new material in your opening statement for us to get through, documents has helped you to but i want to start with a few remember the events that we re asking about, is that correct? top line questions before correct. passing it over to mr. goldman. because you acknowledge, of course, that when you can place in your deposition you testified a document and a date and a that you found yourself on a context, it helps to jog your continuum that became more memory? that s correct. insidious over time. so you would agree that for can you describe what you mean people unlike yourself who take by this continuum of notes, that that is very helpful insidiousness? well, mr. chairman, when we to their own recollection of events, right? left the oval office, i believe i think you asked your question backwards. are you saying people that take on may 23rd, the request was notes, it s helpful to have the very generic for an documents or people that don t take notes it s helpful to have inv
complicated issues in the form of a simple question. was there a quid pro quo? as i testified previously with regard to the requested white house call and the white house meeting, the answer is yes. and i m old enough to remember when that yes was the red line that republicans were waiting to see if the evidence showed donald j. trump had crossed. that was the witness in these proceedings who, so far, is the most closely aligned politically and idealogically and it would seem by telephone conversation, in terms of the frequency with which he was able to reach donald trump on the phone, he testified today to speaking to donald trump by phone 20 times since he s been in that post and about six times as far as he remembered. told us he s not a note taker about ukraine. in terms of how that landed with the president, he took a sharpie to a piece of paper and that was the sum total of the high-tech pushback. joining us with more on that,
my role in these events. but i also must acknowledge that this process has been challenging, and in many respects, less than fair. i have not had access to all of my phone records, state department emails and many, many other state department documents. and i was told i could not work with my eu staff to pull together the relevant files and information. having access to the state department materials would have been very helpful to me in trying to reconstruct with whom i spoke and met and when and what was said. as ambassador, i ve had hundreds of meetings and calls with individuals, but i m not a note taker or a memo writer, never have been. my job requires that i speak with heads of state, senior
regularly potentially with the president directly. and if that was the case, then he needs to explain that. ultimately, this is about his legacy. and if it comes out that he misled the committee in his initial testimony or outright lied, there are real consequences for him down the line. holmes, david holmes, who testified friday, he said he was a note taker for the meeting that you and senator ron johnson had with ukrainian president zelensky and ukraine. holmes testified that johnson, senator johnson, told zelensky that he was shocked by president trump s negative view of ukraine, that zelensky in his view would have a difficult time overcoming. what was zelensky s response to johnson telling him that the president, president trump, had a negative view of ukraine? well, you know, we walk into this meeting, and normally you engage in diplomatic formalities at the beginning. that s not how this meeting went. zelensky immediately launched into this question about the security aid an
legacy. if it comes out he mislead the committee in his initial testimony or outright lied. there are real consequences for him down the line. holmes, david holmes who testified friday, he said he was a note taker for the meeting that you and senator ron johnson had with zelensky of ukraine. holmes testified that senator johnson told zelensky he was shocked by president trump s negative view of ukraine that zelensky, in his view, would have a difficult time overcoming. what was zelensky s response to johnson telling him that the president, president trump, had a negative view of ukraine? well, you know, we walk into the meeting and normally you engage in diplomatic formalities at the beginning. that s not how the meeting went. zelensky launched into the question about the security aid. and desperately wanted our help and advice how to turn the aid back on. so part of the meeting was about