to then make sure that the transcript was as accurate as possible that's what i attempted to do by putting that word back in because that was in my notes i think colonel you testify under deposition that you found it striking that zelinsky would bring up or is. that it indicated to you that he had been prepped for the call to expect this issue to come up and what would lead you to that conclusion it seemed unlikely that he would be familiar with a with a single company. in the context of a call that had and that was on the broader bilateral relationship and he would seem to me that he was either tracking this issue because he was in the process or he was otherwise prepped to goldman thank you mr chairman. good morning to both of you on. july 25th at approximately 9 am you both were sitting in the situation room probably not too much further away than

you are right now and you were preparing for a long awaited phone call between president trump and president selenski now colonel binman in advance of this phone call did you prepared talking points as you did for the able to 21st call yes i did. what were those talking points based upon they were so this is not in the public record and i can't comment too deeply but what is. the areas that we've consistently talked to talked about in public is cooperation on supporting his reform agenda. anti corruption efforts and helping president zelinsky implement his plans to and russia's war against ukraine in other words they're based on official u.s. policy correct and is there a process to determine official u.s.

policy yes that is my job is to coordinate u.s. policy so throughout the preceding. year that i've been on on staff i had undertaken enough or to make sure we had a cohesive core here and u.s. policy and as you listen to the call did you observe whether president trump was following the talking points based on the official us policy council the the president could choose to. use the talking points or not he's the president but they were not consistent with what i provided yes let's take a look at a couple of excerpts from this this call and right after president selenski thanked president trump for the united states support in the area of defense president trump asked president selenski for a favor and then raises this theory of ukrainian interference in the 2016 election

he says in the highlighted portion i would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and ukraine knows a lot about it i would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with ukraine they say crowd strike i guess you have one of your wealthy people the server they say ukraine has it now colonel women was this statement based on the official talking points that you had prepared you know and was this statement related to the 2016 ukraine interference in the 2016 election part of the official us policy now it was not now at the time of this july 25th call colonel vim and were you aware of a theory that ukraine had interfered intervened or interfered in the 2016 u.s. election i was are you aware of any credible evidence to support this theory i

am not. are you also aware that vladimir putin had promoted this theory of ukrainian interference in the 2016 election i'm well aware of that fact and ultimately which country did u.s. intelligence services to term and to have interfered in the 2016 election is the consensus of the entire and intelligence community that the russians interfere in u.s. elections in 2016 let's go to another excerpt from this call where president trump asked president selenski to investigate his political opponent vice president joe biden here president trump says the other thing there's a lot of talk about biden's son that biden stop the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it it sounds horrible to me he said

again colonel then when was this included in your talking points it was not such a request to investigate a political opponent consistent with official u.s. policy it is was not consistent with the policies i understand it now were you aware of any credible allegations or evidence to support this notion that vice president biden did something wrong or against u.s. policy with regard to ukraine i'm not miss williams are you familiar with any credible evidence to support this theory against vice president biden no i'm not no miss williams prior to the july 25th call approximately how many calls between the president the president the united states and foreign leaders had you listen to i would say roughly a dozen had you ever heard

a call like this. as i testified before i believe what i found and unusual or different about this call was the president's reference to specific investigations and that struck me as different than other calls i have listened to you testify that you thought it was political in nature what did why did you think that i thought that the references to specific individuals and investigations such as former vice president biden and his son struck me as political nature given that the former vice president is a political opponent of the president and so you thought that it could potentially be designed to assist president trumps reelection effort i can't speak to what the president's motivation was in one and referencing it but i just noted that the reference to bite and sound and political to me. kernel of him and you you've said in your deposition that it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the political benefits of the president's demands for

those of us who are not rocket scientists can you explain what you meant by that so my understanding is that that it was the connection to investigate into a political opponent was inappropriate improper. i made that connection as soon as the president brought up in. the bottom investigation clover and you testified that the president president trump's request for a favor from president selenski would be considered as a demand to president selenski after this call did you ever hear from any ukrainians either in the united states or ukraine about any pressure that they felt to do these investigations that president trump demanded.

