killed. he would be killed. that s what he was saying. and it was a very dramatic moment to set up the place that he s coming from. one more thing, i was surprised that republicans didn t point out, flatly, that his very clear opinion was that what he saw and heard on the call, what he saw going on with regard to ukraine was inappropriate. it is his opinion. it might be factually based, it might be based on the policy and traditionses of united states, but i was surprised the republicans didn t try to call him out. well, it s early yet. and one of the things we did hear from devin nunes, the ranking republican on the committee was not a defense of president trump or a defense of the phone call, but really just an attack on the media. i think you see in the competing strategies almost the parallel universe we re operating in here. the democrats are trying to do a building blocks to get us to ambassador sondland later in the week, who will be the key witness. they re trying to
ambassador sondland, ambassador volcker, and secretary perry were working together to advance u.s. policy interests that were in support of what had been agreed to, but i didn t really learn, like i said, until the july 10th actually, that s there may have been a slightly earlier point. i recall a meeting in which ambassador bolton facilitated a meeting between ambassador volcker and ambassador bolton in the june time frame. and there may have been some discussion about this external channel. but i frankly didn t become aware of these u.s. government officials being involved in this alternate track until july 10th. and i think we had some discussion that, you know, mr. giuliani was promoting a negative narrative about the ukraine and certain officials were trying to help the president understand that with zelensky, it was a new day and ukraine s going to be different. is that your understanding?
that is correct. that is exactly what was being reported by the intelligence community, by the policy channels within the nsc, and the conservative voices of the various people that have actually met with him, including foreign officials. and to the extent that you re aware of what ambassador sondland s goals were here and ambassador volcker s goals were here, you think they were just trying to do the best they could and trying to advocate in the best interests of the united states? that is what i believed and that is what i still believe, frankly. and so to the extent mr. giuliani may have had differing views, they were trying to help him understand it was time to change those views? i think they were trying to bring him into the tent and have him kind of support the direction that we had settled on. and you never conferred with mr. giuliani? no. you never had any meetings, phone calls or anything of that sort. i did not. i only know him as new york s
president, wells griffith was in there, and myself, for the ukrainians who for the ukrainians? sorry. from the ukrainian side, we had alexander danylyuk, andray yermak, and alexander danylyuk s adviser, alexei semieni. and you testified you couldn t say why dr. bolton called the meeting short. i noted that it ended abruptly, but i didn t frankly i didn t exactly know why. and in if bolton meeting, you done remember ambassador sondland using the word biden ? he did not, to the best of my recollection, i don t think he did. and then group decamped to take a photo, correct?
is that correct? that is correct. and had you heard, like a firsthand account from anyone on the inside, or had you just been following news accounts? so i certainly was following news accounts and that s from the ukrainian side. ukrainian press. and u.s. press. and then and my colleagues in the interagency also were concerned about this as this had started in the march time frame, so there had been ongoing conversations. so several different stories. and so when ambassador sondland mentioned the investigations, you sort of had a little bit of a clue of what the issue was? oh, definitely. and then you took the photo, a very nice photo, and you went to the ward room? correct. and do you remember, i think you conceded to us that you had a hard time remembering exactly