i was aware of the danger of scene friends wounded while working on mine so i wasn't scared to lose an arm or a leg is to sacrifice we have to mike to say that this country. this is al-jazeera. for the bad people this is the news hour live from our headquarters in doha our top story this hour testimony from more witnesses in the beach many inquiry into donald trump's former u.s. envoy kurt volker says he should have realized why trump was holding up aid to ukraine. 2 witnesses who listened in on trump's july phone conversation with ukraine's president described his comments as improper and unusual. is

improper for the president of the united states to demand a foreign government investigate a u.s. citizen and a political opponent. it's 2300 hours g.m.t. 6 pm in washington d.c. on a packed day in the impeachment inquiry into president donald trump for officials have been testifying before the u.s. house intelligence committee 2 of them who listened in on july 25th phone call with the ukrainian president said is commons during the call were unusual and improper donald trump is accused of withholding aid to ukraine to pressure it into investigating his political rival joe biden now there's been a short break in the proceedings just a few moments ago former u.s. special envoy to ukraine kurt volker and the former national security council official tim morrison were testifying and the due to resume to. to find in just

a few minutes let's bring in our own fisher in washington d.c. who's been of course following all this for us alan let's start with the highlights of the day what were the big moments from the hearings today what did we learn from the different testimonies. i think the. man who gave evidence this morning he was a particularly strong witness he is an army veteran injured in combat in village earned 2004 wears the purple star on his uniform and he said that when he listened to the call and he is the senior ukrainian expert on the national security council he was so concerned about what the president was saying that he was looking for an investigation into a political rival that he immediately went to a white house lawyer to report as concerns the republicans tried to say that he didn't follow the chain of command but that's a pretty weak argument they also tried to discredit him because of telling kunle vet meant it was actually born in ukraine he was brought to the united states as

a toddler but as a say he said in the army as did his brothers as well and he attacked those who were attacking him saying that the reason he's in the united states was because he wanted to do right and that is why he came forward to give his evidence that jennifer williams also gave evidence she is an advisor to vice president mike pence she was also on that call in july and she said she'd been on many calls between the president and other heads of state and she thought it was very odd so she also reported it to senior people now in the afternoon we had 2 witnesses who were called by the republicans and they didn't quite work out the way that the republicans i think were hoping one of the main talking points of the republicans of course have been pushing is that whatever joe biden was doing in ukraine and whatever his son was doing deserved to be investigated and kurt volker who is the special representative to ukraine or was the special representative said they had known joe biden for 24 years and he thought that the allegations against him

without merit he didn't think that he was the sort of man who would use his position to push any sort of personal victory a personal gain particularly when it came to money and then from $10.00 morrison it's a senior national security. agency advisor he also said that 1st of all he didn't think that donald trump said anything wrong in the phone call but then he said he took steps immediately to move it on to a private server and his concern was that other people might read it now of course the question would be and i don't think anyone democrats as there is but if there was anything wrong with it why on earth would you move it to a private server so they're really the highlights but this is what it boils down to it's not going to move anyone the republicans who believe that dalton did nothing wrong and this is a witch hunt will continue to believe don't trump did nothing wrong in this is a witch hunt the democrats who believe that donald trump has done something worth impeaching believe that don't trump has done something worth impeaching there still

needs to be the big bombshell piece of evidence and i don't think it's coming from either volcker or morris in the next couple of hours while the proceedings have. on and let's go back and listen in to the testing on this in the past right so yes ok so that's that doesn't really move the needle whether it's current or past in terms of the subject of the. things that happened in the 1st you also talked a little bit about the meeting that you had on july 26th with president selenski and ambassador sandlin. is that right. on the 26th. and he has been reading with presidents alinsky yes. and i believe you testified that the topic of investigations did not come up at all as i write yeah i don't recall them coming up just the general phone call you did you didn't take notes of that call of that meeting right i did not because you had their staffers there to do that correct and so if there are 2 staffers who have who

took notes of that meeting and testified that the subject of either sensitive topics or investigations came up are we better off taking their word for it than yours i have no reason to doubt their notes if they were notes taken contemporaneously at the meeting. another witness testified before us laura cooper about a meeting that she had with you on july and august 20th do you recall having that meeting with her because you didn't mention it in your your decided i did mention that i had been making the rounds to weigh in on lifting the hold on securities instance to do that with all of the interagency players. and she recalled with some specificity that meeting which i believe was also based on her notes that you described the statement that you were trying to get president selenski to make to and i'll quote what she said disavow interference in u.s.

