May, i believe you testified it was one of the largest delegations . I believe it was. I cant be 100 sure but i believe it was the Largest National delegation. Okay. And included in the delegation was Secretary Perry. Secretary perry, ambassador sondland, myself and senator ron johnson was there and the target defair joe pennington. And we talked a little bit this morning but the president Zelensky Inauguration came together rather quickly. It did. I believe we had about three days notice in which to put the delegation together. And there is discussion about whether the Vice President would be able to lead that effort and as it turned out he was not able to lead it. Do you have any information as to why the Vice President was unable to join . I dont. And mr. Morrison, do you have any information as to why the Vice President was unable to participate in the delegation . No. Ambassador volker, you testified during your deposition that aid does, in fact, get held up from time to time for a whole assortment of reasons. Is that your understanding. That is true. And sometimes the holdups are rooted in something at omb, sometimes at the Defense Department, sometimes it is at the State Department and sometimes on the hill, is that correct. That is correct. So when the aid was held up for 55 days for ukraine, that didnt in and of itself strike you as uncommon . No. It is something that had happened in my career in the past. I had seen holdups of assistance and i just assumed it was part of the decisionmaking process, somebody had an objection and we had to overcome it. And, in fact, there were concerns that perhaps president
zelensky wouldnt be the reformer that he campaigned on. That was a supposition that i made because of the meeting with the president on may 23rd. I thought that would be what is behind it. And in fact the aid was lifted shortly after he was able to convene a parliament. I believe he let me get the dates straight. Yes, i believe he was able to convene the parliament around the first of Seof September and then the aid was released. And he pushed through a number of anticorruption initiatives. That began with the parliament seated on that day and it was a 24hour session and then continued for some time. And that was an encouraging sign. It started off very encouraging way, yes. And other than these things going on the background with the pause in the aid, the u. S. Relationships with ukraine you testified are you stated it was about as good as you would want them to be . Can you repeat the question. Im sorry. You testified at your deposition that once the aid was lifted, despite all of the things going on in the background, that u. S. ukraine relations were strong. Yes. Or as good as you want them to be . Yes. And you referenced that the Security Sector assistance was lifted and any hold on that and there was a positive meeting in new york that is correct. And there was momentum in putting pressure on the russians, is that correct. That is correct. In your deposition you made clear that the president had a deep rooted negative view of krarn and their corruption environment. Yes. And you first became aware of his views back in September Of 2017 . That is correct. Could you tell us a little bit about that . Yes. In September Of 2017 i was invited by secretary tillerson to do a prebrief with President Trump before his meeting with president poroshenko on the
margins of the General Assembly and i did the prebrief and took part in the bilateral meeting. And so long before president zelensky was elected, President Trump had a negative view of yes. He had a very strongly negative view. Back in 2017, do you remember anything he said or did that gave you a feeling that he had these negative views . Yes. I want to be very careful here because this was a bilateral meeting with the two president s and i dont want to strain the material but my impression is that he had a strongly negative view of ukraine at the time. Fair enough. And you described the president s skepticism at your deposition as a reasonable position . Yes. And i believe you said most people who know anything about ukraine would possibly think that . Yes. And you viewed it as part of your role to help change his mind that president zelensky was
a genuine reformer and that he was not running for office for selfenrichment and that he was, indeed, a good person. That is correct. During the may 23rd meeting with the president in the oval office, could you just relate to us the concerns the president articulated about the ukraine . Yes. The president came into the meeting and immediately started speaking. He had just a string of comments that ukraine is a terrible place. Theyre all corrupt. Theyre terrible people. They tried to take me down. I tried to explain along with the others that were there, each of us took turns speaking, i tried to explain that president zelensky agrees with you, that he was elected because of that
situation in ukraine and he has a strong mandate from the people of krai of ukraine to change and that is why we show him strong support now. But the president was not convinced and he said that zelensky is no different, that he has terrible people around him. It is not what i hear about ukraine. What were telling him. I hear that nothing has changed. Talk to rudy. That kind of dialogue as i described. And when the president said that the ukrainians tried to take him down, did you have any idea of what he was referring to . I did. I believed he was referring to the rumors of efforts to interfere in the 2016 election by providing damaging information about the president or about Paul Manafort to the Hillary Clinton campaign, that was one of the rumors that had been out there and that had gotten some support from the ukrainian Prosecutor General. And to the best of your
