Giuliani. Mr. Giuliani said they thought ukraine should make a statement about Fighting Corruption and mr. Yermac provided me a draft statement and i wanted to be assured that this statement would actually correct the perception that mr. Giuliani had of ukraine and what they stand for now so that that would also be conveyed to President Trump and solve this problem that i had observed with our may 23rd meeting with the president. The problem being that hes getting bad set of information. A Statement Like this could potentially correct that. So was mr. Giuliani satisfied with this statement . No, he was not. Why not . He believed it needed to say burisma and 2016 specifically or else it would not be credible, it would not mean anything. So in fact mr. Giuliani wanted a statement that Referenced Burisma and 2016 elections explicitly. One that would benefit
essentially President Trump. Mr. Ambassador, heres the text you sent to the ukrainian official august 13th. You said hey andrey good talking, following are the two items. Those two items were specific reference to burisma and the 2016 election. That is correct. Did he take those two items to you, sir . As you see i just had a conversation to describe to him the conversation wed just had with mr. Giuliani. Mr. Giuliani said that it would need to include these things for it to be convincing to him. I put them in so we understood what he was talking about and i shared it with andrey to say this is what he was talking about. And you included them in the
proposal to the ukrainians . I put it back in to be clear to the ukrainians this is what the conversation was. Mr. Ambassador, if you believe the statement giuliani dictated in august was not a good idea, sir, why were the ukrainians still considering giving an interview with the same things in september . If i may, congressman, i conveyed this to the ukrainians in order to be clear so we knew what the conversation was about. So this was following up on his prior conversation. The crukrainians then said they had reasons not to do that and they described those reasons and i agreed with them, and we agreed to just scrap the statement. From that point on i didnt have any further conversations about this statement. So i dont know how it came up or why it came up that there would be a possibility of president zelensky doing an interview with u. S. Media later saying Something Like this and in the end he didnt do that either. Thank you, sir. Mr. Morrison, you said that the
president s requests during the July 25th Call were not consistent with u. S. Policy. I emphatically agree with you, sir. Yet these six messages show that Ambassador Volker spent much of august pressing ukraine to meet those requests. We can only be grateful i guess that the president essentially got caught. And Congress Passed a law to ensure the funding was released to ukraine before it was too late. I thank you both for your service. Mr. Chairman, i yield back. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Both of you gentlemen, thank you very much for being here. I want to start if i can with you mr. Morrison discussing the 7 25 phone call and the concerns lieutenant vindman had, lieutenant vindman came to you with edits for the transcript and you stated that you accepted all of his edits, is that correct . I would have accepted all the
edits i believed were faithful to what was actually discussed. Did he come to you with an edit that said the word demand should be in there . I dont recall that specifically, sir. He didnt either. How soon after the phone call did he meet with you on that particular issue . We got the draft as was normal fairly quickly after the call, that same day. That same day. So today he said i reported my concerns to mr. Eisenberg, it is improper for the president of the United States to demand a Foreign Government investigate a u. S. Citizen and political opponent. Now, he was going to mr. Eisenberg with his concerns about the conversation. Yet he did not at any point on the edits say that there should be a demand. And, you know, he didnt do that, but he did say that he didnt come to you with his concerns because you werent available, but that same day he
came to you with edits. Is that correct . I believe thats generally correct, yes, sir. He said you werent available and you didnt hear the president make a demand, did you . No, sir. So some time between the call and today Lieutenant Colonel vindman must have been hearing some voices, and he heard demand at the time. But he didnt hear it that day, and he didnt make it an issue that day, but today he does. I think thats pretty bizarre. When Lieutenant Colonel vindman went to legal mr. Eisenberg do you know if he was advised not to speak to you . I dont have any firsthand knowledge of that, no, sir. Do you know if he was advised to contact the igic. No, sir, i have no firsthand knowledge of that. So you dont know what he was advised when he went to legal . No, sir, i do not. Thank you. I appreciate that. Mr. Volker, i want to tell you i really enjoyed your opening testimony today taking us through that. I appreciate it. You talk about letters signed and sharing concerns about leadership in your assigned country, about agreeing with and sometimes disagreeing with the leadership of your own country when you felt it was appropriate. Youre the boots on the ground for the administration. Lets face it, youre part of that team whos the there to serve the country in that way. And that all to me sounded like the work of a very good diplomat, and i want to thank you. Thank you, sir. Corruption was a concern legitimately in ukraine and in many ways. And mr. Jordan pointed out some of the things that were done by ukrainians In Plain Sight. I might use that term, In Plain Sight by putting opeds in our newspapers. And its certainly more than one
