Concerning the allegations, i stressed that no one in the new team governing ukraine had anything to do with anything that may have happened in 2016. They were making Television Shows at the time. I also said that it is not credible to me that former Vice President biden would have been influenced in any way by financial or personal motives in carrying out his duties as Vice President. A different issue is whether some individual ukrainians may have attempted to influence the 2016 election or thought they would buy influence. That is at least plausible given ukraines reputation for corruption. But the accusation that Vice President biden acted inappropriately did not seem at all credible to me. After that meeting, i connected mayor giuliani and mr. Yermak by text and later by phone. They met in person on august 2nd, 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 in
visit for president zelensky scheduled and to keep ramping up support for the new ukrainian president and ultimately the ukrainian government. i did, however, on july 2nd, as i was becoming concerned that we were not succeeding at this, to tell president zelensky i think we have a problem. and that problem being this negative feed of information from mr. giuliani. and ultimately i think as you testified in your opening statement you introduced mr. yermak to mr. giuliani and they eventually met, is that right? that is correct. now during this whole time in july and after the call into early august when they met, crane still desperately wanted that oval office meeting for president zelensky, correct? that is correct. and you also wanted that for president zelensky, is that right? that is correct. why was that oval office meeting so important to president zelensky? i think that he felt that he was not well understood by president trump. he is a charismatic leader who
statement that mr. giuliani wanted, is that right, mr. volker. it relates to the statement that he and mr. yermak had discussed. now to the next day on august 10th, there is another text exchange between you and mr. yermak who is the same aide that mr. giuliani had met in madrid. and if you could read what you wrote at the top at 5:02 p.m. i wrote i agree with your approach. let s iron out statement and use that to get date and then president zelensky can go forward with it. and mr. yermak responds, once we have a date, we will call for a press briefing, announcing upcoming visit and outlining vision for the reboot of u.s./ukraine relationship including among other things burisma and election meddling in investigations. and what did you respond? sounds great. now the date that he s herring to, that is the date for the white house visit?
ambassador sondland told you he speak with president trump, did you on some other occasions did you also seek confirmation of that fact? on some, yes. and on those occasions when you did seek to confirm that they had spoken, what did you find? they had. now i want to pull up a text message on the morning of july 25th. between well it s it should be another one. oh, yeah, sorry. ambassador sondland, with you, ambassador volker, and at 7:54 the ambassador in the morning ambassador sondland said call asap. then at 9:35 ambassador volker, you respond. is the screen working in front of you or just to the side? so if you could go ahead and read what you said at 9:35. yes. so i said hi gordon. got your message. have a great lunch with yermak
ran a remarkable campaign in ukraine and against the legacy of corruption and he had a massive showing in the presidential election, 73% support. he believed he was leading a movement of major change in ukraine and that president trump didn t see that or appreciate that. but if he had a chance to sit down and speak with president trump face-to-face, he believed that he could be very convincing about that and i agreed with him. that is certainly your assessment, right. it was my assessment and also what president zelensky believed. and certainly you understood from your experience in ukraine that there would be a significant boost in legitimacy at home for president zelensky if there were photos of him in the oval office, et cetera, is that right. yes, that is correct. now you testified in your opening statement that mr. giuliani and mr. yermak, zelensky s aide, met on august 2nd. where did they meet? they met in madrid. and did you learn that mr.