Does. But his aides and his campaign, the white house, they have been sending out very negative messages about Lieutenant Colonel vindman. They tried to use something morrison said behind closed doors when he said there were people that questioned vindmans judgment at nsc, specifically fiona hill that well hear from thursday. I his Opening Statement, i think he realized how much play that has got. He said he wasnt here to criticize his colleagues. Saw vindman prepared to address it as he was there to testify earlier. He brought a Performance Review from fiona hill, the official, that morrison had the conversation with, where it praised him multiple times and his performance in the job. You see tim morrison and kurt volker, beginning to walk back in. Theyll sit down and the hearing will resume. The next round will be the five minute sessions where all of the members, democrats and
republicans, they have five minutes to ask questions. It will start with the chairman, adam schiff, and devin nunes, Ranking Member. Theyll ask their questions, then it will go on presumably, mia, for at least another hour. Looks interesting to see schiffs position. He is a harvard trained lawyer and he has been i think very strategic in trying to advance the case in a way nunes isnt. Nunes seems to be directly talking to the president and the base. He addressed witnesses and said oh, im sorry to break the bad news but ratings are down for this, Which Isnt Helping build any case at all. It is sort of a Talking Point about whats happening. Thats been really interesting to see sort of the interchange between schiff, and the lawyer, daniel goldman. Here is schiff. Now going to proceed to a 15 minute round by either Chair Majority or Ranking Member minority. Mr. Goldman, youre recognized for 15 minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Ambassador volker, i want to correct the record from the first round. You were right to point out, you asked if a quote that i represented you made in the deposition was your words and i actually read the wrong part in the quote. What you actually said was it creates a problem again where all of the things that were trying to do to advanced bilateral relationship, strengthen our support for ukraine, strengthen the positioning against russia is now getting sucked into a domestic political debate in the u. S. , domestic political narrative that overshadows that. You were right to point that out and i apologize for the mistake. I want to go back to a couple of things you said during the minoritys round. Can you repeat the read youout got of the July 25th Call . Yes. I received the readout from both
ukranian colleague, andres yermak, i dont remember if my staff, someone from the embassy or where, and the readout was it was a good phone call. That it was a congratulatory phone call for the president s win in the parliamentary election, that President Trump renewed the invitation for se zelensky to come to the white house. I believe you said a readout was exactly as you expected the call to go, is that right . Thats what we were trying to. I want to show you the July 25th Text to yermak which was the message you were relaying to him so he could prepare president zelensky, and youll recall this, right, where you said this was the message, good lunch, thanks. Heard from white house, assuming
president Z Convinces Trump he will investigate, quote, get to the bottom of what happened in 2016, we will nail down date for visit to washington. Thats what you expected from the call, right . I expected that president zelensky would be convincing in his statements and comments of President Trump, that he was exactly that, that he would investigate, git to t investigate, get to the bottom of things in 2016, and that if he was strong in conveying who he is in a person doing that, that President Trump would be convinced and renew the invitation to the white house. Right. But you dont mention corruption in this text, do you . This is the word corruption is not in this text. The word corruption is not there, investigating things that happened in the past that would be corrupt would be investigating corruption. You say a couple times in Opening Statement, you said it again, investigating things that happened in the past. You are aware most investigations relate to things that happened in the past,
right . Sorry, yes. That doesnt move the needle whether it is current or past in terms of the subject of the investigation, right . Subject of the investigation on things that happened in the past. You also talked a little about the meeting you had july 26th with president zelensky and ambassador sondland in kiev, is that right . On the 26th we had a meeting with president zelensky, yes. And i believe you testified that the topic of investigations did not come up at all, is that right . Yeah, i dont recall them coming up, just the general phone call. You didnt take notes of that call, of that meeting, right . I did not. There were staffers there to do that. Correct. So if there are two staffers who took notes of the meeting and testified that the subject of either sensitive topics or investigations came up, are we