country can be trying to influence our elections, would you agree with that . I agree with that. And we keep hearing that whole thing about ukrainians, thats all been debunked. It was just the russians. You know that comes from an ic community that some of the people that have come up with those conclusions are some of the very same people were going to find out if we havent already were deeply involved with this whole russian collusion hoax. But i want to say you did a great job. You vetted zelenskys intentions, what he intended to be as a president. Would you say thats accurate . Yes, that was in fact one of the key objectives of to take on judgment and report back to the president. And you became comfortable with this president , correct . Yes, i did. And you worked to assure our president that you were comfortable with this president , is that correct . That is correct. And in some ways you have to work sometimes through any means available. And that might include working
with Rudy Giuliani if it could be helpful to you to get that message and advice to the president , would that be correct . I believe that the messages being conveyed by mr. Giuliani were a problem because they were at variance with our official message to the president was and not conveying that positive assessment we all had. So i thought it was important to try to step in and fix the problem. And in that i think you turned out a useful barometer of where things were. Yes. So those useful barometers i think can come in a lot of different fashions. If they can help the cause. And in that situation its not illegal. Good job, ambassador. Thank you very much. I yield back. Mr. Chairman, thank you. And thank you both for your participation here today and for your service. I want to take us out some 30,000 feet for a minute and talk about coverups. But for the fact that the whistleblower came forward we wouldnt know anything ability this. But for the fact that the Inspector General of the cia found it to be both urgent and credible we wouldnt know anything about it. Mr. Morrison, you said that after you heard the call you went directly to the attorneys in the National Security council and recommended that they be limited access and they were subsequently put into a special server. The white house has not released any documents whatsoever to this committee. So do you, mr. Volker thank you. But for the fact you as a private citizen with your own personal phone and your Text Messages with mr. Giuliani and mr. Sondland and whoever else, but for those Text Messages that
weve been putting up on the screen all day, we would have nothing, nothing. And this coverup would be complete. Thats something we should think about. Now, on july 19th you have breakfast with Rudy Giuliani at the trump hotel, correct . Thats correct. And in that conversation at one point he brought up mr. And you said whatever hes saying is not correct. Yes. And then you brought up mr. Biden and im going to quote you here, ive known him for a long time, hes a person of integrity. To giuliani, simply not credible to me. Joe biden would be influenced in his duties as Vice President by money or things for his son or anything like that. Now, weve had many discussions
over the last few days about these investigations into burisma and biden and the 2016 crowd strike server. And you in that conversation with mr. Giuliani basically debunked all of that. Now, at that time at that breakfast who else was with you at that breakfast . There was someone that mr. Giuliani brought along. I later learned this was lev parnas who weve learned a lot about since then. So mr. Lev parnas was at that breakfast that mr. Giuliani had with you. And we now know that mr. Parnas has since been indicted for Foreign Campaign contributions to President Trumps Political Action committee. Is that correct . I have seen that. All right. On may 23rd, you were in that discussion with the president and at one point he referred to
zelensky having terrible people around him. Who do you think he was calling terrible people around him . There were two people that came to mind. One of them was a former investigative journalist and parliamentarian. Hes someone seen as bringing forth a black ledger related to Paul Manaforts activities in ukraine. That was one person. The other person i thought it could refer to was the person being named as president zelenskys chief of president ial administration. He was known as a lawyer for one of the main oligarchs in ukraine. And theres a lot of controversy at the time about him being appointed to the administration. Do you think of them as terrible people . I dont think either one of them is terrible people, no. All right. Thank you. Mr. Morrison, earlier in tome
that was solicited from our colleagues from the other side of the aisle you said others represented to you that some had been leaked. Would you therefore want to maybe rearrange your comments about the rerchs you made to Colonel Vindman . No, maam. So even though under oath he said that he has never leaked, you believe that he youre believing people who said to you that he may have leaked. Miaaam, i didnt believe or disbelieve them. I merely relayed what they told me. Well, they told you and you decided to continue to put that forward even though you had no evidence. Thank you, i yield back. Im sorry. Chairman, if i could answer. Thats incorrect. They, dr. Hill, others in the nsc raised concerns about alex. Those concerns were noted. I didnt take them for face value. I treated them as representation from others. I was on alert but i formed my own judgments. I took no action because of the statements of someone else that i couldnt independently validate. Mr. Stewart. Thank you, gentlemen. Welcome to Impeacha Palooza 2019 and its been a long day. Good news and bad news. Good news is im going to be very, very brief. Were going on 10 plus hours of this. I will yield back some of my
