Impeachment inquiry testimony transcripts released

Our live coverage of the impeachment inquiry has ended for the day. Read below for the latest news.

Before the questioning even begins, Republicans call foul.

“This is a partisan investigation,” declared Rep. Jim Jordan, an unofficial leader of the GOP’s impeachment response, at the start of a closed-door deposition with the ousted US ambassador to Ukraine.

“You are willfully selecting facts and omitting others,” said Rep. Mark Meadows, another Republican leader of the impeachment rebuttal efforts, as investigators were preparing to interview a former State Department adviser.

“If we’re going to continue this circus, I, at least, would like to know what time the circus begins,” complained Rep. Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, ahead of an interview with the US ambassador to the European Union.

In a pattern established over four closed-door depositions whose transcripts were released this week, Republicans have used their allotted time to question the impeachment inquiry’s validity and accuse Democrats of shutting them out of the process.

But for all of the Republicans’ complaints about unfairness, the transcripts indicate they were fully involved in the questioning of witnesses during the sometimes-contentious closed door hearings. Over the course of the lengthy sittings, Republicans, Democrats and witnesses’ lawyers have clashed over the propriety of questions and the terms of the proceedings.

It mirrors their public attempts to discount the impeachment probe, including an attempt to storm the secure hearing room where the depositions have occurred.

The transcripts provide the fullest picture yet of the closed depositions, which have occurred over long days inside a stuffy room in the basement of the US Capitol. As the inquiry enters a more public phase, the back-and-forth that transpired in private provides a likely preview of upcoming open hearings, where procedural matters and questions of the impeachment probe’s legitimacy are likely to arise.

Keep reading here.

Former Vice President Joe Biden’s presidential campaign released a statement today claiming President Trump’s “abuse of power” is “undeniable.”

The stern language from campaign manager and communications director Kate Bedingfield comes after the release of deposition transcripts today from US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland and former special envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker’s testimonies.

Read the statement:

“This is a historic moment that underscores how tragic Donald Trump’s misconduct, debasement of his office, and betrayal of American values really is. It also reveals even more about the appalling depths to which Donald Trump was willing to sink in order to escape facing Joe Biden next year — directly undermining American national security for the sake of his re-election. The person entrusted with being our commander-in-chief withheld military aid to a country fighting for its life to pressure it into smearing the domestic political rival he fears the most. Donald Trump’s dangerous unfitness to serve as president has been obvious long before we learned of this, but the abuse of power he committed is unprecedented and it is undeniable that he has violated his oath of office and insulted the trust the American people must have in a commander in chief.”

Former US special envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker on the one hand defended Rudy Giuliani, but at the same time told the House committees that former national security adviser John Bolton “did not engage” on his warnings about Giuliani, undercutting established foreign policy efforts in Ukraine.

According to a transcript of his testimony, Volker had a conversation with Bolton about Giuliani “earlier in August,” in which he said “basically the same as with Secretary Mike Pompeo: “I want you to know Giuliani’s out there spinning these narratives. I’m concerned that this is affecting the President’s views of Ukraine.’”

“I’m trying to work with Ukrainians, and they are trying to communicate a message back to Bolton to convey that they are actually a different crowd, not from 2016, not corrupt, so that positive message gets back to the President. So I explained all that to Bolton,” Volker said. “He did not engage on that, by the way,” Volker added. “Secretary Pompeo, as I said, ‘Good. I’m glad you’ re doing that.’ Bolton just kind of said, ‘Okay.’”

Yet Volker said earlier in his testimony that he never felt like Giuliani did anything against US interests. And in fact, Volker believed he Giuliani was helping advance US interests and that’s why he put the Ukrainians in touch.

CNN Political Director David Chalian looks at the transcripts of interviews with US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland and former special envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker on the latest episode of “The Daily DC: Impeachment Watch” podcast.

The House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight Committees released deposition transcripts of Sondland and Volker today as they shifted toward the public phase of their impeachment inquiry.

Chalian also covers:

Chalian is joined today by CNN chief political analyst Gloria Borger and CNN White House reporter Maegan Vazquez.

Listen to the podcast here.

Before President Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s July 25 call, Gordon Sondland, the US ambassador to the European Union, reminded Zelensky that Trump wanted a corruption investigation.