elections and commit to the prosecution of individuals involved in election interference and if he were to agree to do that she testified then you thought that it might help to lift the whole zone security assistance is that your recollection of the conversation as well not exactly and so how does yours differ i recall talking about the statement that we had discussed earlier the one that had been in this the subject of these exchanges between mr yarmuk and myself and myself was a master solon and rudy giuliani and then back to my disgust that this is an effort we are doing that this could be helpful and. getting a reset of the thinking of the president the negative view of ukraine that he had and if we did that i thought that would also be helpful in a long unblocking whatever hole there was on security assistance that if there is this negative presumption about ukraine getting this stuff on track would be helpful or it was so that's a different interpretation but you don't doubt that what she testified is is

inaccurate do you i believe she accurately reflected what she understood from the conversation. you testified a little bit about the june 28th conference call that you had with ambassador sunline of us or taylor. i'm not sure if deputy secretary 10 was on the line and secretary perry before you looked in president selenski am i right about the participants of that it was perry secretary perry not on it yeah i am pretty sure the deputy assistant secretary ken was not on it. i don't remember whether secretary perry was on it and i don't remember whether i stayed on for presents lewinsky joining the call or not. were there ever calls were there any staff members or no takers on the call i don't believe so why. we were having a call among ourselves to talk about what were the messages we thought we needed to convey. and at that point we've had other testimony from people who did take notes

that there was a discussion about the investigations or what do you know what you needed to do what the president selenski needed to do in order to get the white house meeting do you recall that i recall seeing that in a master taylor's testimony i believe there may have even been a text message to that effect and to again it comes down to what are we talking about in terms of these investigations because what i certainly understood as we're talking about ukraine looking into inviting corruption internally and being convincing about this is presenting the new president and the new team as a change in ukraine well you understood that the investigations were recently on the 2016 election right yes ok and you interpreted those to be you would target of those to be ok because in theory they were looking into ukrainians right ok but we can agree can we not that the investigations all the investigations that we're talking about here today we're in the 2016 election. correct ok now and what you

then amended your testimony today to say is that in retrospect if you did not realize that the purpose for mr giuliani and president trump to want the investigation was to for political benefits in digging up dirt or met or getting some information on vice president biden that's what you learned subsequently right it's correct that i learned about the president's interest in investigating vice president biden from the phone call transcript came much much later from giuliani i didn't know that he was actively pursuing this i did know that he raised this with me directly and i had pushed back on it. well you knew that embassador sonnen was pursuing this at the july 10th meeting when he raised these investigations himself again he didn't specify. biden he didn't specify but recently as i recall either i understood it to be

a generic comment and something again not appropriate for that meeting right. i understand but. biden wasn't mentioned but you do agree that when investigations are referenced in this context it is very recent in the 2016 election oh yes that's what i understand right and on that july 10th call when ambassador sandlin raised the investigations he did that in response to a question from the ukrainians about the white house meeting isn't that right can you repeat the question i didn't catch them when about you said that ambassador sandlin mentioned specific investigations at the july 10th meeting in ambassador his office and you said that you thought that was inappropriate yes. didn't he make that comment in response to a question from the ukrainian officials about when they could schedule the white house meeting that i'm not sure about i remember the meeting essentially already being over and then investors on bringing that up and in the july 2nd or 3rd

meeting in toronto that you had with president selenski you also mentioned investigations to him you know i thought and again you were referring to the hurry i was thinking 26 days been 2016 ok and you understood that that's what the ukrainians interpreted references to investigations to be related to barry sma and the 2016 election i don't know specifically that time if we had talked that specifically varies between 16 with president hu that was my assumption though that they would have been thinking that now mr morrison. what did you have that conversation with fiona hill about. and the parallel track involving ambassador parallel process rather involving ambassador sun lynn and rudy giuliani do you recall we had a number of and off discussions between 1 july and 50 july. so. in that period of time you were certainly aware of this effort to promote this but

recent investigation that ambassador sunline and rudy giuliani were were going about or at least you had heard about it from dr hill i had heard about it on dr hill ok i want to pull up another excerpt from a recent wall street journal article that quotes an e-mail on from july 13th that ambassador sunland sent to you and he wrote to you quote sole purpose is for selenski to give poetess assurances of new sheriff in town corruption and corruption ending unbundling moving forward and any hampered investigations will be allowed to move forward transparently and you responded tracking what did you understand ambassador sun to mean when he wrote to you any hampered investigations will be allowed to move forward transparently i don't know that i had any understanding these are. i 30 males i wasn't even in the c.e.o.'s.

i knew that among the head of state meetings we were tending to schedule was one between the president and presidents wednesday right i meant but it but it was before this that dr hill had told you about an ambassador sonnen in particular his desire for this parallel process to investigate a recent right yes so you had that association when you received his is e-mail asking you about investigations correct not necessarily no no why not because. and ambassador among the discussions i had with dr hill or about ambassadors on one i think he might have a point at the gordon problem and i decided to keep track of what ambassador solomon was doing i didn't necessarily always act on

things gordon suggested that he believed were important so he wanted to get a meeting i understood that the president won to to do and had agreed to a meeting and so i was working i was tracking that we needed to schedule a meeting you were not endorsing the notion of president selenski sending a message about investigations is that your testimony that is my testimony. ambassador volcker i want to jump ahead. you after the. aid was released you went to the yes conference right in in ukraine and. thank you. are you aware that ambassador taylor. who testified based on quite detailed notes indicated that. earlier a few days before that ambassador sonnen had told him that president trump is

