and. so just a few moments ago when reading the white house i'm president. and made some remarks particularly obviously about the testimony of ambassador sean then we'll get back to being a bastard in a moment or so what the president had to say and yet the cameras rolling. i want to know if. that's what i want from you that's what i said i want nothing. i said it twice. so he goes. he asked me the question what do you want i keep hearing all these things what do you want he finally gets me i don't know him very well i have not spoken to him much this is not a man i know well seems like a nice guy though but i don't know him well he was with other candidates he actually supported other guys that it's not me they made like. but he's not read but now if you were fake do you cover it properly. i say the best

sitters response i want nothing i want nothing i want no quid pro quo tells journalists the president. to do the right thing so is my answer i want nothing i want nothing. i want no good bro whoa now so much to do the right thing when he says this is the final word from the president of the united states i want nothing thank you both said a good time ago and. it's clear by the tone of the energy that the president had there that he understands the gravity of this day the notes that he was looking out with quotes from ambassador us on the who is testifying we'll get you back to that in a moment there are previous tweets that the president said about the ambassador we spoke glowingly of him now saying he doesn't actually know him that well and also that quote he's referencing when the ambassador testified that the president said there was no quid pro quo when asked if he believed the president when he said that

ambassador saleh refused to characterize whether he believed that the president actually meant that in the bathrooms also testified that in fact this was a quid pro quo ukraine would not give the a without making an announcement into the biden so let's get you back now to the master to the new. sounding any alarm bell because of course had someone mentioned it i would have sat up and taken notice. everyone tara was on fire but no one decided to talk to us you know when you when you talk in your statement about in the absence of any credible explanation for the suspension of aid i later came to believe i was your speculation it was your guess on that the resumption of security aid would not occur on till there was a public statement from ukraine committing to the investigations of 2060 and i believe you said it at this point you believed everyone everyone knew uses

their correct. i think once that politico article broke it sort of making the rounds that you know if you can't get a white house meeting without the statement what makes you think you're going to get a you know 400 $1000000.00 check again that was my presumption ok but but you had no evidence to prove that correct that's correct. you stated that you haven't been able to access your your records check rect not all of them and there are a lots of notes records readouts of calls can't get to him and and but you've also stated that you don't take notes right i don't take notes but there are a lot of others out there. and. you freely admit that.

you you know when leslie and i saw your deposition we put together a list of all the time she said you can't recall it's like 2 pages off. that all so you know you don't on a lot of these questions and mean there's nuance there ambiguity and we don't have records we don't have notes and we don't have recollections correct right i mean it's it's situational things that sort of trigger memory especially when i'm you know i'm dealing with the european union i'm dealing with the 28 member countries i'm dealing with other countries that are not in the european union that are part of my mandate and dealing with the white house leadership there's a lot of stuff to juggle and as i said in my in my opening statement a phone call for me with the president the united states or the president of fill in the blank country while people who get a call like that maybe once in a lifetime a call like that might be very memorable they might remember every single thing about it i'm doing that all day long and i'm not saying it in

a way of being braggadocio or anything like that but it's part of my routine day so all of these calls these meetings with very important people tend to sort of blend together until i have someone that can show me what we discussed what the subject was then all of a sudden it comes back and we're trying to get the facts or we're trying to find out what actually happened what's reliable what's accurate bill taylor kept notes he brought a little notebook in his pocket is deposition and he held it up and he says what i meant not at my desk and on the phone i use this notebook when i'm at my desk i use a notebook george can say he wrote just innumerable memos to the file katherine crawford she testified that she didn't believe george kent's notes would be accurate one home and so. you know we have all this you know back and forth but you know as it as we get to the end here you don't have records you don't have your notes because you didn't take notes you don't have