“I think I said: It looks like your call is finally on, and I think it’s important that you, you know, give President Trump — he wanted this — some kind of a statement about corruption,” Sondland told the House committees, according to the transcript released Tuesday.

This highlights that Trump’s requests to Zelensky on July 25 for political help weren’t off-the-cuff.

“And, you know, it was just sort of a ‘I’m handing it off to you now, we finally got this done.’ And he was very happy and said: Great, we’ll have a good call tomorrow,” Sondland added.

Sondland and Zelensky’s call happened July 19, and the Trump-Zelensky call was originally scheduled for the next day, then pushed back to July 25.

Kurt Volker, the former special envoy to Ukraine, acknowledged that Rudy Giuliani brought up Joe Biden – by name – during at least one conversation.

It happened on July 19, when they met for breakfast, according to the transcript. Giuliani brought up all the Biden accusations and Volker pushed back, saying it was “simply not credible” that Biden would abuse his office.

There has been no evidence of wrongdoing by Joe Biden.

“One of the things that I said in that breakfast that I had with Mr. Giuliani, the only time Vice President Biden was ever discussed with me, and he was repeating he wasn’t making an accusation and he wasn’t seeking an investigation but he was repeating all of the things that were in the media that we talked about earlier about, you know, firing the prosecutor general and his son being on the company and all that,” Volker told lawmakers.

Volker continued, “And I said to Rudy in that breakfast the first time we sat down to talk that it is simply not credible to me that Joe Biden would be influenced in his duties as Vice President by money or things for his son or anything like that. I’ve known him a long time, he’s a person of integrity, and that’s not credible.”

The acknowledgement from Volker that Biden was specifically named during his conversations with Giuliani stands in contrast with US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, who has maintained all along that he didn’t make the Biden-Burisma connection until after the scandal burst into public view.

House impeachment investigators have requested acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney testify on Capitol Hill on Friday.

The House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight committees sent Mulvaney a letter today requesting he appear for a closed-door deposition as part of the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry into President Trump and Ukraine.

“We believe that you possess substantial first-hand knowledge and information relevant to the House’s impeachment inquiry,” the Democratic chairs wrote.

They also wrote that “the evidence and public reporting suggest you played a central role in President Trump’s attempt to coerce Ukraine into launching his desired political investigations.”

It is unclear if Mulvaney will show up to testify before the committees.

Gordon Sondland, the US ambassador to the European Union, described to lawmakers his phone call with President Trump after receiving a text from diplomat Bill Taylor, calling a potential quid pro quo over military assistance to Ukraine “crazy.”

On Sept. 9, Taylor, the top diplomat to Ukraine, texted Sondland, “I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.”

Sondland testified that the text was “fairly shocking” and called the President. 

Here what he said about the call with Trump:

Sondland testified that “there were a lot of rumors swirling around as to why the aid had been held up, including they wanted a review, they wanted Europe to do more. There were all kinds of rumors. And I know in my few previous conversations with the President he’s not big on small talk so I would have one shot to ask him. And rather than asking him, ‘Are you doing X because of X or because of Y or because of Z’ I asked him one open-ended question: ‘What do you want from Ukraine?’”

“And as I recall, he was in a very bad mood. It was a very quick conversation. He said: ‘I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo. I want Zelensky to do the right thing.’ And I said: ‘What does that mean?’ And he said: ‘I want him to do what he ran on.’ And that was the end of the conversation. I wouldn’t say he hung up on me, but it was almost like he hung up on me,” Sondland added.

Sondland then reached back out to Taylor, and suggested he call Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

In his testimony, former special representative Kurt Volker said it was correct that no quid pro quo had been communicated to him — and he said he never felt he was ever instructed to do anything wrong.

“I was never asked to do anything that I thought was wrong. And I found myself in a position where I was working to put together the right policies for the administration and using all the friends and network and contacts that you have, Pentagon, State Department, NSC, to stitch that together, and I feel that we were successful at doing that,” he said.