a businessman and so before he writes a check he likes to see people pay up something to that effect or you're aware of that i am familiar with that testimony and you're also familiar that ambassador taylor said that you said something very similar to him when you were in ukraine for the u.s. conference do you recall saying that to ambassador yes i do i was repeating what gordon's online had said to me to explain to bill taylor what that understanding was and in what context it ambassador sandlin said that to you. i think we were talking about the release of the hold on security assistance and he was saying that the president has he sees he's already you know got a negative view of ukraine he sees a check on his desk that's going to the ukrainians not sure about them so he wants to hold onto it until he's short right and the pay up before he writes the check is

to get the investigations that he wants is not right that was not clear to me what did you think it meant i didn't think that there was a pay up as he said as we said the language was similar i had heard from gordon that he sees this czech is not sure he wants it he wants to make sure that he's got a deal with the ukrainians i didn't know specifically other than this is the generic formulation show you'll back 15 minutes to recommend one and as parliamentary inquiry mr chair do you expect any more of these magical 15 minute. motions that you come up with in the back. i don't know magical they are there prescribed by a house resolution 660 that we can have successive rounds of up to 45 minutes so this is part of the prescribe procedure under the house resolution do you expect you're going to have more this evening are you i do not do not expect more will be necessary thank the gentleman so for everyone watching this is another

example of how out of control this process has become where the democrats just magically give themselves additional minutes which they're right in the little special role that they wrote they can do but you'd at least think that they'd have the decency to just tell us that you're going to have 15 minutes more and i would say that you can go for hours we can go 5 hours we'll give you all you want you can keep digging if you want the deeper the hole you dig and the more viewers will turn off because people just aren't buying the drug deal that you guys are trying to sell i would add that since we are getting into prime time. these are 2 witnesses that were your witnesses that you called in to depose the we still ask for witnesses that you did not depose including the whistleblower who you and others claim not to know which we still need to get to bottom of that because it is

the most important tiriel fact witness to how this whole mess began in the 1st place. secondly we've asked for the d.n.c. operatives that were working with ukrainians to dig up dirt for what you call or what the left calls conspiracy theories which they are right their conspiracy theories of dirt that they dug up to spend their own conspiracy theories to attack the trump campaign in the 2016 election so i have no more questions for these witnesses i know our members do mr castro you have a little bit of cleanup here thank you mr innes i'll try to be quick can yield some time back so we don't have to use every last minute presser vocal you are of a statement just last week from foreign minister priest i go out the he said that no one ever told the ukrainians certainly not him that there is any linkage between the security assistance funds and investigations i saw that statement yes and do

you know the foreign minister i do and during time is relevant did you ever have any discussions with him about the investigations and link this is not about investigations with him i believe i kept that discussion to being with mr yemen and we did discuss with the foreign minister priest ica that the time use diplomatic advisor security assistance after it was raised after august 29th and i discussed that with him. the primary person you work with his wrist or your mac. yes. and mr you are mark also had some meetings with her sandland did he ever give you did mr yarmulke give you any feedback from his interactions with ambassadors on lindt i can't say whether he did or didn't do we were in frequent contact and we were just talking about the issues as as we went along the. episode at warsaw were apparently ambassadors on one pull done mr yarmulke side did did he give you mr yarmuth give you

a any feedback on that meeting i did not get any things specific after that this was around i believe september 1st or 2nd and it was at that time that i had been think texted by mr yeah mark and subsequent touch with him and dica where i told them both and also the defense minister i told them all don't worry we know about this we're trying to fix it and i think i left the conversation at that and there's ukrainian officials the best your knowledge they trusted you very much so we had a very close relationship and so when you made statements like that to them do you think they believe you i think they believe me i think they would also have other conversations and they would hear things from other people but i also think that they knew i was sincere with them and they also trusted ambassador taylor yes. just like the demystify a little bit of the whole. mayor giuliani role here you met with him i believe one

time that's correct and you had some exchange some text messages with him correct yes between i guess was the 10th of july and the around the 13th of august and during your deposition we sort of had an accounting of your communications with mr giuliani and it wasn't that there weren't that many we we sort of accounted for the mall and then ambassador simon when he came in he didn't have. you know he didn't have any one on one meetings with mayor giuliani to your knowledge is that correct i don't believe he did but i don't know and fact i think about your son one testified that there were a couple conference calls that you know he may have been on with you that is true ok. he just getting back to the. irregular channels that vassar taylor quine. in his deposition testimony. did you ever have an opportunity to sort of close the loop

with him about any concerns whatsoever or was it all just these specific instances raised in the text it's only those specific instances do you think ambassador taylor in your communications with him believe that mr giuliani was in far greater communication with yourself secretary perry and ambassador simon i don't know what he thought ok that's all i have mr nunez. i have nothing more with the gentleman allow us to use our magic minutes to yield to one of our members would like to go house rules don't permit that mr innes we'll that will now go to 5 minutes member questions recognize myself for 5 minutes. i want to ask you about something in your opening statement. with respect to the july 10th meeting you testified participated in the july 10th meeting between nationals criticizer bolden and then ukrainian chairman of the national security

