Points based upon . They were so this is not in the Public Record and i cant comment too deeply but what is the areas that weve consistently talked to talked about in public is cooperation on supporting a reform agenda, anticorruption efforts and helping president zelensky implement his plans to end russias war against ukraine. In other words, theyre based on official u. S. Policy . Correct. And is there a process to determine official u. S. Policy . Yes. My job is to coordinate u. S. Policy so throughout the preceding year that i had been on staff i had undertaken an effort to make sure we had a cohesive and coherent u. S. Policy. As you listened to the call did you observe whether President Trump was following the talking points based on the official u. S. Policy . Counsel, the president could choose to use the talking points or not. Hes the president , but they were not consistent with what i provided, yes. Lets take a look at a couple of excerpts from this call. Right after president zelensky thanked President Trump for the United States support in the area of defense, President Trump asked president zelensky for a favor and then raises this theory of ukrainian interference in the 2016 election. He says in the highlighted portion, i would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with ukraine. They say crowdstrike. I guess you have one of your wealthy people, the server, they say ukraine has it. Now, colonel vindman, was this statement based on the official talking points that you had prepared . No. And was this statement related to the 2016 ukraine interference in the 2016 election part of the official u. S. Policy . No, it was not. Now, at the time of this july 25 call, colonel vindman, were you aware of a theory that ukraine had interest veevened o interfered in the u. S. 2016 election . I was. Are you aware of any credible evidence to support this theory . I am not. Are you also aware that Vladimir Putin had promoted this theory of ukrainian interference in the 2016 election . I am well affaware of that f. Ultimately which country did u. S. Intelligence services determine to have interfered in the 2016 election . It is the consensus of the entire Intelligence Community that the russians interfered in u. S. Elections in 2016. Lets go to another excerpt from this call where President Trump asked president zelensky to investigate his political opponent, Vice President joe biden. Here President Trump says the other thing, theres a lot of talk about bidens son, that biden stopped the prosecution, and a lot of people want to find out about that. So whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution, so if you can look into it. It sounds horrible to me, he said. Again, colonel vindman, was this included in your talking points . It was not. Such a request to investigate a political opponent consistent with official u. S. Policy . It was not consistent with the policy as i understood it. Now, are you aware of any credible allegations or evidence to support this notion that Vice President biden did something wrong or against u. S. Policy with regard to ukraine . I am not. Ms. Williams, are you familiar with any credible evidence to support this theory against Vice President biden . No, im not. Now, ms. Williams, prior to the july 25 call, approximately how many calls between the president of the United States and foreign leaders had you listened to . I would say roughly a dozen. Had you ever heard a call like this . As i testified before, i believe what i found unusual or different about this call was the president s reference to specific investigations and that struck me as different than other calls i had listened to. You testified that you thought it was political in nature. Why did you think that . I thought that the references to specific individuals and investigations such as former Vice President biden and his son struck me as political in nature given that the former Vice President is a political opponent of the president. And so you thought that it could potentially be designed to assist President Trumps reelection effort . I cant speak to what the president s motivation was in referencing it but i just noted that the reference to biden sounded political to me. Colonel vindman, youve said in your deposition that it doesnt take a Rocket Scientist to see the political benefits of the president s demands. For those of us who are not Rocket Scientists, can you explain what you meant by that . So, my understanding is that the connection to investigate into a political opponent was inappropriate and improper. I made that connection as soon as the president brought up the biden investigation. Colonel vindman, you testified that President Trumps request for a favor from president zelensky would be considered as a demand to president zelensky. After this call, did you ever hear from any ukrainians either in the United States or ukraine about any pressure that they felt to do these investigations that President Trump demanded . Not that i can recall. Did you have any discussions with officials at the embassy here the Ukrainian Embassy here in washington d. C. . Yes, i did. Did you discuss at all the demand for investigations with them . I did not. Did you discuss at all at any point their concerns about the hold on Security Assistance . To the best of my recollection, in the august time frame the Ukrainian Embassy started to become aware of the hold on Security Assistance and they were asking if i had any comment on that