regional and maybe even a world leader, would want to have a meeting with the united states, the most powerful country in the world, and ukraine s most significant ben factor in order to be able to implement his agenda. it will provide him with additional legitimacy at home? yes. just to summarize in the july 25th call between the president of the united states and ukraine, president trump demanded a favor of president zelensky to conduct investigations that both of you acknowledge were for president trump s political interest, not the national interest. and in return for his promise of a much-desired white house meeting for president zelensky. colonel vindman, is that an accurate summery of the excerpts that we just looked at? yes. ms. williams? yes. colonel vindman, you immediately reported this call
trump and president zelensky or any matters associated with the phone call with any members of the press? no. to be clear, you never discussed these matters with the new york times, the washington post, politico, cnn or any other media outlet. no, i did not. did you ask for encourage any individual to share the substance of the july 25th phone call or any matter associated with the call with any member of the press? i did not. do you know of any individual who discussed the substance of the july 25th phone call or matters associated with the call with any member of the press? no, i do not. lieutenant colonel vindman, same questions for you. did you discuss the july 25th phone call between president trump and president zelensky or any matter associated with the phone call with any member of the press? i did not. just to be clear, you did not discuss this with the new york times, the washington post,
bidens that that referred to the company burisma, sounded to you like he was prepped or prepared for this call, is that right? that is correct. i want to go to the next slide, if we could, which is actually a text message that neither of you is on. this is from ambassador kurt volker to andre yermak. he s a senior adviser to president zelensky. this text message is less than a half hour before the call on july 25th, and since neither of you were on it, i ll read it. it says from ambassador volker good lunch, thanks. heard from white house. assuming president z convinces trump he will investigate, quote, get to the bottom of what happened, unquote, in 2016, we
will nail down date for visit to washington. good luck. see you tomorrow, kurt . is this the sort of thing you were referring to when you said it sounded like president zelensky was prepared for this call? this would be consistent, yes. turning to the fourth excerpt from the july 25th call, where ukraine s president zelensky links the white house meeting to the investigations that president trump requests, president zelensky says i also wanted to thank you for your invitation to visit the united states, specifically washington, d.c. on the other hand, i also wanted to ensure you that we will be very serious about the case and will work on the investigation . when president zelensky says on the other han, would you agree that he s acknowledging a linkage between the white house
president z convinces trump he representative turner and bothers me. will investigate, quote, get to you were the special envoy to the bottom of what happened in 2016, we will nail down date for yeah y ukraine, and in that role you said in your opening statement you are the administration s visit to washington. that s what you expected from the call, right? most public figure in calling yeah, i expected that out russia s responsibility in president zelensky would be convincing in his, uh, the war, is that right? that is correct. statements and comments with and in that capacity you president trump, that he was strongly advocated for lifting the sale on ban of lethal arms exactly that, that he would investigate, get to the bottom of things that had happened in to ukraine, is that correct? 2016 and that if he was strong that is correct. and president trump did that, didn t he? that is correct. but in spite of that in conveying who he is as a person and doing that, that pr