knowledge the president genuinely believed that, right . I believe he was concerned about it. I dont know what he actually believed but he brought it up. Okay. And mr. Morrison, you were also aware of the president s skeptical view of foreign aid generally . Yes. And that there was initiative that he was looking at foreign aid pretty broadly . Yes. And trying to executinize to make sure the u. S. Taxpayers were getting their monies worth . Yes. And the president was also interested, was he not, in better understanding opportunities for increased Burden Sharing among the europeans. Yes. And what could you tell us about that . The president was concerned that the United States seemed to bare the exclusive brunt of Security Assistance to ukraine. He wanted to see the europeans step up and contribute more Security Assistance. And was there any any
interagency activity, whether with the State Department or the Defense Department or coordination by the National Security council to look into that a little bit for the president . We were surveying the data to understand who was contributing what and sort of in what categories. And so the president is concerned the interagency tried to address them . Yes. And by late august we just discussed with ambassador volker that a new rada was seated and did that give possibly some hope that president zelensky would be able to push through some of the reforms . Yes. And did you hope during this time period during this 55 days where the aid was paused that potentially zelensky would be able to demonstrate his bonafides and would subsequently be able to get the president to lift the aid . Yes. In fact, you travelled with ambassador bolton to the ukraine right around labor day weekend, correct . Yes. And you met with president zelensky on i believe it was august 29th . Ambassador bolton had a meeting with president zels and i staffed that meeting. And that is right around the time when the rada had met and started to push through the reforms . As i recall the meeting, the date of the meeting between ambassador bolton and zelensky was the first day of the new rada. And some of the reforms included naming a new Prosecutor General . New Prosecutor General, a brandnew cabinet, yes. And they pushed through some legislation that eliminated immunity for radda members. Yes. Parliament immunity. And i believe you provided some color into this experience, this meeting. You said that the ukrainians had
been up all night working on some of the legislative initiatives . Yes. The ukrainians with whom we met were by all appearances exhausted by the activity. And was ambassador bolton encouraged by the activity. Yes, he was. And was the meeting altogether favorable . Quite. And at that point in time after the meeting, ambassador bolton, did he head off to warsaw with the Vice President or did he just i know you went to warsaw. Well we had a few stops between ukraine and poland, but, yes, ambassador bolton proceeded to warsaw where we were expecting to ensure everything was staged properly for the president s arrival. And did you have an opportunity to brief the Vice President on i did not. Did ambassador bolton . He did. And what do you remember that ambassador boltd bolton shared
about the meeting . I was not there. The issue i remember most starkly was ambassador bolton was quite annoyed that ambassador sondland crashed the briefing. But the ambassador had everything he needed to ensure that the president or the Vice President were well prepared. But did you brief ambassador bolton before he had an opportunity to pleat wi to me the Vice President . I didnt need to. Ambassador bolton was there. But as far as you know ambassador bolton communicated to the Vice President that the goes on in ukraine were positive . That is my understanding. With president zelensky. And at this time ambassador bolton was advocating for the lifting of the aid. He been for some time, yes. And did you participate in the warsaw meetings . We had a reduced schedule from what had been arranged for the president for the vice
president. But the Vice President met with president Duda Of Poland and president zelensky and i participated in both meetings. And what do you remember from the meeting with president zelensky . It seemed very positive. What was the message . President zelensky raised the issue of the aid, correct . Yes. And how did the Vice President respond . He represented his support for the aid. He represented the strong commitment of the United States to ukraine and he explained that President Trump, because this is after the politico article had come out that made clear there was a hold, he explained that what we doing was the United States government, the interagency was examining what more europe could do in the Security Space and taking a look at how ukraine was reforming what has been a history of corruption. And was there any discussion
during the meeting with president zelensky on the part of Vice President about any of these investigations weve come to talk about . No. So burisma wasnt raised . No. 2016 election wasnt raised . No. And the Vice President didnt mention any investigations at all, did he . No. You mentioned the august 28th politico article. Is that the first time that you believe the ukrainians may have had a real sense that the aid was on hold . Yes. So from the 55day period spanning july 18th through september 11th, it didnt really become public until august 28th . Thats correct. Ambassador taylor and i had a number of phone calls where we, in fact, talked about do the ukrainians know yet because we both felt strongly that we ensure that the president was
able to resist the aid before the ukrainians ever found out about it. And ambassador volker, is that also your recollection . Yes, it is. That it wasnt until the politico article . That is correct. I received a text message from a ukrainian Counterpart Forwarding that article and that is the first they raised it with me. And can you share a little bit with us about your communications during that time period about the hold on the aid . Yes. I didnt have any communications with the ukrainians about the hold on aid until after they raised it with me for the same reason that tim just gave, the hope that we could get it taken care of ourselves before it became something that they became aware of. Inside of the u. S. Government i was aware that the hold was placed, i was aware of that on july 18th. It was referenced at an interagency meeting. And got a read out from that meeting from one of my assistants. I then immediately spoke with several people in the
