Had already stopped the Trip Planning by that point. And when did that happen . Stopping the Trip Planning . Yeah. On may 13th. Okay. And how did you hear about that . I was called by a colleague in the the Vice President s chief of staffs office and told to stop the Trip Planning. Okay. And as i understand it, it was the assistant to the chief of staff . Thats correct. Okay. And so you didnt hear about it from general kellogg or the chief of staff or the president or the Vice President , you heard about it from mr. Shorts assistant . Thats right. And did you have any knowledge of the reasoning for stopping the trip . I asked my colleague why we should stop Trip Planning and why the Vice President would not be attending, and i was informed that the president had decided the Vice President would not attend the inauguration. Okay. And do you know why the president decided no, she did not have that information. Okay. And ultimately the Vice President went to canada for a usmca event . Tha
for him if he did something that he s not proud of because you avoid liability or even smearing your reputation. i thought the weakest point today was the question of whether sondland was really telling the truth about burisma where he says i just thought it was by burisma and the 2016 election. did he not read the new york times front page article where giuliani is touting why he is going to ukraine? where he says i am going and it is an investigation of hunter biden that i am going in pursuit of. the idea that that s something that no one followed and is this is the ambassador toed e.e. he also made repeated claims that ukraine was in the portfolio from the go. but he missed the one article about donald trump s personal lawyer that was on the front page of the new york times heading to, oh, wait for it, ukraine. fox news by the way. and even if you missed that,
that correct? that is correct. did nsc lawyers tell you to come directly to them, sir, if he had any other concerns after july 10. many i believe the words were, if you have any questions, be sure to come back. he was not clear about what investigations he was requesting. m ambassador sondland made clear he was requesting an investigation into joe biden s son, is that correct? that s correct. and he made this request of mick mulvaney, is that correct? that is what i heard him say. lieutenant colonel vindman, have you ever received a request that a u.s. official investigate
national security adviser of ukraine, correct? that might have been what i wrote yesterday when i was drafting it, but i chose to ease back on that language even though it was in my evaluation. you wrote what i just read? congressman, what i m saying is what i write into the record this morning didn t say that. noted. because you know ukraine, you know that we worked through our allies and our multilateral relations, and you know that ukraine is an aspiring member of the eu and nato, right, miss williams? yes, that s correct. colonel vindman? yes, that s correct. and you know that the nato and the eu both have offices in ukraine and we try to advance our policy with the eu and nato, and you know that ambassador
sondland would be responsible for ukraine, right, ms. williams? i would say because of this significant relationship between the eu and ukraine, that would fall to ambassador sondland. obviously we have an ambassador in ukraine as well. colonel vindman, you would agree? i agree with ms. williams. lieutenant colonel, you said in your written statement that mayor rudolph giuliani defied policy. i said false narrative in the record this morning, but i have not met him. so you never had a conversation with him about ukraine or been in a meeting where he spoke to others about ukraine? no, just his comments on tv and the news. similarly, you ve never met the president of the united states, sfl