a lot of recollections i mean this is the like the trifecta of unreliability isn't isn't that true well what i'm trying to do today is to use the limited information i have to be as forthcoming as possible with you and the rest of the committee and as these recollections have been refreshed by subsequent testimony by some texts and e-mails that i've now had access to i think i filled in a lot of blanks but a lot of it's speculation a lot of it is you're guessing we're talking about you know an impeachment of a president united states so the evidence here ought to be pretty darn good i've been very clear as to when i was presuming and i was presuming on the aid on the other things mr castro did have some texts that i read from so when it comes to those all rely on those texts because i don't have any reason to believe that those texts were you know falsely center that there are some subterfuge there they are

what they are they say what they say ok thank you sir thank you for the generous expired will now move to a 2nd staff would round. to my colleagues in the minority something along the lines of a lot of people did not make the connection between barisan and biden. i think a lot of people have real difficulty understanding that. jim morrison testified that i think it took him all of doing a google search to find out oh this is the significance of birth as much it involves the bidens. are you saying during all this time up until the call you never made the connection between arisen and the bidens you just thought that the president and rudy giuliani were interested in this one particular ukrainian company again my role mr chairman was just to get the meeting and i understand

that but my question is are you saying that for months and months and i was standing everything rudy giuliani was saying on t.v. and all the discussion of the rudy giuliani that you never put together with the bidens i didn't and i wasn't paying attention to what mr giuliani was saying on t.v. we were talking to him directly let me ask ask you this mr volcker testified yesterday to a similar approach in a for lack of a better word. this is what he said in hindsight i now understand that others saw the idea of investigating possible corruption involving the ukrainian company. as equivalent to investigating former vice president biden i saw them very different as very different form of being appropriate on a remarkable the latter being unacceptable in retrospect i should have seen that connection differently and had i done so i would have raised my own objections is

that sum up your views as well it does. now. i think you were asked a question with a with a bit of a incorrect premise by my colleagues in the minority about fiona hill saying that. referring to a drug deal between you and mr mulvaney was best for bolton who made the comment that he didn't want to be part of any drug deal that investors saw in london and mulvaney or cooking up. no one thinks they're talking about a literal drug deal here or a drug cocktail the import i think of the investors comments is quite clear that. he believe that this bargain this quid pro quo as you've described it over a meeting. the investigations to get the meeting was not something he wanted to be

a part of. what i want to shoot about is he makes reference in that drug deal to a drug deal cooked up by you and mulvaney. it's the reference to movie that i want to ask you about. you've testified in that movie was aware of this quid pro quo of this condition that the cranes had to meet that is announcing these public investigations to get the white house meeting is that right yeah a lot of people were aware of it and including about including mr valving correct. and including the secretary of state correct. now have you seen the acting chief of staff's press conference in which he acknowledged that the military aid was withheld in part because of a desire to get that 2016 investigation have talked about. i don't think i saw it

live i saw later yeah so you saw him acknowledge publicly what you have confirmed to that mr bill veiny understood that 2 plus 2 equals 4. as i write well again i didn't know that the aide was conclusively tied i was presuming he was in a position to say yes it was or no it wasn't because and he said yes it was that he said yes it was. thank you mr chairman and thank you again ambassador sun we do appreciate your efforts to refresh your recollection to the documents and we understand we share your frustration and not having the documents to help guide this investigation so we do appreciate those efforts one of the documents that you provided to us goes back to the conversation you and the chairman were having about mr mole veiny and you had been trying for some time before the july 25th call to set up that call is that

right to set up the call between president trump and president selenski yes correct yes and i want to show you the e-mail that you. referenced in your opening statement. that is a july 19th e-mail. and who who is this from. looks like it's is it from maine and it's from you i've been had from may to to the group now who is the group. people mentioned on the e-mail blair kenna mccormack mulvaney perry pompei oh and who is robert blair i believe he's a deputy chief of staff or a advisor to the chief of staff and you've already told us that lisa ken is the executive secretary for secretary pompei oh who's brian mccormack the chief of

staff for he was the chief of staff for secretary perry. and then we has we see mr mo veiny secretary perry and secretary pompei oh can you read what you wrote on july 19th so this group please. he is prepared to receive a call will assure him that he intends to run a fully transparent investigation will turn over every stone it would greatly appreciate a call prior to sunday so you can put out some media about a friendly and productive call no details prior to ukraine election on sunday so sunday was the 21st which was the date of the parliamentary elections in ukraine is that right that's right when you say we'll assure him that he intends to run a fully transparent investigation and will quote turn over every stone unquote what do you mean there i'm referring to the brewery sma and the 2016 slash d.n.c.