administration to object. I thought that this was a bad decision or a bad hold. Maybe not a decision but a process and i wanted to mike sure all of the arguments were marshalled to get it lifted and so i spoke with the pentagon and laura cooper and with Assistant Secretary Of Affairs at the State Department at the next higher level meeting and i speak spoke with officials in the European Bureau and the staff and actively conveying that this needed to be lifted and wanted them to use my name in doing so because i felt the best prospect for positioning ourselves for negotiations with russia is the strongest Defense Capability for ukraine. And during this time period, did you come to believe that any of these investigations were part of the hold up in the aid . No, i did not. Backtracking a little bit. On july 3rd you met in toronto
with president zelensky and there has been some ambassador taylor and mr. Kent provided some testimony that they had some apprehension that the part of this irregular channel that ambassador taylor referenced would rear its head in toronto. Im just wondering if you could tell us whether that, in fact, happened. Yes. Thank you. I could only tell you what i know. There may have been other conversations or other things. But i know that we had a conversation, bill taylor and Gordon Sondland around the 28th of june that later connected to a i believe a conversation with president zelensky although i may not have been part of the latter. That being said, i was convinced after that conversation we had gotten nowhere. We had our white house brief of President Trump on may 23rd and
signed a letter inviting him to the white house on may 29th and for several weeks we were Tem Porrizing with the ukraines saying were working on it it. It is a scheduling issue. Well get there, dont worry. And i told bill and gordon that i was going to see president zelensky in toronto and i feel an obligation to tell him the truth, that we have a problem here, were not getting aid scheduled and here is what i think the problem is. It is the negative information flow from mayor giuliani. And that he would also that i would advise him that he should call President Trump personally because he needed to renew that personal relationship and be able to convey to President Trump that he was serious about Fighting Corruption and investigating things that happened in the past and so forth. So i did all of that with president zelensky in a pullaside after our formal bilateral meeting. And during that meeting in toronto or the series of meetings, there was no discussion of preconditions,
investigations of anything no. And you were there with mr. Kent . Yes, i believe so. And did you ever any discussions with him about preconditions or investigations . Not at that time. I think later on these things came up about when we were talking about a statement whether there were investigations but i believe at this time in toronto it was really more referring to investigations generically that that is how you go about Fighting Corruption and that president zelensky should reaffirm his commitment to President Trump in a direct phone call. Okay. And at any point in time had mr. Kent raised any concerns to you about any of this . Not at that time. Next event i want to cover is the July 10th Meeting. In ambassador boltons office. Talked about this morning, if you caught the coverage, but there was testimony that at some
point ambassador sondland mentioned investigations and reportedly the meeting ended abruptly. What can you tell us about that . Thank you. And let me answer that question first. I would like to come back to your prior question for a second too, if i may. But on the July 10th Meeting, this was a meeting that we had arranged between alex dem ill you can, head of the National Defense council and adviser bolton, attending the meeting was also Secretary Perry, ambassador sondland, myself and i believe fiona hill and andre yermak. It was a counterpart visit. I thought that this would be the best opportunities the first highlevel meeting that were having in washington with a senior u. S. Official, ambassador bolton, after president zelenskys inauguration. I thought it would be a great opportunity for the ukrainians to make their case, that they
are the new team in town, real deal about Fighting Corruption. I was rather disappointed with the meeting as it transpired. Is it struck me as down in the weeds, talking about reform of National Security structures in ukraine and legislation they were working on and not The Big Picture and not the bilateral relationship. So it is a bit disappointed by that. At the end of the meeting i do recall having seen some of the other testimony, i believe bast sondland did raise the point of investigations in a generic way after the meeting was already wrapping up and i think all of us thought it was inappropriate and the conversation did not pick up from there. It was the meeting was over. We all went outside and we had a picture taken in front of the white house. And then all of us except ambassador bolton went down to the ward room to talk through
foll followup to keep the momentum and relationship and i think we broke up into several small groups. I remember having a conversation with Secretary Perry in one of his assistants about Energy Reform as part of that. I dont recall other conversations following up on investigations or burisma. And to the best of your knowledge there certainly was no precondition discussed, right . No. No, again, the issue of the Security Assistance was one where i thought that this was really related to a a general negative view about ukraine. There was Nothing Specific ever communicated to me about it or the reasons why it was held and we certainly didnt want to talk about it with the ukrainians, we wanted to fix it. Okay. And a couple of weeks later, the
