gratian came in that went through all of that is correct. the. delegation to president selenski inauguration in may. leave you testified it was one of the largest delegations i believe it was i can't be 100 percent sure you watching i was there or were listening to the impeachment inquiry into president trump which seeks just tabish whether president improperly tried to pressure ukraine's president dyleski to investigate one of his main democratic challenges joe biden but the 2020 lection hearing from key witnesses today to morrison a former national security council official who listened in on a phone call between trump and the ukrainian president and ambassador volcker you see there on your screen as a former u.s. special envoy to ukraine who is closely involved in negotiations with the ukrainian officials would you claim he was out of the noob in terms of any linkage between the security aide and any potential investigation into joe biden and his family

let's listen back in i don't and mr marson do you have any information as to why the vice president was unable to participate in the delegation no. besar volcker you testified during your deposition that it in fact does get held up from time to time for a whole assortment of reasons is that i wrote that is true and sometimes the hold ups are rooted in something you know and being sometimes is it the defense department sometimes just at the state department sometimes on the hill correct that is correct. and so when the aide was held up for 55 days. for ukraine it didn't in and of itself strike you as uncommon you know it's something that had happened in my career in the past had seen all ups of assistance i just assumed it was part of the decision making process somebody had an objection

and we had to overcome it and in fact. there were concerns that you know perhaps president selenski wasn't going to be the reformer that he campaigned on that that was a supposition that i made because of the meeting with the president on may 23rd i thought that could be what's behind it and in fact the aid was lifted shortly after he was able to convene a parliament i believe he. let me get the date straight i believe yes he was able to convene the parliament around the 1st of september and i believe the aid was released on the 11th of september and when he was able to convene a parliament he was able to push through a number of anti-corruption initiatives that began with the parliament seated on that day was a 24 hour session but then 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 or you stated it was about as good as you'd want them to be. can you repeat the question i'm sorry you testified in your deposition that once the hate was lifted despite all the things going on in the background that u.s. ukrainian relations were stronger is guess yes. and you referenced that the security sector assistance was lifted you know any hold on that there was a positive meeting in new york that's correct. and there was momentum and putting pressure on the russians 2nd or is correct. in your deposition you made it clear that president trump had a deep rooted negative view in ukraine and their corruption environment yes and you 1st became aware of his views back in september 2017 that is correct to tell us

a little bit about that yes in september of 2017 i was invited by secretary tillerson to do a pretty brief with president trump before his meeting with president poroshenko on the margins of the u.n. general assembly i did the pre-breathe and then i took part in the bilateral meeting and so long before presidents once he was elected president trump out had a negative view of yes he had a very strongly negative view back in 2017 did you remember anything he said or did that give you a feeling that he had these negative views. yes i want to be very careful here because this was a bilateral meeting between the 2 presidents that i want to stray into classified material but i can tell you my impression was that he had a very strongly negative view of ukraine at the time fair enough and you described the. president skepticism major 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's lansky was a genuine reformer that he was not. running for office for self enrichment that he was indeed. a good person that's correct. during the may 2023rd meeting with president in the oval office q could you just relate to us the concerns the president articulated about ukraine yes the president came into the meeting and immediately started speaking he had. a just a string of comments that ukraine is a terrible place they're all corrupt they're 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. try to explain the present selenski 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 that's why it's important that we actually show him very strong support now but the president was not convinced and he said that zelinsky is no different that he has terrible people around them you know it's not what i hear about ukraine what we're telling him. you know here that you know if nothing is changed talk to rudy that that kind of dialogue as i described and when the president said that. the ukrainians tried to take him down did you any idea what he was referring to i did i believe that he was referring to the read the rumors of efforts to interfere in the 2016 election by providing damaging information about the president or about paul manna for it 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 believe that right. i believe you is concerned about it i don't know what he actually believed but did the he brought it up. and mr marson. you were also aware of the president's schedule view of foreign aid generally yes and that there was a initiative that he was looking at foreign aid pretty broadly yes and trying to scrutinize to make sure the u.s. taxpayers are getting their money's 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 to bear the exclusive

brunt of security assistance to ukraine he wanted to see the europeans step up and contribute more security assistance and was there any interagency activity whether it be with the state department of the defense department and 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's events concerns the interagency tried to address them yes. and by late august we just discussed with the investor volcker that a new route was seated and did that give possibly some hope that president's own ski would be able to push through some of these reforms yes. and did you hope during this time period during this 55 days where the aid was positive that potentially selenski would be able to demonstrate his bonnet you know bona fides

and. would subsequently be able to. you know get the president to lift the aid yes in fact you. traveled with embassador bolton to the ukraine right around labor day weekend correct yes and you met with president selenski on i believe was obviously 2029th and as a bold and had a meeting with a presence on ski and i staff that meeting and that's right around the time when the rada had met and they had started to push through their reforms as i recall the meeting the date of the meeting between a basser bolton and presidents he was actually the 1st day of the new rada and. some of these reforms included naming a new prosecutor general a new prosecutor general a brand new cabinet yes and they pushed through some legislation that eliminated

