An extraordinary phone call the fact that it was an unsecure line as you mention is also extraordinary. Dr hill also said she she didnt speak of. Russias goals as something that was there in the past she basically frame this is something that they were still currently trying to do their goals being to deal with the u. S. Presidency regardless of who the president was as i said to blame ukraine the goal of that being she says to basically drive a wedge between the west and the u. S. And the west and their allies the fact that shes described this is something that is still currently happening is that a challenge to congress and maybe specifically to the republicans to do something about it. Of course it should be as your coverage pointed out before were seeing in israel a Prime Minister whos been being held accountable to law the question will be whether our system of United States is capable of doing that and it will depend on Congress Congress needs to stand up for the National Interest to defend our election against attacks from russians and to hold the president accountable right now because thats going to be a pretty good wrap up there so were going to turn this over to the chairman adam schiff now thanks gentleman i want to get a few basic facts on the table of individuals that were involved. In the 2016 election just to see who you know and who weve met with i saw start with you mr holmes. Have you met with the do you know alexandra chalupa. The fumes could you put your microphone on. You know do you know. Nelly or d youre not going to your bruce or you know going simpson no thank you same question for you dr hill. You know have you met with Alexander Chalupa no nelly or no bruce or only in the chorus of my previous position as the Russian Television sophos russia where he attended some of the meetings i presided over years ago thats a long time ago correct Glenn Simpson no dr hill in your testimony you. Said that. You know in your deposition excuse me. That christopher steele. Was your counterpart at one time is this correct thats correct yes. You testified that you met with christopher still in 2016 i assume thats still for act thats correct yes and the only thing we didnt get on that is do you know about when that was in 2016 and how many times im afraid i dont i actually had met with him by us me actually in the deposition when the most recent time that i had met with him and 2016 and he retired from of the British Intelligence services in 2009 which is that and im asking about 2062016 i dont recall but i did meet with him sometimes before to 2016 but you dont remember the date i dont time the fed now. You stated in your deposition that a colleague had showed you the still dossier before it was published who was that colleague that was one of my colleagues at the Brookings Institution and who was. That was the Brookings Institution president Strobe Talbott who had been sent a copy of this and he shared it with you that was the day before it was published in buzz feed. You mention in your deposition also that you thought that it was a. The exact quote of the dossier i was a rabbit hole so its still your testimony thats correct do you do you know who paid for still to do. To generate the still dossiers 3 several of them at the time i did not know i understand from the media that it was through g. P. S. Fusion if thats not correct you know who was and there was a law firm involved but you know who the source of the money was i didnt at the time know i did know but do you know now ive read in the parts and thanks to your colleagues as well that it was the d. N. C. Is on lead to believe and the Clinton Campaign i dont know that for sure. Mr castro. You afternoon welcome back from lunch hope you had some sandwiches or something delicious welcome to. Dr phil thank you for your service also thank you for your participation in the deposition on october 14th columbus day we were we were with you most of the day so appreciate that mr holmes thank you as well i your of a late entrant into into this. Situation and things sure didnt escalate quickly we we spoke with you last friday night about. What we thought was going to be a 32nd vignette about a 2 minute phone call and. Turns out you you know with your 40 minute opener today you have a lot of information to share so we appreciate you being here dr go you your last day at the National Security council was a july 19th that i was correct yes so. You were involved with the july 25th cause and you werent involved with any of the relevant activities related to the pause in the aid i was not thats correct and as of july 19th did you believe that a call was going to be scheduled for the 25th i personally did not believe that it was going to be scheduled no and what was what was the thinking at the n. S. C. As of july 19th about such a call but ive learned from other depositions to be clear here that perhaps there was some awareness that there might be a call. To somebody and if you may recall showed an exchange with the person who was taking of my position to mars and then which he indicated that there might be a call coming up i was not aware of ok were you in whatever differences lets just say obviously an understanding about that call and were you in favor of such a call as of the 19th actually i was not and i did says something about us in the opening policy discussions today ok and how about that or bolton to your knowledge. Well i know that im busted just some limb said in the email that bolton was in agreement to my knowledge but was not in agreement at that particular juncture and to my knowledge you know his opposition was it was based on the fact that he didnt feel the call had been properly prepared and as i said earlier that we wanted to make sure that there was going to be a fulsome bilateral u. S. Ukraine agenda that was discussed which is usual with these calls and. You were you surprised that