The transcript had been out for two months. Maybe the ambassador thought there is nothing new here. But, shazam, last week you come forward with supposed this new information and nothing different in there than what we had on the transcript. Maybe thats the reason their star witness, first witness didnt bring it up. Youre their closing witness because you overheard the president overtalking to Ambassador Sondland. I see four seconds left on the clock. You may take as long as you need. Thank you, sir. I believe that Ambassador Taylor already knew when i briefed him when i returned from vacation on the 6th. It was not news for him that the president was pressing for a Biden Investigation. I asked why he didnt share with us. Please do not interrupt the witness any further. You may answer the question. Its exactly my point. I briefed the call and when we
come back and i referred to the call and everyone is nodding. Of course, thats whats going on. Of course the president is pressing for a Biden Investigation before hell do these things the ukrainians want. There is nodding agreement. Did i go through every single word in the call . No, because everyone by that point agreed. It was obvious what the president was pressing for. Ambassador taylor, as you just outlined please do not interrupt. But, sir, My Vivid Recollection of an event i was involved with was a Touchtone Experience that to me validated and mr. Jordan, please what we believed. Ambassador taylor was not in that call. All of a sudden last week. Mr. Jordan, allow the witness to answer the question. Ill finish with this. Thank you. He was involved in a number of other interactions as youve outlined that brought him to the same conclusion. It is quite possible that mr. Jordan. Mr. Jordan, you may not like the witness answer there wasnt an answer. Mr. Jordan, we will hear the witness answer. Have you concluded mr. Holmes . I have. Dr. Hill, mr. Holmes, thank you for your testimony. Dr. Hill, you made a fairly dramatic comment in your Opening Statement to which the Ranking Member took some exception. Im more interested in the ukraine piece of this, but you said some of you on this committee believe that rusha and Security Services did not conduct and perhaps somehow for some reason ukraine did. Im interested in the ukraine piece of this. I do want defend you briefly. I dont know what my colleagues believe, but i do have a pretty good sense of what the effects are of creating ambiguity and lacking clearty a tt tt tty and around the attack of 2016. In response to your comment, the Ranking Member offered up a
report which varies in material respects from the report that was created by the 17 agencies of the intelligence community. A day does not go by in which Ranking Member nunez does not speak of the russia hoax. And this is an area in which context is pretty important. Dr. Hill, let me read you a comment by another senior official. Why did Democratic National committee turn down the dhs offer to protect against hacks . Its arer all a big dem hoax all caps. Why did the dnc refuse to turn over its server to the fbi . Dr. Hill, do you know who said those things . I dont. Thats the president of the United States, donald j. Trump. So, you might be tell me if you agree or disagree. Ambiguity, a failure to name and shame the russians for the attack in 2016. That is not in the service of our National Security, is it . Its not, no. Lets turn to ukraine. Dr. Hill, have you seen you characterize the idea that ukraine interfered in the election as a fictional narrative. Do you see that ukraine interfered with the 2016 election . I brought two exhibits by our colleagues during the deposition i gave on october 14th and im grateful they pointed me in this direction. I was presented deposition with two articles or at least two pieces of information. One was an oped that the Ukrainian Ambassador charlie wrote in 2016 in the hill. This is during the president ial campaign when President Trump was then the nominee for the Republican Party. And this is ambassador charlie who was then, you know, still the Ukrainian Ambassador to theUnited States being critical of President Trump who was then the nominee for the Republican Party for making comments about ukraine, crimia and russia. May i interrupt you there . Let me be very specific about wha what those comments were. The president when he was a candidate said the people from crimia would rather be with russia than where they were. Ambassador charlie is responding to that in that article, is that correct . That is correct. To be honest, the whole article is about ukraine and this is classic, for anyone that wants to write an oped you pick something that you or somebody else might have said and you proceed to say what you want to say. This is what ambassador charlie does. He talks about ukraines position. Let me just read. Its worth people hearing what this severe attack on candidate