Here’s his exchange with Rep. Mark Meadows:

Meadows: …And that message that I heard you very loud and clear today is that there was no quid pro quo at any time ever communicated to you. Is that correct?
Volker: Not to me, that is correct.
Meadows: In your conversations with the Ukrainian officials, was there ever a time where they communicated to you that they believed that there was a quid pro quo?
Volker: No. We went over earlier this thing about a statement and how that would be helpful in getting a White House date, but I think that we eventually dropped that, kept working on the date and saying we are still going forward.
Meadows: In fact, the readout, according to your testimony, from Ukraine and the understanding from the State Department, two groups that didn’t talk to each other, were very similar in that they felt like the call was a positive call and a positive move going forward. Is that correct?
Volker: That is correct.
Meadows: Okay. Were you ever asked to do something that was wrong by this administration or anybody connected with this administration?
Volker: No, I wasn’t.
Meadows: Including the President of the United States?
Volker: Including by the President. I was never asked to do anything that I thought was wrong. And I found myself in a position where I was working to put together the right policies for the administration and using all the friends and network and contacts that you have, Pentagon, State Department, NSC, to stitch that together, and I feel that we were successful at doing that

Kurt Volker, the former special envoy to Ukraine, acknowledged that he knew Hunter Biden was affiliated with Burisma when Rudy Giuliani was pressing for the Ukrainians to mention “Burisma” in their public statement.

But Volker maintained that asking for an investigation of Burisma is not the same as asking for an investigation of the Bidens, and that it is OK to ask for an investigation of Burisma because there is a history of corruption by its Ukrainian ownership.

Asked if calling for an investigation into Burisma was essentially calling for an investigation of Biden, Volker said, “No. In my mind, those are three separate things.”

He continued: “There is Bidens; there is Burisma as a company, which has a long history; and there is 2016 elections. And part of what I was doing was making sure and why I wanted to make sure I was in this conversation that we are not getting the Ukrainians into a position about talking about anything other than their own citizens, their own company, or whether their own citizens had done anything in 2015.”

Rep. Mark Meadows tried to bait Gordon Sondland, the US ambassador to the European Union, into saying other countries have quid pro quos with Ukraine in exchange for corruption investigations, prompting Sondland to compare his questioning to the comedy “My Cousin Vinny.”

Sondland said the European Union, for which he is the ambassador, is concerned with cleaning up corruption in Ukraine. He then links that concern with the amount the EU sends in aid to Ukraine. 

“My Cousin Vinny” was released in 1992. The hit film tells the story of a well-intentioned lawyer, played by Joe Pesci, who makes up for his legal “ignorance and inexperience with an aggressive, perceptive questioning style,” according to IMDB.

Here’s how the discussion between Sondland and Meadows went:

Sondland: “Well, in my discussions with the EU, they would like to do more. They would like to see some things cleaned up before they contribute more has been my impression. I think it is one of their conditions.”

Meadows: “So they have a condition to giving additional foreign aid. So you’re saying–this is groundbreaking–so you’re saying that someone other than … Donald J. Trump is concerned with corruption, and they might withhold foreign aid based on that. Is that correct, Ambassador? I can tell by your smile it’s a yes, is that correct. Is that correct?”

Sondland: “This is like ‘My Cousin Vinny.’”

Gordon Sondland, the US ambassador to the European Union, testified that Rudy Giuliani “kept repeating Burisma and 2016 election” on their calls, but he never mentioned the Bidens to him.

Sondland also said he “never” heard Kurt Volker, former special envoy to Ukraine, talk about investigating the Bidens.

Sondland said he thought he participated in one or two conference calls with Volker and Giuliani and had one or two short calls directly with Giuliani. The calls were “likely” in August. 

“All I can recall is the gist of every call was what was going to go in the press statement,” Sondland said. “It was solely relating to negotiating the press statement, where, you know, Volker had taken the lead on it, and then I poked my nose into it to see if I could broker some kind of a compromise so we could get moving on the White House visit.”

“I think Volker was trying to get to the bottom of what was it that the President wanted to see from the Ukrainians in order to get the White House visit scheduled,” Sondland added. “And I think Giuliani kept saying it needs to be some kind of a public utterance.”

Sondland repeatedly said he does not recall when he put together connection between Burisma and Bidens.

Gordon Sondland, the US ambassador to the European Union, said he realized on Sept. 1 that President Trump and Rudy Giuliani wanted a quid pro quo with Ukraine — and later, when it became even clearer, was “alarmed” about what the President wanted. 