and friends council like stan the uk as i remember the meeting was essentially over when a baster son made a generic comment about investigations i think all of us thought it was inappropriate the conversation did not continue and the meeting concluded. volcker we asked about that meeting during your deposition and you told us nothing about this i believe we asked you about. why the meeting came to an end then why you had earlier indicated i think to master taylor that it did not go well and your answer was that dan lyric was in the weeds on national security policy. why didn't you tell us about this because that's what i remembered from the meeting what i what i provided in my tobar 3rd statement as i said i learned other things including seeing the statements from alex finn and from fiona hill and that reminded me that yes at the very end of that meeting as it was recounted in colonel

women statement i did remember that that yes that's right gordon did bring that up and that was it so at the time we depose you and i think we were there for $67.00 or 8 hours and we were asking you specifically about what you knew about these investigations you didn't remember the gordon sunland had brought this up in the july 10th meeting with ukrainians and ambassador bolton called an end to the meeting and vaster bolton described that meeting as some drug deal that a samana mulvaney cooked up you had no recollection of that so in terms of gordon bringing it up no i did not remember that at the time of my october 3rd testimony i read the account by alex and that jogged my memory is that yes that's right that did happen i do not still to this point we call it being an abrupt end to the meeting of the meeting was essentially over and we got up we went out to the little

circle in front of the white house we took a photograph it did not strike me as abrupt. the rest of ochre you said in your in testimony today i think all of us thought it was inappropriate now if as you say. ambassador simon only mentioned investigations in the bolton meeting and you don't recall hearing him being more specific although others have testified that he was in the wardroom. why did you think it was inappropriate i thought it was something. but if this were something of an eye roll moment where you you have a meeting you're trying to advance the substance of the bilateral relationship we have a head of the national security and defense council it was a disappointing meeting because i don't think that the ukrainians got as much out of that in terms of their presentation as they could have and then this comes up at the very end of the meetings like this is this is not what we should be talking but a master you've said that you think it was appropriate to ask the ukrainians to do

investigations of 2016 and bryza as long as barisan a didn't mean the bidens something you have now i think. i understand you should have seen otherwise but nonetheless if it was appropriate why are you saying today that all of us thought it was inappropriate because it was not the place or the time to bring up that this was a meeting between a national security advisor and the net chairman of the national security defense council 1st high level meeting were having between ukraine and united states after presence alinsky selection is part of the reason was inappropriate also that was brought up in the context of trying to get the white house meeting. possibly although i don't recall that being i know this was. the council's question i don't remember the exact context of when that came up i viewed the meeting as essentially having ended. i think you said in your updated testimony that.

you do think it's inappropriate and objectionable to seek to get a foreign government to investigate a political rival my right to investigate vice president united states or someone who is a u.s. official i don't think we should be asking foreign governments to do that i would also say that's true of a political rival and you and you recognized when you got the call record when you finally did see the call record that's what took place in that call correct that's correct mr morrison mr volcker thinks it's inappropriate to ask foreign head of state to investigate a u.s. person let alone a political rival but you said you had no concern with that you think that's appropriate as a hypothetical matter i do not i'm not talking about hypothetical matter read the transcript. in that transcript does the president not ask so lenski to look into

the biden's stream and i can only tell you what i was thinking at the time that is not what i understood the president to be doing but nonetheless this was the 1st and only time where you went from listening to a presidential call directly to the national security lawyers and not yes that's correct and i think you said that your concern was not that it was unlawful but that it might leak is that right that is correct now the problem that leaking is that what would be leaking is a president asking a foreign head of state to investigate mr biden isn't that the problem i've i believe i stated i had sort of 3 concerns about what the impact of a cold leaking might be of it was a perfect call would you had a concern of it leaking you know well you know i would still have a concern about it we could. and

would you thought it was appropriate if president trump had asked selenski to investigate john case ik or to investigate and see pelosi or to investigate. the best of all could be appropriate in those are the federal cases you know on a program where you're not sure about joe biden sir again i can always speak to what i understood at the time and why i acted the way i did at the time finally my colleagues asked about well it doesn't aid get held up for all kinds of reasons and not for volker have you ever seen military aid held up because a president wanted his rival investigated no i've not seen that we've ever seen a mr williams mr morris and i'm sorry your german. i yield to the ranking member

so you took good 2 additional minutes are you giving our side 7 minutes of course i recognize mr turner. thank you ambassador some orson good to see you again i appreciate your service to your country in your service in government our country is safer today because of the work of both of you men i want you to know that during all the testimony that we've had no one has ever alleged that either of you have done anything an inappropriate or improper improper and everyone has spoken of both of you as having a high level of professionalism and a high degree of ethical standards and best of all core appreciated in your opening statement your comments of your work to focus on russia as an invasion of ukraine and occupation and your work on legal defense of arms that would include the javelins would it not and best of all yes that's right and that made a big difference the ukraine did not have a very big difference is more some would you speak to tell us about your military