trump who suggested that the crimeens would rather be with russia. Ambassador charlie writes, even if trumps comments are only speculative ask does not reflect a future foreign policy, they call for appeasement of an aggressive and support sovereign countrys territorial integrity and anothers breach of international law. Thats the attack on Candidate Trump. Does that sound like Election Interference to you . Well, i would say its probably not the most advisable thing to do for ambassador because you never know who is going to win and the second piece that and go back and read it, again. When you asked me the questions about it, i did remember the piece and very well known and as you pointed out, extremely good journalist. And i remembered reading this back in the day in january of 2017, but it had been a long time between then and october. And you gave me a copy and i went back and read it, again. Its important it gets to this issue here. Mr. Volker points out that the ukrainian government, again, they wouldnt have done very well picking up the issue i pointed out at the beginning of today. They had bet on the wrong horse. They had bet on Hillary Clinton winning the election. And, so, you know, they were trying with the clinton campaign, quite evident here. And he relates, you know, to some extent individuals and some ukrainian officials, like the Interior Minister and a number of other people he names here and named at various points and talked about how they were trying to collect information as Ranking Member nunez said on mr. Manafort and on other people, as well. I do want to point out the crux of the article here by mr. Volker is that there was little evidence of a top down effort by
ukraine. He makes a distinction between the russian effort that was personally directed by russian president putin and involved the countrys military and foreign intelligence services. Now, i dont think that those two things are exactly the same. I also mentioned in my deposition of october 14th, that, in fact, many officials from many countries, including ukraine, bet on the wrong horse. They believe that secretary clinton, former senator clinton, former first lady clinton, was going to win. Many said some pretty disbarr when we were setting up visits. I have a portfolio of 50 plus countries plus the european union, we thought it prudent to collect as much as possible about comments that people might have said about the president during the campaign when he was either one of the candidates or
to be the nominee for the Republican Party or when he was the Candidate Running against Hillary Clinton. Perhaps i shouldnt name them here because it will have consequences. Senior officials including our ally government said some hurtful things about the president and i would also personally take offense at some of the things that were said if i was the president. Now, the difference here, however, is that hasnt had any major impact on his feelings towards those countries. And i heard the president say at least in public, so, im not revealing any Executive Privilege here that ukraine tried to take me down. I have seen some illadvised ukrainian officials and ambassador Charlie Being removed from ambassador from here and statements about opeds. I can name a whole list of
ambassadors from allied countries who tweeted out who had Public Comments about the president , as well. It did not affect Security Assistance having meetings with them. There would have been a lot of people he Wouldnt Have Met with. Thank you, dr. Hill. I seek unanimous consent to add to the record a political record entitled, it outlines russian senior officials making allegations that there was ukrainian interference in the 2016 election. That objection. Mr. Conway. Thank you. Thank the gentleman for yielding. I want to pick up where my colleague across the aisle, Congressman Hines left off earlier. Respectfully dr. Hill he was not defending you but defending himself and democrats. I want to make sure the record is very clear. Ranking member nunez was correct. He correctly noted in his opening that republicans, not
democrats on this committee, were the first ones, the first ones to raise the issue of russian interference in the 2016 election. The disagreement wasnt about russian meddling. The disagreement was about whether or not President Trump conspired with russia. A false allegation peddled by the democrats generally and specifically by some democrats on this committee. With that, i want to turn to you and the part of the conversation, your testimony where you said you heard President Trump say, is he going to do the investigation and Ambassador Sondland said hes going to do it. Hell do anything you ask him to. Is that right . Yes, sir. What did President Trump say next . He said what . Im sorry. I need to look back where we are in the middle of the
conversation. Where are we in the testimony . What did President Trump say next . Good. What about sweden . Good. What about sweden . Good. What about sweden . Why isnt that in your statement . Sir, its not a word for word every single word in the conversation. But its the most important part of the conversation. Respectfully, mr. Holmes. This Impeachment Inquiry is based on the call the day before where President Trump as part of a Bribery Scheme, as part of an extortion scheme and as part of a quid pro quo, according to the democrats demanded investigations in exchange for either military aid or white house meeting. And the next day, you were
