To investigate what happened in the past and apply its own laws. No one in the new team had anything to do with anything that may have happened in 2016. They were making Television Shows at the time. Iral i also said it is credible to me that he would have been influenced by financial or personal motives in carrying out duties as Vice President. A different issue is whether some individual ukrainians may have attempted to influence the 2016 election or thought they could buy influence. That is at least plausible given ukraines reputation for corruption. The accusation that he acted independently did not seem credible to me. I connected mayor giuliani and the aide by text lantand later t i phone. They met in person on august 2, 2019. In conversations with me following that meeting which i did not attend, mr. Giuliani said that he had stressed the importance of ukraine conducting investigations into what happened in the past and mr. Yermoc stressed, he said it is their position to conduc
Base of the Republican Party and to me. So i believe that he was at with very few defections. That may change, but right now i least affected by those and believed those and believed they were think thats a correct negative . Assessment by the white house, believed that they were that theyve got the senate tied negative and was conveying them up in a way that will protect to the president. So was it problematic that he the president from actually being removed from office. Believed they were negative i think the two variables, views . Yes, the whole thing was ned, would, in my guess, drawing problematic. Ambassador taylor testified on my past sort of in republican that on july 2nd, you told politics, would be public ukrainians that they needed to, quote, cooperate on opinion, should you see attacks investigations, end quote. Youre now saying that you dont on colonel vindman inching this recall saying those words; is from 51 support to 53, 54, 55. That correct . I dont believe i said th
Power of the office to obtain an improper personal benefit while ignoring and injuring the national interest. Or acts in ways that are grossly inconsistent with and undermine the separation of powers that is the foundation of our democratic system. Now, these this question of whether president engaged in abuse of power came up before when this congress considered the impeachment of president nixon. And after action was taken, president nixon famously said if the president does it, it is not illegal. And this body rejected that because thats not so. That goes directly contrary to what the founders said. But President Trump has said the same thing in responding to the prior investigation by Department Of Justice and defending his conduct. Here is what he said then i have an article, too, where i have to write to do whatever i want as president. That he has the right to do
whatever he wants as president. That is as wrong as when president nixon said a similar thing. That is not what the c
An investigation on a political rival . Mr. Morrison . In that hypothetical, no, i dont think he should do that. Yeah. And ambassador volker, im sure you agree. Yes. And the same would be true if it were a governor withholding the budget requests of the state police unless the state police agreed to conduct an investigation on a political rival. You would agree . Correct. Yes, sir. In your view is it any different for a member of congress . Of course not, right . Would you agree that the president has the same obligation as the mayor, as the governor, as the member of congress to not withhold aid unless he gets an investigation into a political rival, mr. Morrison . Yes, sir, i would agree with that hypothetical. I would agree. And were having a debate here both sides as to how to
read whats plainly before us. The president ial phone call where the president ignored the work of the advisers and the National Security council of Talking Points and instead chose to talk about the bidens a
Giuliani. Mr. Giuliani said they thought ukraine should make a statement about Fighting Corruption and mr. Yermac provided me a draft statement and i wanted to be assured that this statement would actually correct the perception that mr. Giuliani had of ukraine and what they stand for now so that that would also be conveyed to President Trump and solve this problem that i had observed with our may 23rd meeting with the president. The problem being that hes getting bad set of information. A Statement Like this could potentially correct that. So was mr. Giuliani satisfied with this statement . No, he was not. Why not . He believed it needed to say burisma and 2016 specifically or else it would not be credible, it would not mean anything. So in fact mr. Giuliani wanted a statement that Referenced Burisma and 2016 elections explicitly. One that would benefit
essentially President Trump. Mr. Ambassador, heres the text you sent to the ukrainian official august 13th. You said hey andrey good