service. as mr turner i'm a. us naval reserve officer. i mean intelligence officer and where did you go to law school george washington university. german there's been a lot of talk about a lot of people and we had to pick up the pace here because these are like short periods of time that we have now for this portions of questions a lot of people actually about their perceptions their beliefs their feelings even what they heard and their understanding's and their thoughts. on bass or taylor mr kent investor you want to bitch and lieutenant provender men all had conversations with each other and with other people and i'll have a whole bunch of hearsay and i can assure you this boils down to just one thing this is an impeachment inquiry concerning the president of the united states so the only thing that matters besides all these people talking to each other and all their feelings and all of their thoughts and understanding it really comes down to what did the president of the united states intend and what did he say and what did

the ukrainians understand or hear yes or volcker you're one of the 1st people that we've had in these open public testimony that's had conversations with both so i get to ask you. you had a meeting with the president and states in you believe that the policy issues that he raised concerning your crane were valid correct yes the president had states ever say to you that he was not going to allow aid the united states to go to the ukraine unless there were investigations into breeze ma the bidens or the 2016 elections no he did not did the ukrainians ever tell you that they understood that they would not get a meeting with the president states a phone call with the president states military aid or foreign aid from the united states unless they undertook investigations of barry's money the bidens of the 26 you want to know they did not know pretty much about as a vulgar you just like took apart their entire case i mean if the president i'd say does not believe or intended and the ukrainians don't understand it. and your the

only one who actually stands in between them now i can haskett best of all you're the 3 amigos thing or whatever that they're trying to disparage you with your not part of a regular channel right ambassador volker are you the official channel that is correct explain that explain how your the official channel and not in your regular so i was appointed by the secretary of state secretary tillerson in july of 2017 to be the u.s. special representative for ukraine negotiations that's a role that's different from assistant secretary of state or different from a bassett or in ukraine that role is particularly focused on the diplomatic activities surrounding the efforts to reverse russia's invasion and occupation of ukraine it is minsk agreement implementation it is the normandy process with france and germany it is support from nato it is support for sanctions from the european union it's the o.s.c. in the monitoring missions it is the will efforts of individual allies like poland

like the u.k. like canada that are supporting ukraine it is work at a senior level in the inner agency with secretary ridge who are prone to cut you off there. are also one of the few. people who had actually spoken to giuliani the so-called a regular channel again all these other people had feelings that understanding about what giuliani was doing did giuliani ever tell you that united states aid or a meeting with president i'd states would not occur for the ukrainians until they agreed to an investigation of the reason the bidens of the $26.00 election everything i heard from giuliani i took to be his opinion excellent is not so i would assume and that the ukrainians never told you that giuliani had told them that in order to get a meeting with the president a phone call with the president military are or of foreign aid from the united states they would have to do these investigations no ok mr morsi and you testified

that you spoke to ambassador sun one and he told you of a conversation that he had with the pres the united states. on page $128.00 of his testimony he relates the content of a conversation that he had with the president and he was asked about it is the only one he relates and he said in your comment and he said. i did he was asked whether or not there was a quid pro quo he said i didn't frame the question basically to the president that way as a link i did not frame the question that way i asked the open ended question what do you want to see mr sun learn in his testimony asking this question to the president states and this is what he reports at the present night states he said i want nothing i don't want to give them anything i don't want anything from them i want zelinsky to do the right thing that's what he and he kept repeating no quid pro quo over and over again mr morton do you have any reason to believe that mr sandlin is not telling the truth as the content of his conversation with the president states now congressman now do either of you have any information or

evidence that anyone who has testified before this committee either in the secret dungeon testimonies that have been released or in these open testimonies has perjured themselves or has lied to this committee i have no reason to think that more than. mr morrison lieutenant colonel then women reported to you is are correct you did sir now you you have a legal background he said that he listened to the phone call before which you said you'd solve nothing that had occurred illegally and he said that he believed the president states demanded to president zelinsky that these investigations move forward do you believe because he only was telling us his opinion do you believe in your opinion that the president states demanded the presence olinsky undertake these investigations those are. to both of you. ukraine is an aspirant to the e.u. ambassador sunline is the ambassador to the e.u.

is the ukraine in the ambassador's portfolio the best of ochre yes also because the e.u. sanctions on ukraine are incredibly important morrison uyghurs are you but the stripes are you mr chairman thank you gentlemen for your testimony today. president trump has described his july 25th phone call with president selenski is as quote perfect and i think he's done that on twitter not once not twice but by my count 11 times it feels to me like this characterization of perfect is of a piece with the idea that we hear in defense of the president's request to the ukrainians. the dutch just the normal course of business pursuing anti-corruption and i've been concerned from the start that this is actually not about going after corruption it is in fact about aiming corruption at the vice president.

