verge dramatically from those listening had expected. president trump spoke to gordon sondland prior to this phone daul, the u.s. ambassador to the european union who donated $1 million to the president s inaugural campaign. and who had been directed by the president himself to take on a leading role in ukraine issues. ambassador sondland relaid the president s message to president zelensky through ambassador kurt volker who had had lunch that day with president zelensky s top aide andre yermac who appears repeatedly through this scheme as president zelensky s right hand man. ambassador volker texted mr. yermac with president trump s direction. good lunch. thanks. heard from white house. assuming president z convinces trump he will investigate, get to the bottom of what happened in 2016, we will nail down visit for we will nail down for
don t do this, they re not going to get that was your understanding? taylor, yes, sir. schiff, are you aware that quid pro quo literally means this for that? taylor, i am. bill taylor says it was his clear understanding that aid with would not come until ukraine s president committed to an investigation. which is the definition, literally, a quid pro quo. tim morrison says the same thing. what can did ambassador sondland it tell you that he told mr. yermac? that the ukrainians would have to have the prosecutor general make an investigation for the aid to be litted.
president and the bidens and i would have objected to that. you heard it on the call and you said in ret row spect it would have been confusing, correct? correct. i think confusing is the right word because they were clearly hearing something different from the president in one conversation and different from me as a u.s. special representative maybe they understood that investigating burisma and investigating 2016 in fact plent the bidens even though you didn t. at the time you were talking to yermac, he d talked to sondland at the same time and so the point being they were put in an impossible position. they were being asked to do something inappropriate, and you now know that, right? and you would have raised your own objections. i know they would have asked in the phone call to do that.