zlochevsky. >> who are the folks that he added to the board? >> the most prominent was the president of poland. >> anyone else? >> a number of others, including some americans around and the most prominent in this context is hunter biden. >> okay. so hunter biden is added to the board of burisma, and do you believe that is creating a problem that burisma may be adding people to the board for protection purposes? >> sir, i work for the federal government and not the corporate sector, and soy believe that the companies build their boards with a variety of reasons, and not only to promote their business plans. >> was hunter biden a corporate governance expert? >> i have no idea what hunter biden studied or what the cv says. >> is he the germaje jeremy son of ukraine? >> i have no idea what the experience is. >> you don't know if he had prior experience prior to joining the board? >> i don't know. >> do you know if he speaks ukrainian? >> i do not know. >> do you know if he possesses any other element other than being the son of the time of the sit

tto the prosecutors, and zlochevsky was let off the hook. this was in 2014. is this something you're familiar with? >> i've heard about it. this was before my arrival. i would just say my understanding -- please correct me if i'm wrong -- is that the u.s. money that you are referring to was the money that we used to fund an fbi team that was embedded with the prosecutor general's office to go after -- not to go after, but to do the investigation of burisma and zlochevsky. >> mr. kent testified that this bribe was paid, that prosecution went away, and essentially nothing has been forever done with regard to burisma. during your tenure in ukraine, has there ever been any focus on re-examining allegations to mark it's at burisma or other powerful interests, like zlochevsky, re-examining? >> is not on the part of the ukrainian government, is that what you're talking about? >> yeah, trying to lean on the various prosecutors general to clean up the oligarchical syst system. >> yes, i think there have been some efforts. as i mentioned earlier in my testimony, the u.

zlochevsky zlochevsky >>> this is cnn breaking news. >> welcome to our viewers from the united statesom" and we are covering extraordinary news that may lead to impeachment of president trump. two leaders giving testimony about political security opponents using security aid and white house leverage and new information. saying the president cared more about the investigation of joe biden than ukraine. sometimes seizing on all of this as they argue the president abused

and i don't believe burisma, zlochevsky should be immune from scrutiny just because joe biden is running for president. and if it is not illegal, it should be illegal. and never again in this country should we have a son of a sitting vice president based solely on their name without any energy experience being paid from a corrupt company with an open corruption investigation into it. so on the substance, i say bring it on. release the darn transcripts and do it today. [applause] ms. cheney: now, i would like to ask the republican leader of the judiciary committee to join us, mr. collins. mr. collins: thank you, everyone. what you have heard so far is very true. but as i sat on the floor today, what you saw on the house was a dark cloud falling on this democracy and what is happening here. and mr. mcgovern had the audacity to say all the republicans want to argue about process and not about substance. i think our leadership team and others have said today that is not true, but also let me say something to mr. mcgovern, process leads to substance. when you screw up the process then are loo

government encouraged ukraine to investigate whether zlochevsky used his government position to grant himself or burisma exploration licenses? are you aware of that? >> i would defer to george kent. he's a font of knowledge on ukraine, much deeper knowledge than i have. and if he had attested to that, i would take his word for it. >> he testified that the the u.s. along with the united kingdom was prying to recoup money from burisma? >> i i understand he testified to that, yes. >> and mr. kent also testified that the investigation was moving along and then all of a sudden there was a bribe paid. and the investigation went away? did you hear him mention that? >> i heard him mention that. these are events that occurred before my time. so i frankly beyond what he said, i don't know much more. >> fair enough. >> right around the time the bribe was paid, the company sought to bolster their board. are you aware that they tapped some luminaries for their corporate board? >> certainly i learned that at some point, yes. >> including the president of poland, i believe? >> yes. >> and hunter bid

zlochevsky. castor: mr. kent testified that this -- this bribe was paid, the prosecution went away and you know, essentially nothing has been, you know, further done with regards to burisma. is -- you know, during your tenure in ukraine, has -- has there ever been any focus on -- on re-examining allegations, whether it's of burisma or other powerful interests like -- like zlochevsky, re-examining it? yovanovitch: is that on the part of the ukrainian government, is that... castor: yeah. yovanovitch: ...what you're talking about? castor: trying to lean on the -- on the various prosecutors general to clean up the oligarchical system? yovanovitch: i think, yes. there have been some -- some efforts. and as i mentioned earlier in my testimony, the u.s. was welcoming of mr. lutsenko's nomination to the position of prosecutor general because we were hoping he would clean that up. that, in fact, is not what happened. and because -- you know, it's kind of hard to explain to a u.s. audience, but in ukraine,

