About fighting corruption, we should also say specifically, burisma in 2016. Mr. Yermak provided me a statement. I wanted to be assured that this statement would actually correct the perception that mr. Giuliani had of ukraine and what they stand for now so that that would also be conveyed to President Trump and solve this problem that i had observed with our may 23rd meeting with the president. The problem being that he is getting a bad set of information, a Statement Like this could potentially correct that. Was mr. Guiliani satisfied with the statement . No, he was not. He believed it needed to say burisma and 2016 specifically or else it would not be credible, would not mean anything. So in fact, mr. Guiliani wanted a statement that Referenced Burisma and the 2016 elections explicitly. One that would benefit, essentially, President Trump. It is to invest or come here is the text you sent to the ukrainian official on August August 13th. Lets put that up on the screen. You said, hi,
in all this time, mr. guiliani in may or september, he mentioned the biden investigation, he mentioned biden over 50 times and twentysomething time in relation to ukraine. none of that stirred your curiosity? you just now finally came to this point? as i testified, i met with giuliani once and he did mention biden and i pushed back on that and made a clear distinction that ukraine investigating its own citizens in corruption it would be fine. going beyond that to say we are going to investigate the vice president is not fine. did you have any discussions with anyone in the administration about concerns about the investigation into poroshenko? yes. i know that i raised this with ambassador taylor in advance with that. we had been in some of the same meetings, some of the country team there. i don t know if i had raised it with george kent or not.
time investigating a debunked conspiracy theory? there is all kinds of corruption to investigate and ukraine. but nonetheless you proposed they did this investigation, or something you thought without merit, because this was part of an effort to fix the problem that giuliani was creating? i did not propose it. but i think you said you were okay with it. or you amended a statement to seem to include it, because if it would help fix the giuliani problem. it was that the thinking? yes, sir. that was correct. if it threads the needle between what is reasonable for ukraine to do and resets the negative perceptions held by mr. giuliani and then the president, then why not. this is part of what you described in your opening statement as your effort to come if you see a problem, to fix it. is it clear to you now, ambassador volker, based on the september 25th call that you are not able to fix it? based on the transcript that was released on the 25th, i can see now that there was
had similar understanding? yes, i do. there is also a perception that when ambassador yovanovitch, who, of 33 years of being in a pastor, that when she left kiev, that the u.s. position on corruption would weaken. that is kind of a narrative that is floating around. who is the person that took over for her in the interim? immediately after her was joe pennington. was this individual strong or weak on corruption? i would say in line with all the rest of our policy. after that individual, who was that person replaced with? bill taylor. who you suggested for that position, correct? was ambassador taylor strong or weak on corruption? very strong. mr. morrison, in my final 15 minutes. he was in charge of u.s. foreign policy? the president. not some other staffer within
of zelensky. again, there were no demands. from your perspective, mr. morrison. that is correct, sir. speculations about the whistle-blower aside with regard to motivation, the fact is that the whistle-blower was wrong about many of the facts as well. correct? sir, i m not intimately familiar with the whistle-blower complaint. but i did not hear a demand in that call. i yield back. thank you, mr. chairman. ambassador volker, i want to thank you for being here today and i frankly found some of your opening statement to be not just genuine but downright eloquent. in particular, i noted the passages about pushing back at russian aggression and supporting a development of a strong, resilient, democratic, and prosperous ukraine. one that overcomes a legacy of corruption, and that this is critically important for u.s. national security.