better off taking their word than yours . I have no problem taking the notes if they were contemporaneous with the meeting. Another witness testified, laura cooper, about a meeting she had with you on august 20th. Do you recall having that meeting with her . You didnt mention it in the deposition. I did mention that in making rounds to weigh in on lifting the Security Assistance, met with the interagency players. Do you recall with some specificity that meeting which was mostly based on her notes, that you described the statement that you were trying to get president zelensky to make to, and ill quote what she said, disavow interference in u. S. Elections and commit to the prosecution of individuals involved in Election Interference. And if he were to agree to do that, she testified, then you thought that it might help to
lift the hold on Security Assistance. Is that your recollection of the conversation as well . Not exactly. How does yours differ . I recall talking about the statement that we had discussed earlier, the one that had been the subject of the exchanges between mr. Yermak and myself, myself, ambassador sondland, and Rudy Giuliani, and back to yermak. So i discussed that this is an effort we are doing, that this could be helpful in getting a reset of the thinking of the president , the Negative View of ukraine that he had. And if we did that, i thought that would also be helpful in unblocking whatever hold there was on Security Assistance, if theres a negative presumption about ukraine, getting this stuff on track would be helpful. All right. Thats a different interpretation, but you dont doubt what she testified is inaccurate, do you . I believe she accurately reflected what she understood from the conversation. You testified a little about
the june 28th Conference Call you had with ambassador sondland, Ambassador Taylor. Not sure if Deputy Secretary kent was on the line, Secretary Perry, before you looped in president zelensky. Am i right about the participants of that . Or was Secretary Perry not on it . I am pretty sure that Deputy Assistant secretary kent was not on it. I dont remember whether Secretary Perry was on it. And i dont remember whether i stayed on for president zelensky joining the call or not. Were there any Staff Members or note takers on the call . I dont believe so. Why . We were having a call among ourselves to talk about what were the messages we thought we needed to convey. At that point we had other testimony from people that took notes there was discussion about investigations, what president zelensky needed to do to get the white house meeting. Do you recall that . I recall seeing that in Ambassador Taylors testimony, there may have even been a text message to that effect, and again, it comes down to what are we talking about in terms of these investigations because what i certainly understood as were talking about ukraine looking into, Fighting Corruption internally and being convincing about this, presenting the new president and the new team as they change in ukraine. You understood that the investigations were burisma and the 2016 election, right . Yes. And you interpreted those to be you interpreted those to be okay because in theory they were looking into ukranians . Correct. But we can agree, can we not, that the investigations, all of the investigations were talking about here today were burisma and the 2016 election . Correct. Now, and what you then amend amended your testimony today to say is if in retrospect, you didnt realize the purpose for
mr. Giuliani and President Trump to want the Burisma Investigation was tofor politic benefits, Digging Up Dirt or getting information on Vice President biden. Thats what you learned subsequently, right . It is correct i learned about the president s interest in investigating Vice President biden from the Phone Call Transcript that came much, much later. From giuliani, i didnt know that he was actively pursuing this. I know he raised this with me directly and i had pushed back on it. Well, you knew that ambassador sondland was pursuing this at the July 10th Meeting when he raised these investigations himself. Again, he didnt specify biden, he didnt specific burisma as i recall either. I understood it to be a generic comment and something not appropriate for that meeting. Right, i understand. But biden wasnt mentioned, but you do agree that when investigations are referenced in this context, it is burisma and
the 2016 election, no . Yes. Thats what i understand. Right. On that call, when ambassador sondland raised the investigation, he did that in response to a question from the ukranians about a white house meeting, isnt that right . Can you repeat the question . I didnt catch that. You said ambassador sondland mentioned the specific investigations at the July 10th Meeting in ambassadors office. Didnt he make that comment in response to a question from the ukranian officials about when they could schedule the white house meeting . That i am not sure about. I remember the meeting being essentially over and ambassador sondland bringing that up. In the july 2nd or 3rd meeting in toronto you had with president zelensky, you also mentioned investigations to him, right . Yes. Again, you were referring to burisma and the 2016 i was thinking burisma and 2016. You understood thats what the ukranians interpreted references to investigations to be, related to burisma and the 2016 election . I dont know specifically at that time if we talked specifically about burisma and 2016, thats my assumption they would have been thinking that too. Mr. Morrison, when did you have that conversation with fiona hill about burisma and the parallel process involving ambassador sondland and Rudy Giuliani. Do you recall . We had a number f handoff discussions between one july and 15 july. So in that period of time you were certainly aware of the effort to promote the Burisma Investigation that ambassador
