can t protect you, we can t help you against these attacks and you re basically on your own. interesting. interesting. michael, we have a little bit of time left. so i want to go through this. this is from abc news. they got a hold of these group text messages this year with congress. the time line is important here because according to the reporting on september 9th the same date intel community i.g. sent the house committee a letter about the existence a whistle-blower complaint there was in exchange. trump s top diplomat to ukraine bill taylor wrote to a group of american diplomats and here s the quote here. it says, i think it is crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign. so gordon sondland, the u.s. ambassador to the e.u., a man who donated a million dollars to president trump s inauguration, responded writing, bill, i believe you are correct about incorrect about president trump s intentions. the president has been crystal clear, no quid pro
a quid pro quo. the senior u.s. diplomat in c w ukraine texted saying sondland responded, call me. on september 9th, taylor spelled out his concerns, as i said on the phone, i think it is crazy to withhold assistance for help with the political campaign. look at that, those words for a few minutes. 4 1/2 hours later, sondland replied, i believe you re incorrect about president trump s intentions, the president has been clear, no quid pro quos of any kind. sources say volcker told investigators yesterday he urged ukraine not to interfere in u.s. politics. the washington post reports volcker said he warned giuliani that you craukrainian claims we unreliable. today, michael atkinson will testify to the house panels behind closed doors.
provided copies of text conversations regarding internal battles by diplomats about military aid. this portion of the conversation i m about to read was obtained by abc and fox. it occurred september 9th, two days before the aid was released. it begins with william taylor, who is the top u.s. diplomat in ukraine at the time. he writes, i think it s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign. gordon sondland, the u.s. ambassador to the eu responds, bill, i believe you are incorrect about president trump s intentions. the president has been crystal clear, no quid pro quos of any kind. the president is trying to evaluate whether ukraine is truly going adopt the transparency and reforms that president zelensky promised during his campaign. sondland then asked to take it offline. quote, i suggest we stop the back and forth by text. congressman mike quigley is on the intelligence committee. his staff were among those that interviewed the source of those texts, k
the 2016 election. the newly released text shows a u.s. top diplomat was concerned. president trump was withholding hundreds of millions of dollars of military ad would amount to a quid pro quo. bill taylor texted gordon the u.s. ambassador to the european union. are we now saying security assistance and a white house meeting are conditioned on investigation. sondland responded, call me. there it is. on september 9th taylor spelled out his concerns. as i said on the phone, crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign. four and a half hours later, sondland said i believe you are incorrect. the president has been crystal clear. no quid pro quos of any kind. sources told volker yesterday he urged ukraine not to interfere in u.s. politics. washington post warned that he warned giuliani that ukrainian
campaign. sondland text back hours later defending the president. i believe you re incorrect about president trump s intentions. the president has been crystal clear, no quid pro quos of any kind. and volker did stay in his opening statement he became aware that foreign aid to ukraine was being held up at the same time he was connecting ukrainian leadership aides to rudy giuliani. but, jake, volker saying he did not perceive those issues to be linked in any way. jake. jessica schneider, thank you so much. let s bring my experts back. and laura, let me start with you because as a wall street journal report saying sondland mentioned in the report told senator ron johnson republican of wisconsin, very loyal to president trump, told him according to johnson that the military aid was directly tied to the ukrainians promising to investigate hunter bide s company burisma. although johnson said he confronted president trump about it and trump denied it. that is pretty damning from