July 25th Call happened and you were headed to ukraine during that time period . Yes. I was actually already on my way to ukraine. I think two days prior to that. And you received readouts bee both from the u. S. And the krarn side so could you tell us about that. So i was not on the phone call and i arrived in ukraine and i had lunch with mr. Yermak and hi been pushing for the phone call because i thought it was important to have the personal relationship between the two leaders and to congratulation mr. Zelensky on the Parliament Election. The readout i received from mr. Yermak and from the u. S. Side and not sure who it was from on the u. S. Side but there was a u. S. And ukrainian readout were largely the same. That it was a good call. It was a congratulatory phone call for the president and the Parliament Election and president zelensky did reiterate
his commitment to reform and Fighting Corruption in ukraine and President Trump did reiterate his invasion for president zelensky to come and visit him in the white house. That is exactly what i thought the phone call would be so i was not surprised at getting that as the readout. And did you ever have any discussions with ambassador taylor about this . At that time, we were together in ukraine that time and went the next day to visit the Conflict Zone and im sure he read the same readout that i did. And you meet a meeting with zelensky on 26th. Yes, the day after the phone call. In the morning, before heading out to the and was there concerns that witnesses raised in the call with president zelensky . No. Only the very bare bones read out that i had received that was how it was discussed in the meeting with president zelensky. To the extent there is assertions that president zelensky was concerned about demands President Trump had made i dont recall that. You dont recall that . I dont recall being i dont recall well let me turn that around and say he was very positive about the phone call. I dont recall him saying anything about demands but he was very upbeat about the fact of the call. And no discussion on the part of president zelensky on how to navigate the various i dont recall that. Concerns that people have articulated about the call. I dont remember. And mr. Zeldin asked you in the deposition that in way, shape or form or read outs from the United States or ukraine did you receive any indication whatsoever for anything that resembled a quid pro quo, is that correct . That is correct. And the same would go for this new allegation of bribery . I have only seen an allegation of bribery in the last week. It is the same common set of facts it is just instead of quid pro quo now it is bribery . I was never involved in
anything that i considered to be bribery at all. Or extortion . Or extortion. Okay. Mr. Caster may i address two specific points . Of course. One is im reminded that the meeting with ambassador bolton and mr. Dedellin took place on july 10th and you did not become aware of the hold on Security Assistance until july 18th so so that is another reason why this didnt come up. At that point in time you didnt know that the potential pause in the Security Assistance was brewing . I did not. No. I heard about it for the first time on the 18th of july. May i make a second observation . Absolutely. I do remember having seen some of the testimony of mr. Kent, a conversation in which he had asked me about the Conspiracy Theories that were out there in ukraine. I dont remember what the date of this conversation was. And my view was, well if there are things like that, then why
not investigate them. I dont believe that there is anything to them. If there is, 2016 Election Interference is what i was thinking of, we want to know about that but i didnt believe there was anything there to begin with. You testified in your deposition to the extent the ukrainians were going to investigate other ukrainians for wrongdoing, that is appropriate in your mind. Correct. That is u. S. Policy for years. So if certain ukrainians involved with Burisma Company that is the only plausible thing to look at there. As i said, i dont find it plausible or credible that Vice President biden would have been influenced in his dudy but ukrainians in the society we know ukraine has been for decades were trying to act in a corrupt way or buy influence, that is plausible. And secretary kent last wednesday told us about there was an investigation into burisma, trying to recoup
millions of Taxpayer Dollars and ukrainians were pursuing an investigation and there was a bribe paid. Were you tracking that . I was aware of those kinds of things. I couldnt give you that kind of details. I just know that there was a reputation around the company. Okay. And subsequent to those facts and the bribe being paid, the Burisma Company wanted to improve their image and added some folks to the board, including the president of poland and including hunter biden. Are you familiar with that . That is what i understand. And to the extent the ukrainians, the folks affiliated with burisma wanted to hire those people for the board for Protection Purposes so they could continue engage in misdeeds, if that was a fact worth investigating, you certainly would be supportive of ukrainians trying to get to the bottom of that, correct . Well, i cant speculate as to any of the specifics of what was
motivating burisma or not. Ukrainian investigating possible corruption by ukrainian citizens is a perfectly appropriate thing for them to do. Mr. Morrison, i want to turn our attention back to the July 25th Call. You were in the room. Did anything concern you on the call . No. And after the call ended, like Colonel Vindman, one of the next steps was engage the nsc lawyers and your reasons for doing that were slightly different than Colonel Vindmans and you articulated three concerns. And do you want to share them with us or would you rather i do it . So i think i articulated two concerns if im for getting one