server investigations later that evening secretary perry responds just to you and brian mccormick saying make just confirm the call being set up for tomorrow by n.s.c. r.p. and then a little later mr mo veiny replies to all saying i asked n.s.c. to set it up for tomorrow are these the only responses that you received to this email. i don't know if i if i have them i would show them i don't i don't know no one wrote back to you and said what are you talking about in terms of these investigations and turning over every stone no there was a chain and i don't know if it's part of this email or a subsequent email where i believe embassador boll pushed back and said he did not want a call to. president selenski made by president trump until

after the parliamentary elections so that would explain why it was moved from the next day july 20th to the 25th right that's right but ambassador bolton is not on this email izzy i don't think he is now now you were asked by mr caster if there are any other key witnesses who might be able to help with our investigation and you mentioned brian mccormack right the chief of staff for secretary perry i did you are aware that the committee subpoenaed him are you not i wasn't aware of that and that he refused to come testify are you also aware that mr mo veiny was subpoenaed by the committee and refused to come testify i did read that in the newspaper yes are you also aware that robert blair was subpoenaed and refused to come testify i think i'm aware of that and that secretary perry was asked to come testify and refused i am aware of that as well so would you include them include as well as secretary pompei o is key witnesses that would be able to provide some additional information on

this on this inquiry i think they would know. the this was not the 1st time as you indicated that mr mulvaney heard about these investigations into. 2016 election is that right. i don't know what mr mulvaney heard or didn't hear i think there's been a huge amount of exaggeration over my contact with mr bill daley it was actually quite limited well he certainly ended it didn't indicate he certainly indicated a familiarity with what you were talking about in this july 19th e-mails right because i think mr maule dany was in the may 23rd. briefing with president trump i don't remember because there were people sitting behind us that were coming and going when we were sitting in front of president trump's desk ok now you've said that you don't have a recollection of of. saying referencing moving any in the july 10th meeting and

ambassador bolton's office as a writer. i don't recall. so when both fiona hill and colonel of inman testified that in response to a question from ukrainian officials at that july 10th meeting about scheduling a white house visit that you said well i spoke with mr mo veiny and it will be scheduled after they announce these investigations do you have any reason to dispute that characterization i don't have any reason to agree or dispute i just don't remember so if they both remembered it and they both then went and spoke to the n.s.c. legal advisor about it you would trust that whatever they relayed to the n.s.c. legal advisor would likely be an accurate reflection i'd i trust that they related to the n.s.c. legal advisor i don't i don't know whether i said it and i don't know which conversation again i've i've had very very limited conversations with mr mulvaney

this e-mail indicates that you spoke to president selenski and were relaying what he said to very senior officials is that right which email again are the july 1000 the mill where you say this subject is i talking to zelinsky just now i got it. was there some sort of assurance that president selenski needed to provide about what he would say to president trump in order just to get the phone call. i think that was verbal and then there were a lot of communications going around back and forth with the ukrainians and that's when someone and i don't remember who came up with the idea of a draft statement so there would be no misunderstanding about what in fact the

ukrainians would say and would be willing to say that we could rely on and negotiate something on a piece of paper so just to place you in time we're going to get to that draft statement which was in august this is july 19th before the july 25th call do you remember whether there was a need from any of the white house officials or other national security officials for president selenski to provide some assurance of what he would say to president trump before a phone call not the meeting but a phone call was scheduled there was initially apparently a condition but that condition was obviously dropped because the phone call took place and there was no such statement made the phone call took place as you said on the 25th of july when you say there was no such statement that took place what do you mean well the ukrainians never made their public statement prior to the phone

