By Veronica Rocha, Meg Wagner and Mike Hayes, CNN
From CNN's Marshall Cohen
Former US special envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker said there was no validity to the allegations that President Trump pressed Ukraine to investigate — claims of corruption against former Vice President Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, and allegations that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election to help Hillary Clinton.
Asked if he believed the allegations, Volker said, "No, I do not."
Read the exchange below:
From CNN's Katelyn Polantz
Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland said he worked with Rudy Giuliani and others to prompt Ukraine to make a public announcement about its investigation — and that any announcement would need to be on TV so President Trump would see it, according to the transcript released Tuesday.
What this means: The emphasis on getting Ukraine to make a public announcement that it was investigating a company linked to Trump political opponent Joe Biden — and not just a conduct an investigation — highlights just how politicized the President's intentions had become with Ukraine.
"I think this was the press statement had now morphed into some kind of an interview that President Zelensky would give to a TV station," Sondland told the committees.
When asked what network the statement should be made on, he answered, "I don't know, but something President Trump would obviously see."
He then mentioned Fox News and its host Tucker Carlson — prompting laughter in the committee room, according to the transcript.
From CNN's Zachary Cohen
US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland told lawmakers that he called Energy Secretary Rick Perry on Oct. 16, the day before his deposition, to refresh his memory of the July 10 White House meeting with National Security Council officials, including Fiona Hill.
“I have spoken with Secretary Perry on several occasions relating to non-Ukraine business, and I did ask Secretary Perry to refresh my memory about a couple of meetings. Yes,” he said, according to the transcript.
About the meeting: CNN previously reported that Hill, a former White House Russia adviser, testified about a July 10 meeting on Ukraine where Sondland discussed investigations, something that was interpreted as a reference to the President's call for investigations into the Bidens, according to a source familiar.
Former national security adviser John Bolton and Hill both were concerned about the comments, and Bolton urged Hill to report the incident to National Security Council lawyer John Eisenberg, according to the source familiar with her testimony.
From CNN's Jenny Hansler
Former special representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and chief of the Presidential Administration Andriy Bohdan that Rudy Giuliani was amplifying a “negative narrative” about Ukraine.
“I explained it to President Zelensky and Chief of Presidential Administration, Andriy Bohdan, was standing next to him. And I explained that I thought that there is a negative narrative about Ukraine that is counteracting all the good things that he is doing, and that we are officially communicating back, and that this is being amplified by Rudy Giuliani,” Volker told the House committees, according to a transcript of his testimony. “So this is a negative factor for Ukraine's image in the United States and our ability to advance the bilateral relationship.”
Volker reflected that it was “probably very helpful” that he had mentioned this to Zelensky prior to his call with President Trump on July 25.
“I actually – I hadn't thought about it, you know, in this context before, but as I think about it, it was probably very helpful that I had told this to President Zelensky when I did so that when he heard this from the President, he was forewarned, right, there's a Giuliani problem here,” Volker said.
From CNN's Adam Levine
US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland told lawmakers that he had a brief exchange with President Trump during a White House gathering where the President told him to “go tell the truth."
White House counsel wanted to sit down with Sondland to interview him about what he knew after the whistleblower complaint was filed. That never happened, though he did speak to them on the phone for a few minutes.
From CNN's Marshall Cohen
Former special envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker told lawmakers that the Ukrainians didn’t know about the holdup of military assistance until after the Trump administration stopped pressing them to announce an investigation into the Bidens.
His testimony, released today, bolsters a key tenet of Trump’s defense – that there was no “quid pro quo” with Ukraine because the new government in Kiev was not aware that military aid was being withheld.
Their position cuts against Democratic allegations that Trump used the $400 million aid package as leverage.
“To my knowledge, the news about a hold on security assistance did not get into Ukrainian Government circles, as indicated to me by the current foreign minister, then diplomatic adviser, until the end of August,” Volker said. “And by the time that we had that, we had dropped the idea of even looking at a statement.”
From CNN's Kevin Liptak
Former special representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker told impeachment investigators he was surprised and troubled by President Trump’s phone call with his Ukrainian counterpart in July, which is at the center of the impeachment inquiry.
“Asking the President of Ukraine to work together with the Attorney General and to look into this, you can see, as it has now happened, this becomes explosive in our domestic politics,” Volker said, according to an excerpt of his testimony.
Volker said he was surprised when he read a transcript of the July 25 phone call because, in preparing for the conversation, he didn’t believe the Bidens were going to come up.
He said the request could have the effect of impeding other areas in US-Ukraine ties.
“It creates a problem again where all of the things that we’re trying to do to advance the 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. And I think that is extremely unfortunate for our policy with Ukraine,” he said.
From CNN's Jeremy Herb and Katelyn Polantz
US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland amended his previous closed-door testimony with House impeachment investigators to say that he told a top Ukrainian political aide that the release of US security aid was likely conditioned on Ukraine publicly announcing an investigation that would help the President Trump politically.
Sondland’s attorney sent the committee a letter and a three-page addition to his testimony, which said he had remembered a conversation on Sept. 1 with Andriy Yermak, an aide to the Ukrainian president, linking the aid to the investigations.
“I now recall speaking individually with Mr. Yermak, where I said resumption of U.S. aid would likely not occur until Ukraine provided the public anti-corruption statement that we had been discussing for many weeks,” Sondland said.
Sondland’s new testimony, which was included in the public release of his closed-door deposition transcript, adds to Democrats’ evidence that the President connected the freezing of $400 million in US security aid to Ukraine to investigations into the 2016 election and former Vice President Joe Biden.
From CNN's Katelyn Polantz
US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland admitted to House committees he eventually became aware that Ukraine aid was held up to entice Ukrainian corruption investigations, and eventually realized the investigation was linked to the Bidens, according to transcript excerpts released today.
"Finally at some point I made the Biden-Burisma connection, and then the transcript was released," Sondland said during his testimony.
He said he couldn't remember specific dates, and for some time hadn't made the connection between the Bidens and Burisma, the Ukrainian natural resources company for which Hunter Biden sat on the board.
Sondland previously had maintained he didn't make the connection to the Bidens until well after President Trump's July 25 call with the Ukrainian president.
"I did not know until more recent press reports that Hunter Biden was on the board of Burisma," he had said in a prepared opening statement released before his testimony.
Sondland also gave the committees a full overview of how Trump sent him and other officials to work with his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, and how his request for help from the Ukrainians developed.
"You know, this whole thing was sort of a continuum, starting at the May 23rd meeting, ending up at the end of the line when the transcript of the call came out. And as I said to counsel, it started as talk to Rudy, then others talk to Rudy. Corruption was mentioned. Then, as time went on—and, again, I can’t nail down the dates—then let’s get the Ukrainians to give a statement about corruption. And then, no, corruption isn’t enough, we need to talk about the 2016 election and the Burisma investigations. And it was always described to me as ongoing investigations that had been stopped by the previous administration and they wanted them started up again. That’s how it was always described. And then finally at some point I made the Biden-Burisma connection, and then the transcript was released. So I can’t tell you on that continuum when, what dates, but that’s kind of what happened," he said.
He also described how the administration held up aid to Ukraine in exchange for political help.
"And then at the end of that continuum I became aware that there might be a link between the White House visit and aid to the Ukraine that was being held up when I couldn’t get a straight answer as to why the aid was being held up, both Senator Johnson and Ambassador Taylor raised the possibility that there might be a link," he said, according to the excerpts. "And then the aid was released, and then this whole thing blew up."