please remind me but the two concerns i had were, one, i didnt see representatives of nsc legal on the call. So i wanted to mike sure that the Legal Adviser and his deputy were aware of the call. And i was also concerned about taking steps to protect the mem com limited disclosure for fear of the consequences of it leaking. And you were concerned about it leaking because you worried about how it would play out in washingtons poll airized political environment, correct. Yes. And you were worried how that would lead to the bipartisan support here in congress of toward ukraine, right. Yes. And you were also concerned that it might affect the ukrainians perception negatively . Yes. And in fact all three of those things have played out, havent they . Yes. You didnt ask the lawyers to put it on the code word system, correct . I want to be precise about the lexic on here. I did not ask for it to be moved to a Compartment System. Okay. You just wanted the transcript to be controlled . I wanted access to be restricted. Okay. And when you learned that the transcript had been stored on the compartment server, you believed that was a mistake, correct . Well, there was represented to me that it was a mistake. I was trying to pull up that mem con because were in the process of pulling together ambassador boltons materials and the president s materials for what was a planned bilat between potus and president zelensky and when i went to do that, i could not pull up the package in our system and i did not understand why. I spoke with the Executive Secretary of staff and asked them why and they they did their research and informed me had been moved to the higher Classification System as the direction of john eisenberg, whom i then asked why. I mean, that is the judgment he made. That is not necessarily mine to question but i didnt understand it and he essentially told me i gave no such direction. He did his own inquiry and represented back to me that his understanding was it was an administrative error that when he gave direction to restrict access, the Executive Secretary of staff understood that as apprehension that there was something in the content of the mem con that could not exist on the lower Classification System. So to the best of your knowledge, there is no malicious intent in moving the transcript to the compartment and the server . Correct. To your knowledge anybody on the nsc staff that needed access
to the transcript for their official duties always was able to access it, correct . People that had a need to know and need to access it. Once it was moved to the Compartment System . Yes. Yes. Mem com of the July 25th Call was in your experience prepared regularly. Yes. There isnt a exact transcript of what is said on the call, correct. Correct. There is note takers in the shi Situation Room and they prepare a draft and it is circulated among relevant parties . Essentially, yes. And you had responsibility for coordinating any edits . Yes. We look at the shorthand or call it a transcript but the memorandum of conversation and we ensure that that
transcription is as close to accurate as possible given our requirements under the president ial records act. Okay. And Colonel Vindman testified he thought it was very accurate. Did you as well . I viewed it as completely accurate. And he did articulate that he wanted burisma i think on page three or four in place of the company in one of the sections where president zelensky was talking. Are you aware of that edit request . I understand that he said in either this proceeding or the deposition that he wanted that request, yes. At the time did you understand that he had asked for that . I dont recall that. It was my practice if i edited the call and i would accept it if i didnt hear it in the call and didnt exist in my notes i wouldnt have made the edit. Just on page four he wanted to swap out the word company
for burisma. And when that edit was not installed did you give you negative feedback that was crucial that that edit get in the document. Not that i recall. Did you ever raise any concerns about the accuracy of the transcript . Not that i can recall. Did he raise any concerns to you generally about the call . When we were discussing the track changes verpgs of the mem com, i believe he had some concerns about the call. I believe we both agreed we wanted that more fullthroat the embrace of prelz president zelensky and his reform agenda and we didnt get it. Okay. You indicated in your
deposition that when you took over the portfolio for dr. Hill july 15th, you were alerted to potential issues in Colonel Vindmans judgment. Yes. Did she relay anything specific to you . Why she thought that. Not as such. It was more of a an Overar Frpifr over arching statement from her and from her deputy that became my deputy that they had concerned about judgment. Did any another nsc personnel raise concerns with you about mr. Vindman . Yes. Im sorry Colonel Vindman. And what were some of the concerns that were brought to your attention . There were im sorry, im going to instruct him not to answer. Im going to instruct him not to answer because i think that is it is beyond the scope of what
youre asking for. These concerns, mr. Caster, predated any involvement with ukrainian secretary assistance. Well, during the deposition, i asked you mr. Morris whether any others raised the concern that Colonel Vindman may have leaked information . You did ask that, yes. And your answer was . Others had represented that, yes. And i asked you whether you were concerned Colonel Vindman did not keep you in the loop at all times with his official duties . Yes. And, in fact, when he went to the National Security Council Lawyers following the July 25th Call he did not first come to you, is that correct . Correct. And you were his supervisor in the chain of command, correct . Correct. And in hindsight did you wish that he had come to you first before going to the lawyers . Yes. And why is that . Well if he had concerns about something about the content of the call, that is something that i would have expected to be notified of. I also think just as a matter of practice since we both went to the lawyers we didnt necessarily both need to and economy of effort may have prevailed. Okay. At any point subsequently did he feel frustrated that he was cut out of some of the ukraine portfolio. Yes. And what was the nature of his concerns . Well, he the easiest way to say it is he was concerned that he was not he did not ip go. He asked me why it is my practice to have a number of the conversations with ambassador taylor oneonone. And there were certain other matters. Okay. And did you ever get the sense
