May, i believe you testified it was one of the largest delegations . I believe it was. I cant be 100 sure but i believe it was the Largest National delegation. Okay. And included in the delegation was Secretary Perry. Secretary perry, ambassador sondland, myself and senator ron johnson was there and the target defair joe pennington. And we talked a little bit this morning but the president Zelensky Inauguration came together rather quickly. It did. I believe we had about three days notice in which to put the delegation together. And there is discussion about whether the Vice President would be able to lead that effort and as it turned out he was not able to lead it. Do you have any information as to why the Vice President was unable to join . I dont. And mr. Morrison, do you have any information as to why the Vice President was unable to participate in the delegation . No. Ambassador volker, you testified during your deposition that aid does, in fact, get held up from time to time for a whole assortment of reasons. Is that your understanding. That is true. And sometimes the holdups are rooted in something at omb, sometimes at the Defense Department, sometimes it is at the State Department and sometimes on the hill, is that correct. That is correct. So when the aid was held up for 55 days for ukraine, that didnt in and of itself strike you as uncommon . No. It is something that had happened in my career in the past. I had seen holdups of assistance and i just assumed it was part of the decisionmaking process, somebody had an objection and we had to overcome it. And, in fact, there were concerns that perhaps president
zelensky wouldnt be the reformer that he campaigned on. That was a supposition that i made because of the meeting with the president on may 23rd. I thought that would be what is behind it. And in fact the aid was lifted shortly after he was able to convene a parliament. I believe he let me get the dates straight. Yes, i believe he was able to convene the parliament around the first of Seof September and then the aid was released. And he pushed through a number of anticorruption initiatives. That began with the parliament seated on that day and it was a 24hour session and then continued for some time. And that was an encouraging sign. It started off very encouraging way, yes. And other than these things going on the background with the pause in the aid, the u. S. Relationships with ukraine you testified are you stated it was about as good as you would want them to be . Can you repeat the question. Im sorry. You testified at your deposition that once the aid was lifted, despite all of the things going on in the background, that u. S. ukraine relations were strong. Yes. Or as good as you want them to be . Yes. And you referenced that the Security Sector assistance was lifted and any hold on that and there was a positive meeting in new york that is correct. And there was momentum in putting pressure on the russians, is that correct. That is correct. In your deposition you made clear that the president had a deep rooted negative view of krarn and their corruption environment. Yes. And you first became aware of his views back in September Of 2017 . That is correct. Could you tell us a little bit about that . Yes. In September Of 2017 i was invited by secretary tillerson to do a prebrief with President Trump before his meeting with president poroshenko on the
margins of the General Assembly and i did the prebrief and took part in the bilateral meeting. And so long before president zelensky was elected, President Trump had a negative view of yes. He had a very strongly negative view. Back in 2017, do you remember anything he said or did that gave you a feeling that he had these negative views . Yes. I want to be very careful here because this was a bilateral meeting with the two president s and i dont want to strain the material but my impression is that he had a strongly negative view of ukraine at the time. Fair enough. And you described the president s skepticism at your deposition as a reasonable position . Yes. And i believe you said most people who know anything about ukraine would possibly think that . Yes. And you viewed it as part of your role to help change his mind that president zelensky was
a genuine reformer and that he was not running for office for selfenrichment and that he was, indeed, a good person. That is correct. During the may 23rd meeting with the president in the oval office, could you just relate to us the concerns the president articulated about the ukraine . Yes. The president came into the meeting and immediately started speaking. He had just a string of comments that ukraine is a terrible place. Theyre all corrupt. Theyre terrible people. They tried to take me down. I tried to explain along with the others that were there, each of us took turns speaking, i tried to explain that president zelensky agrees with you, that he was elected because of that
situation in ukraine and he has a strong mandate from the people of krai of ukraine to change and that is why we show him strong support now. But the president was not convinced and he said that zelensky is no different, that he has terrible people around him. It is not what i hear about ukraine. What were telling him. I hear that nothing has changed. Talk to rudy. That kind of dialogue as i described. And when the president said that the ukrainians tried to take him down, did you have any idea of what he was referring to . I did. I believed he was referring to the rumors of efforts to interfere in the 2016 election by providing damaging information about the president or about Paul Manafort to the Hillary Clinton campaign, that was one of the rumors that had been out there and that had gotten some support from the ukrainian Prosecutor General. And to the best of your
