quo, bribery, extortion, or whatever by withholding a meeting or security assistance as a way of pressuring ukrainian president zelensky to investigate the president s political rival, former vp bide biden. for the president s political benefit in the upcoming election, the secondary allegation that has been levied is whether president trump obstructed congress during the inquiry. the evidence obtained during the inquiry does not support either of those allegations, lays down the evidence in more detail but i will summarize. i will begin with a substantive allegation about an abuse of power, the inquiry has returned no direct evidence that president trump was held a meeting or security assistance in order to pressure president zelensky to
announcement of investigation that president trump sought. i did evidence demonstrate that president trump undermined the national security interest of the united states? fax six said in directing and orchestrating the scheme to advance his personal political interest, president trump did not implement, promote anticorruption policies. in fact, the president sought to pressure and induce the government of ukraine to denounce politically motivated investigations lacking predicament legitimate as a matter of policy in that country and around the world. in so doing, they undermined anticorruption reform and the rule of law in ukraine. and did the evidence also show the compromised national security of the united states? the fact-finding effect seven is
because president zelensky would be the target of any alleged quid pro quo scheme, his statements denying any pressure carry significant weight. he is, in fact, the supposed victim here. other senior ukrainian government officials confirmed president zelensky s statements. foreign minister said on september 21st, i know with the conversation was about and i think there was no pressure. who was then secretary of ukraine national security and defense counsel told ambassador bill taylor on the night of the call that the ukrainian government was not disturbed by anything on the call. president trump of course has also said he did not pressure president zelensky. on september 25th,
everyone on the ukrainian side of the table was exhausted as they had been up all night working on these reforms. on september 11th, president trump discussed the matter with vice president pence, senator portman, and acting chief of staff mulvaney. according to tim morrison s testimony, they discussed whether ukraine s progress on anticorruption reform was enough to justify releasing the security assistance. morrison testified that vice president pence was obviously armed with the conversation he had with president zelensky and they convinced the president that the aid should be disbursed immediately. the president then lifted the hold. in concluding this point, we have considerable evidence that president trump was skeptical of ukraine due to its corruption. we have evidence the president was skeptical of foreign assistance in general and he believed strongly our allies should share the burden for regional defense. we know the white house was reviewing foreign assistance in general t
foreign minister told the media november following news of ambassador sondland s written supplemental testimony that he never linked security assistance to investigations. he said i have never seen a direct relationship between investigations and security assistance. although there is some testimony that ukrainian officials from the embassy in washington made informal inquiries to the state department and defense department about these issues with security assistance in july and august, the evidence does not show president zelensky or senior advisors were aware of the pause until it was publicly reported by politico on august august 28th. of subsequent news article explained the conflicting testimony that embassy officials in washington had made informal inquiries about issues with the aid of senior officials denied awareness of the pause.