Sondland highlighted how he was hearing a different message from Giuliani about what Trump wanted. “I am assuming Rudy Giuliani heard it from the President, but I don’t know that,” he said. 

On Monday, Sondland’s attorney sent the committee a three-page addition to his testimony, in which he said he had remembered a Sept. 1 conversation that occurred on the sidelines of a meeting between Vice President Mike Pence and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. During that conversation, he told a top aide to the Ukrainian president that the security aid and investigations were linked.

According to the transcript, a committee interviewer asked Sondland if he realized the connection on Sept. 1 between aid to Ukraine and an announcement about the investigations Giuliani and Trump wanted.

“I think that was the beginning of when that allegation began to be made,” he said, referring to a text message from another ambassador, Bill Taylor, sent him that read, “Are we now saying that security assistance and White House meeting are conditioned on investigations?”

Days later, Taylor sent another text message that made the link more clear between the withholding of aid and the President’s wish for an investigation into his political rivals: “I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign,” Taylor wrote.

In his testimony, Sondland called that text message “alarming.”

That prompted Sondland to call the President, and pass Trump’s words to him back to Taylor: “No quid pro quo.”

Giuliani, however, had told Sondland Trump wanted an announcement about Ukraine investigating the company linked to the Bidens.

“Should I have done something earlier?” Sondland said about his Sept. 9 call to Trump. “Maybe. I didn’t.”

Kurt Volker at numerous points throughout his testimony acknowledged he was out of the loop on matters related the administration’s moves on Ukraine, despite his role as the US envoy for Ukraine negotiations.

Volker told House committees that he “never got a clear explanation as to what happened” with the hold in US security aid.

He said that he was not provided with “much of a readout” of Vice President Mike Pence’s meeting the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Warsaw on Sept. 1 — a fact he called “very, very sketchy.”

However, when asked whether he sought more information post readout, Volker said he didn’t.

“I figured that that’s about as much as I needed to know,” he said.

Volker claimed that he did not know whether Rudy Giuliani had a role in facilitating the call between President Trump and Zelensky, telling lawmakers, “I believe he may have been helpful, but I don’t know that.”

Read more from the transcript:

White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement today that the testimonies of US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland and former special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker “show there is even less evidence for this illegitimate impeachment sham than previously thought.”

Read her full statement:

“Both transcripts released today show there is even less evidence for this illegitimate impeachment sham than previously thought. Ambassador Sondland squarely states that he ‘did not know, (and still does not know) when, why or by whom the aid was suspended.’ He also said he ‘presumed’ there was a link to the aid—but cannot identify any solid source for that assumption. By contrast, Volker’s testimony confirms there could not have been a quid pro quo because the Ukrainians did not know about the military aid hold at the time. No amount of salacious media-biased headlines, which are clearly designed to influence the narrative, change the fact that the President has done nothing wrong.”

Former US special envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker said there was no validity to the allegations that President Trump pressed Ukraine to investigate — claims of corruption against former Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and allegations that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election to help Hillary Clinton.

Asked if he believed the allegations, Volker said, “No, I do not.”

Read the exchange below:

Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland said he worked with Rudy Giuliani and others to prompt Ukraine to make a public announcement about its investigation — and that any announcement would need to be on TV so President Trump would see it, according to the transcript released Tuesday. 

What this means: The emphasis on getting Ukraine to make a public announcement that it was investigating a company linked to Trump political opponent Joe Biden — and not just a conduct an investigation — highlights just how politicized the President’s intentions had become with Ukraine.

When asked what network the statement should be made on, he answered, “I don’t know, but something President Trump would obviously see.”

He then mentioned Fox News and its host Tucker Carlson — prompting laughter in the committee room, according to the transcript.

US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland told lawmakers that he called Energy Secretary Rick Perry on Oct. 16, the day before his deposition, to refresh his memory of the July 10 White House meeting with National Security Council officials, including Fiona Hill.

“I have spoken with Secretary Perry on several occasions relating to non-Ukraine business, and I did ask Secretary Perry to refresh my memory about a couple of meetings. Yes,” he said, according to the transcript. 

