Zelenskys inauguration in may, i believe you testified it was one of the largest delegations . I believe it was. I cant be 100 sure. I believe it was the Largest National delegation. Okay. And included in the delegation was Secretary Perry . Secretary perry, ambassador sondland, myself, senator ron johnson was there and also the charge daffaires at the u. S. Embassy at the time, joe pennington. We talked a little bit this morning, but president zelenskys inauguration came together rather quickly . It did. I believe we had about three days notice in which to put the delegation together. Theres been some discussion whether the Vice President was going to 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 theVice President was unable to participate in the delegation . No. Ambassador volker, you testified during your deposition that aid in fact does get held up from time to time for a whole assortment of reasons. That is true. And sometimes the holdups are rooted in something at omb, sometimes its at the defense department, sometimes at the State Department, sometimes on the hill; is that correct . That is correct. And so when the aid was held up for 50 days for ukraine, that didnt in and of itself strike you as uncommon . No, its something that had happened in my career in the past. I had seen holdups in assistance. I assumed it was part of the decisionmaking process, someone had an objection and we had to overcome it. In fact there were concerns
that perhaps president zelensky wasnt going to be the reformer that he campaigned on . Uh, that was a supposition that i made because of the meeting with the president on may 23rd, i thought that could be whats behind it. In fact the aid was lifted shortly after he was able to convene a parliament . I believe he let me get the dates straight. I believe, yes, he was able to convene the parliament around the first of september and i believe the aid was released on the 11th of september. When he was able to convene the parliament, he was able to push through a number of Anticorruption Initiatives . That began with the parliament seated that day, it was a 24hour session, and it continued for some time. And that was an encouraging sign . It started off in a very encouraging way, yes. And other than these things going on in the background, with the pause in the aid, the u. S. Relations 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 the things going on in the background, that u. S. ukrainian relations were strong, were yes. As good as you wanted them to be . Yes. You referenced the Security Assistance was lifted, the hold on that, at the meeting in new york, and there was momentum in putting pressure on the russians. That is correct. In your deposition you made it clear that President Trump had deeprooted Negative View of ukraine and their Corruption Environment . Yes. And you first became aware offing his views back in September 2017 . That is correct. Can 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. I did the prebrief and took part in the bilateral meeting. So long before president zelensky was elected, President Trump had a Negative View . Yes, a strongly Negative View. Back in 2017, do you remember anything he said or did that led you to believe he had these Negative Views . Yes. I want to be very careful here because there was a bilateral meeting between the two president s, i dont want to stray into classified material. I can tell you that my impression was he had a very 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, that he was not running for office for selfenrichment, that he was indeed a good person . Thats correct. During the may 23rd meeting with the president in the oval office, cue just relate to us the concerns the president articulated about 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 ukraine to change it. And thats why its important that we show him very strong support now. But the president was not convinced and he said that zelensky is no different, that he has terrible people around him, thats 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 the ukrainians tried to take him down, did you have any idea what he was referring to . I did, i believe he was referring to 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 an initiative that he was looking at foreign aid pretty broadly . Yes. And trying to scrutinize to make sure the u. S. Taxpayers were getting their moneys 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 can you tell us about that . The president was concerned that the United States seemed to bear the exclusive brunt of Security Assistance to ukraine. He wanted to see if the europeans would step up and contribute more security
assistance. And was there any interagency activity, whether it be with the State Department or the defense department, 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 evinced concerns, the interagency tried to address them . Yes. And by late august, we just discussed with ambassador volker, that a new rada was seated. Did that give possibly some hope that president zelensky would be able to push through some of these reforms . Yes. Did you hope during this time period, the 55 days when the aid was paused, that potentially zelensky would be able to demonstrate his bona fides and subsequently be able to do get the president to lift the aid . Yes. In fact you traveled 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 zelensky and i staffed that meeting. And thats around the time the rada had met and they started to push through their reforms . As i recall the meeting, the date of the meeting between ambassador billiolton and Presi Zelensky was the first day of the new radda. Some of these included naming a new Prosecutor General . A new Prosecutor General, a brandnew cabinet, yes. And they pushed through some legislation that eliminated immunity for rada members . Yes, eliminated parliamentary immunity. I believe you provided some