mr morse and you listened in on the call in the white house situation room did you hear the president mention the company crowd strike and the server i believe so yes or did you hear president trump mention the bidens yes or did you hear president trump in the length of the phone call used the word corruption there was. i don't believe you did was the request that ukraine investigate crowd strike and the bidens consistent with what you understood to be official u.s. policy towards combating corruption in ukraine for was the 1st i heard of much of this in fact in your deposition you testified that you wanted to stay away from what you described as this quote bucket of investigations why did you want to stay

away from those issues that was what i was advised by dr hill. you also testified that the president's call was not night quoting you here the full throated endorsement of the ukraine reform agenda that i was hoping to hear what did you mean by that sir what we. self and women others what we prepared in the package we provided the president was background on presidents alinsky background on his positions about reforming ukraine reforming its institutions to rooting out corruption we were hoping we recommended the president. very clearly support would present alinsky had run on his own election and what his servant of the people party had run on in its election where it received a majority mandate but that didn't come up in the called it was or do you are you aware of any other discussion in which the president actually raised those things

with the with with the new ukrainian president corruption reform yes sir it's been some time since i refresh myself on the discussion that took place at the un general assembly so i hesitate to say did he ever raise it but he did not raise it at the time of the 25 july phone call ok i'm switching gears a little bit you you strike me as a as a process guy. and i it's nagging at me because you characterized the ambassador sandland linking in whatever way it happened of. aid to. to an investigation as the gordon problem you said it caused you to roll your eyes and besser volcker said it was everybody in the july 10th meeting thought it was inappropriate john bolton characterizes this as the drug deal so seems like everybody in the room understands that there's a huge problem here. my understanding is that it would be normal course of business when you have an ambassador out there going rogue as apparently there was consensus

and basters on than was doing that either the national security adviser john bolton or the secretary of state might rein them in why didn't that happen there i can't speak to that but i would generally agree about souter's or for the secretary of state and the president do you have you don't have any idea you were for me don't have any idea why john bolton would characterize what ambassador or the ambassador was doing as a drug deal but not rein him in ambassadors don't work for the national security adviser now that john bolton's national security advisor you presumably spends time with the secretary of state i'm just puzzled that everybody in the room is you know characterizing this as the gordon problem or inappropriate or a drug deal and no and the secretary of state does nothing storms are was are question well you know i just don't have any you don't have any insight into that those are the best of all where you testified that you were troubled once you read the record of the president's july 25th call you testified quote that asking the

president of ukraine to work together with the attorney general to look into this you can see as it now has happened this becomes explosive in our domestic politics and in your new testimony you call this unacceptable what specifically in that call to the ukraine president do you find unacceptable or troubling it is the reference to vice president biden thank you i yield back the balance of my time this conaway . they were sharing that this morning we heard much about put january 25th call in which president for a favor at least in lieutenant colonel vince mind that was the equivalent to a demand and order or requirement and yet in the bad last part of the conversation between the 2 heads of state present trump talks about a particular he particular in favor of and like to see stay there and still is he though says its president no says we've won the absolute majority in our parliament the next prosecutor general be 100 percent my person my candidate is that to either

one of you does that sound like a head of state who's been cowed or bullied and is under the thumb of the president i said not at all those are. the impact of those the pause that occurred 55 day pause in the lethal systems or the security assistance none of us really understood exactly what happened during that time frame no one knew about it other than internal us folks until late august so the russians would not as still have known about it the potential impact and i agree with on russia's interpretation of our support for ukraine wasn't known until those last 14 days but the impact on the lethal aid that they already had should russia had tried to move the line of of up contact further west with their tanks would with the lethal assistance that we've already given been available to them to push back on that yes they would miss morton comes through i grew up but i would also add the hold as i understood it

applied to ukraine security assistance you what you asked me you a.s.i. and f m f it did not apply to f.m.s. and the javelins were provided under f.m.s. ok so the most lethal weapon that present trump provided to the your craniums that president obama and his public is national policy which he said was available to them should the russians have pushed their tanks west the japanese yes or i threw out that process even with the pause even with all the stuff that was going on yes or ok. so she had press is reporting that. you know president best vocal you missed it earlier that russians an act of war took 2 gunships and it tugged at 24 sailors last november and yet the russians have now given the twins were sailors back in september and associated press is reporting today that the given got to give the gunboats in the tug but does that sound like a ukraine is it's inept at being able to go shit with the russians because of their

wounded in some way by our actions. no i would i would not say that the ukrainians are an apt thank you sir. chairman i would like is a personal request request that you and or one of your lawyer members on the committee the lawyers to put into the record the federal statute that provides for the absolute immunity a right to immunity that you ex started over and over and over i don't think is there but if it is in fact federal statute and or a brief that you can cite put that in the record so that we all know that and before you get mad and and accuse me want to out the whistleblower you get upset every time somebody accuses you personally of going to the us moreas i get upset every time you an image of me and him and every time you accuse me of simply because i want to know the whistleblower we want to know what's going on that we want to out that it of your that's unfair for you to make that accusation and i

