Impeachment inquiry testimony transcripts released

In an excerpt of his testimony, Gordon Sondland, the US Ambassador to the EU, did not recall the details of a July 10 White House meeting with Ukrainian officials.

“I may have chimed in on a point or two, but I remember it being a very friendly meeting,” said Sondland. 

When asked if he brought up the prospect of investigations that Ukraine needed to conduct, Sondland responded, “Not to the best of my knowledge.”

Bill Taylor, the top diplomat to Ukraine, Fiona Hill, Trump's former top Russia adviser, and Lt. Col Alexander Vindman, the NSC’s top Ukraine expert, have testified that then-NSC advisor John Bolton ended the meeting after Sondland discussed investigations. Hill and Vindman then reported the incident to NSC lawyer John Eisenberg.

CNN reported that Bolton said the operation carried out by Sondland and acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney was like a "drug deal,” according to a source familiar with Hill’s testimony.

The transcript of the Congressional interview with US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland has been released.

We're going through it now, and we'll post details here.

Excerpts from the Sondland interview, as well as from an interview with former special envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker, were released earlier today.

Former special representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker told the House committees that Ukrainian officials asked to be connected with Rudy Giuliani as a conduit to President Donald Trump, according to an excerpt of his testimony.

Asked why Giuliani would “have any role in dealing with the Ukrainians,” Volker replied:

“So the Ukrainians believed that by speaking to Rudy Giuliani they could communicate to President Trump?” he was asked.

“That information flow would reach the President,” Volker answered.

Because Rudy Giuliani would convey that information to the President presumably, correct?” Volker was asked. He responded, “Yes.”

Specifically, Volker testified that Zelensky aide Andriy Yermak asked to be connected with Giuliani, and Volker set up an introductory phone call with them on July 19.

Former US Special Envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker rejected the conspiracy theories about Ukraine and Joe Biden that have been promoted by Rudy Giuliani, according to excerpts of his testimony to lawmakers.

Volker testified that he personally told Giuliani that the source of many of those theories was “not credible.”

Some background: Giuliani has spent much of this year spreading theories about former Vice President Joe Biden and the Democrats peddled by former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko. 

The conspiracy theory alleges that Biden held up $1 billion in aid for Ukraine to pressure their government to fire a prosecutor who was investigating Burisma, an energy company where Biden’s son had a high-paid board seat.

There is no evidence of wrongdoing by Joe Biden or his son Hunter Biden.

Volker also testified that Biden didn’t do anything wrong by pushing for the ouster of that top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, who was dismissed in 2016. The US and other European allies sought Shokin’s removal because he was not doing enough to crack down on corruption in Ukraine. 

In an excerpt of his testimony, Kurt Volker — the former US special representative for Ukraine negotiations — described a May 23 meeting with President Trump when the President expressed deep skepticism of Ukraine and told officials to “talk to Rudy” about Ukrainian officials’ alleged wrongdoing.

In the meeting, Volker and other administration officials recommended Trump schedule an Oval Office meeting with the newly elected President Zelensky. But Trump was skeptical.

Volker also recalled Trump saying “they tried to take me down,” insisting that Volker and the other officials’ recommendation he cultivate Zelensky as a partner were misguided.

“He was skeptical. And he also said, that’s not what I hear. I hear, you know, he’s got some terrible people around him. And he referenced that he hears from Mr. Giuliani as part of that, Volker said, according to the excerpt.

Volker said Trump didn’t explicitly instruct the official to speak with Giuliani. But he did raise his personal attorney as having knowledge of the situation. 

EUAmbassador Gordon Sondland, a key witness who spoke with the President about his intentions in Ukraine, told the House Committees he believed Rudy Giuliani's push for Ukraine to investigate the Bidens was potentially illegal, according to excerpts of transcripts released Tuesday.

When asked if it was illegal, Sondland responded:

When asked a second time, Sondland again said he wasn't a lawyer, before adding, "I don’t know the law exactly. It doesn’t sound good."

Remember: Giuliani has not been charged with a crime but CNN has reported he is part of an ongoing investigation by federal prosecutors in Manhattan.

Here's the exchange, according to excerpts of Sondland's testimony obtained by CNN:

Former special representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker testified to the House Committees that while foreign aid routinely gets held up, he found the hold in assistance to Ukraine “unusual,” according to an excerpt of the transcript of his testimony. 

He continued: “And so, in that circumstance, for there to be a hold placed struck me as unusual. I didn’t know the reason. No reason was ever given as to why that was ... It came from OMB, so I immediately thought about budgetary issues, that, for whatever reason, there’s a hold placed. There was one report about a hold placed on all assistance because of a concern about end-of-year spending not being done efficiently.”

Volker said he became aware of the hold on July 18 – before the Trump-Zelensky call – but he did not find out the reason for the hold.

“Nobody ever gave a reason why,” Volker said.  

Someone asked him: “(But) with something this serious and bipartisan and significant, there should be an explanation, right?”

“There should have been, but there wasn’t,” he replied.

Volker told the committees that he did not believe the hold would be “sustained” because it went against accepted, bipartisan policy.

“And I just didn’t believe that this hold would ever be sustained because the policy community in the administration was determined to see it go forward,” Volker said.

US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland said he discussed Rudy Giuliani with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo but only in “general terms,” according to an excerpt of a transcript released by the committees today. 

Here's part of the exchange:

He also said the State Department was “fully aware of the issues” related to Giuliani.

A senior adviser to Vice President Mike Pence is likely to comply with a request to testify on Thursday in front of the committees leading the impeachment inquiry, multiple sources say.

Why this matters: Jennifer Williams would be the first person on Pence's staff to appear and has knowledge of how much the vice president knew about the efforts by President Trump and those around him to push Ukraine to launch investigations into Joe Biden and his son, as well as 2016 election interference, according to a source familiar with her thinking. 

Williams — along with other senior administration and national security officials — was listening to the phone call on July in which Trump asked for a "favor" of his newly-elected Ukrainian counterpart, President Volodymyr Zelensky, a White House source says. Trump asked Zelensky to work with his attorney general, William Barr, and personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, on investigations after Zelensky said he was ready to proceed with the transfer of US military aid to Ukraine.

Williams, a longtime State Department staffer, advises Pence on European and Russian affairs and was one of two Pence aides on the call. The other was Gen. Keith Kellogg, the vice president's national security adviser, who has not yet been called to testify.

Pence did not listen in, but a transcript of the call was put into Pence's daily briefing binder, an administration source says.