or if i could substantiate that. That was before it went became public, is that right . Yes. What did you respond . I believe i said that i dont recall, frankly. I dont recall what i said, but i believe it may have been something along the lines of im not aware of it. You testified that one of your concerns about the request for investigations related to u. S. Domestic politics was that ukraine may lose bipartisan support. Why was that a concern of yours . Ukraine is in a war with russia, and the Security Assistance that we provide ukraine is significant. Absent that Security Assistance and maybe even more importantly, the signal of support for ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity, that would likely encourage russia to pursue potentially escalate to pursue further aggression, further undermining ukrainian sovereignty, European Security and u. S. Security. In other words, ukraine is heavily dependent on United States support, both diplomatically, financially and also militarily . Correct. Colonel vindman, what languages do you speak . I speak russian, ukrainian, and a little bit of english. Do you know what do you recall what language president zelensky spoke on this july 25 phone call . I know he made a valiant effort to speak english. He had been practicing up his english, but he also spoke ukrainian. I want to look at the third excerpt from the july 25 call, and chairman schiff addressed this with you in his questioning. You see in the highlighted portion, it says specifically to the company that you mentioned in this issue. Is that the portion of the call record that, vercolonel vindman you actually thought represented burisma . Correct. You testified that his use of or his understanding that when President Trump mentioned the bidens that that referred to the Company Burisma sounded to you like he was prepped or prepared for this call, is that right . Thats correct. I want to go to the next slide if we could which is actually a text message that neither of you is on but this is from Ambassador Kurt Volker to and Andriy Yermak. What is Andriy Yermak . Hes a Senior Adviser to president zelensky. This text message is less than a halfhour before the call on july 25 and since neither of you are on it ill read it. It says from ambassador volker, good lunch, thanks. Heard from white house. Assuming president z convinces trump he will investigate, quote, get to the bottom of what happened, unquote, in 2016, we will nail down date for visit to washington. Good luck. See you tomorrow. Kurt. Now, is this the sort of thing that youre referring to when you say that it sounded like president zelensky was prepared for this call . This would be consistent, yes. Turning to the fourth excerpt from the july 25 call where ukraines president zelensky links the white house meeting to the investigations that President Trump requests, president zelensky says, i also wanted to thank you for your invitation to visit the United States, specifically washington d. C. On the other hand, i also wanted to ensure you that we will be very serious about the case and will work on the investigation. Colonel vindman, when president zelensky says, on the other hand, would you agree that hes acknowledging the investigations that he mentioned in the second sentence . It could be taken that way but im not sure if i it seems like a reasonable conclusion. If that is the case, that would be consistent with the text message that ambassador volker sent to Andriy Yermak right before the call, is that right . Seemingly so. Now, youve testified in your deposition that a white house visit, an oval office visit is very important to president zelensky. Why is that . The show of support for president zelensky, still a brand new president , frankly a new politician on the ukraine political scene looking to establish himself as a regional and maybe even a world leader would want to have a meeting with the United States, the most powerful country in the world, and ukraines most significant benefactor in order to be able to implement his agenda. It would provide him with some additional legitimacy at home . Yes. Just to summarize, in this july 25 call between the president s of the United States and ukraine, President Trump demanded a favor of president zelensky to conduct investigations that both of you acknowledge were for President Trumps political interest, not the national interest, and in return for his promise of a much desired white house meeting for zelensky, colonel vindman, is that an accurate summary of the excerpts that we just looked at . Yes. Ms. Williams . Yes. Colonel vindman, you immediately reported this call to the nsc lawyers. Why did you do that . At this point i had already been tracking this initially what i would describe as alternative narrative, false narrative, and i was certainly aware of the fact that it was starting to reverberate, gain traction, the fact that in the july 10 call, ended up being pronounced by a public official, ambassador sondland had me alerted to this and i was, subsequent to that report, i was invited to follow up with any other concerns to mr. Eisenberg. Were going to discuss that july 10 meeting in a moment but when you say alternative false narratives, are you referring to the two investigations that President Trump referenced in the call . Yes. Now, at some point did you also discuss how the written summary of the call record should be handled with the nsc lawyers . Following the report there was a discussion in the