that you resolved his concerns or did they linger . I i explained to him my thinking and that was that. Okay. Before my time expires, ambassador volker, i want to turn quickly to the what ambassador taylor describes as the irregular channel. He was a participant with you and ambassador Sondland Hundreds of Text Messages, correct . Correct. So did he ever raise concerns about what was what was going on during the time period of the early august time period . Only as you saw reflected in the Text Messages themselves. Where he said is this now a linkage or are we doing this, he a concern about just in general, Rudy Giuliani, i think a lot of
us had. But the issues is what do you do about it, about the role that hes playing. And as you note, we were in frequent contact. Near daily contact throughout this entire period. And so did he ever engage you in a oneonone Telephone Call to articulate his concerns . We were on many oneonone Telephone Calls. He did not raise those concerns that way, no. And this youre an experienced diplomat at one point in time, senate confirmed. Ambassador sondland is the ambassador to the European Union and Secretary Perry is a Secretary Of Energy, certainly not doesnt like like an irregular bunch. Did he ever articulate to you that he thought the three of you working on the Ukraine Policy was a problem . No, he did not. And were you surprised during his testimony when he came in
for the deposition when he sort of established the two tracks. One was a regular channel that he was involved with and another was yes. I dont agree with his characterization of that because hi been in my role for a couple of years and the lead on negotiating with russia and the interagency work and the work with our allies and we have a Secretary Of Energy who was a Cabinet Official and i think having support from various u. S. Officials for strengthening our engagement with ukraine a viewed as a very positive thing and if the concern is not us so much then, because were all u. S. Officials, but mayor giuliani, i dont view that as a channel at all because hes not a representative of the u. S. Government. Hes a private citizen. I viewed him as perhaps a useful barometer in understanding what may be helpful communication from the ukrainian government
but not someone in a position to represent the u. S. Government at all. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Why dont we take a five or tenminute break. If i could ask the audience to allow the witnesses to leave the room first. We are in recess. Im wolf blitzer in the Situation Room. Weve been following the historic hearings all day. Four witnesses now. The second session will continue after this quick break. Tim morrison, the former National Security Council Senior director who is in overall charge of Ukraine Policy and the Special Envoy kurt volker, slightly different interpretations of what they saw but there was clearly throughout all of the hearings serious concern about this alternative Foreign Policy that was led by Rudy Giuliani towards ukraine. And there is a lot to discuss. Different Points Of View to be
sure. The last two witnesses, tim morrison and kurt volker were called by the republicans. They wanted to hear what they had to say earlier in the day Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman and Jennifer Williams also from the white house, they were asked to come by the democrats. Glor gloria borger, lets get your take on what were hearing because there was deep concern about the socalled Rudy Giuliani shadow diplomacy. There was. And we heard this morning that there was belief that the president s phone call was not in the national interest. This evening, this afternoon, what were hearing from these two people, particularly mr. Morrison who worked for bolton is that not that it was not in the national interest. He said, quote, it is not what we recommend the president discuss. So it is a little it is a little softer, shall we say. As for Rudy Giuliani, it was clear from listening to mr. Volker who dealt with rudy
giuliani quite frequently that volker said a couple of things. One, is, he sounded like a Character Witness for joe biden. That he told that he told giuliani youre barking up the wrong tree here with these Conspiracy Theories. And that he felt that dealing with giuliani was what the president had directed the three people to do in that may 23rd meeting and that he felt that it was a way for them to get the money to to ukraine. Which is what his policy goal was. So he didnt see it as irregular, as an irregular route the way mr. Taylor did earlier in earlier testimony. He saw it as just one more way to get the money to ukraine. So you do see why the republicans called him to a degree. One more thing i want to say here is that he says and in
hindsight he wished he would have seen it and he did not understand when they said investigate burisma, which is the Energy Company that Hunter Biden Sat on the board of, that he didnt see that equals joe biden. He said i wish in hindsight that i would have known that and i think that is what well hear from Gordon Sondland tomorrow also which is, when i was tae was told to look into bur hesa. Lets listen to ambassador Volker Making that point during the Opening Statement. Listen to this. I did not know that President Trump or others had raised Vice President biden with ukrainians or conflated the investigation of possible ukrainians corruption with the Vice President in retrospect for the ukrainians it might have been confusing. Others saw the idea of investigating possible corruption involving burisma as equivalent to investigating vice
president biden. I saw them as very different. The former being appropriated and remarkable and the latter being unacceptable. In retrospect i should have seen that connection differently and had i done so i would have raised my own objections. Clearly jim sciutto, significant change in his attitude. Were talking about ambassador volker saying it was totally unacceptable what others in this unofficial channel were trying to achieve led by the president and giuliani. And more than once. Kurt volker was supposed to be a star witness for republicans. He was on the list. They said after his private testimony that we cant wait to get volker up there because hes going to tell a story better for the president. He makes clear multiple times whether you believe he made no such connection but lets take that at face value. Whether or not you made that connection, he said that that connection as it existed was inappropriate. And by the way, he amended his testimony because in his closeddoor deposition i believe we have this on the screen on