sondland at least you heard about it from dr. Hill . I heard from dr. Hill. I want to pull up a the Wall Street Journal that quotes an email from july 13th that ambassador sondland sent to you. He wrote Quote Sole Purpose is for zelensky to give potus assurances of new sheriff in town, corruption ending, unbundling moving forward, any hampered investigations will be allowed to move forward transparently. You responded tracking. What did you understand ambassador sondland to mean when he wrote to you any hampered investigations will be allowed to move forward transparently . I dont know that i had any understanding. These are emails, july 13th emails. I wasnt even in the seat yet, but i knew that among Head Of State Meetings we were attempting to schedule, there was one between the president and president zelensky. Right. But it was before this that dr. Hill had told you about burisma and ambassador sondland in particular his desire for the parallel process to investigate burisma, right . Yes. So you had that association when you received his email asking you about investigations, correct . Not necessarily. No . No. Why not . Because ambassador, among the discussions with dr. Hill were about ambassador sondland, she might have coined it the gordon problem, and i decided to keep track of what ambassador sondland was doing. I didnt necessarily always act on things gordon suggested he believed were important. So he wanted to get a meeting. I understood what the president wanted to do to get a meeting, i was tracking we needed to schedule a meeting. You were not endorsing the notion of president zelensky sending a message about investigations, is that your testimony . That is my testimony. Ambassador sondland, i want to jump ahead. After the aid was released, you went to the yes conference in ukraine, and are you aware that Ambassador Taylor who testified based on quite detailed notes indicated that earlier a few days before that, ambassador sondland had told him that President Trump is a businessman and so before he writes a check, he likes to see people pay up. Something to that effect. Youre aware of that . I am familiar with that testimony. And youre familiar thatAmbassador Taylor said that you said something very similar to him when you were in ukraine for the conference. Do you recall saying that to Ambassador Taylor . Yes, i do. I was repeating what Gordon Sondland said to me to explain to bill taylor what that understanding was. And in what context did ambassador sondland say that to you . I think we were talking about the release of the hold on Security Assistance, and he was saying that the president , he sees, hes already got a Negative View of ukraine, sees a check on his desk thats going to the ukranians, not sure about them. He wants to hold on to it until he is assured. And the pay up before he writes the check is to get the investigations he wants, is that right . That was not clear to me what did you think it meant . I didnt think it was a pay up. Language was similar, i agree with gordon, he wants to be sure
he has a deal with the ukranians. I didnt know specifically other than this generic formulation. Mr. Chairman, i yield back. 15 minutes to Ranking Member nunes. Parliamentary inquiry. Do you expect any more magical 15 minute motions you come up with in the back . I dont know how magical they are, they are prescribed by House Resolution 660, we can have successive rounds up to 45 minutes. This is part of the prescribed procedure under the House Resolution. Do you expect youre going to have more this evening . I do not expect more will be necessary. Thank the gentleman. So for everyone watching, this is another example of how out of control this process has become where the democrats just magically give themselves additional minutes, which theyre right, in the special rule they wrote they can do, but
you would at least think they would have the decembncy to tel us you have 15 minutes more. I would say you can go four hours, five hours. Well give you all you want. You can keep digging. Deeper the hole you dig, the more viewers turn off. People arent buying the drug deal you guys are trying to sell. I would add that since we are getting into prime time, these are two witnesses that were your witnesses that you called in to depose. We still asked for witnesses you did not depose, including the whistleblower who you and others claim not to know. Which we need to get to the bottom of that, the most important fact witness to how this mess began in the first place. Secondly, we have asked for the dnc operatives that were working with ukranians to dig up dirt
for what you call or what the left called Conspiracy Theories, which they are right, theyre Conspiracy Theories of dirt they dug up to spin their own Conspiracy Theories to attack the Trump Campaign in the 2016 electi election. So i have no more questions for these witnesses. I know our members do. Mr. Castror, you have any . I will try to be quick and yield time back. Ambassador volker are you aware of a statement from Prime Minister that said no one told the ukranians, certainly not him, that there was any link between the Security Assistance funds and investigations . I saw that statement, yes. Do you know the Foreign Minist