why didn t you tell us about this? because that s what i remembered from the meeting, what i provided in my october 3rd statement. as i said, i learned other things including seeing the statements from alex vindman and from fiona hill. and that reminded me that, yes, at the very end of that meeting, as it was recounted in colonel vindman s statement, i did remember that, yes,er that, gordon did bring that up, and that was it. so volker also claimed that he did not understand until recently that investigation talks of ukrainian gas company burisma were linked to hunter biden. in hindsight, i now understand that others saw the idea of investigateing burisma s to former vice president biden, i saw them very different. the former being unremarkable. the latter being acceptable.
either. we have the call record from july 25th. which the president was forced to release. in which the president doesn t bring up corruption. he doesn t say, how are those anticorruption cords going? or, great work in the rada. of course not. what does he say? i want to investigate the bidens, and this debunked conspiracy theory by vladimir putin. that helps me in reelection. so much for fighting corruption. the real u.s. policy message is, don t engage in political investigations. the message from president, however, was the exact opposite. do engage in political corruption , and ultimately come if they want $400 million in u.s. aid, this is what they have to do. the only lament i hear from my colleagues is that it wasn t
let s do the substance. can we do that connect because we ve had a lot of dust kicked up. ms. williams, you heard the call with your own ears, right? yes, sir. not secondhand, not hearsay. you are the president speak. you heard his voice on the call. correct. your conclusion was what he said about investigating the biden s was, your words, unusual and inappropriate. in my right? that was my testimony. mr. vindman, you were treated to a july 25th meeting where you heard ambassador sondland raise investigations that you thought were unduly political. i believe that s how you describe them. he went to nsc council and reported it. correct? correct. later, you come too come around the copy you read it with your own ears. correct. not secondhand, not from somebody else, not hearsay. correct. you heard the voice of the president on the call. i did. you heard him raise what ambassador sondland andries
he is very competent in his own ain ts and he knows that the ukrainian people expect him to be clear and defend ukrainian interests. mr. carson. thank you, chairman. my colleague touched briefly on the campaign to remove career diplomat ambassador yovanovitch. mr. kent, you stated in previous testimony that you were aware of the campaign of slander against the ambassador in retime, which basically unfolded in the media. where do you understand this misinformation campaign was coming from and who was potentially perpetuating it? to my understanding the then prosecutor general of ukraine now ex yuri lefzenko met in january a second meeting and through new york gave an interview to john solomon then
is controversy and question about the u.s. support of ukraine sends the signal to vladimir putin that he can leverage that as he seeks to negotiate with not only ukraine but other countries. thank you. ambassador taylor, i think you mentioned that a white house meeting for zelensky would boost his ability to negotiate for a peaceful settlement with vladimir putin and russia in general. is that true? it s certainly true that u.s. support for mr. zelensky, president zelensky, in his negotiations with russians is very important, and will enable him to get a better agreement with that support from the united states, both from the military assistance but also just from the political assistance that we can provide. but he has not yet had that white house meeting. has he? he has not. i think it s ironic that