october 3rd, he was asked was there any discussion, this is in the July 10th Meeting prior to the phone call about any investigations, particularly giulianis activities in ukraine, et cetera, he said no definitively in his Opening Statement today he to correct ala Gordon Sondland to say i remember the meeting was essentially over when ambassador sondland made a general comment about investigations and he said all of us thought that it was n inappropriate and that is the universal true of all of the witnesses, whether more frently to the democrats or the republicans and that is a problem. But the oath thi the other did grow oun comfortable with Rudy Giulianis role and introduced him to a top aide to the president by hoped by doing so that would convince giuliani that this government isnt corrupt and not out to get the president but giuliani used that to push the top aide to the
ukrainian president to get the ukrainian president to make a public statement. So you really question volker here why he thought they wanted this investigation into burisma if it wasnt to investigate the bidens. Why else would he think the president was so invested in that. Hes sort of i think frames himself as somebody who is a participant but not able to make all of the connections. Which again i think is a little bit unbelievable how he thinks burisma has nothing to do with biden and he has access to a computer and google and is hard to believe and in hindsight realizes there is connection between the investigations into the money. He, at the time, said no, this is just part of things that happen in terms of the delay in the money going to ukraine. He said this kind of thing happens all of the time but then realizes later that other people are talking to the ukrainians about a connection between the aid and the investigations. I think the most generous sort of interpretation you could give here is this is a case of
willful blindness. He didnt want to make this connection. Volker attempted to thread the needle. The needle he was describing was attempting to apiece t to ap the president who had an unacceptable desire to have an investigation into the bidens to appease him with volter seemed facially legitimate, an investigation into burisma in order to maintain the world view and he krirnged as he was being read through the Text Messages in order to maintain that he has to convince himself that bur hesa and the bidens have nothing to do to susans point, to appease the president. And i think this is something were going to hear over and over again and the words in retrospect make a lot of people i think a lot of people are going to call upon that term. One of the things that former white house officials have told me who have been on phone calls with the president is that his
behavior and his speech is so outlandish, even when he doesnt cross the line the way people feel he did in this call, that it normalizes these conversations. And there is the sense well clean it up afterwards. You remember in Bob Woodwards book when he reported that President Trump said to general mattis to go assassinate the syrian president and mattis said to an aide, well, well deal with that another way. There is a problem for a lot of these officials who were on the call or listening to some of this that they get used to something that is not normal. Here is the interesting thing. It is more than language though. It is more than language. Because as you heard kurt volker and morrison describe a cogent u. S. Policy toward ukraine which was the official policy. We oppose the russias
annexation of crimea and want to give them aid to push back the invasion. The fact is this president has repeatedly undermined that u. S. Policy not just by words by by actions. He shokin. That ukraine needs to fight back against russia. He has made public statements that maybe crimea belongs to russia and not ukraine. So the president , they were describing a great textbook u. S. Policy regarding ukraine. The fact is the president beyond words, his action was undermined. You have this picture at the white house that these gentlemen talk about which is, it seems to me, the goal of everybody working there seems to be pretty unified which was how do we get this money to ukraine. And so the president has a meeting with the three amigos, i know volker doesnt like to be called that, but he has a meeting with perry, volker and sondland, says talk to rudy, the ukranians are bad, but talk to
rudy. What do they do . They talk to rudy. First rick perry talked to rudy and they all talked to rudy as we now know. They reach out to giuliani and try to figure out Whats Going On but dont get the whole story or so they will say. Theyll say we thought burisma, you know, our reporting shows us, we thought burisma was just another corrupt Energy Company, as you point out, they could have googled it, figured out the hunter biden connection. They were figuring out how to thread the needle as volker said it was a bigger problem than that, and they didnt realize it time. In hindsight, volker is saying i wish i would have realized it, i wouldnt have participated. They all wanted to get that Security Assistance to the ukranians, except the president of the United States didnt want to get the 400 million inSecurity Assistance to the ukranians. That was abundantly clear. And listen, republicans like to say this president was much more willing to back the ukranians and give them aid, much more willing to do that, than president obama. Well, theres a little problem with that. In this instance, he wanted to hold up aid, 400 million in the middle he was willing to do it. At one point, the republicans tried to make, corruption is an issue in ukraine, the president was concerned about corruption. It says in the law there needs to be anticorruption certifications. What theyre essentially ignoring is anticorruption certifications were completed by dod. This is congressionally appropriated money. This is not money for the president of the United States to hand out however and whenever he wants to. Kaitlin, tomorrow well hear from Gordon Sondland at the center of this, ukraine is not a member of the European Union, but seemed to be in overall