could just as mad this is about leveling the playing field between our 2 teams your team knows a whistleblower they have intimate knowledge of who he or she has the high g.i.c. as i.c.i. gitsham even mention it to see your biases your team fully understands that our team should fully understand that it's simply leveling the playing field and i know that you vote overrun my by request for a closed door subpoena understand that but i do think that it's important that you put in the record the basis on which you continue to assert this absolute. right to anonymity speech misspoke misspoke earlier anonymity other whistle also the. speaker on jenna september 23rd issue they do calling it's a document that we all use to talk to each other it's going to $434.00 other members of congress it was intended to be the truth that was attended to be straightforward she says in that colleague that the whistleblower has by law is required to testify to the house and senate and the senate intelligence committees

now you're defining the set the speaker in this regard i understand that's between you and her but if she's correct and your divine the speaker the divine the law if on the other hand she misled us into sinking something that was not true then i think you need to tell the speaker that she needs to retract that your colleague a letter at least set the record straight as is the speaker is that this whistleblower required by law as a speaker said to testify to us or not and and what is his absolute right to anonymity that that you question but that you know back. time of the gentleman has expired i'm happy to enter into the record the whistleblower statute allows which would remain anonymous as well as a ranking member known as park comments talking about the importance of anonymity for whistleblowers and with that i recognize its civil thank you mr chairman ambassador volcker and its aims by early july it's become pretty clear that mr giuliani has become a major problem for the u.s.

ukraine relations you previously testified that on july 2nd you met with the ukrainian president and his aide in and toronto is that right. had a bilateral meeting between the u.s. and ukraine delegations and then a polish side meeting with the president and his chief of staff there you discuss mr giuliani's quote negative view quote of ukraine based on a conspiracy theory about the 2016 election and i conveyed that he was repeating a negative narrative about ukraine based on accusations of the van prosecutor general but sanka are you saying that you didn't think that. they were negative views you know that they were negative views ok but that wasn't your that wasn't your description. i'm sorry about was the question if you could reply i was trying to get at who's who said the negative views. that you just negative so the

prosecutor general of ukraine was putting out this series of conspiracy theories that i believe are self-serving and inaccurate but mr giuliani had repeated these to me so i believe that he was at least affected by those believe those and was concerned about i believe that they were negative believe that they were negative on him and was conveying them to the president so was it problematic that he believed they were negative views. yes the whole thing was problematic ambassador taylor testify that on july 2nd you told ukrainians that they needed to quote cooperate on investigations in quote you're now saying that you don't recall that saying those words i don't believe i said the words cooperate on investigations did you say investigations i believe i did yes and what did you mean by investigation i meant breeze meant 2016 was in my mind but i wanted to keep it general and that ukrainian kit being convincing to giuliani and hopefully also to the president that

they are serious about fighting corruption would engage in whatever investigations necessary to clean up the country now moving to july 10th ambassador volker sent you a text message you sent a text message to giuliani and i think it's on the it's on the screen now and you said mr mayor could we meet for coffee or lunch in the next week or so i'd like to update you on my conversations about ukraine i'd like i think we have an opportunity to get what you need i did you say that is that accurate is it accurate text message and what did you mean by what you need contact with the actual government of ukraine the people who are now representing presents let's get his team later that day u.n. ambassador sunderland met with crane officials at the white house we heard from several witnesses that ambassador sunderland told the ukraine that they needed to cooperate with the quote unquote investigations in order to get the oval office

meeting that scheduled on the books were these investigations are part of the official u.s. policy towards ukraine. u.s. policy toward ukraine was about fighting corruption in ukraine but was it is a peculiar about these kinds of investigation you said the investigation was barisan ok in order to fight corruption you need to conduct investigations you need to see where ukrainian citizens have been up to and doing what was that americus of that or was it over was it because the president no you knew that what the president wanted those investigations to be done as a condition of for them to actually have a meeting with the with the and the white house in the white house well the 1st off we have to be clear what we're talking about in terms of us to geisha is we're not talking about vice president biden we're not talking about some of the charisma doesn't is not that has nothing to do with you're saying that i'm saying that

whether ukrainians within the company of various mo had acted in a corrupt way or sought to buy influence that's a legitimate thing for ukraine to investigate and if you crane can make a statement about their intentions on fighting corruption domestically that is helpful in order to convince president in the lead that this is how to respond. we heard from 2 witnesses this morning that those investigations were not official u.s. policy ambassador volcker i don't know if you understand what you were getting yourself into but sitting here today i trust you understand that pressuring ukraine to involve itself in u.s. domestic policy is just simply wrong i yield back the balance of my time to turn you'll my time jim jordan i think the gentleman ambassador volker your you were the special representative to ukraine is that right that is correct and prior to that your diplomatic service you worked at the n.s.c. your deputy assistant secretary of state you are a bastard