not that i can recall did you have any discussions with officials at the embassy here ukrainian embassy here in washington d.c. yes i did did you discuss at all the demand for investigations with them i did not did you discuss at all at any point their concerns about the hold on security assistance to the best of my recollection in the august timeframe the korean embassy started to become aware of the hold on sick security assistance and they were asking if i had any comment on that or if i could substantiate that and that was before it went became public is that right yes and what did you respond i believe i said that. i don't recall frankly i don't recall what i said by i believe it may have been something along the lines of i'm not aware of it you

testified that one of your concerns about the request for investigations related to us domestic politics was that ukraine may lose bipartisan support why was that a concern of yours ukraine is in a war with you and with russia and the security systems that we provide ukraine is significant absent that security assistance and maybe even more importantly the signal of support for ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity that would likely encourage russia to pursue or to potentially escalate to pursue further aggression undermining further undermining ukrainian sovereignty european security and u.s. security so in other words ukraine is heavily dependent on united states support

both diplomatically financially and also militarily correct. kind of him and what languages do you speak i speak russian and ukrainian and a little bit of english. you do you would know what let you recall what language president selenski spoke on this july 25th phone call i know he made a valiant effort to speak english he had been practicing up his english. but he also spoke ukrainian i want to look at the 3rd excerpt from the july 25th call and chairmanship addressed this with you in his questioning and you see in the highlighted portion it says specifically to the company that you mentioned in this issue is is that the portion of the call record that colonel binman you

thought president selenski actually said by recent correct and you testified earlier that his use of his understanding that when president trump mentioned the bidens that that referred to the company the research sounded to you like he was prepped or prepared for this call is that right that is correct. i want to go to the 2 of the next slide if we could which is actually a text message that neither of you is on but this is from ambassador kurt volker to andre yarmuk and colonel women whose andre your mock under your mark is a senior advisor within the presidential administration to ukraine presidential administration he's a senior adviser to presidents alinsky. now this text message is less than a half hour before the call on july 25th and since neither of you are on it i'll read it it says from from ambassador volker good lunch thanks heard from white

house assuming president z. convinces trump he will investigate quote get to the bottom of what happened unquote in 2016 we will nail down date for a visit to washington good luck see you tomorrow kirk now is this the sort of thing that you're referring to when you say that it sounded like president selenski was prepared for this call that this would be consistent yes. turning to the 4th excerpt from the july 25th call where ukraine's president selenski links the white house meeting to the investigations that president trump requests president selenski says i also want to thank you for your invitation to visit the united states specifically washington d.c. on the other hand i also wanted to ensure you that we will be very serious about

the case and we'll work on the investigation kind of him and when president selenski says on the other hand would you agree that he's acknowledging a linkage between the white house visit that he mentions in the 1st sentence and the investigations that he mentions in the 2nd sentence it could be taken that way from the. seems like a reasonable conclusion and if that is the case that would be consistent with the text message that ambassador volcker sent to andre yarmuk right before the call is that right seemingly so now you've you've testified in your deposition that a white house visit an oval office visit is very important to president selenski why is that the show of support for president lynskey.

still a brand new president. frankly a new new politician. on the ukrainian political scene. looking to establish is a bona fide is as a as a regional and maybe even a world leader would want to have a meeting with the united states the most powerful country in the world and ukraine's most significant benefactor in order to be able to implement his agenda it would provide him with some additional legitimacy at home yes so just to summarize in this july 25th call between the presidents of the united states and ukraine president trump demanded a favor of president selenski to conduct investigations of both of you acknowledge war for a president trumps political interest not the national interest and in return for his promise of a much desired white house meeting for president selenski going to limit is that an accurate summary of the excerpts that we just looked at yes miss williams yes

colonel dimon you immediately reported this call to the n.s.c. lawyers why did you do that so at this point i had already been tracking this initially what i would differ describe as alternative narrative false narrative and i was certainly aware of the fact that it was starting to reverberate gain traction the fact that it in the july 10th call and it up being pronounced by a public official official investors on lynn had me alerted to this and i was subsequent to that report i was invited to follow up with any can other concerns to mr eisenberg and we're going to discuss that july 10th meeting in in a moment but when you say alternative false narratives are you referring to the 2

investigations that president trump referenced in the call yes. now at some point did you also discuss how the written summary of the call records should be handled with the n.s.c. lawyers there was following the report there was a discussion in the legal shop on the best way to manage a transcript yes what did you understand they concluded my understanding is that this was viewed as a sensitive transcript and to avoid leaks and if i recall the term properly or something along the lines of preserve the integrity of the transcript it should be . segregated to a small group of folks to preserve the integrity of the transcript what it what did that mean i'm not sure i mean it seems like a legal term none tourney but it was i didn't take it as anything it nefarious i

just i understood that they wanted to keep it into a smaller group if there was real interest in preserving the integrity of the transcript don't you think they would have accepted your correction that by recent should have been included not necessarily the way these edits occur they go through like everything else a approval process i made my contribution it was cleared by mr morris and then when i returned it you know sometimes that doesn't happen there are already mistreated errors i think that in this case i didn't see it didn't when i 1st saw the transcript without the 2 substantive items that i had attempted to include i didn't see that as nefarious i just saw it as ok no big deal you know these might be meaningful but it's not that big a deal he said to substantive issues what was the other one there was a reference and. section.