and so i think that, going back to your question about burisma and zlochevsky. my understanding, this is as i told you earlier in the previous deposition, this did not loom large when i arrived. i arrived in 2016, august 2016, over time my extend it was about, that the case was basically sort of on a pause. that it wasn't an active case but also was not fully closed. and that is the way as i mentioned before, for those empowered to keep a little login to burisma and mr. zlochevsky. >> right about the time the bribe was paid, burisma undertook an effort to spruce up their board. are you from a with that? >> i don't exactly know what the tonic of all this was. >> okay. >> but yes, i mean come to the elements. >> one of the folks added to the board was hunter biden, which raises questions, is he a genius on the corporate governance front? is he a genius with the ukrainian oligarchical systems and cleaned that up, or was he just added to the board because he's vice president son? was that ever a concern or at least the perception of that concern addressed? >> as i i

and so i think that, going back to your question about burisma and zlochevsky. my understanding, this is as i told you earlier in the previous deposition, this did not loom large when i arrived. i arrived in 2016, august 2016, over time my extend it was about, that the case was basically sort of on a pause. that it wasn't an active case but also was not fully closed. and that is the way as i mentioned before, for those empowered to keep a little login to burisma and mr. zlochevsky. >> right about the time the bribe was paid, burisma undertook an effort to spruce up their board. are you from a with that? >> i don't exactly know what the tonic of all this was. >> okay. >> but yes, i mean come to the elements. >> one of the folks added to the board was hunter biden, which raises questions, is he a genius on the corporate governance front? is he a genius with the ukrainian oligarchical systems and cleaned that up, or was he just added to the board because he's vice president son? was that ever a concern or at least the perception of that concern addressed? >> as i i

>> that is a stolen eight that were in the name of the owner zlochevs zlochevsky. the one we believed had stole be the money. >> the first case. this was the first case the u.s., uk and ukraine investigators worked on, was against the owner of barisma? >> that's correct. >> this was during the obama administration? >> that's correct. so. >> so for the millions of americans viewing, against the owner barisma was under president obama's administration? >> that's correct. >> you testified also "we spent roughly half a million dollars of state department money in support of the fbi and this investigation to build capacity and track down stolen eight." >> correct. launched in may 2014 by the attorney general of the u.s. and uk in conjunction with the world bank. >> and, in fact, by 2016 you were so concerned about corruption questions related to barisma that when in was an effort by barisma to sponsor an essay contest with u.s. aid you asked usaid to stop it? >> krects. >> testified because barisma had a poor reputation in the business and that you didn't think it was a

zlochevsky had been terminated, based on our belief that prosecutors had accepted bribes to close the case. later, i became aware that hunter biden was on the board of burisma. soon after that, in a briefing call with the national security staff in the office of the vice president, in february 2015, i raised my concern that hunter biden's status as a board member could create the perception of a conflict of interest. let me be clear, however, i did not witness any efforts by any u.s. official to shield burisma from scrutiny. in fact, i and other u.s. officials consistently advocated reinstituting a scuttled investigation of zlochevsky, burisma's founder, as well as holding the corrupt prosecutors who closed the case to account. over the course of 2018 and 2019, i became increasingly aware of an effort by rudy giuliani and others, including his associates lev parnas and igor fruman, to run a campaign to smear ambassador yovanovitch and other officials at the u.s. embassy in kiev. the chief agitators on the ukrainian side of this effort were some of those same corrupt former prosecutors

in september of 2015 then ambassador to ukraine geoffrey pyatt called for an investigation into zlochevsky, the president of burisma. this was the ambassador appointed by president obama in ukraine. >> i wasn't aware of that, no. >> you were not aware of it. >> no. >> so you would not be the first one to be mentioning that investigations should be done on burisma because it happened during the obama administration. did you know that financial records show burisma routed more than $3 million to the american accounts tied to hunter biden? >> i did not know that. >> did you know that burisma's american lawyers tried to secure a meeting with the new state prosecutor the same day as predecessor viktor shokin who the vice president wanted fired was announced? >> i did not know that. >> well, we're not going to the answer to many of the questions because the witnesses who need to clarify what the democrats were doing in 2016, we're not going to be able to visit with those witnesses. and so it's an inconvenient truth that the democrats don't want to admit their operatives that were dirtying up the

