Words leveled against you constitute bowling of the worst order your good character your outstanding reputation have been be smirched in a way that is devoid of common decency but heres my message to you there is nothing ambassador evanovich nothing he can say or do not a thing that will in any way diminish the nature and quality of the service you have rendered to our great nation not a thing and there is not a thing he can say or do that will diminish our gratitude to you for that service and i thank you again for thank you. So to as to the larger point. I would like you to answer what does this mean to you crane. When the United States actually engages in the kind of behavior that we are attempting to discourage them from a gauging and namely a politically motivated prosecution what does that mean to our relate what does that mean to them in their struggling efforts to become a robust democracy whats the impact in ukraine for this behavior. I think ukraine like many countries looks
Mr. Chairman id like to begin by following up on something that you have disclosed today and disclosed early yr to both majority, minority. But it is some new information for the committee. You said in your testimony that one of your staff was present with ambassador sondland on the day after the july 25th phone call, is that right . Thats correct, mr. Chairman. And as your staff related the event to you, your staff member could overhear mr. Sondland and the phone over hear the president on the phone . Thats correct. So the president must have been speaking loud enough on the phone. This was a cell phone . It was a cell phone. The president must have been speaking loud enough for your staff member to be able to over hear this . It was. And what your staff member could over hear was President Trump asking ambassador sondland about, quote, the investigations, is that right . Thats correct. I think you testified also that you had come to understand that the term, investigations, was a ter
Systems for ukraine until further notice i and others sat in astonishment ukrainians were fighting russians and counted on not only the training and weapons but also the assurance of u. S. Support all that the o. M. B. Staff person said was that the directive had come from the president to the chief of staff to o. M. B. Yeah as you say kimberly some pretty damning testimony there from 2 people who are career officials career diplomats and while were waiting for this recess to end the hearings to take up we are going to that the republicans are going to get their opportunity to essentially crossexamine a both of these 2 witnesses and presumably thats something that the the white house is going to be very eagerly awaiting. Yeah because particularly given the fact that republicans up to now have argued that this is not been a fair process that this is not been objective in any way that up until now until these public hearings this has been held in secret they argue and we saw this at the
The september time frame, but i want to go back two months, to july, before the july 25th call. You testified, ambassador taylor, in your Opening Statement that it was in the middle of july when you understood that the white house meeting was first a condition on these investigations. Is that accurate . Yes. We were preparing and i agreed that the white house meeting was going to be an important step in u. S. ukrainian relations. So, in june and in early july, attempts to work out a way to get that meeting included a phone call. And so there were several conversations about how to have this phone call that eventually happened on july 25th. And you described in your Opening Statement a july 10th white house meeting with a number of officials where ambassador bolton used the term that something was a drug deal. What did you understand him to mean in hearing that he said used this term, drug deal . I dont know. I dont know what ambassador bolton had in mind. Was that in reference to a dis
Through violence, attacks against commercial vessels in International Waters, sponsored attacks against civilian targets in the gulf and then last weeks unprovoked attack on our unarmed aircraft. So, madam president , we face a choice here. Will we legitimize and incentivize irans use of terror and aggression or will we stay resolute, applying appropriate and proportionate pressure until tehran respects fundamental norms of International Behavior . Last thursday President Trump consulted with a Bipartisan Group of l congressional leaders and National Security chairmen and Ranking Members. The president weighed advice from a number of sources. It is clear he was listening to congressional leaders, and clearly the president wants to avoid war. Hence the deliberate and judicious approach hes taken since the shootdown. Hence, his repeated efforts to give irans leaders an off ramp toward negotiations. Nevertheless, there is a general consensus that this act of aggression cannot stand. Tehra