his deeds. ambassador yovanovitch was an anti-corruption champion. no one has contradicted that that has come forward to testify here. she was a champion. and on the day she is at a meeting acknowledging in ukraine another anti-corruption champion, a woman who had acid thrown in her face and died a painful death after months, she is called back to washington because of a vicious smear campaign by the apartment s lawyer, rudy giuliani, among others. she is recalled. that is not anti-corruption. that is corruption. and one of the people responsible for in smear campaign, in addition to mr. giuliani and it is a long and sore did list of those who were
or observed? i was surprised by what i saw in those reports in the media. i wanted to ensure if i heard the testimony, ambassador hale and you believe it was, according to what you found out from the may 23rd meeting to vote on ukraine approximately see, and none of thaw struck you as problemattic. is that correct? yes. you are the undersecretary for political affairs and you testified that in that capacity you are responsible for the management of the united states bilateral relations with, and i quote, every country in the world that we recognize for the management of our policies towards those countries as well as our relationship with policies as they relate to multilateral organizations. does that include u.s. policy
and proffered that perhaps a reprogramming action would be the way to do this, but that more research would need to be done, so then after that discussion we had a lower-level discussion at my level on the 31st of july let me ask you about that july 31st meeting. based on your conversations with colleagues at the dod at the july 31st inner agency meeting, did you share your understanding of the legal mechanisms that were available at that time? yes, sir. and what were they? i expressed that it was my understanding that there were two ways that we would be able to implement presidential guidance to stop obligating the ukrainian security assistance initiative and the first option would be for the president to do a rescission. the second is a reprogramming action that the department of defense would do. both of those would require congressional notice. there would be an extra step
this further. ambassador volker didn t say anything at this particular juncture. he said he had another meeting, and they all left. i went back and relate this to ambassador bolton, which is when he gave me the very specific instruction that we ve already been through, to go and talk to mr. eisenberg, john eisenberg, in the nse council office. thank you. mr. nunes? i assume we are at 8 minutes, there? i don t cut off a witness in the middle of the answer. you may proceed. sorry, that was a long answer. mr. jordan? mr. holmes, why didn t your boss talk about it? what s that, sir? i didn t your boss bring up the call that you overheard? the reason you are here today? you are there closing witness. yet their star witness, their first witness, ambassador taylor, didn t even bring it up. when we deposed you, you said this was extremely distinctive experience. one of the most remarkable events of your life. you described it like this.
advise. ms. cooper? no, that does not sound appropriate. ambassador hale, you testified that you were aware that ambassador sondland was involving himself in matters that, and i quote went beyond the normal writ of an ambassador to the european union. as you understood it, who authorized ambassador sondland to work on ukraine? i have no first-hand knowledge of that. i received a readout from a meeting that the president of the united states had with the delegation on may 23rd. in which the briefing i received anyway indicated that the president wanted the members of the delegation, which included ambassador solomon to carry forward the policies set in that meeting. that incurred in a meeting in the oval office on may 23rd where you heard that information from the readout to?