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Giuliani requested anything of the ukrainians at that meeting? only when i spoke with mr. giuliani afterwards. he said that he thought ukraine should issue a statement. and then i spoke with mr. yermak after that and he said yes and we re prepared to make a statement. and that then kicked off the series of discussions that i said in my testimony. we ll get into that in a second. but mr. giuliani did not explain to you what needed to be included in that statement, in that call you had? he said something more general, as i recall. i recall him saying fight corruption, that their commitment to being different. mr. yermak told me when i spoke with him as i recall that the statement would include specific mention of burisma and 2016. let s go through some of the text messages so we know exactly who said what. and first let s start on august 9th. this is a text exchange between ....
Real change in ukraine the statement should include specific reference to burisma and 2016. again no mention of vice president biden in these conversations. ambassador sondland and i discussed these points and i edited the statement, drafted by mr. yermak, to include these points to see how it looked. i then discussed it further with mr. yermak. he said that for a number of reasons, including the fact that mr. lut sunko was still the prosecutor general they didn t want to mention burisma or 2016 and a greed and putting out a statement was shelved. these were the last conversations i had about this statement which were on or about august 17 to 18. my last contact with mr. giuliani according to my records was on august 13th until he tried to reach me on september 20th after the impeachment inquiry was launched. at this time, that is to say in the middle of august, i thought the idea of issuing this ....
Any ukrainians had act the inappropriately. at this time, i was focused on our goal of getting president zelensky and president trump to meet with each other. and i believed that their doing so would overcome the chronically negative view president trump had toward ukraine. i was seeking to solve the problem i saw when we met with president trump in the oval office on may 23rd. as a professional diplomat, ip was comfortable exploring whether there was a statement ukraine could make about its own intentions to investigate possible corruption that would be helpful and in convincing mr. giuliani to convey to president trump a new positive assessment of the leadership in ukraine. on august 16th mr. yermak shared a draft with me which i thought looked perfectly reasonable. it did not mention burisma or 2016 elections but was generic. ambassador sondland and i had a further conversation with mr. giuliani who said that in his view in order to be convincing that this government represented ....
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 ukraine s 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 ....
Statement had been definitively scrapped. in september i was surprised to learn there had been further discussions with the ukrainians about president zelensy possibly making a statement in an interview with u.s. media similar to what we had discussed in august. since these events and since i gave my testimony on october 3rd, a great deal of additional information and perspectives have come to light. i ve learned many things that i did not know at the time of the events in question. first, at the time i was connecting mr. yermak and mr. giuliani and discussing with mr. yermak and ambassador sondland a possible statement to be made by the ukrainian president i did not know of any linkage between the hold on security assistance and ukraine pursuing investigations. no one had ever said that to me and i never con sayed such a linkage to the ukrainians. i opposed the hold as soon as i learned about it on july 18th and thought we could turn it around before the ukrainians ....