witness to President Trump receiving word that the Bribery Scheme was successful. The extortion scheme was successful. And his response, his response was good, what about sweden . Yes, sir. The ukraine portion of that conversation was extremely brief. What was the first thing the president said on the call . Clear recollection of this conversation. Sondland greeted the president. How . He said, hello, mr. President. Im in kiev and the president said, are you in ukraine . You think he said, are you in ukraine . What . He said ukraine. What did you hear President Trump say about. How did we go from the conversation was very loud and his voice was recognizable to, as you say here, when the conversation shifted, i could only hear Ambassador Sondlands side of the conversation. As i testify, Ambassador Sondland with the president came on the call he sort of winced and held the phone away from his ear for the initial portion of the call and then at some point in the call, he stopped doing that. And i dont know. I dont know if he turned the volume down or if the president spoke quietly. I dont know if i got used to the volume. I dont know what changed. This is important. It was memorable. Ambassador sondland stopped moving the phone away from his ear. Thats what it was . Yes. Okay. How did the Conversation End . I only heard Ambassador Sondlands side of the
conversation, sir. At the end of the conversation he said this, he was giving the president advice on how to deal with the rocky situation and they should have released him on your word. So, to be clear. When President Trump received word that president zelensky had agreed to the investigations, he said good. What about sweden . Yes. When exactly did Gordon Sondland ask president zelensky about the investigations . Im sorry, sir. When did he ask about the investigations . When did Gordon Sondland ask zelensky about the investigations . Yeah. Youre asking in which meeting did he raise the investigations . Raised the day before on the call and the next day Gordon Sondland said who is going to do the investigation. When did he ask about the
investigation . Time of the gentleman is expired. I appreciate that. But yesterday Ambassador Sondland testified that the topic of conversations did not expired. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I would like to thank both of our witnesses for being here today. Id like to turn our discussion to the campaign to remove Career Diplomat ambassador yuvanovitch and witnessed a Smear Campaign. I want to know your thoughts, dr. Hill. What was your view of ambassador yuvanovi i yuvanovitch work and do you consider it a Smear Campaign . The integrity and high standards of work she was carrying out in ukraine because of her whole campaign. I if there was a decision to have a political ambassador put in place in ukraine, that would be perfectly acceptable. Its exactly the right of the president to be able to do that. I just did not see why it was necessary to Malign Yovanovitch to such an extent. Can you talk about the character, integrity and performance of ambassador yovanovitch in ukraine . Yes, maam. She was extremely professional, respected by ukrainians and also by visiting american senior officials including members of this committee and congress who came to visit. She is extremely dedicated, hard working. Did you see it as a Smear Campaign, as well . I did, yes. And what was the effect that it had on the morale of other professionals that you worked with in the ukraine . It was a very confusing time as i said before the president has the right to remove an ambassador and it was not clear why this was happening or why People Werent Standing up for her. I would like to turn dr. Hill to your boss. Your boss was ambassador bolton, right . Thats correct, yes. Did your boss, ambassador bolton tell you that giuliani was, quote, a hand grenade. Yes. What do you think he meant by his characterization of giuliani as a hand grenade . What he meant by this was pretty clear to me in the context of all the statements that giuliani was making publicly about the investigation was that he was promoting the story line he was promoting and narrative. He was promoting was going to
back fire. I think it has backfired. Was that narrative also inclusive of falsehoods about ambassador yovanovitch. At that juncture, absolutely, that was in the context of my discussions of what was happening to ambassador yovanovitch. I was particularly struck by your testimony, dr. Hill, receiving hateful calls and being a source mole in the white house. Are you a never trumper or have you been true to your profession and remain nonpartisan . I honestly dont know what the definition of a never trumper is and many of my colleagues feeling the same way. A puzzling term not to be applied to career or nonparty officials and i chose to come into the administration. I could have easily said no when i was approached yes, but you didnt sign up to have hateful calls and the like. I guess, unfortunately, where
we are today in america, thats coming with the territory. Theyre continuing, honestly. Were having to block twitter posts of my name and address and on the internet weve been doing this over the last couple of days. And as i said in my deposition, this could happen to any single pe person in this room be it members of congress and the staff. We have to find ways of combatting this and this gets back sadly to things it could also exploit. I think you should agree with me, that this should not become the new normal. It should not. I also think this kind of behavior instead of keeping you down would make you undeterred. Are you more determined to continue to do your work and do it professionally . I am. And i think all my colleagues are, as well. I dont think anyone here wants to let this. I dont believe this is a partisan issue. I dont think anybody wants to come under personal attack. I, unfortunately, thi