immunity for rada members eliminating a parliamentary immunity and i believe you did you provided some color into this experience this meeting and you said that the ukrainians had been up all night working on some of these legislative initiatives yes the the current ins with whom we met or by all appearances exhausted from the pace of activity and was ambassador bolton encouraged by the activity yes he was and was the meeting altogether favorable quite. and at that point time after the meeting bassett or bolton did did he head off to work saw with the vice president or did he just. i know you went to work so well we had a few stops between ukraine and poland but yes besar bolton proceeded to warsaw where we were expecting. to ensure everything was staged properly for the president's arrival and did you have an opportunity to brief the vice president on

i did not read about your bolton he did and what would he remember from what ambassador bolton shared with the vice president about the meeting so i buy was not there. the issue i remember most starkly was ambassador bolton was quite annoyed that ambassador sawmilling crashed the previous ok but the ambassador had everything he needed to ensure that the either the from the president or the vice president were well prepared did you brief embassador bolton before he had an opportunity to meet with the vice president i didn't need to why was that and that's what was there ok. but but as far as you know ambassador bolton communicated to the vice president that. the goings on in ukraine were more positive that's my understanding with president lansky and at this time investor bolton was advocating for the lifting of the the aid he had been for some time yes.

and did you participate in the in the works on 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 any met with president ski and i participated in both meetings and what i remember from the meeting with president selenski. it seemed very it seemed very positive very more what was the message i mean president lewinsky rade raised the issue of the aid correct yes and what how did the vice president respond he be represented his support for the aid he represented to you the strong commitment of the united states to ukraine and he explained that president trump because this is after the politico article had come out that that made clear there was a hold he explained that what we were doing was the united states government the the inner agency was examining what more europe could do in the security space and. taking

a look at how ukraine was reforming. what what had has been a history of corruption and was there any discussion during the meeting with president selenski on the part of vice the vice president about any of these investigations we've come to talk about now so there is my wasn't raised you know 2016 election wasn't raised no and the vice president didn't mention any investigations at all that he now. you mentioned the august 28th politico article was that the 1st time that you believe the ukrainians may have. had a real sense that the aide was on hold yes so from the 55 day period spanning july 18th through september 11th it didn't really become public until august 28th that's correct about taylor and eyes had

a number of phone calls where are we in fact talked about duty crane's know yet because we both felt very strongly it was important that we ensure that the president was able to make the decision to release the aid before the ukrainians ever found out about it and. ambassador volker is that is also your your recollection yes it is it wasn't until the politico article that that's correct i received a text message from one of my ukraine counterparts on august 29th forwarding that article and that's the 1st they raised it with me and can you share a little bit with us about your communications during that time period about the hold of the 8 yes i didn't have any communications with the ukrainians about the hold on aid until after they raised it with me for the same reason that 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 was aware of that on july 18th it

was referenced at an interagency meeting and 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 good you know it's a process and i wanted to make sure that all the arguments were marshalled to get it lifted and so i spoke with the pentagon with more cooper i spoke with secretary of paul miller fares at the state department who was going to represent the state department at the next higher level meeting i believe i spoke with officials and european bureau with the national security council staff. so i was actively trying to convey that this needed to be lifted and i wanted them to be able to use my name in doing so because i felt that 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 part of the whole of the 8 no i do not. backtracking just a little bit on july 3rd you met in toronto with president alinsky and there's been some. you know him better tailor and mr kant provided some testimony that they had some apprehension that the part of this year irregular channel that taylor referenced would rear its head in toronto and i'm just wondering if you can tell us. whether that in fact happened yes thank you. i can only tell you what what i know and there may have been other conversations or other things but i know that we had a conversation bill taylor and i believe gordon salma and i around the 28th of june that later connected to a believe a conversation with president alinsky 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 of president trump on may 23rd he signed a letter inviting presence on ski to the white house on may 29th and for several weeks we were just temporizing with the ukrainians saying well we're working on it it's a scheduling issue you know we'll get there don't worry and i told bill and gordon the that i was going to see presence on skin toronto and i feel an obligation to tell him the truth that we have a problem here we're not getting a date scheduled here's what i think the problem is it's the negative information flow from mary giuliani and that he would i read it also that i would advise him that he should call president trump personally because he needed to renewed 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 i did all of that with presence alinsky in