a cauldron only was scheduled i was when i learned about it thats right and the age of any communications with anyone back in your old staff with about how i came to be i did not know. You did learn about the the pause in the Security Assistance aid. I learned about us on july 18th of the day before i left i was correct and. There were several meetings about this i believe you testified to i said that i knew that was going to be amazing in that time frame there was one put on the schedule for the following week but of course i had left and so i didnt attend and so fair to say it stops and starts in in a like this sometimes do happen thats correct. And i believe you testified that there was a freeze put on all kinds of aid in a system speakers it was in the process. At that time there were significant reviews of foreign assistance going on thats also correct and what else can you tell us about the about the foreign assistance. As i am just being a directive for a whole scale review of Foreign PolicyForeign Policy assistance and the ties between our Foreign Policy objectives on the assistance this is being going on actually for many months and in the period when i was wrapping up my time there had been more scrutiny of then specific assistance to specific sets of countries as a result of the overall view review and at this time as well. Ambassador volcker ambassador someone they had they had become a little bit more involved if you crane policy well ambassador volker was always involved in ukraine policy at least since the beginning of his appointment as the special envoy full negotiations towards the wall between ukraine and russia and done by us and what he tell us about about master volcker and possible is extraordinary countries diplomats ive worked with him in many capacities previously you know his bio hes been the ambassador to nato. Had a number of positions at the state department and actually i know him personally so you know the truth that i was trying to get out is who knows who and his mates i know ambassador volker really well on a person of those well ok and he said hes a man of integrity thats correct and always acted in the best interest of United States absolutely yes when did you 1st learn of ambassador simons involvement. Well it came in different was to some lenders the bosses the e. U. Had some perfectly logical involvement in the korean portfolio we work very closely with the European Union on matters related to ukraine the ukrainian. Dialogue with russia was in a format known as the minsk process which was led by the french and the germans and ambassador volcker. Trying to find out ways in which he could work closer to the french and germans to move along the road on the resolution of the conflict between ukraine and russia and obviously the European Union as the Umbrella Organization for europe in terms of funding and a systems was heavily active in offering Financial Assistance to the Ukrainian Government as well as humanitarian assistance in the conflicts so its perfectly logical that ambassador son will replace some kind of role as our ambassador to the European Union did you really concerns when. When he presented himself to you is somebody with a major role i did at the time in which he presented it to me this was after evanovich had been pushed out of her position and it was a dark juncture that ambassador sunderlands role seemed to grow larger. And did you express any concerns to him directly i did express concerns to him directly what were those concerns i asked him quite bluntly and a meeting that we had in june. Of 2019 this is after the president ial inauguration when ive seen that he had started to step up in much more of a proactive role on ukraine you know what was his role here and he said that he was in charge of ukraine and i civil who put you in charge. And he said the president did surprise you when he told you had it did surprise me we had no directive we hadnt been told this ambassador bolton had never indicated in anywhere that he thought that and was playing a leading role in ukraine i believe used the term a large remits that he characterized he had been given a large remit from the president 8 i cant remember what i said we met but it was part folio he was comes to me you know these are all synonyms he was talking to was about the fact that hed been given a very broad portfolio by the president he said his job was to go out and make deals in europe and as you know yourself i listened to his testimony yesterday very carefully as well he said to anything that had to do with the e. U. Itself and the European UnionMember States was within his portfolio we are. Going about it is their position and he conceded he may have been spinning a little bit when he said that the president specifically gave him that role and he indicated that his authority was coming and we little bit from more from the secretary of state at any point time was that related to you at different points he mentioned talking directly to the chief of staff mulvaney and he also talked about socrates pump air but he was very. Emphatic the other people in the room in the meeting in which he asserted this to me that it was the president who had put him in charge of this were you encouraged as of your your last day day in the office that u. S. Policy towards the ukraine was headed in the right direction i was not and were. Well i was concerned about 2 things in particular one was again the removal of ambassador and again i will say for the record that the president has a perfect right to remove any ambassador at any time for any reason but i was very concerned about the circumstances in which her reputation had been maligned repeatedly on television and in all kinds of exchanges i felt that that was completely unnecessary if the president wanted to remove an ambassador which he did quite frequently it was a number of ambassadors removed who were