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When he was named as part of the u.s. delegation led by secretary rick perry to president zelensky s inauguration. lieutenant colonel alexander vindman also attended the inauguration and as holmes recalls during a meeting with president zelensky, took the opportunity to advise the ukraine leader to stay out of u.s. domestic politics. another concern that arose for dr. hill around this time was her discovery of a potential nfc back channel on ukraine. hill learned that an nfc staff member who didn t work on ukraine and for her may have been providing ukraine related information to president trump that dr. hill was not made aware of. according to holmes, following the zelensky inauguration sondland and perry took an active and unconventional role in formulating priorities for the new zelensky administration and personally reaching out to president zelensky and his ....
Meeting? yes, sir. you reviewed those notes before you came here to testify today? yes. they were helpful to refresh your recollection as to what happened, is that right? yes. during that meeting, president zelensky said that on his phone call with president trump the previous day, that three times president trump had mentioned sensitive issues. did you understand what president zelensky was referring to when he said the sensitive issues? i couldn t be sure what he was referring to in july. later read the transcript of the july 25th call but i was aware of various contacts between the three amigos and his government about this set of issues. and after you read the call, what did you determine to be the sensitive issues that president zelensky referenced. the burisma, biden investigation. after this meeting with president zelensky you testified ambassador sondland had a one-on-one meeting with andre yermak, a top aide to ....
Parliamentary election. contrary to standard procedure the embassy received no read-out of that call and i was unaware what was discussed until the transcript was released on september 25th. upon reading the transcript, i was deeply disappointed to see that the president raised none of what i understood to be our interagency agreed upon foreign policy priorities in ukraine and instead raised the biden/burisma investigation and referred to the theory of crowd strike and its supposed connection to ukraine in the 2016 election. the next day july 26, 2019 i attended meetings with the presidential administration building in kiev with ambassador taylor, volker and sondland and i took notes during those meetings. our first meeting was with president zelensky s chief of staff. it was brief as he had already been summoned by president zelensky to prepare for a subsequent broader meeting. he did say that president trump had expressed interest during the previous day s phone call ....
As the political counselor in kiev i lead the political section covering ukraine s internal politics, foreign relations and security policies. and i serve as the senior policy and political ambassador adviseor to the ambassador. the job of an embassy political counselor is to gather information about the host country s political landscape. to report back to washington to represent u.s. policies to foreign contacts and to advise the ambassador of policy development and implementation. in this role i m a senior member of the embassy s team and continually involved in addressing issues as they arise and called upon to take notes in meetings involving ambassador or visiting u.s. officials with ukrainian counterparts. for this reason i have been present in many of the meetings with president zelensky and his administration, some of which may be germane to this inquiry. while i m a political counselor at the embassy it is important to note i am not a political ....
Zelensky to look into the bidens. neither request had been included in the official talking points for the call prepared by the nfc staff but both were in donald trump s personal interest and the interests of his 2020 reelection campaign. and the ukrainian president knew about both in advance in part because of efforts by ambassador sondland and volker to make him aware of president trump s demands. the next day july 26, in kiev, holmes served as a note taker during a meeting between acting ambassador bill taylor, volker and sondland with president zelensky and other senior ukraine officials. zelensky said on the previous day s call said that on the previous day s call president trump had quote three times raised some very sensitive issues that he would have to follow up on those issues when they met in person. although he did not realize it ....