knowledge the president genuinely believed that, right . I believe he was concerned about it. I dont know what he actually believed but he brought it up. Okay. And mr. Morrison, you were also aware of the president s skeptical view of foreign aid generally . Yes. And that there was initiative that he was looking at foreign aid pretty broadly . Yes. And trying to executinize to make sure the u. S. Taxpayers were getting their monies worth . Yes. And the president was also interested, was he not, in better understanding opportunities for increased Burden Sharing among the europeans. Yes. And what could you tell us about that . The president was concerned that the United States seemed to bare the exclusive brunt of Security Assistance to ukraine. He wanted to see the europeans step up and contribute more Security Assistance. And was there any any
interagency activity, whether with the State Department or the Defense Department or coordination by the National Security council to look into that a little bit for the president . We were surveying the data to understand who was contributing what and sort of in what categories. And so the president is concerned the interagency tried to address them . Yes. And by late august we just discussed with ambassador volker that a new rada was seated and did that give possibly some hope that president zelensky would be able to push through some of the reforms . Yes. And did you hope during this time period during this 55 days where the aid was paused that potentially zelensky would be able to demonstrate his bonafides and would subsequently be able to get the president to lift the aid . Yes. In fact, you travelled with ambassador bolton to the ukraine right around labor day weekend, correct . Yes. And you met with president zelensky on i believe it was august 29th . Ambassador bolton had a meeting with president zels and i staffed that meeting. And that is right around the time when the rada had met and started to push through the reforms . As i recall the meeting, the date of the meeting between ambassador bolton and zelensky was the first day of the new rada. And some of the reforms included naming a new Prosecutor General . New Prosecutor General, a brandnew cabinet, yes. And they pushed through some legislation that eliminated immunity for radda members. Yes. Parliament immunity. And i believe you provided some color into this experience, this meeting. You said that the ukrainians had
been up all night working on some of the legislative initiatives . Yes. The ukrainians with whom we met were by all appearances exhausted by the activity. And was ambassador bolton encouraged by the activity. Yes, he was. And was the meeting altogether favorable . Quite. And at that point in time after the meeting, ambassador bolton, did he head off to warsaw with the Vice President or did he just i know you went to warsaw. Well we had a few stops between ukraine and poland, but, yes, ambassador bolton proceeded to warsaw where we were expecting to ensure everything was staged properly for the president s arrival. And did you have an opportunity to brief the Vice President on i did not. Did ambassador bolton . He did. And what do you remember that ambassador boltd bolton shared
about the meeting . I was not there. The issue i remember most starkly was ambassador bolton was quite annoyed that ambassador sondland crashed the briefing. But the ambassador had everything he needed to ensure that the president or the Vice President were well prepared. But did you brief ambassador bolton before he had an opportunity to pleat wi to me the Vice President . I didnt need to. Ambassador bolton was there. But as far as you know ambassador bolton communicated to the Vice President that the goes on in ukraine were positive . That is my understanding. With president zelensky. And at this time ambassador bolton was advocating for the lifting of the aid. He been for some time, yes. And did you participate in the warsaw meetings . We had a reduced schedule from what had been arranged for the president for the vice
president. But the Vice President met with president Duda Of Poland and president zelensky and i participated in both meetings. And what do you remember from the meeting with president zelensky . It seemed very positive. What was the message . President zelensky raised the issue of the aid, correct . Yes. And how did the Vice President respond . He represented his support for the aid. He represented the strong commitment of the United States to ukraine and he explained that President Trump, because this is after the politico article had come out that made clear there was a hold, he explained that what we doing was the United States government, the interagency was examining what more europe could do in the Security Space and taking a look at how ukraine was reforming what has been a history of corruption. And was there any discussion