so you know on page 4 of the top paragraph let me find the right spot ok. yes you can look into it ellipse there are videos. so i recall in the recordings recordings instead of an ellipse sees there should it what should have said and to what you heard that there are recordings correct did you ultimately learn where the call record was put. i understood that it was being segregated into a separate system separate secure system why why would it be put on a separate secure system this is definitely not unprecedented but i times are you if you want to limit access to a smaller group of folks you put it on the secure system to ensure that

a smaller group of people with access to the security system have it but can't you also limit the number of people who can access it on the regular system you can do that but to the best my recollection the decision was made frankly on the fly after my after the fact i can after i conveyed my concerns to mr eisenberg mr ellis came in and he had heard the entire conversation and. when it was mentioned that it was sensitive it was kind of on the fly decision to just segregate in this other system mr eisenberg and mr ellis so the n.s.c. lawyers correct but it was your understanding that it was not a mistake to put it on the highly classified system is that right i'm not sure i understand was it was it intended to be put on the highly classified system by the lawyers or was it a mistake that it was put there i think it was intended to but again it was intended to prevent leaks and to limit access now you testified to

both of you about the 1st call a little earlier and colonel binman you indicated that you did include in your talking points the idea of ukraine rooting out corruption but that president trump did not mention corruption. i want to go to the white house readout from the able to any 1st call and at the i'm not going to read the whole thing but you see the highlighted portion where it says root out corruption yes so in the end this readout was false is that right that's that's maybe that's a bit of. it's not entirely accurate but i'm not sure if i would describe it as false it was consistent with u.s. policy and these items are used as messaging tools also so a statement that goes out. in addition to the category.

reading out the meeting itself is also a messaging platform to indicate what is important with regard to u.s. policy so it is a part of u.s. official policy that ukraine should root out corruption even if president trump did not mention it in the 21st april 21st phone calls that right certainly and he also did not mention it in the july 25th phone call is that right correct so even though it was included in his talking points for the able to 21st call and presumably even though you can't talk about it for the july 21st call it was not included in either is that right for there the april 21st call not mention it in either rather correct so when the president says now that he held up security assistance because he was concerned about rooting out corruption in ukraine that concern was not expressed in the 2 phone conversations that he had with president selenski earlier this year is

that right correct now miss williams you testified that earlier that after those able to 21st call president trump asked fice president pens to attend president selenski inauguration is that right that's correct and that. on may 13th you were just informed by the chief of staff's office that for vice president pence should not will not be going as per request of the president so right that's what i was informed yes and you didn't know what had changed from april 21st to may 13th is that right now not in terms of that decision. well colonel inman since you in particular a little bit more perhaps than miss williams was a broader portfolio focuses on ukraine i want to ask you if you were aware of the following things that happen from april 21st to may 13th were you aware that

ambassador yavanna bitch was abruptly recalled from ukraine and that time yes were you aware that president trump i'm sorry to correct it so she was or called prior. so she the notification occurred towards the end or end of april and shoes finally recalled in may timeframe i think may 28th if i recall correctly so she learned about it after able to me 1st on april 21st 4th is that right correct and were you aware that president trump had a telephone call with president putin during this time period in early may i was and were you aware that rudy giuliani had planned a trip to go to ukraine to pressure the ukrainians to initiate the 2 investigations that president trump mentioned on the july 25th call in this time period i was aware that he was traveling there and that he was and he had been promoting the idea of these investigations i want to move now to that july 10th meeting that

you referenced colonel than men what exactly did ambassador sunland say when the cranium officials raised the idea of a white house meeting as i recall he referred to specific investigations. that ukrainians would have to deliver in order to get these meetings and what happened to a house meeting what happened to the broader meeting after he made that reference. for bolton very abruptly ended the meeting and did how did did you have any conversations with ambassador bolton about this meeting i know i did not did you follow ambassador sunline and the others to the ward room for a meaning follow up there was a photo opportunity that we leverage in order to. demonstrate u.s.