legal shop on the best way to manage the transcript, yes. What did you understand they concluded . My understanding is that this was viewed as a sensitive transcript and to avoid leaks and if i recall the term properly, something along the lines of preserve the integrity. Transcript, it should be segregated to a Smaller Group of folks. To preserve the integrity of the transcript, what did that mean . Im not sure. It seems like a legal term. Im not an attorney, but i didnt take it as anything nefarious. I understood that they wanted to keep it in a Smaller Group. If there was real interest in preserving the integrity of the transcript, dont you think they would have accepted your correction that burisma should have been included . Not necessarily. The way these edits occur, they go through like Everything Else an approval process. I made my contribution. It was cleared by mr. Morrison. Then when i returned it, sometimes that doesnt happen. There are administrative errors. I think in this case i didnt see when i first saw the transcript without the two substantive items that i had attempted to include, i didnt see it as nefarious. I saw it as, okay, no big deal. You said two substantive issues. What was the other one . There was a reference in a section wait a second. Secon on page four, the top paragraph, let me find the right spot. Yes, you can look into it, ellipse. There are videos as i recall or recordings. Instead of elip cease it should have said, what you heard, there are recordings . Correct. Did you ultimately learn where the call record was put . P . I understood that it was being segregated into a separate secure system. Why would it be put on a separate secure system . This is definitely not unprecedented but at times if you want to limit access to a Smaller Group of folks, you put it on the secure system to ensure that a Smaller Group of people with access to the secure system have it. Cant you also limit the number of people who can access it on the regular system . You can do that but to the best of my recollection the decision was made, frankly, on the fly after my after i conveyed my concerns to mr. Eisenberg, mr. Ellis came in. He hadnt heard the entire conversation and when it was mentioned that it was sensitive, it was kind of an on the fly decision to segregate it in this separate system. Mr. Eisenberg and mr. Ellis are nsc lawyers . Correct. It was your understanding it wasnt a mistake to put it on the highly classified system, is that right . Im not sure i understand. Was it intended to put it on the highly classified system by the lawyers or was it a mistake that it was put there . I think it was intended but again it was intended to prevent leaks and to limit access. Now, you testified, both of you, about the april 21 call a little earlier, and colonel vindman, you indicated that you did include in your talking points the idea of ukraine rooting out corruption but that President Trump did not mention corruption. I want to go to the white house readout from the april 21 call. Im not going to read the whole thingut highlighted portion where it says root out corruption . Yes. In the end this readout was false, is that right . Thats thats maybe thats a bit of i i i entirely accurate but im not sure i would describe it as false. It was consistent with u. S. Policy and these items are used as messaging tools also, so a statement that goes out, in addition to reading out the meeting itself is also a messaging platform to indicate what is important with regard to u. S. Policy. So it is a part of u. S. Official policy that ukraine should root out corruption even if President Trump did not mention it in that april 21 phone call, is that right . Certainly. And he also did not mention it in the july 25 phone call, is that right . Correct. So even though it was included in his talking points for the april 21 call and presumably even though you cant talk about it for the july 21 call, it was not included in either, is that right . For the april 21 call you did not mention in either, rather. Correct. So when the president says now that he held up Security Assistance because he was concerned about rooting out corruption in ukraine, that concern was not expressed in the two phone conversations that he had with president zelensky earlier this year, is that right . Correct. Ms. Williams, you testified earlier that after this april 21 call, President Trump asked Vice President pence to attend president zelenskys inauguration, is that right . Thats correct. And that on may 13 you were just informed by the chief of staffs office that Vice President pence should not will not be going per request of the president , is that right . Theres what i was informed, yes. And you didnt know what had changed from april 21 to may 13, is that right . No, not in terms of that decision. Colonel vindman, since you in particular a little bit more perhaps than ms. Williams who has a broader portfolio focuses on ukraine, i want to ask if you were aware of the following things that happened from april 21 to may 13. Were you aware that ambassador yovanovitch was abruptly recalled from ukraine in that time . Yes. Were you aware that President Trump im sorry, to correct it. She was recalled prior let me see. The notification occurred towards the end of april and she was finally recalled in the may time frame, i think may 25 if i recall correctly. So she learned about it after april 21, on april 24, is that right . Correct. Were you aware that President Trump had