with ambassador sondland, president trump did speak with president zelensky, as you referred, and certainly the president made it clear to president zelensky that he cared about the biden investigation. now, neither of you did listen to this call, but as you testified you both read it subsequent to its publication. dr. hill, you, during your time, two and a half years in the white house, listened to a number of presidential phone calls, is that right? that s right. can you estimate approximately how many? i can t, actually. i mean sometimes there would be multiple calls during the week. i was there for more than two years, so it s a fair number. have you ever heard a call like this one that you read? i don t want to comment on this call because this is in my view executive privilege. in terms of the testimony, yes i think that as a threshold matter, i think that there are issues of classification
president s, just not part of what we ve done, it s hard to explain why we would do that. it harkens back to the conversation ambassador volker testified about when he urged ukraine not to investigate or prosecute poroshenko and the reply from mr. yermak, oh, like you want us to do with the bidens and clintons. they re sophisticated enough actors to recognize when we re saying do as we say, not as we do, are they not? yes, sir. you also in your testimony and i was struck by this today, when even after the aid is lifted, ukraine still felt pressured to make these statements and you and ambassador taylor were worried they were going to do it on cnn. and you said that ambassador taylor, addressed the importance of staying out of u.s. politics and hoped no interview was planned mr. yermak did not answer but shrugged in
sustained by russian influence in the country. those events followed by russian occupation of crimea and invasion of the donbass region and a war that has cost almost 14,000os lives. despite the russian aggression over the past five years, ukrainians have rebuilt a shatteredrs economy, adhered to peace process, and moved economically and socially closer to the west toward our way of life. earlier this year large majorities of ukrainians again chose a fresh start by voting for a political newcomer as president. replacing en80% of their parliament and endorsing a platform consistent with our democratic values our reform priorities and our strategic interests. this year s revolution at the ballot box underscores that despite its imperfections ukraine is a genuine and vibrant
parallel and separately here in the united states and those two things have over time started to fuse together. well, back in may of this year, do you recall that president trump had a phone conversation inha early may wit president putin? i do. and that he also then met in mid-may with prime minister orban who joined president putin at this pressed conference? es that s correct. now that happened in between the time when president zelensky was elected on april 21st and his inauguration on may 20th, is thatma right? correct. and in fact, president suspect it true that president trump had asked vice president pence to attend the inauguration after his phone call with president zelensky on april 21st? i m not sure that i can say that president trump asked the vice president pence. i was not in any meeting in
sondland s expansive interpretation of his mandate. after president trump canceled his visit to warsaw, we continued to try to appeal to the president in foreign policy and national security terms. to that end, ambassador taylor told me that ambassador bolton recommended he and ambassador taylor send a first person cable to secretary pompeo articulating the importance of the security assistance. ambassador taylor s direction i drafted and transmitted the cable on ambassador taylor s behalf on august 29th which attempted to explain the importance of ukraine and the assistance of national security. byas this point my clear impression was that the securite assistance hold was likely intended by the president either as an expression of dissatisfaction with the ukrainians or as an effort to increase the pressure on them to do so.in on september 5th i took notes senator johnson and chris murphy s meetings with president