support so avoid the white house visit demonstrating uses u.s. support for ukraine in the new national security adviser who is a technical technocrat and then after that we went down to a short post meeting idler debrief where the investigations the specific investigations that ambassador sunline referenced in the larger meeting also discussed in the wardroom meeting they were what ambassador sunland say ambassador someone referred to our investigations into the bidens bree's mine in 2016 how did you respond if at all. i did i said that these requests to invest to conduct these meetings was inappropriate these investigations was inappropriate and had nothing to do with national security policy was ambassador volcker in this meeting as well i don't recall specifically i believe is there for at least a portion of the time i don't recall things there for that that the whole meeting

was what was the statement made in front of the ukrainian officials i believe there were some discussion. prior to the fact to the ukrainians leaving when it was apparent there was some discord between the senior folks ambassadors online and other white house staff myself they were asked to step out so i don't recall if they were there for the entire discussion the senior white house staff you're referring to does not include fiona hill your immediate supervisor at the time correct now you said you also reported this incident to the n.s.c. lawyers as of right correct and. what was their response. john eisenberg said that he he took perry took notes while i was talking and he said he would look into it why did you report this meeting and this conversation to the

n.s.c. lawyers because it was inappropriate and following that the meeting i had a short conversation on the post meeting meeting and the wardroom at a short conversation with ambassador correction dr hill and we discussed the idea of needing to report this so am i correct colonel van min that at least no later than that july 10th meeting the ukrainians head understood or at least heard that the oval office meeting that they so desperately wanted was conditioned on these specific investigations into by recent and the 2016 election that was the 1st time i was aware of the ukrainians being approached directly by a government official and directly linking the white house meeting to the investigations correct

miss williams you testified of that in your opening statement that you attended the september 1st meeting between vice president pence and president selenski in warsaw is that right that's correct. what was the 1st thing president selenski asked vice president pence about at that meeting president lenski asked the vice president about the status of security assistance for ukraine because he had seen the politico article and other news reporting that the security assistance was being held and you testified in your deposition in that conversation president's alinsky emphasized that the military assistance the security assistance was not just important to assist ukraine in fighting a war against russia but that it was also symbolic in nature what did you what did you understand him to mean by that president's lenski explained that more than just

equally with the financial and physical value of the assistance that it was the symbolic nature of that assistance that really was the show of u.s. support for ukraine and for ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity and i think he was even stressing that to the vice president to really underscore the need for the security assistance to be released and that if the united states was holding the security assistance is it also true then that russia could see that as a sign of weakening u.s. support for ukraine and take advantage of the i believe that's what the present president once he was was indicating that any signal or sign that u.s. support was wavering would be construed by russia as potentially an opportunity for them to strengthen their own hand in ukraine did vice president pence provide a reason for the hold on security assistance to the ukrainian president in that

meeting. vice president did not specifically discuss the reason behind the hold but he did reassure president selenski of the strongest u.s. unwavering support for ukraine and they talked about the need for european countries to step up and provide more assistance to ukraine as well did vice president pence report back to president trump on that meeting to your knowledge the vice president conveyed to president selenski that he would follow up with president trump that evening and convey to president trump what he had heard from president lenski with regard to his efforts to implement reforms in ukraine i am aware that the vice president spoke to president trump that evening but i was not privy to the conversation or you also aware however that the security assistance hold was not lifted for another 10 days after this meeting that's

correct and am i correct that you know didn't learn the reason why the hold was lifted that's correct colonel vim and you didn't learn a reason why the hold was lifted either is that right correct colonel women are you aware that the committee has launched an investigation into ukraine matters on september 9th 2 days before the hold was lifted i am aware and i was aware and on september 10th the intelligence committee requested the whistleblower complaint from the department of national intelligence are you aware of that i don't believe i was aware that were you aware that the white house was aware of this whistleblower complaint prior to that date. the 1st i heard of the whistleblower complaint is that i believe when the news broke i was only aware of the committees investigating the hold on security systems. so is it accurate to say colonel vin

min that whatever reason that was provided for the hold including the administrative policies. which would well which would support the whole design over support the security systems is that right to understanding i'm sorry i didn't i didn't understand that i was just asking that the administrative policies of president trump support supported to security assistance is that your understanding so the the the interagency policy was to support security assistance for ukraine thank you for your back now recognize right member newness or minority counsel for 45 minutes and miss williams welcome. i want to just establish a few basic facts about your knowledge ukraine greaseman the role of bias of the bidens are you spend extraordinary money or time on ukraine.