call on the 25th of july right but we're not talking about a public statement i what i was asking is whether president selenski needed to relay to you or the other american officials that he would assure president trump that he would do these investigations in a phone call that is in my e-mail i obviously had just spoken with him. and he he being selenski and he said that he was prepared to receive the call and he would make those assurances to president trump on that call and then presumably that would then lead to the white house meeting and you had been discussing this phone call for quite for several weeks now is that right yes with i think with volcker with perry with. giuliani through volcker and perry and then right after you sent this email assuring the others that he

will discuss the investigations and will turn over every stone the recent in 2016 election investigations mr mcveigh responded that he asked to set up the call for the next day is that right that's what it says now let's go to that press statement that you were discussing in august and you testified i believe that. you understood that rudy giuliani was representing the president's interests with regard to ukraine is that right that's what we all understood and when you all who do you mean we all secretary perry ambassador volcker myself in august you and ambassador volcker were coordinating with andre your mock the zelinsky 8 about a a press statement and i want to pull up of some of the text exchanges that you were referring to which as you acknowledge helps you refresh your recollection is that

right and i think taylor was involved in those initial discussions as well well he's not on any of these text messages so perhaps he was he does not remember that . but let's go to the 1st one ok. august 9th there's an exchange between ambassador volcker and you. where you are discussing setting up we'll try to bring it up in a 2nd but i'll just summarize for you you're discussing trying to set up. a white house meeting here it is. and you say to morrison ready to get dates as soon as your ma confirms mr volcker or ambassador volcker says excellent how did you sway him you said not sure i did i think potest really wants the deliverable what did you mean there the commitment to do the investigations and how did you

know that the president wanted the deliverable i don't recall i may have had a conversation with him or i may have heard it from someone else but i don't recall again without all these records going to the next exhibit exhibit 10 where are all these tents rather this is between you and andre your mock. what did you say initially in this exchange a low goodbye propose a no that's your mark how is your conversation and mr your mouth response hello good my proposal we receive date and then we make general statement with discussed things once we have a date we'll call for a press briefing announcing upcoming visit and outlining vision for the reboot of us ukraine relationship including among other things but a recent election meddling in investigations and you respond got it that was your understanding of what the statement had to say to satisfy mr giuliani is that right

yes and then ultimately to satisfy the potest deliverable yes now the next day you wrote an email. to alric brock bull and lisa kenna. are you able to see that on your i can see it on screen yeah ok what is the the subject of the email. and can you read. what you wrote there mike and i'm referring to secretary pump ayos kurt and i negotiated a statement from selenski to be delivered for our review in a day or 2 the contents will hopefully make the boss happy enough to authorize an invitation selenski plans to have a big presser on the openness subject including specifics next week and in your opening statement you said that the specifics pref retro what are the pacific's

represent the 2016 in the very small and when you say the boss who do you mean by that president trump and the invitation is what. to the white house meeting and lisa kenner responds gordon passed to s. and s. as secretary pump a 0 correct thank you lisa now. 2 days later. you have a text exchange with ambassador volker again. and this is at the end of it but they think the earlier text which we don't have here you may recall includes the press statement the revised press statement that includes very small and the 2016 election is a do you recall that yes if i could see it that would be helpful but yes. so but you also really remembered that after your conversation with mr giuliani you did pass along

a statement to the ukrainians that included but recently on the 2016 election is that right i think there were statements being passed back and forth between volcker. the ukrainians and others to try and negotiate acceptable language and ultimately that statement was not issued was it correct and the white house meeting is not still hasn't occurred in occurred but you certainly understood at that time did you not that it was the president's direction and instruction that a white house meeting with president selenski would not occur until president selenski announced publicly the investigations that the president wanted right that's correct and you now know that the press investigations the president wanted or as an investigation into the bidens an investigation into the 2016 election i know that now yes i want to move ahead to august 22nd

and you wrote an e-mail to secretary pump aoe directly to secretary pompei o c seeing lisa khanna with the subject of selenski and could you please read what you wrote to secretary pump aoe. mike should we block time in warsaw for a short side for posters to meet selenski i would ask selenski to look him in the eye and tell him that once ukraine's new justice folks are in place mid september selenski should be able to move forward publicly and with confidence on those issues of importance to potest and to the u.s. hopefully that will break the logjam. and secretary pump a response to you 3 minutes later yes now i want to unpack this a little bit. you said that in the middle. once you crain's new