charge because of a close relationship with the president. He was a political appointee, not a career diplomat, gave a Million Dollars to the trump inaugural committee. Heres an exchange that tim morrison, nsc adviser, former nsc adviser, Senior Direct at the nsc had with dan goldman, democratic majority counsel. I want you to listen to this. Vice president pence left the room and in an antiroom, ambassador sondland and president ial adviser yermak had this discussion, yes. And what did ambassador sondland tell you that he told mr. Yermak . That the ukranians would have to have the Prosecutor General make a statement with respect to the investigations as a condition of having the aid lifted. So there it is. Theres the socalled quid pro quo. The investigations referring to
ukraines involvement in hacking, whatever, the 2016 president ial elections on behalf of Hillary Clinton. That was a made point as well as investigation of the biedens. Bidens. He talked about he had spoken with sondland who had just gotten off the phone with trump. He testified that someone related there was no quid pro quo, but zelensky had to make a statement about the investigations and he had to want to do it. Aka, thats the exchange to get the military aid lifted. Thats really interesting in effect because morrison testified that every time someone said he had spoken with President Trump, he went back and confirmed they had actually spoken because some people said sondland inflated himself, his connection with the president. Here, youre seeing he did speak to the president. Thats why theres so much more weight on sondlands testimony tomorrow. Thats the one people in the white house are most worried about. The flip side is that they
thought kurt volker and tim morrison would be the best witnesses to make the arguments, a lot of people dont think thats what happened in that room. It is remarkable they would consider these are republican witnesses, yet under oath confirmed the most damning facts. These questions of interpretation and what the president was actually after, they did confirm exactly. And thats important, nia, because tim morrison was listening in on the call between the president of the United States and newly elected president of ukraine, zelensky. But afterwards he felt it was his responsibility to go to the nsc Legal Adviser to say maybe we should move the rough transcript to a very, very secure server. He said as i stated during my deposition, i feared the time of the call on july 25th, how its disclosure would play in washingtons political climate. My fears have been realized. He was referring, i think in his deposition, he felt like nothing illegal was said on the call. Here he said also he didnt necessarily think that what was happening on the call was concerning to him. But he felt like somebody from nsc legal should have been on the call and been notified. You did see i think republicans trying to make in roads in tainting vindman saying listen, you had some concerns about vindman, morrison, thats what they said to morrison, you had concerns about his judgment and tried to get to him and his lawyer stepped in. Thats important. They were trying Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman that testified several hours earlier today was powerful in his statements and it was clear that tim morrison was trying to undermine his credibility a bit. Right. So it seems to me were seeing
something we have seen with republicans. When you complain about process, discredit a witness, theyll go after them. Thats what we saw all day long today with all of the witnesses. Theres just one problem. As susan said, the facts did not change today. Can we talk about the chaos here in this white house because you have morrison trying to get the money approved, you hae sondland who they believe is an int interloper, you have a session on july 10 where it effectively blows up. Bolton says i dont want to be in this drug deal because sondland is announcing youve got, you know, youve got to do this quid pro quo, right, you have to have this announcement that the president of ukraine is going to have to make and bolton wants nothing to do with it. You have sondland who has a good
relationship apparently, maybe not, i dont know, well see tomorrow. Used to have a good relationship. With the president. You have a policy thats been approved by the United States congress as susan points out, and nobody seems to have any idea Whats Going On. Earlier today it is like the Parable Of The Blind Man and the elephant, everybody sees just one piece of this picture and nobody sees the whole thing, and so it is a little chaotic or a lot chaotic, and nobody assured who is in charge, should be bolton who by the way is the person we are missing here. We are missing. Adam schiff is now in his seat. He is chairman of the house intelligence committee, going to bring the session back to order momentarily. Jim sciutto you wanted to make a point about this. You could lose track how far we moved in such a short period of time. It started with the whistleblower complaint, a lot of attacks whether it was hearsay. Now the facts of a quid pro quo
are almost stipulated by the witnesses, democrat or republican, by whatever their leanings are. Volker and morrison were meant to exkul patripate, and there corroboration between the two, and whether that happened, whether it was serious enough to be impeachable. Remarkable distance to move in a short time. To jims point, politically, we have seen people like senator rob portman already stipulate that this happened, that it was bad, but politically the republicans are saying not impeachable. All of this testimony, even witnesses the republicans had hoped to either undermine or would be favorable, not on the factors. The president has been shall we say relatively restrained today, although in the photo op earlier was speaking ill of the
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