ukraine is one of the countries in my portfolio i would not say an extraordinary amount of time but certainly the vice president has engaged on ukraine policy quite a bit in that my 8 months and it's in your portfolio that's correct. first off were you aware. in september of 2015 then u.s. ambassador to ukraine geoffrey pyatt publicly called for an investigation and this and into ski the president a brief smile were you aware of these public statements no not at the time you are today though i have since heard them yes. did you know of antitrust efforts by various ukrainian officials as well as alexander chalupa d.n.c. consultant no is not aware. but you know about the deputy assistant secretary of state champs concerns about potential conflict of interest in 200 biden sitting on

the board of greece money i did not work on ukraine policy during that timeframe so i've become aware of it through the last year or so i've become aware of it through mr kent's testimony this process. did you know that financial records show a ukrainian natural gas company brisco routed more than $3000000.00 to american accounts tied to entre by now us not aware until and until you prepared for this hearing until others have been testifying in more detail on those issues that's kind of been following it more closely correct. did you know that greece was american legal representatives met with ukrainian officials just days after vice president biden forced the firing of the country's chief prosecutor against her i'm visiting working on ukraine policy during that time and i was one of these are trick questions i'm just trying to get through the i understand that you know that very small lawyers pressured the state department

in february 2016 after the raid and months before the firing of show can and that they invoked hunter biden's name as a reason to intervene i was not aware as you know that joe biden called ukrainian president for change though at least 3 times in february 2016 after the president owner of bree smith's home was raided on february 2nd by the state prosecutor's office not at the time again i've become aware of that through this proceeding thank you slim's. to colonel venom and i'm going to ask you same questions just to establish some basic facts about your knowledge about ukraine breeze and the role of the bidens. in september 2015 u.s. ambassador to ukraine geoffrey pyatt publicly called for an investigation into slow chef ski the president breeze or you aware of these public statements i was nowhere met the time. well it when did you become aware of them during the course of the

testimony in their depositions after this impeachment inquiry began as you know of antitrust efforts by their issue craning government officials as well as alexander chalupa a d n c consultant i'm not aware of any any. any of these interference efforts that you know about deficits and secretary of state's kintz concerns about potential conflict of interest with hunter biden sitting on the board of bruce only the only thing i'm aware of is pertains to his deposition as you know that financial records show ukrainian natural gas company bruce murat had more than $3000000.00 to the american accounts tied to entre by i'm not aware of this this fact until recently i put my guess i didn't independently look into it i'm just not aware of you know what kind of payments mr biden may refute this is not something i'm aware of as you know that greece was

american legal representatives met with ukrainian officials just days after vice president biden forced the firing of the country's chief prosecutor i'm not aware of these meetings as you know that bruce my lawyers pressured the state department february 2016 after the raid and a month before the firing of show can they invoke 100 biden's name as a reason to intervene i'm not aware of any of these facts as you know that joe biden called ukrainian president for change at least 3 times in february 2016 after the president owner bruce from his home was raided on february 2nd by the state prosecutor's office i'm aware of the fact that president biden our vice president biden was very engaged on ukraine now had numerous engagements and sort of more. as williams and lieutenant colonel than when as you may or may not know this

committee has spent nearly 3 years conducting various investigations starting with the russia collusion hoax pfizer abuse democratic hysteria over the lack of collusion in the report and now this impeachment charade one of the most concerning things regarding all of these investigations is the amount of classified or otherwise sensitive information i read in the press that derive either from this committee or sources in the administration to be clear i'm not accusing either one of you of leaking information however given that you are the 1st witnesses who actually have some firsthand knowledge of the president's call by listening in on july 25th it's imperative to the american public's understanding of the events that we get a quick matters out of the few matters out of the way 1st. let me just go to you 1st. for the purposes of the following questions i'm only asking about the time period between from july