a public side after our formal bilateral meeting ok and during that meeting in toronto where the series of meetings there was no discussion of preconditions investigations of anything no that's or no. and you were there with mr can't. yes i believe so and did you ever have any discussions with him about preconditions or investigations not at that time i think later on these things came up about the when we were talking about a statement whether there were investigations but i believe at this time in toronto it was really more you referring to investigations generically that that is how you go about fighting corruption and the presence alinsky should reaffirm his commitment to president trump in a direct phone call ok and it any point time did it mr didn't raise any concerns to you about any of us not at that time. next event i want to cover is the

july 10th meeting in about it or bolton's office. talked a little bit about this morning i don't know if you caught the coverage but. there was testimony that at some point brass or someone mentioned investigations and reported leave it the meeting ended abruptly what can you tell us about that in fact thank you and let me answer that question 1st i'd like to come back to your prior question for a 2nd to if i may but on the july 10th meeting this was a meeting that we had arranged between alex to 1000000 who is the head of the national security and fence council and the national security adviser bolton. attending the meeting was also secretary perry besser saul and myself i believe fiona hill and also andre yarmuk. the purpose was really a counterpart to visit. i thought that this would be the best opportunity as the

1st high level meeting that we are having in washington with a senior u.s. official to bester bolton after presidents alinsky inauguration i thought to be a great opportunity for the ukrainians to make their case that they are the new team in town real deal about fighting corruption i was rather disappointed with the meeting. as it transpired it struck me as down in the weeds talking about reform of national security structures in ukraine and legislation that they were working on and not the big picture and not the bilateral relationship so i was a bit disappointed by that. at the at the end of the meeting i do recall having seen some of the other testimony that i believe investors all in did raise the point of the investigations and generic way this was after the meeting was already wrapping up and i think all of us thought it was inappropriate and the conversation did not. pick up from there it was

a the meeting was over we all went outside and we had a picture taken in front of the the white house and then. all of us except investor bolton went down to the wardroom to talk through follow up. how do we follow up on this meeting to keep the momentum in the relationship and i think we broke up into several small groups. i remember having a conversation with secretary perry and one of his assistants about energy reform as part of that i don't recall other conversations following up on investigations over recent. and. the best of your knowledge there certainly was no precondition discussed right. no no again the the the issue of the security systems was one where i. thought that this was really related to a a general negative view about ukraine there was nothing specific ever communicated

to me about it or the reasons why i was held and we certainly didn't want to talk about it with ukrainians we wanted to fix it ok and then a. couple weeks later the july 25th call happened and you were headed to ukraine during that time period yes i was actually already on my way to ukraine i think 2 days prior to that and you received readouts both from the u.s. side and the ukrainian side to tell us about that yes so i was not on the phone call i had arrived in ukraine and i had had that lunch with mr yamaka that we saw on the day of the phone call i had been pushing for the phone call because i thought it was important to renewed the personal connection between the 2 leaders and to congratulate president linsky on the parliamentary election. the readout that i received from mr yamaka then also from the u.s. side although i'm not exactly sure who it was from on the u.s. side but there was a u.s. any ukrainian readout were largely the same that it was a good call it was

a congratulatory phone call for the president when in the parliamentary election of president lewinsky did reiterate his commitment to reform inviting corruption in ukraine and president trump did reiterate his invitation to present selenski to come visit him visit him in the white house that's exactly what i thought the phone call would be so i was not surprised at getting that as the readout and did you ever have any discussions with ambassador taylor about this at that time we were we were together in ukraine at that time we went the very next day to visit the conflict zone and i'm sure he heard the same readout that i did and you had a meeting with president hu on ski on the 26th. yes we had a meeting the day after of the phone call on the 26 in the morning before heading out to the conflicts or any of these concerning our minutes that some witnesses have raised about the call raised in the meeting with president no the only the very bare bones readout that i had received that was also that how it was discussed

in the meeting with present selenski so to the extent there's been assertions that . president selenski was concerned about demands president trump had made i don't recall that you don't recall that i do not recall the words i don't recall i mean turn that around and say he was very positive about the phone call ok i don't recall him saying anything about demands but he was very upbeat about the fact of the call and there was no discussion on the part of president lansky on how to navigate the various. i don't recall that you know concerns that people of articulated about the call and i don't remember that and mr zeldin asked you in the deposition that it in no way shape or form any other readouts from the united states or ukraine did you receive any indication whatsoever or anything that resembles a quid pro quo is that correct that's correct and the same would would go for this new. allegation of bribery i've only seen an allegation of bribery in the

last week it's the same common set of facts it's just instead of quid pro quo now it's robbery i was never involved in anything that i considered to be bribery at all ok or extortion or extortion on. ms castor may i may i address 2 specific points worse. one is reminded that the meeting with ambassador bolton and mr didier took place on july 10th and i did not become aware of the hold on security assistance until july 18th ok that is another reason why that did not come out ok and at that point time you didn't know that the potential pause in the security assistance was was brewing i did not know i heard about it for the 1st time on the 18th ok 2nd observation absolutely i do remember having seen some of the testimony of mr kent a conversation in which he had asked me about the conspiracy theories that were out

