finding out, but zelensky said privately that he didn t want to be involved in u.s. domestic politics. he resisted announcing the investigations. he only relented and scheduled the cnn meeting after it became clear that he was not going to receive the support that he needed and that congress had provided in our appropriations. that s the definition of pressure. now, ukraine, the president s lawyers say didn t know that trump was withholding the security assistance until it was public. many witnesses have contested that, including the open statement by o lena zirkel who was the deputy foreign minister of ukraine that they knew about the hold. and in the end everyone knew, it was public, and after it was
senator lahey asks the house managers, the president s counsel argues that there was no harm done, that the aid was ultimately released to ukraine. the president met with zelensky at the u.n. in september and that this president has treated ukraine more favorably than his predecessors. what is your response? mr. chief justice and senator, thank you so much for your question. contrary to what the white house counsel has said or has claimed
were six facts that have not been met and will not change, and all six of those so-called facts are incorrect. let s be clear, on july 25th, that s not the whole evidence before us, even though it includes devastating evidence of the president s scheme. president trump s intent was made clear on the july 25th call, but we had evidence of information before the meetings with mr. bolton, the text message to mr. zelensky s people telling him he had to do the investigations to get what he wanted, all of this evidence that makes us understand that tone call even more clearly. now, the president s team claimed that mr. zelensky and other yooukrainians say they ne felt pressure to open investigations. of course, they didn t say that publicly. they were afraid of the russians
call shows the president doing nothing wrong. president zelensky said he never felt any pressure. his other advisors, ukranians never said they felt any pressure or felt there was a quid pro quo. they didn t even know military assistance had been held up until the political article the end of august. the only two people with statements on record who spoke with the president are sondland and senator ron johnson, report that the president said to them there was no quid pro quo. and the aid flowed without anything ever being done related to investigation. that is what s in the record. that is what the house managers have to rely on to make their case, and they have failed to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt. fil failed to prove it by clear and convincing evidence and failed to prove it at all, in my opinion. thank you, counsel.
the very quid pro quo he wanted from ukraine. then, he told president sondland to quote go to president zelensky should go to the microphone and announce the investigations. he should want to do it. third, the president s own advisors, including the vice president and secretary pompeo were also aware of the direct connection and on september 1st, ambassador sondland told vice president pence he was concerned the delay in security assistance had become quote tied to the issue of investigations. the vice president simply nodded, tacidly acknowledging the conditionality of the aid. fourth, we heard from ambassador taylor, who in direct e-mails and texts, it was crazy to tie the assistance to investigations. 5, we also know there s no other reason. the entire apparatus and structure of the defense department, the state department, that should have been dealing with the other