during the meeting with president zelensky on the part of Vice President about any of these investigations weve come to talk about . No. So burisma wasnt raised . No. 2016 election wasnt raised . No. And the Vice President didnt mention any investigations at all, did he . No. You mentioned the august 28th politico article. Is that the first time that you believe the ukrainians may have had a real sense that the aid was on hold . Yes. So from the 55day period spanning july 18th through september 11th, it didnt really become public until august 28th . Thats correct. Ambassador taylor and i had a number of phone calls where we, in fact, talked about do the ukrainians know yet because we both felt strongly that we ensure that the president was
able to resist the aid before the ukrainians ever found out about it. And ambassador volker, is that also your recollection . Yes, it is. That it wasnt until the politico article . That is correct. I received a text message from a ukrainian Counterpart Forwarding that article and that is the first they raised it with me. And can you share a little bit with us about your communications during that time period about the hold on the aid . Yes. I didnt have any communications with the ukrainians about the hold on aid until after they raised it with me for the same reason that tim just gave, the hope that we could get it taken care of ourselves before it became something that they became aware of. Inside of the u. S. Government i was aware that the hold was placed, i was aware of that on july 18th. It was referenced at an interagency meeting. And got a read out from that meeting from one of my assistants. I then immediately spoke with several people in the
administration to object. I thought that this was a bad decision or a bad hold. Maybe not a decision but a process and i wanted to mike sure all of the arguments were marshalled to get it lifted and so i spoke with the pentagon and laura cooper and with Assistant Secretary Of Affairs at the State Department at the next higher level meeting and i speak spoke with officials in the European Bureau and the staff and actively conveying that this needed to be lifted and wanted them to use my name in doing so because i felt the best prospect for positioning ourselves for negotiations with russia is the strongest Defense Capability for ukraine. And during this time period, did you come to believe that any of these investigations were part of the hold up in the aid . No, i did not. Backtracking a little bit. On july 3rd you met in toronto
with president zelensky and there has been some ambassador taylor and mr. Kent provided some testimony that they had some apprehension that the part of this irregular channel that ambassador taylor referenced would rear its head in toronto. Im just wondering if you could tell us whether that, in fact, happened. Yes. Thank you. I could only tell you what i know. There may have been other conversations or other things. But i know that we had a conversation, bill taylor and Gordon Sondland around the 28th of june that later connected to a i believe a conversation with president zelensky although i may not have been part of the latter. That being said, i was convinced after that conversation we had gotten nowhere. We had our white house brief of President Trump on may 23rd and
signed a letter inviting him to the white house on may 29th and for several weeks we were Tem Porrizing with the ukraines saying were working on it it. It is a scheduling issue. Well get there, dont worry. And i told bill and gordon that i was going to see president zelensky in toronto and i feel an obligation to tell him the truth, that we have a problem here, were not getting aid scheduled and here is what i think the problem is. It is the negative information flow from mayor giuliani. And that he would also that i would advise him that he should call President Trump personally because he needed to renew that personal relationship and be able to convey to President Trump that he was serious about Fighting Corruption and investigating things that happened in the past and so forth. So i did all of that with president zelensky in a pullaside after our formal bilateral meeting. And during that meeting in toronto or the series of meetings, there was no discussion of preconditions,
investigations of anything no. And you were there with mr. Kent . Yes, i believe so. And did you ever any discussions with him about preconditions or investigations . Not at that time. I think later on these things came up about when we were talking about a statement whether there were investigations but i believe at this time in toronto it was really more referring to investigations generically that that is how you go about Fighting Corruption and that president zelensky should reaffirm his commitment to President Trump in a direct phone call. Okay. And at any point in time had mr. Kent raised any concerns to you about any of this . Not at that time. Next event i want to cover is the July 10th Meeting. In ambassador boltons office. Talked about this morning, if you caught the coverage, but there was testimony that at some
point ambassador sondland mentioned investigations and reportedly the meeting ended abruptly. What can you tell us about that . Thank you. And let me answer that question first. I would like to come back to your prior question for a second too, if i may. But on the July 10th Meeting, this was a meeting that we had arranged between alex dem ill you can, head of the National Defense council and adviser bolton, attending the meeting was also Secretary Perry, ambassador sondland, myself and i believe fiona hill and andre yermak. It was a counterpart visit. I thought that this would be the best opportunities the first highlevel meeting that were having in washington with a senior