officials consistently advocated reinstituting a subtle investigation of zlochevsky, burisma's founderl as holding the crud prosecutors to close the case into account. over the course of 2018 and 2019 i became increasingly aware of an effort by rudy giuliani and others, including his associates to run a campaign to smear ambassador yovanovitch and other officials of the u.s. and embassy in kiev. the cheese you can ambassadors on the u.s. out of this effort were some of those same corrupt prosecutors i'd encountered. they are now peddling false information in order t to to extract revenge against those who would expose their misconduct including u.s. diplomats come ukrainian anticorruption officials and civil society groups in ukraine. during the late spring and summer of 2019 i became alarmed as those efforts bore fruit. they lead to the ouster of investors are jovanovich and hampered u.s. efforts to establish rapport with the new zelensky administration in ukraine. in late august it became obvious that giuliani's investigation were now affecting u.s. investigation with ukraine leverag

with the united kingdom was engaged in trying to recoup about $23 million in taxpayer dollars from zlochevskynd he testified that. >> and mr. kent also testified that the investigation was moving along, and all of a sudden there was a bribe paid. and the investigation went away. did you hear him mention that? >> i heard him mention that. these are events that occurred before my time, so frankly, beyond what he said, i don't know much more. >> fair enough. >> right around the time the bribe was paid, the company sought to bolster their board. are you aware that they tapped some luminaries for their corporate board? >> certainly, i learned that at some point, yes. >> including the president of poland, i believe? >> yes. >> and hunter biden? >> yes, i came to learn that as well. >> are you aware of any specific experience hunter biden has in the ukrainian corporate government world? >> i don't know much about mr. hunter biden. >> and we talked a little bit about, at your deposition, about whether mr. biden was qualified to serve on this board. and, you know, i believe you acknowledged that appar

you know that in september of 2015 then ambassador to ukraine called for an investigation into zlochevsky, the president of the burisma. the ukrainian ambassador appointed by president obama in ukraine. >> i wasn't aware of that, no. >> you weren't aware of that. >> no. >> you wouldn't be the first one to be mentioning that investigations should be done on burisma because it happened during the obama administration. did you know that financial records show burisma routed more than $3 million to the american accounts tied to hunter biden? >> i did not know that. >> did you know that burisma's american lawyers tried to secure a meeting with the new state prosecutor the same day his predecessor, victor shokin, who the vice president wanted fired, was announced? >> did not know that. >> we're not going to get to the answer to many of these questions because the witnesses that need to come in and clarify exactly what the democrats were doing in 2016, we're not going to be able to visit with those witnesses and so oats an inconvenient truth that the democrats don't want to admit their operative

septemberthat 2015 then ambassador to ukraine, geoffrey pyatt publicly called for an investigation into zlochevsky, the president of burisma? this was the ukrainian ambassador appointed by president obama in ukraine. ambassador sondland: i wasn't aware of that, no. ranking member nunes: you were not aware of it. ambassador sondland: no. ranking member nunes: so, you would not be the first one to be mentioning that investigation should be done on burisma, because it happened during the obama administration. did you know that financial records show burisma routed more than $3 million to the american accounts tied to hunter biden? ambassador sondland: i did not know that. ranking member nunes: did you know that burisma's american lawyers tried to secure a meeting with a new state prosecutor the same day his predecessor, victor shokin, who the vice president wanted fired, was announced? ambassador sondland: did not know that. ranking member nunes: well, we're not going to get to the answer to many of these questions because the witnesses that need to come in and clarify exactly what the democrats were

outset, were you aware of the fact that, and there was a recitation of information about burisma, zlochevski and the bidens, is it fair to say you have no firsthand knowledge of the matters that were asked in those questions? >> that is correct. >> miss williams, you were also asked a series of questions about the vice president's schedule and whether he could have made the inauguration or was the president traveling or the trip to canada. let's be clear about something. the president -- you were instructed that the president had told the vice president not to go before you even knew the date of the inauguration, is that correct? >> yes, that's correct. >> so at the time he was told not to go, there was no calculation about where he might be or where the president might be, because the date hadn't even been set yet, is that right? >> that's right. the date had not been set, so we were weighing a number of different scenarios of when the inauguration might fall. >> now, i think you said that originally, the president had told him to go. and then you received the instruction that the president