justice folks are in place what did you mean by that the new prosecutor that was going to be working for president selenski the old prosecutor i believe his term was up or he was being let go he was the portion prosecutor and as a lenski wanted to wait until his person was in place so once that new prosecutor was in place then see president selenski should be able to move forward publicly and with confidence on those issues of importance to posts what did you mean by those issues of importance to posts again the 2016 election and recent investigation were you aware at this time that secretary pompei o had listened in to the july 25th phone call i was not if he had do you believe that he would fully understand what the issues of importance to potest related to ukraine would be i mean i can't characterize his state of mind he listened in on

the phone call and he concluded what he concluded but now that you've read the phone call it's quite clear what the issues of importance to potest are yes by an investigation yes a 1016 election investigation is that right that's correct that it says hopefully that will break the log jam now by this point you were aware that security assistance had been on hold for about 5 weeks is that right i became aware on the 18th of july and you understood that there was a lot of activity within the state department and elsewhere to try to get that holds lifted is that right that's right just about everybody in in the inner agency meaning the national security apparatus wanted to lift the hold and wanted the aid to go to ukraine correct. so what did you mean here when you said logjam well as i said to chairmanship if. i meant inclusively anything that was holding up moving forward on the meeting and. ukraine the u.s.

relationship and what was holding that up at that point it was the statements. about barry smile on the 2016 election but what was being held up well the aide was being held up obviously 4 days later you said in your opening statement that you sent rudy giuliani's contact information to john bolton is that right i did do you know why he asked for that no idea did you know that he was going to ukraine the next day i knew he was about to go to ukraine i didn't know exactly when his trip was but i thought it was kind of an odd request given that the white house can pretty much get anyone's phone number they want now in this e-mail to secretary pump a you reppert reference a trip to warsaw ultimately the vice president went on that trip that's correct and that was the conversation that you talked about where you just you testified earlier to that where you said that we really need to get these investigations from

ukraine in order to release the 8 in the 3 meeting that's right and vice president pence just not it he heard what i said and didn't respond in any way i don't recall any substantive response. but you were you never specifically referenced biden's or very small in that meeting did you i don't remember ever mentioning the bidens i may have mentioned. and that meeting was with a group you were not alone with vice president pets that's right. and you know that at that bilateral meeting with president selenski i believe you testified earlier that vice president pence did not mention these investigations at all right. i don't recall him mentioning the investigations so that your testimony is just simply in a pre meeting with a group of americans before the bilateral meeting you referenced the fact that

ukraine needed to do these investigations in order to lift the aid i read i think i referenced i didn't say that ukraine had to do the investigations i think i said that we heard from mr giuliani that that was the case so that helps to inform your presumption correct correct so it wasn't really a presumption you heard from mr giuliani well i didn't hear from mr giuliani about the 8 i heard about the aris money 2016 and you understood at that point as we discussed 2 plus 2 equals 4 that the aid was there as well that was the problem mr gold and no one told me directly that the aid was tied to anything i was presuming it was right well i want to go ahead to want to go back on september 1st or i'm going to jump actually ahead to to september 7th. when we discussed those text messages where you said there were

multiple convos with president selenski and poetess you recall that do you have the e-mail by any chance we could try to pull it up in a 2nd but you don't remember i showed it to yeah this go ahead though with your question and you can you confirm that that likely meant as you said it did that you spoke with president trump is that right again if my e-mail said i spoke with president trump presumably i did you you are relying pretty heavily on your testimony on the texts and e-mails that you were able to review is that right that's right so certainly if someone else had contemporaneous texts e-mails or notes you would presume that what they were saying was accurate is that correct well if they had texts or e-mails i would if they had notes i don't know some people's notes are great some people's aren't i don't know. but certainly it would be a helpful refresher to anyone's memory including my own.