About the meeting: CNN previously reported that Hill, a former White House Russia adviser, testified about a July 10 meeting on Ukraine where Sondland discussed investigations, something that was interpreted as a reference to the President’s call for investigations into the Bidens, according to a source familiar. 

Former national security adviser John Bolton and Hill both were concerned about the comments, and Bolton urged Hill to report the incident to National Security Council lawyer John Eisenberg, according to the source familiar with her testimony.

Former special representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and chief of the Presidential Administration Andriy Bohdan that Rudy Giuliani was amplifying a “negative narrative” about Ukraine.

“I explained it to President Zelensky and Chief of Presidential Administration, Andriy Bohdan, was standing next to him. And I explained that I thought that there is a negative narrative about Ukraine that is counteracting all the good things that he is doing, and that we are officially communicating back, and that this is being amplified by Rudy Giuliani,” Volker told the House committees, according to a transcript of his testimony. “So this is a negative factor for Ukraine’s image in the United States and our ability to advance the bilateral relationship.”  

Volker reflected that it was “probably very helpful” that he had mentioned this to Zelensky prior to his call with President Trump on July 25.

“I actually – I hadn’t thought about it, you know, in this context before, but as I think about it, it was probably very helpful that I had told this to President Zelensky when I did so that when he heard this from the President, he was forewarned, right, there’s a Giuliani problem here,” Volker said.

US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland told lawmakers that he had a brief exchange with President Trump during a White House gathering where the President told him to “go tell the truth.”

White House counsel wanted to sit down with Sondland to interview him about what he knew after the whistleblower complaint was filed. That never happened, though he did speak to them on the phone for a few minutes. 

Former special envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker told lawmakers that the Ukrainians didn’t know about the holdup of military assistance until after the Trump administration stopped pressing them to announce an investigation into the Bidens.

His testimony, released today, bolsters a key tenet of Trump’s defense – that there was no “quid pro quo” with Ukraine because the new government in Kiev was not aware that military aid was being withheld.

Their position cuts against Democratic allegations that Trump used the $400 million aid package as leverage. 

“To my knowledge, the news about a hold on security assistance did not get into Ukrainian Government circles, as indicated to me by the current foreign minister, then diplomatic adviser, until the end of August,” Volker said. “And by the time that we had that, we had dropped the idea of even looking at a statement.”

Former special representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker told impeachment investigators he was surprised and troubled by President Trump’s phone call with his Ukrainian counterpart in July, which is at the center of the impeachment inquiry.

Volker said he was surprised when he read a transcript of the July 25 phone call because, in preparing for the conversation, he didn’t believe the Bidens were going to come up. 

He said the request could have the effect of impeding other areas in US-Ukraine ties.

“It creates a problem again where all of the things that we’re trying to do to advance the bilateral relationship, strengthen our support for Ukraine, strengthen the positioning against Russia is now getting sucked into a domestic political debate in the U.S., domestic political narrative that overshadows that. And I think that is extremely unfortunate for our policy with Ukraine,” he said.

US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland amended his previous closed-door testimony with House impeachment investigators to say that he told a top Ukrainian political aide that the release of US security aid was likely conditioned on Ukraine publicly announcing an investigation that would help the President Trump politically. 

Sondland’s attorney sent the committee a letter and a three-page addition to his testimony, which said he had remembered a conversation on Sept. 1 with Andriy Yermak, an aide to the Ukrainian president, linking the aid to the investigations.

Sondland’s new testimony, which was included in the public release of his closed-door deposition transcript, adds to Democrats’ evidence that the President connected the freezing of $400 million in US security aid to Ukraine to investigations into the 2016 election and former Vice President Joe Biden.

US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland admitted to House committees he eventually became aware that Ukraine aid was held up to entice Ukrainian corruption investigations, and eventually realized the investigation was linked to the Bidens, according to transcript excerpts released today. 

“Finally at some point I made the Biden-Burisma connection, and then the transcript was released,” Sondland said during his testimony.

He said he couldn’t remember specific dates, and for some time hadn’t made the connection between the Bidens and Burisma, the Ukrainian natural resources company for which Hunter Biden sat on the board.

Sondland previously had maintained he didn’t make the connection to the Bidens until well after President Trump’s July 25 call with the Ukrainian president.

“I did not know until more recent press reports that Hunter Biden was on the board of Burisma,” he had said in a prepared opening statement released before his testimony.