not political but career officials that was done but without these kinds of interventions i wondered what that message was being sent so that was that us and then on the 2nd front it was very clear at this point that there was lets just say a different channel in operation in relations to ukraine one that was domestic and political in nature and that was very different from the channel or the loop however you like it that i and my colleagues were in while we were focused on bilateral relations and us Foreign Policy towards ukraine and these 2 things said diverge to at this point in the run up to richs separation from post did you have any communications with officials at the state department about your concerns ideas and who did you relate those concerns to i realize those concerns directly to my counterparts who was acting assistant secretary phil rico who i know youve spoken to i also spoke to david hale in the context of a larger meetings about many other issues and again i covered a broad portfolio myself and we often would talk about individual items and i had private discussions with deputy secretary sullivan and he of course is the period before committees here in the course of his nomination to be ambassador to russia and to spoken about that himself. Ok and you you advocated dollars officials about your concerns about the information being spread about a master youre out of the tried to thats correct. The trumpet ministration changed courses from its predecessor and provided lethal defensive assistance to the ukraine are you in favor of arming the variance with the javelins i was not initially in 2015 before i joined the government and im sure that many people on the committee have seen that i wrote an opinion piece with a colleague at the Brookings Institution juncture because i was very worried about particular point in time that the Ukrainian Military was not in a fit state to really take on board sophisticated weapons be the defensive all offensive weapons and i worry that there was not a long term sustainable plan given the overwhelming force that the russians could apply against the ukrainians however when i came into government in 2017 and started to interact with all of my colleagues in the pentagon and you had laura cooper here yesterday i realized in fact that that been an awful lot of work done on this and that there was a clear and consistent plan for the sustainability long term of the Ukrainian Military so i changed my mind ok and youre here and theyre going to leave the only witness that weve spoken to that has been able to articulate the opposition to providing the javelins and as we understand it during the Obama Administration the interagency consensus was in fact to provide the javelins but but it but they were not provided were you aware of the decision back and i was and i think it was very much made on a political this is about come so that this would provoke the russians depending on how this was presented and we were very mindful of us also when there were discussions internally about the lethal defensive weapons inside of the administration and mr holmes youre on the ground in kieve and javelins have now been authorized provided whats the view from the field the u. S. Embassy as to the effectiveness of the javelins. They are in it they are an important a Strategic Deterrent theyre not actively employed in combat operations right now but the mere idea of it or the russians to advance substantially using certain kinds of armor that the ukrainians would have this capability deters them from doing so it also thereby sends a very important symbol symbolic message to the Ukrainian Military that they have access to these High End Technology and we trust them to do it i dont add also they theyve offered to buy some using their own funds the initial traunch was provided through. A program to do that but theyve now offered to spend their own money to buy more so i think they think theyre important and ambassador taylors testified mr kent has testified that this is in fact the consensus of the interagency providing the javelins is is it the. In your experience of working with ambassador taylor was he also very very much an advocate for this yes. Mr holmes i want to go back to him some americans now want to talk a little bit about ukrainians the Ukrainian Government officials. Are you familiar with this or heedless think oh yes if you met with him have. You it was a journalist that he was in the parliament he currently in the parliament journalist again journalist again. Are you aware that when he was in the parliament that he had provided information to. Fusion g. P. S. Operative named ellie for. Im not aware of nearly or im not aware of who he provide information to im aware that as a journalist hes provided information. Well this was he was in the parliament at the time this is the 2016 campaign he provided widely known as the black ledger have you heard of the black ledger i have and. The black ledger is that scene is credible information yes black ledger is credible yes. Moeller did not find it credible do you dispute what bob millers findings were they didnt use it in the prosecution or in the report im not aware that bob miller did not find it credible i think it was evidence in other cable proceedings its credible it was not question those proceedings about x. Product so the motivation or sinko as it was reported to was to go after a Truck Campaign official and undermine trumps candidacy are you aware that if you mean by the release of the black ledger i think less shame goes a motivation was the same motivation hes always express which is to expose corruption in ukraine right but hes admitted motivation was to partly at least undermine the trump candidacy that he did not support he has not said that to me if if he said that to you ill take your word for it. And youre aware that the. You heard dr hills testimony but t