25th to september 28th ok that you just gus the july 25th phone call between president trump and president selenski or any matters associated with a phone call with any members of the press. to be clear you never discuss these matters with the new york times the washington post politico c.n.n. or any other media outlet no i did not did you ask her encourage any individual to share the substance of the july 25th phone call or any matter associated with the call with any math member of the press i did not you know of any individual who discussed the substance of the july 25th phone call or matter associate of the call with any member of the press no i do not and colonel then i'm in the same questions for you. did you discuss the july 25th phone call between president trump

and president selenski or any matter associated with a phone call with any member of the press i did not just to be clear you did not discuss this with the new york times the washington post politico c.n.n. or any other media outlet i did not as you asked for encourage an individual to share the substance of the july 25th phone call or any matter associated with the call of any member of the press i did not do you know of any individual who discussed the substance of the july 25th phone call or any matter associated with the call with any member of the press we have and i see press shop and they field any of these types of questions i do not engage with the press at all let me ask the question again you know of any individual who discuss the substance of the july 25th phone call or any matter associated with the call with any member of the press we have an n.s.c. press shop whose job is to and to engage on any of these types of questions i am

not aware but it is possible and likely that the pressure up would have had would field these types of questions rather than the question after is and i'm showing no do that the question is do you know any individual you personally know any individual who discussed the substance of the july 25th phone call or any matter associated with the call with any member of the press thank you reckon iraq member for clarifying i did not. miss williams did you discuss july 25th phone call with anyone outside the white house on july 25th or july 26th and if so with whom now i did not discuss the call with anyone outside or inside the white house miss williams during your time on the n.s.c. have you ever accessed a colleague's work computer without their prior authorization or approval. i have not and just to clarify i am an office of the vice president so not on the n.s.a.

right but represent i have not thank you for that clarification to a colonel ben men did you discuss the july 25th phone call with anyone outside the white house on july 25th or the 26th and if so with them yes i did and my core function is to coordinate u.s. government policy interagency policy and i spoke to 2 individuals with regards to providing a some site some sort of readout of the call to individuals that were not in the white house not in the white house cleared u.s. government officials 'd with the proper with the appropriate need to know and what agencies were these officials with the department of state department of state and deputy assistant secretary george kent was responsible for that the portfolio i use in europe including ukraine and a individual from the office of the i had individual in terms of intelligence

community what as you know the intelligence community has 17 different agencies what agency was this individual from if i could interject here we don't want to use these proceedings it's our time i know but we need to protect the whistleblower. if please stop i want to make sure that there's no effort to out the whistleblower through the use of these proceedings if the witness as a good faith belief that this may reveal the identity of the whistleblower that is not the purpose that we are here for and i want to advise the witness accordingly mr vandeman you testified in your deposition that you did not know the whistleblower ranking member exile lieutenant colonel them and please lieutenant colonel them and you testified in the deposition that you did not know.

who the whistleblower was or if i do not know who the whistleblower is that is how is it possible for you to name these people 'd and then out the whistleblower per the advice of my counsel i've been advised not to answer specific questions about members of the intelligence community this is are you aware that this is the intelligence committee that's conducting an pietschmann hearing of course and wouldn't the appropriate place for you to come to to testify would be the intelligence committee about someone within the intelligence community ranking member per the advice of my counsel and the instructions from the chairman i've been advised not to provide any specifics on have who i've spoken to with inside the italians community what i can offer is that these were properly cleared individuals or was a properly clear individual with

a need to know well this is. me you can really you can plead the 5th but you're here to answer questions and you're here under subpoena. so you can either answer the question or you can plead the 5th excuse me. on behalf of my client we are following the rule of the committee the rule of the chair with regard to this issue and this does not call for an answer that is invoking the 5th or any theoretical issue like that following the ruling of the chair what counts or what ruling is that i can interject counsel is correct was a blow or has the right statutory right to anonymity these proceedings will not be used out the whistleblower. and i've advised my client accordingly and he's going to follow the ruling of the chair if there's a alternative or you want to work something out with the chair that's up to you is

true well we've attempted to subpoena the whistleblower to sit for a deposition the chair is tabled that motion and then has been unwilling to recognize those motions over the last few days of this impeachment inquisition process all that all go to discuss thank you eric remembered as. the the call transcript is as published on september 25th is complete and accurate will both of you attest that miss williams i didn't take a word for word course accounting when i 1st saw the the publicly released version it looks substantively correct to me internal than i think i certainly would describe it as substantively correct i think in your testimony your deposition he said very accurate correct ok and you flagged a couple edits are current of him and i think you had barisan a on page. on page 4 where the president's