there in ukraine i don't remember what the date of this conversation was and my view was well if there are things like that then why not investigate them. i don't believe that there's anything to them if there is 2016 election interference is what i was thinking of we would want to know about that but i didn't really there was believe there's anything there to begin with you testified in your deposition to the extent the ukrainians were going to investigate other ukrainians for wrongdoing that was perfectly appropriate earmarked that is has been u.s. policy for years so if certain ukrainians involved with the company. if i got i think is the only. plausible thing to look at there as i said i don't find it plausible or credible the vice president biden would have been influenced in his duties but whether individual ukrainians in this is idea that we know ukraine has been for decades we're trying to act in a corrupt

a way or to buy a point that's possible deputy assistant secretary can't last wednesday told us about. you know there was an investigation into barisan trying to recoup millions of dollars taxpayer dollars and ukrainians were pursuing an investigation there was a bribe pate. are you tracking that i was aware of those kinds of things like i couldn't give you those kinds of details i just know that there was a reputation around the company ok and subsequent to the those facts and the bribes being paid the bridge in a company wanted to improve their image and added some folks to their board including the president of poland including 100 biden you familiar with that that's what i understand and to the extent the ukrainians the folks affiliated with terrorism i wanted to hire those people for their board for protection purposes so they could continue to engage in misdeeds if that was

a fact worth investigating you certainly would be supportive of ukrainians trying to get to the bottom of that correct why i can't speculate as to any of the specifics of what was motivating various moer not. ukrainian government authorities investigating possible corruption by ukrainian citizens is a perfectly appropriate thing for them to do. mr morris and i want to. turn our attention back to the july 25th call you were in the room. did anything concern you on the call. no. and after that the call ended you like colonel than men. one of your next steps was to engage the n.s.c. lawyers and your reasons for doing that were slightly different then colonel than men's. and you articulated 33 concerns.

and do you want to share them with us or would you would you rather i do it so i think articulate 2 concerns of i'm forgetting one please remind me of the 2 concerns i had war one i did not see representatives of as illegal on the call and so i wanted to make sure that the we got visor and his deputy were aware of the call and i was also concerned about. taking steps to protect the meme caught on limits disclosure for fear of. the consequences of it leaking. and you were concerned about it leaking for because you were worried about how it would play out in washington's polarized political environment correct yes and you were also worried how how that would lead to the bipartisan support here in congress of. towards ukraine right yes and you were also concerned that it

might affect the ukrainians perception. negatively yes and in fact all 3 of those things have have played out haven't they yes you. you didn't ask the lawyers to put it on the codeword system correct. you're watching out here at 2230 g.m.t. it listening to the top republican lawyer on the house intelligence committee questioning timothy morrison a former top national security council official he was listening in on the phone call between trump and the ukrainian president which is at the heart of this impeachment inquiry he was asked just now didn't think concern you on the cole and he said no but he had reported it to the noise because he was concerned about aspects of it leaking we've also been listening also to the questioning of kurt volker the former special envoy to ukraine who said that he did not know of a linkage between trumps. between the aid security aid and an

investigation potential investigation into the democrats let's resume that listening into that impeachment inquiry and i did not understand why i spoke with the n.s.c. executive secretary its staff ask them why and they did their research and then for me it had been moved to the higher cost occasions system at the direction of john eisenberg whom i then asked why i mean that's that was the judgment he made that's not necessary mind a question but i didn't understand it and he essentially told me i gave no such direction he did his own inquiry and he represented back to me that it was his understanding was it is a kind of administrative error that when he also gave direction to restrict access executive secretary staff understood that as. an apprehension that there was something. in the content of the member that could not exist on the lower cost efficient system so yes your knowledge is no malicious intent in moving the

transcript to the compartment is are correct and to your knowledge anybody on the n.s.c. staff that needed access to the transcript for their official duties always was able to access and correct. people that had a need to know and a need to access it once it was moved to the compartment system yes ok. the con. of the july 25th call was in your experience prepared normally yes that there isn't a exact transcription of what's said on the call correct correct that there's no takers in the situation room and then they prepare a draft and it circulated among all relevant parties essentially yes and. you had responsibility for courtenay edits yes we look at the

the. short handled a transcript at the memorandum of conversation. and we ensure that that transcription is as close to accurate as possible given our requirements of the presidential records act ok and. colonel inman testified that he thought it was very accurate he did you as well i viewed it as complete and accurate ok. front of him and did articulate that he he had a couple edits he wanted barisan or inserted i think it was on page 3 or 4. in place of the company in one of the sections where presidents alinsky was talking you were that edit request i understand that he said in either this proceeding or the deposition that that he wanted that request yes ok at the time did you understand that he had asked for that i don't recall that it was my practice if if it had it was if i.