Sondland also gave the committees a full overview of how Trump sent him and other officials to work with his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, and how his request for help from the Ukrainians developed.

“You know, this whole thing was sort of a continuum, starting at the May 23rd meeting, ending up at the end of the line when the transcript of the call came out. And as I said to counsel, it started as talk to Rudy, then others talk to Rudy. Corruption was mentioned. Then, as time went on—and, again, I can’t nail down the dates—then let’s get the Ukrainians to give a statement about corruption. And then, no, corruption isn’t enough, we need to talk about the 2016 election and the Burisma investigations. And it was always described to me as ongoing investigations that had been stopped by the previous administration and they wanted them started up again. That’s how it was always described. And then finally at some point I made the Biden-Burisma connection, and then the transcript was released. So I can’t tell you on that continuum when, what dates, but that’s kind of what happened,” he said.

He also described how the administration held up aid to Ukraine in exchange for political help. 

“And then at the end of that continuum I became aware that there might be a link between the White House visit and aid to the Ukraine that was being held up when I couldn’t get a straight answer as to why the aid was being held up, both Senator Johnson and Ambassador Taylor raised the possibility that there might be a link,” he said, according to the excerpts. “And then the aid was released, and then this whole thing blew up.”

The transcript of the House interview with former special envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker has been released.

Moments ago, the transcript of testimony from US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland was released. Earlier today, Congress published excerpts from both interviews.

We’re going through all the documents now, and we’ll post highlights here when we get them.

According to excerpts of his testimony, former special representative Kurt Volker advised the Ukrainians to drop a proposed public statement after learning that the Justice Department had not requested investigations into Burisma or the 2016 election — despite what Rudy Giuliani was promoting.

“It died. I mean, no one—once we started seeing a tempo of engagement with Ukraine, we had first the sense that Rudy was not going to be convinced that it meant anything, and, therefore, convey a positive message to the President if it didn’t say Burisma and 2016. I agreed with the Ukrainians they shouldn’t do it, and in fact told them just drop it, wait till you have your own prosecutor general in place. Let’s work on substantive issues like this, security assistance and all. Let’s just do that. So we dropped it,” Volker said.

Some background: President Trump has repeatedly claimed that former vice president Joe Biden had called for the firing of a Ukrainian prosecutor who was “investigating his son.” There is no evidence Hunter Biden was ever under investigation. The investigation was into the business dealings of the owner of a Ukrainian natural gas company, Burisma Holdings, where Hunter Biden sat on the board of directors. 

US Ambassador to the European Union, in a text message to Volker, had proposed that the Ukrainians put out a statement “about Ukraine’s commitment to fighting corruption and investigating things that happened in the past,” in the words of Volker.

Volker testified that the statement went through various iterations, and that Giuliani wanted it to specifically mention Burisma and 2016.

Volker said Zelensky aide Yermak Andrey Yermak asked him “whether any request had ever been made by the US to investigate election interference in 2016. Volker discovered that the DOJ had not requested investigations that were being promoted by Giuliani, so he said he advised the Ukrainians not to include it in the statement.

In an excerpt of his testimony, Gordon Sondland, the US Ambassador to the EU, did not recall the details of a July 10 White House meeting with Ukrainian officials.

“I may have chimed in on a point or two, but I remember it being a very friendly meeting,” said Sondland. 

When asked if he brought up the prospect of investigations that Ukraine needed to conduct, Sondland responded, “Not to the best of my knowledge.”

Bill Taylor, the top diplomat to Ukraine, Fiona Hill, Trump’s former top Russia adviser, and Lt. Col Alexander Vindman, the NSC’s top Ukraine expert, have testified that then-NSC advisor John Bolton ended the meeting after Sondland discussed investigations. Hill and Vindman then reported the incident to NSC lawyer John Eisenberg.

CNN reported that Bolton said the operation carried out by Sondland and acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney was like a “drug deal,” according to a source familiar with Hill’s testimony.

The transcript of the Congressional interview with US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland has been released.

We’re going through it now, and we’ll post details here.

Excerpts from the Sondland interview, as well as from an interview with former special envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker, were released earlier today.