lensky was was talking about the company mentioned in the issue i'm sorry could you say that question in your testimony you explained that you offered an edit that on page 4 of the transcript that was ultimately published you you thought president selenski mention the word barisan oh i had in my notes i know that's what he said ok and miss williams and i was on page 4 correct correct miss williams i believe after your deposition you went back and checked your notes and you had president selenski using the term or is meant as well is that correct that's correct. but that came up on a different part of the transcript and where colonel the man was relating to correct yes i believe yours came up on page 5 and it would have been in substitution for the word case that's right that's why i have it in my notes ok. colonel them and we had some discussion earlier today and also your deposition about whether the president had

a demand for president selenski. and you know i suggest to you in the deposition that the president words are in fact ambiguous and he uses he uses some phrases that certainly could be characterized as hedging on page 3 in the 1st paragraph he talks about whatever you can do he talks about if that's possible. page 4 he mentions if you could speak to him you talk about the attorney general. or rudy giuliani and then at the end of the 1st paragraph on page 4 he says whatever you can do the president also says you know if you can look into it and and i asked you during your deposition whether you saw all or knowledge of the fact that certain people could read that to be ambiguous and i said the correct yes and i believe you said i think people want to hear what they have already preconceived is that where you testified. we'd like to ask for just

a page cite to 56 to 56 no one like me just a minute and. ok ok we got it ok and then you went on to say yeah you agreed with me you said yeah i guess you could interpret it different ways that correct yes ok. turning attention to the the preparation of the transcripts that followed in the the ordinary process correct. so i think it followed the appropriate process in terms of making sure that it came around for clearances for accuracy but it was in a different system so that in the 2nd that relates to the storage of it you would consider some concerns mr marson articulated his concerns about. if the transcript

was leaked out and i think both you and mr marson agreed that it needed to be protected just a correction i don't think it was mr morse it was mr eisenberg. mr marson testified at his deposition ok we don't head out in front of us you can give us that we'll take a look i think in this but i could say for myself i i did there were the concerns about leaks seemed valid and i wasn't particularly critical i thought this was sensitive and was not going to question in the attorney's judgment on that and even on the codeword server you had access to it yes. so at no point in time during the course your official duties were you were you denied access to this information correct correct. as williams i want to. turn to you for a moment and you testified that you believe it transcript is complete and accurate

of the than one issue you mentioned yes that's the template substantively accurate yes. now did you express any concerns to anyone in your office about what you heard on the call my supervisor wasn't listening on the call as well so because he had heard the same information i did not feel a need to have a further conversation with him about it and you never had any concerns of anyone else in the vice president's office i did not discuss the call further with anyone in the vice president's office so you didn't like it for the chief of staff or or the vice president's counsel or anyone of that sort. again my and my immediate supervisor lieutenant general kellogg was in the room with me right after the gold did you and general kellogg ever discuss the contents of the call we did not order now in the run up to the meeting in warsaw of the vice president was meeting with president selenski september 1st in warsaw you were involved in the preparation of the vice president briefing materials. and did you flag for the vice president this

this you know parts to call that that had concerned you know we did not include the call transcript in the church briefing book we don't normally include previous calls interpret thing books so i'm just wondering if the if the concerns were so significant how come nobody on the vice president's staff at least alerted him to the issue that president selenski might be on edge about something that a mention on the 725 call again my my supervisor had been in the call with me and i ensured that the vice president had access to the transcript and in the moments on that day as we were preparing for the september meeting with president selenski the more immediate issue at hand was 2 days prior the news had broke broken about their hold on the security assistance so we were much more focused on the discussion that was likely to occur about the hold on security assistance for that meeting and your recollection you were in the meeting with president lansky and vice president of us and there isn't it didn't come up or the

bidens or any of these investigations no i did not. colonel them a new you testified that the president has well standing are longstanding concerns of our corruption in ukraine correct. i don't i don't recall but there are concerns there are broad concerns about corruption yes but you would agree that if we're if the u.s. is giving. you know hundreds of millions of dollars to a foreign nation that has a corruption problem that that's certainly something that the u.s. government officials and the president would want to be concerned about yes. and if if a foreign country has a problem with oligarchy taking money taking u.s. taxpayer dollars that's that's something that the president ought to be concerned about in advance of dispensing aid yes and i believe you did testify that the corruption is endemic in ukraine correct.