a nato senate confirmed ambassador to nato in your distinguished diplomatic career so it may not bother you when you're referred to as the irregular channel but it bothers representative turner bothers me. you were the special envoy to ukraine and in that role you said in your opening statement you were the administration's most outspoken public figure highlighting russia's invasion and occupation of ukraine and calling out russia's responsibility in the war is that right that is correct and in that capacity you strongly advocated for lifting the ban on sale of lethal defensive arms to ukraine is that right and is correct and president trump did it did me and is correct but in spite of that president trump was still skeptical of given harder tax dollars to ukraine right yes he said that in your testimony as well the reason is skeptical is let's be honest to god and like foreign aid right that's one reason and then ukraine's history of corruption is another one of the 3rd most corrupt countries on the planet and europe isn't doing enough and oh by

the way in the president's mind he did think ukraine was trying to influence the 2016 election because things happened and democrats want to deny it but when the bastard from ukraine here the united states writes an op ed on august 4th 2016 criticizing then candidate trump that certainly trying to influence the election when mr evocative name a key minister in their government says all kinds of negative things about canada trump that certainly looks like it's trying to influence the election and when mr le shingo states in the financial times during the campaign the majority of the crane and political figures want hillary clinton to win that probably * sticks in the candidates mind i know we all run campaigns where people say bad things about us in the course of the campaign we don't necessarily necessarily think great things about them but you were convinced zelinsky was the real deal right that is correct because you spent a lot of time with the guy and guess what when he was frozen you knew if you could get these 2 guys together and work out when aid was frozen what did you say you told the ukrainians go worry about it where you can say you said don't be alarmed

you know write a script and guess what happened by the time aids when aids frozen and when it's released all kinds of interactions between. presidents alinsky and senior u.s. officials write starts with the call starts with a call with president trump and presents alinsky the next day you meet with presidents linsky in ukraine then we have a master bold meeting with theme then we have vice president pens meet with theme then we have u.s. senators johnson and murphy meet with him and guess what in none of those meetings not a single one security assistance dollars in exchange for an investigation not once did they come up to that event did that conversation come up is that right i described not once no discussion of aid for investigations and as you testified you never believe a fair investigation was ever being talked about either in any of these conversations that is correct but what happened in those meetings they all became

convinced of the same thing you knew they all solve the same darn thing this guy was the real deal he is a legitimate reformer and they all came back they all came back and told the president mr president this guy's real go ahead release the dollars oh by the way in that same time frame you know what else happened their parliament their newly elected parliament as mr morrison testified 2 stayed up all night to pass the reform measures to get rid of the prosecutor to put in the supreme high end to corruption court to get rid of this this this this disability this that that that no one in their congress and their parliament could ever be hit with a crime i mean that's on believe all that happens and they come back and tell president trump hey guess what time to release the dollars and he did it right the dollars were released yet you did your job you did your job and you got to put up

with all this because the democrats are out to get this president you did your job just the way mr turton described you did your job over all these years. all these years the democrats put you through this you have served our country well the kind of the kind of diplomat we want to serve and here's the here's the here's the saddest one of the saddest things about all this that what the democrats are putting us through you 2 guys who are here telling it straight you both decide are you going to step out of government because of what these guys are doing and that's the sad thing people like ambassador volcker and to morsi who have served our country so well are now stepping out of our government because of what these guys are doing now that's why mr turner got so fired up a few minutes ago i'm so fired up too because we appreciate we appreciate what you guys did i yield back carson thank you chairmanship ambassador booker want to focus on the press statement that president trump and rudy giuliani wanted ukraine to make announce announcing investigations

have been to president trump on august 9th ambassador of stalin and you had this exchange ambassador silencers morrison really to get dates as soon as your mouth confirms you reply excellent how did you sway him and ambassador silence says not sure i did i think potence really wants livable deliverable here was a public announcement that ukraine was going to conduct investigations into borís and alleged 2016 election interference by ukraine is that correct or thank you i understood the deliverable to be the statement that we have been talking about. and all this 13th u.n. ambassador solomon discussed a draft statement from ukraine with mr giuliani sir why did you discuss the dress statement with mr giuliani because the idea the statement had come up from mr earmarks meeting with mr giuliani remember that mr aramark asked me to connect him

with mr giuliani i did they had a meeting and then they both called me afterwards as to join on he said that he thought ukraine should make a statement about fighting corruption mr yarmuk said and we will say also specifically barry's $12016.00 mr jama provided me a draft statement and i wanted to it is midnight's g.m.t. 7 pm in washington d.c. you know watching our coverage of the impeachment hearings more witnesses have been questioned about whether donald trump abused his presidential powers when he held that military aid to ukraine and asked its leader to investigate political rival joe biden the former u.s. special envoy to ukraine kurt volker testified that he didn't knowingly take part in efforts to investigate biden but admitted he should have realized what was going on area white house ukraine expert no 10 in colonel alexander vinda men smoked.