the smear campaign also included allegations related to ukraine s interference in the 2016 election and the burisma/biden connection, is that right? yes. so i m going to end my questioning where we were before which was the july 25th call. president trump not only insults you and praises the corrupt prosecutor general but he also as you know by now references these two investigations. first, immediately after president zelensky thanks president trump for his quote great support in the area of defense, unquote, president trump responds i would like you to do us a favor, though. because our country has been through a lot and ukraine knows a lot about it. i would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with ukraine. they say crowd strike. i guess you have one of your
coordinate ukraine policy with rudy giuliani? since then i ve become aware of that. sgl this is the same rudy giuliani who orchestrated the smear campaign against you? yes. and the same rudy giuliani who during the now infamous july 25th phone call the president recommended to zelensky in the context of the two investigations the president wanted into the 2016 election and the bidens? yes. and finally, ambassador, in that july 25th phone call, the president praises one of these corrupt former ukrainian prosecutors and says they were treated very unfairly. they were treated unfairly. not you, who was smeared and recalled, but one of them. what message does that send to your colleagues in the u.s. embassy in kiev? i m just not sure what the basis for that kind of a statement would be.
release of the so-called black ledger and mr. manafort s subsequent resignation from president trump s campaign and the departure from office of former prosecutor general vikter shokin. other events were president trump s july 25th, 2019 call with president zelensky, the discussions surrounding that phone call and any discussion surrounding the delay of security assistance to ukraine in the summer of 2019. events during my tenure in ukraine. i want to reiterate first that the allegation that i disseminated a do not prosecute list was a fabrication. mr. lutsenko, the former ukrainian prosecutor general who made that allegation has acknowledged that the list never existed. i did not tell mr. lutsenko or other ukrainian officials who they should or should not
level of intimidation of a witness but i think that s the way it will be characterized. i think a very important part of the contrary narrative so we have a very powerful, persuasive witness, but she has one perspective. then we turn as we just did, bill, to the transcript of the presidential phone call, the july 25th phone call and we see the president of the newly elected president saying you put me on to this issue but guess what, i agree and he also is saying not only that she is not going to be supporting of me easy to work with, but i think implicit in this is a very important point. the ambassador, as able as she is, had to work with the prior regime of poroshenko. poroshenko was not the great shall i say champion of anti-corruption or at least wasn t perceived that way by the people of ukraine or he would have been reelected or at
policymakers, is that right? right. now let s go back to the smear campaign that you referenced and in march when you said it became public. you previously testified that you had learned that rudy giuliani, president trump s lawyer and representative who was also mentioned in that july 25th call was in regular communication with the corrupt prosecutor general in late 2018 and early 2019. and at one point in your deposition you said that they that being giuliani and the corrupt foreign prosecutor general had plans to, quote, do things to me. what did you mean by that? i didn t really know but that s what i had been told by ukrainian official. did you subsequently understand a little bit more what that meant? well now with the advantage of hindsight i think it meant