or are you also where of the president's. skepticism of foreign aid generally i am and it's something that he's made part of his priorities to make sure that u.s. foreign aid is spent wisely that is correct and you're also where the president has concerns about burden sharing among our allies yes and with respect to ukraine he was he was very interested and engaged in seeing if there is a possibility for our european allies to step up and contribute more yes i think that would be in the context of military assistance in terms of burden sharing the european union provides over $15000000000.00 ok i was provided since 2014 ok but you are aware of the president's concern of burden sharing right yes and ok turning our attention specifically to the company. ecolab the co-founder of barisan a one of ukraine's largest natural gas producers correct that is my

understanding yes and it's been subject to numerous investigations over the years. imo i'm not aware i guess i can point to specific investigations but there is a what i would call a a pattern of questionable dealings and questions about corruption. jeff ski had served as the minister of ecology during a president yannick over 10 year i came to learn that that is correct yes and are you aware and george kent testified a little bit about this last week that under the obama administration the u.s. government encouraged ukraine to investigate whether the jet ski used his government position to grant him self exploration licenses or you or. i would defer to george can't he's a founder of knowledge on ukraine much deeper knowledge than i have and if he

if he attested to that then i'd take his word for it and he says the budget the us along with the united kingdom was engaged in trying to recoup about $23000000.00 in taxpayer dollars from such ascii and the barisan entity i understand he testified that yes ok. and mr kent also testified that the investigation was moving along and then all of a sudden there was a bribe paid and the investigation went away. did you did you hear him mention that i heard him mustn't mention that these are these are events that occurred before my time so i frankly beyond what he said i don't know much more fair enough. right around the time the bride was paid to companies sought to bolster their bore are you aware that they they tap some luminaries for their corporate board certainly i learned at some point yes clued in the president of poland i believe yes and hunter biden yes i came to learn that as well and are you aware of any

specific experience hunter biden has in the ukrainian corporate governance world i don't know much about mr hunter broaden and. we talked a little bit about it at your deposition about whether mr biden was qualified to serve on this board and you know i believe you acknowledged that apparently he was not in fact qualified as far as i can tell he didn't seem to be but like i said oh i don't know his qualifications ok. ms williams i want to turn our attention to the the inaugural trip at one point the vice president and the vice president's office was focusing on attending that correct that's right and. some more complicated because he as i understand it the white house doesn't want the president and vice president to be out of the country at the same time yes that's correct and during that time frame the president was in japan and i believe it was

in japan may 24th the 28th and then he returned to europe for deep for the d.-day ceremonies june 2nd to 7 then i think i think you you told us that there was a window you provided a 4 days at the end of may if the vice president was going to attend the inauguration. it had to be 293831st or 1st and they think you've had an interest. russians with the ukrainian with with presence once he's team and as we have learned obviously the ukrainian parliament was not going to come back into session until mid may and so we wouldn't know formally what the date would be but we understood that the initial thinking was that the they were looking at dates at the end of may and so honing in on that timeframe we were aware of president transplants travel on either and and so that's why we advised the ukrainians that if vice president pence were to be able to press paid the only really available days would be made there 30th may 31st or june 1st

ok and before the vice president travels to a foreign nation in you have to send the secret service students were booked hotels on it's relatively. involved preparation experience right that's correct and did you know if the secret service ever deployed booked hotels or anything of that sort my understanding is that our advance team was looking into those preparations and including hotel availability and we were trying to determine when it would be appropriate to send out secret service and other advanced personnel in order to lay groundwork for a trip because we weren't sure yet when the day would be we hesitated to send those officials out but ultimately the secret service as i understand it did not deploy i don't believe they did not ok. and the president joins his inauguration was may 20th if i'm not mistaken yes that's correct and you had about 4 days notice in the end the ukrainian parliament decided on may 16th to set the date for may 20th

that's correct so you would acknowledge that that made it quite difficult for the vice president in the whole operation to mobilize and get over to ukraine for correct it would have been but we had already stopped the trip planning by that point and when did that happen. stopping the trip planned yeah on may 13th ok and how did you hear about that i was called by by a colleague in the chief my vice president's chief of staff's office and told to stop the trip planning ok and as i understand it it was the assistance of the chief of staff that's correct ok and so you didn't hear about it from general catalogue or the chief of staff or correct or the president or the vice president you heard about it from. mr short's assistant that's right. and did you have any any knowledge of the reasoning for stopping the truth i asked my colleague why we should stop trip planning and why the vice president would not be attending and i was informed that the president had decided the vice president would not attend the inauguration and would you.