Former special representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker told the House committees that Ukrainian officials asked to be connected with Rudy Giuliani as a conduit to President Donald Trump, according to an excerpt of his testimony.

Asked why Giuliani would “have any role in dealing with the Ukrainians,” Volker replied:

“So the Ukrainians believed that by speaking to Rudy Giuliani they could communicate to President Trump?” he was asked.

“That information flow would reach the President,” Volker answered.

Because Rudy Giuliani would convey that information to the President presumably, correct?” Volker was asked. He responded, “Yes.”

Specifically, Volker testified that Zelensky aide Andriy Yermak asked to be connected with Giuliani, and Volker set up an introductory phone call with them on July 19.

Former US Special Envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker rejected the conspiracy theories about Ukraine and Joe Biden that have been promoted by Rudy Giuliani, according to excerpts of his testimony to lawmakers.

Volker testified that he personally told Giuliani that the source of many of those theories was “not credible.”

Some background: Giuliani has spent much of this year spreading theories about former Vice President Joe Biden and the Democrats peddled by former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko. 

The conspiracy theory alleges that Biden held up $1 billion in aid for Ukraine to pressure their government to fire a prosecutor who was investigating Burisma, an energy company where Biden’s son had a high-paid board seat.

There is no evidence of wrongdoing by Joe Biden or his son Hunter Biden.

Volker also testified that Biden didn’t do anything wrong by pushing for the ouster of that top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, who was dismissed in 2016. The US and other European allies sought Shokin’s removal because he was not doing enough to crack down on corruption in Ukraine. 

In an excerpt of his testimony, Kurt Volker — the former US special representative for Ukraine negotiations — described a May 23 meeting with President Trump when the President expressed deep skepticism of Ukraine and told officials to “talk to Rudy” about Ukrainian officials’ alleged wrongdoing.

In the meeting, Volker and other administration officials recommended Trump schedule an Oval Office meeting with the newly elected President Zelensky. But Trump was skeptical.

Volker also recalled Trump saying “they tried to take me down,” insisting that Volker and the other officials’ recommendation he cultivate Zelensky as a partner were misguided.

“He was skeptical. And he also said, that’s not what I hear. I hear, you know, he’s got some terrible people around him. And he referenced that he hears from Mr. Giuliani as part of that, Volker said, according to the excerpt.

Volker said Trump didn’t explicitly instruct the official to speak with Giuliani. But he did raise his personal attorney as having knowledge of the situation. 

EUAmbassador Gordon Sondland, a key witness who spoke with the President about his intentions in Ukraine, told the House Committees he believed Rudy Giuliani’s push for Ukraine to investigate the Bidens was potentially illegal, according to excerpts of transcripts released Tuesday.

When asked if it was illegal, Sondland responded:

When asked a second time, Sondland again said he wasn’t a lawyer, before adding, “I don’t know the law exactly. It doesn’t sound good.”

Remember: Giuliani has not been charged with a crime but CNN has reported he is part of an ongoing investigation by federal prosecutors in Manhattan.

Here’s the exchange, according to excerpts of Sondland’s testimony obtained by CNN:

Q: When you said in your statement, on page 8 of your statement, you did not understand until much later that Mr. Giuliani’s agenda might have also included an effort to prompt the Ukrainians to investigate Vice President Biden or his son or to involve Ukrainians directly or indirectly in the President’s 2020 reelection campaign, why did you—why do you think that either of those activities are problematic?  Sondland: Because I believe I testified that it would be improper to do that.  Q: And illegal, right? Sondland: I’m not a lawyer, but I assume so.  Q: Sir, one last question, which is: Do you believe that, with regard to Burisma, that the effort by Giuliani to investigate Burisma, now that we know that it was actually intended to go after Mr. Biden’s son Hunter, was ever a proper inquiry?  Sondland: I mean, I think I testified to that at the beginning, that it would not be proper.  Q: And illegal, correct?  Sondland: Again, I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know the law exactly. It doesn’t sound good. 

Former special representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker testified to the House Committees that while foreign aid routinely gets held up, he found the hold in assistance to Ukraine “unusual,” according to an excerpt of the transcript of his testimony. 