color into this, your experience of this meeting, you said the ukrainians had been up all night working on some of these legislative initiatives. Yes. The ukrainians with whom we met were by all appearances exhausted by the pace of activity. And was ambassador bolton encouraged by the activity . Yes, he was. And was the meeting all together favorable . Quite. And at that point in time, after the meeting, ambassador bolton, did he head off to warsaw with the Vice President . I know you went to warsaw. 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. Did you have an opportunity to brief the Vice President . I did not. Did ambassador bolton . He did. What do you remember from
what ambassador bolton shared with the Vice President about the zelensky meeting . So i was not there. The issue i remember most starkly was ambassador bolton was quite annoyed that ambassador sondland crashed the prebrief. Okay. But the ambassador had everything he needed to ensure that the either the president or the Vice President were wellprepared. But did you brief ambassador bolton before he had an opportunity to meet with the Vice President . I didnt need to. Ambassador bolton was there. Okay. But as far as you know, ambassador bolton communicated to the Vice President that the goingson in ukraine were positive . Thats my understanding. With president zelensky. And at this time ambassador bolton was advocating for the lifting of the aid . He had 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 met with president zelensky and i participated in both meetings. What do you remember from the meeting with president zelensky . It seemed very it seemed very positive. What was the message i mean, president zelensky raised the issue of the aid, correct . Yes. 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 was after the politico article had come out that made clear there was a hold, he explained that what we were 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 the 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. Was that the first time you believed 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 thought it was important that the president released the aid before the ukrainians found out about it. Ambassador volker, is that also your recollection . Yes, it is. That it wasnt until the politico article that thats correct. I received a text message from one of my ukrainian counterparts on the 29th Forwarding that article. Thats the first time they ra e raised it with of me. Can you share with us your communications in that time period about withholding the aid . Yes. I didnt have any communication with the ukrainians about the hold on aid until after they raised it with me for the same reason tim just gave, the hope that we could get it taken care of ourselves before it became something that they became aware of. Inside 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. I got a readout 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, you know, a process. And i wanted to make sure all the arguments were marshalled to get it lifted. I spoke with the pentagon, paula cooper, i spoke with the assistant of state Department Air force who was going to represent the State Department at the meeting. I believe i spoke with the National Security councils staff. I was actively trying to convey that this needed to be lifted. I wanted them to be able 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 a part of the aid . No, i did not. On july 3rd you met in toronto with president zelensky. Theres been some you know, ambassador taylor and mr. Kent provided some testimony that they had some apprehension that part of this irregular channel that ambassador taylor referenced would rear its head in toronto. Im just wondering if you can tell us whether that in fact happened. Yes, thank you. I can 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 i believe Gordon Sondland and i, around the 28th of june that later connected to, i believe, a conversation with mr. 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 Briefing with President Trump on may
23rd. He signed a Letter Inviting president zelensky to the white house on may 29th. And for several weeks, we were just temporizing with the ukrainians, saying were working on it, its a scheduling issue, well get there, dont worry. 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 the aid scheduled, here is what i think the problem is, its 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, investigating things that happened in the past and so forth. So i did all of that with president zelensky in a pullaside after a formal bilateral meeting. And during that meeting in toronto or the series of
meetings, there was no discussion of preconditions, investigations or anything of that sort . No. No. And you were there with mr. Kent . Yes, i believe so. Did you ever have any discussions with him about preconditions or investigations . Not at that time. I think later on, these things came up, 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 is the july 10th meeting, in ambassador boltons office. We talked a little bit about that this morning, i dont know if you caught the coverage. There was testimony that at some point, ambassador sondland mentioned investigations and reportedly the meeting ended abruptly. What can you tell us about that fact . Thank you. And let me answer that question first, i would like to come back to your prior question too, if i may. On the july 10th meeting, this was ail meeting that we had arranged between alex dimiliuk, National Security adviser bolton. Attending the meeting was also Secretary Perry, ambassador sondland, myself, i believe fiona hill, and also andriy yermak.