confronted ambassador sondland over his discussion about investigations. ambassador sondland s testimony about this meeting, however, is scattered. in his closed door deposition, he testified that no national security staff member ever once expressed concerns to him that he was acting improperly. and he denied that he raised investigations during this meeting. but when he came here to testify in public, he acknowledged for the first time that he raised investigations. but he denied the meeting ended abruptly. he denied that dr. hill never raised concerns to him and that any discussion of investigations brought up nothing specific, such as biden or 2016. let me lastly address the allegation that president trump directed vice president pence not to attend president zelensky s inauguration as
another way of pressuring ukraine to investigate former vice president biden. jennifer williams, a senior adviser in the office of the vice president, testified that a colleague she said it was the chief of staff s assistant told her, the chief of staff s assistant, that president trump had directed vice president pence not to attend the inauguration. however, williams had no firsthand knowledge of any such direction or the reasons given for any such direction. if, indeed, such a direction was given, it s not clear from the evidence why it was done, because the vice president s office was juggling other potential trips during that time, and the ukranian parliament scheduled the election on an extremely short time frame. it was just four days notice. williams explained that there was a window of dates, may 30
for the vice president s participation in the inauguration. dr. hill testified that she had no knowledge that the vice president was directed not to attend. on may 16th, the outgoing ukranian parliament scheduled the inauguration for may 20th, only four days later. may 20th was not one of the three dates that vice president pence s office had provided for his availability. williams testified that this early date surprised the vice president s office because we weren t expecting the ukranians to look at that time frame. george kent at the state department said that this short notice from the ukranians forced the state department to scramble to find a u.s. official to lead the delegation, finally settling on secretary of energy rick perry. on may 20th, the date of president zelensky s inauguration, vice president pence was in jacksonville, florida for an event promoting usmca.
senator ron johnson confirmed this in his submission to the impeachment inquiry. and when they met browithout preconditions, it was the july 25th phone call. the next time they met, evidence does not show the ukranian government felt additional pressure due to this day. on the contrary, the ukranian regime felt pretty good about trump. government officials had at least nine meetings or phone calls with president trump, vice president pence, secretary pompeo, national security adviser bolton and u.s. ambassadors. the evidence does not support a conclusion that president trump conditioned a meeting with president zelensky on
through june 1st, during which the vice president could attend the inauguration, and that was communicated. and that if it wasn t one of those dates, it would be difficult or impossible to attend the inauguration. separately, the office of the vice president was also planning an unrelated trip to canada to promote the usmca during this same window. the usmca was and still is a significant priority for the administration. vice president pence has done a number of public events in support of it. president trump was also planning foreign travel during this time period. and as dr. hill testified, both president trump and vice president pence cannot both be out of the country at the same time. williams explained that these factors created a narrow window