time. The bad news is most of my colleagues after me wont so weve still got some time to go. Ambassador volker, very quickly, do you think that someone should be immune from investigation of suspected ethical or criminal activity just because they were a candidate for office, even for office of the president of the United States . I dont think anyone should be above the law. Well, of course not. That would be absurd to suggest that. What if somebodys alleged ethical or criminal allegations occurred overseas, occurred in another country, would it be improper to seek the host countrys help such as we do with interpol or other Law Enforcement agency snz. There are channels for doing that for citizens who may have committed crimes abroad. And to seek their governments help is not unusual at all . That is correct. And we often have treaties for that. Again, thats painfully
obvious. And to me thats exactly and the only thing the president was doing there. Mr. Morrison, i wondered just briefly to lieutenant vindmans testimony where he described the six people i believe there were five or six people, in the Situation Room listening to this phone call between the two president s. Colonel vindman described these individuals as exceptional. He stated there was no reason to question their integ tale or professionalism. This is an exkpachg he and i had in closed door testimony. Do you agree with the description as National Security staff as Exceptional People . Sir, theyre patriots, yes. People of great integrity and professionalism. Yes, sir. Do any of these im sorry, did any of these exceptional individuals, people of unquestioned integrity and professionalism indicate to you they had thought that the president of the United States engaged in any illegal or unethical behavior as a result of this phone call . Not that im aware of, congressman. Did any of them suggest to
you in any way they thought the president was involved with bribery or any such thing associated with that . Not that im aware of, congressman. It only leaves two possible explanations. Either these individuals of what we described of great integrity, either thats not true which i dont believe, or they just interpreted a conversation very differently than Colonel Vindman. And one last thing as an aside as an air force officer, i never understood why President Obama was against providing lethal aid to ukraine. I would only point to the statements from the administration at the time. There was a perception that our allies would oppose it, that germany would oppose it. There was a perception that germany should be in the lead. There was a perception it could be provocative to russia or escalate the conflict. As ive said expensivetensively
time i dont agree with those arguments. I agree with you, ambassador. I think you got it right and i think President Trump got it right. And with that i yield back. Mr. Quigley. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Ambassador, i want to direct your attention to a meeting you had with ambassador taylor and mr. Yermac September 14th in kiev. I believe we had dinner. It was around the time of the yes conference. Do you remember discussing ukraines intent to investigate the former president . I remember iraising the issue of the possibility of prosecutions . You raised it and they talked about their intention. To be clear, there was a lot of talk in kiev at that time about whether the new team would
be prosecuting the former president. And i had met with the former president and met with others in the opposition as well. I wanted to call mr. Yermacs attention to the possible problems with this. These have created deep divisions in society. So i cited president zelenskys Inauguration Speech im sorry, his National Day Speech from august 24th that was all ability uniu. N. Ifying the country. And i cautioned mr. Yermac to say pursuing prosecution of the former president risks deepening the corruption in the country exactly opposite what zelensky said he wanted to do. Its fair to describe you discouraged him from such action. I discouraged him and raised
concerns about when potential impact would be. And what was his response sph. I believe im refreshed in this by seeing the testimony of others ambassador taylor and mr. Kent. Right. And where believe on that testimony mr. Yermac said you mean us investigating clinton and biden . It was something along the lines of its okay for you to ask us to investigate in the manner in which you are, these socalled investigations, but you dont want us to investigate our own president . Is that a fair way to describe this . Well, i didnt quite understand what he was referring to because to my knowledge we werent asking to investigate clinton or biden. And so i was kind of puzzled by the remark, and thats why i didnt respond. Did you go and investigate what he might have meant or ask anybody . I took as a deflection from the point i was making about
unifying ukraine. In all this time mr. Giuliani in this time in may and september he mentioned biden in the investigation in relation to ukraine. None of that stirred youre curiosity . You just now finally come to this point . As i testified i met with mr. Giuliani once and he did bring up mr. Biden and i pushed back on that. And i maintained a clear distinction ukraine investigating its own citizens and corruption is fine. To go beyond that and say were going to investigate the Vice President is not fine. Did you have any discussions with anyone in the State Department or anywhere else about concerns about the investigation into yes. I know wed been in the same meetings some of the same team there. I dont know whether i raised it
with george kent or phil or not. But its something wed discussed as part of our mee