with mr. mulvaney. it was actually quiteul limited. well, he certainly didn t indicate he certainly indicated a familiarity with what you were talking about in this july 19th email, is that right? right, because i think mr. mulvaney was in the may 23rd briefingrd with president trump. i don t remember, because there were people sitting behind us when we were sitting in front of president trump s wdesk. you ve said you don t have a recollection of saying referencing mulvaney in the july 10th meeting in ambassador bolton s office, is that right? i don t recall. so when both fiona hill and
gradually came to understand they were being asked to do things in exchange for the meeting and the security assistance hold being lifted. he was saying ukraine was aware of the shakedown, no? yes, i think that s explicitly what he s saying. and what we re seeing is this administration or people who are either in political appointments or career officials are unable to keep the many lies straight that trump is asking them to continue perpetrating, which is presumably why trump, when he was when he submitted his answers to mueller, for example, he just said, i don t know over and over again or i don t recall, i don t recall, i don t recall. i don t remember, which helped him of course not have to remember what the lies were. but you re seeing members of this administration having to tie themselves into knots and we re still finding that they re contradicting each other right and left. sondland, as has been brought up, may yet have to amend things that he said. volker may yet have to
began to understand they were being asked to do things in exchange for the meeting and the security assistance hold being lifted. he was saying ukraine was aware of the shakedown, no? zble, i think that s explicitly what he s saying. and what we re seeing is this administration or people who are either in political appointments or career officials are unable to keep the many lies straight that trump is asking them to continue perpetrating, which is presumably why trump, when he was when he submitted his answers to mueller, for example, he just said, i don t know over and over again or i don t recall, i don t recall, i don t recall. i don t remember, which helped him of course not have to remember what the lies were. but you re seeing members of this administration having to tie themselves into knots and we re still finding that they re contradicting each other right and left. sondland, as has been brought up, may yet have to amend things that he said. volker may yet have to amend thi
long standing concerns about corruption in ukraine, correct? i don t i don t recall, but there are concerns. there are broad concerns about corruption, yes. but you would agree that if the u.s. is giving, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars to a foreign nation that has a corruption problem, that s certainly something that the u.s. government officials and the president would want to be concerned about? yes. and if a foreign country has a problem with oligarchs taking money, taking u.s. taxpayer dollars, that s something that the president ought to be concerned about in advance of dispensing the aid? yes. and i believe you did testify that corruption is endemic in ukraine? correct. are you also aware of the president s skepticism of foreign aid generally? i am. and it s something that he s made part of his priorities to make sure that u.s. foreign aid
if sondland was involved in that, there may be some legal jeopardy. let me get sean turner to weigh in. go ahead, sean. well, look, i think for susan hennessey lays it out perfectly. he has a couple of options. there are three key words we re likely to hear from him. i don t recall. he is someone who he s someone who certainly is going to be absolutely key to this. another thing about this phone call here, for the people who around him to supposedly heard this phone call made this point earlier. he has to consider the fact that it is very likely that there are other foreign intelligence agencies that would have collected this phone call. so as he considers whether or not he s going to plead the fifth or say i don t recall or whether or not he ll be completely forthcoming in the back of his mind he has to think to himself, it is possible that even if i say i don t recall that this still might come out at some point. that is an important point,