melt with voluker, pence and senator ron johnson, senator chris murphy in kyiv. in none of these meetings did president zelensky raise any concerns about linkage between security assistance and investigations. in particular the september 5th meeting is notable because they re not partot of the trump administration and president zelensky could be candid with them. what did occur during those 55 days were historic efforts to implement anti-corruption form. vice president penceru had presd president zelensky about these reforms during their september 1st meeting.
ambassador sondland also attested in his written supplement that he likely voiced this concern to yermak, a close at vi advisor of president zelensky. mr.of yermak disputed ambassado sondland s account and said he doesn t remember any reference to the military aid. ambassador sondland reiterated that his testimony was based on a presumption, acknowledging to congressman turner that no one on the planet told him that security assistance to ukraine was conditioned on investigations. ambassador taylor is the other relevant actor here. he testified in his deposition that he had a clear understanding that ukraine would not receive the security assistance until president zelenskysi committed to the investigations. however,st in his public testimony, ambassador taylor acknowledged that his clear understanding came from ambassador sondland, who was
morrison testified that he noted that everyone on the ukrainian side of the table was exhausted because they had been up all night working on these reforms. president trump discussed the matter with pence, senator portman ande, acting chief of staff mulmulvaney. they discussed whether ukraine s progress on anti-corruption reformpt was enough to justify releasing the security assistance. morrison testified that vice president pence was obviously armed withsl the conversation h had with president zelensky and they convinced the president that the aid should be disbursed immediately. the president then lifted the hold. we are considerable evidence that the president was skeptical of ukraine. we know the white house was reviewing foreign assistance in
general to ensure it furthered u.s. interest and that omb researched and provided information about which foreign countries were contributing money to ukraine. president trump told senator johnsonp on august 31st we re reviewing it now and you ll probably like my final decision. he told ambassador sondland on september 9th i want zelensky to do what he ran on. president zelensky who ran on an anti-corruption platform was an untried politician with ties to a potential controversial oligarch. vice president pence relayed to zelensky that on september 1st themb need for reform was paramount. after president zelensky passed historicky anti-corruption reforms, theco pause on securit assistance was lifted and the presidents met two weeks later. the ukraine government never tookve any action on investigations at issue in the
what it says, sir? the other thing, there is a lot of talk aboutin biden s son. biden stopped the prosecution, it says that, correct? that sat what it says here. it goes onto say president trump asked president zelensky if you can look into it, correct? is that the words, if you can look into it, correct? that s what it says. so president trump was asking ukrainian president zelensky to have the ukrainian officials look into vice president joe biden, cecorrect? is that correct, yes or no? i don t think the record supports that. it does not say? can you look into it. i don t think it supports that. i think it is ambiguous. mr. goldman, you are an experienced federal prosecutor, i know that firsthand.