“I agree with you in saying that assistance gets held up for a variety of reasons at various times. That is true,” Volker said. “In this case, here you had an instance where everyone that I spoke with in the policy side of the administration—you know, Pentagon, military, civilian, State Department, National Security Council—they all thought this is really important to provide this assistance.”

He continued: “And so, in that circumstance, for there to be a hold placed struck me as unusual. I didn’t know the reason. No reason was ever given as to why that was … It came from OMB, so I immediately thought about budgetary issues, that, for whatever reason, there’s a hold placed. There was one report about a hold placed on all assistance because of a concern about end-of-year spending not being done efficiently.”

Volker said he became aware of the hold on July 18 – before the Trump-Zelensky call – but he did not find out the reason for the hold.

“Nobody ever gave a reason why,” Volker said.  

Someone asked him: “(But) with something this serious and bipartisan and significant, there should be an explanation, right?”

“There should have been, but there wasn’t,” he replied.

Volker told the committees that he did not believe the hold would be “sustained” because it went against accepted, bipartisan policy.

“And I just didn’t believe that this hold would ever be sustained because the policy community in the administration was determined to see it go forward,” Volker said.

US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland said he discussed Rudy Giuliani with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo but only in “general terms,” according to an excerpt of a transcript released by the committees today. 

Here’s part of the exchange:

Q: Did you ever discuss Rudy Giuliani with Secretary Pompeo?
Sondland: Only in general terms.
Q: And what did you discuss?
Sondland: That he’s involved in affairs. And Pompeo rolled his eyes and said: Yes, it’s something we have to deal with.

He also said the State Department was “fully aware of the issues” related to Giuliani.

Q: Yeah, but, I mean, he was causing serious issues in the U.S. relationship with Ukraine. Did you raise those concerns with—
Sondland: Listen, the State Department was fully aware of the issues, and there was very little they could do about it if the President decided he wanted his lawyer involved.
Q: And does that include Secretary Pompeo and his counselor, Ulrich Brechbuhl?
Sondland: My speculation is yes, that they hit a brick wall when it came to getting rid of Mr. Giuliani.

A senior adviser to Vice President Mike Pence is likely to comply with a request to testify on Thursday in front of the committees leading the impeachment inquiry, multiple sources say.

Why this matters: Jennifer Williams would be the first person on Pence’s staff to appear and has knowledge of how much the vice president knew about the efforts by President Trump and those around him to push Ukraine to launch investigations into Joe Biden and his son, as well as 2016 election interference, according to a source familiar with her thinking. 

Williams — along with other senior administration and national security officials — was listening to the phone call on July in which Trump asked for a “favor” of his newly-elected Ukrainian counterpart, President Volodymyr Zelensky, a White House source says. Trump asked Zelensky to work with his attorney general, William Barr, and personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, on investigations after Zelensky said he was ready to proceed with the transfer of US military aid to Ukraine.

Williams, a longtime State Department staffer, advises Pence on European and Russian affairs and was one of two Pence aides on the call. The other was Gen. Keith Kellogg, the vice president’s national security adviser, who has not yet been called to testify.

Pence did not listen in, but a transcript of the call was put into Pence’s daily briefing binder, an administration source says.

Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sen. Rand Paul calling on the media to “do your job” and name the whistleblower was “very responsible” because the statute was never meant to provide for anonymity and that the entire impeachment process was “generated based on an anonymous source.”

Graham said:

“The whistleblower statute was never meant to give you anonymity. It was meant to allow you to come forward without being fired. You can’t use anonymity in a criminal process; you can’t use anonymity in a civil process and you shouldn’t be able to. This is a misuse of the statute. We need to know who this person is because without the complaint, there would be no impeachment inquiry.”

Asked if Paul’s comments at a Trump rally yesterday calling on the media to name the whistleblower were responsible, Graham said, “Yeah, I think it’s very responsible, I think it’s irresponsible to allow an impeachment process to be generated based on an anonymous source.”

GOP Rep. Mark Meadows said knowing the whistleblower’s identity would be “helpful” to understand his or her motivations and to ensure a “fair process.”

He’s the latest Republican to suggest identifying the whistleblower.

Last night, Sen. Rand Paul demanded members of the media print the identity of the anonymous whistleblower at the heart of the House impeachment inquiry into President Trump’s dealings with Ukraine.

The three Democratic House committee chairs running the impeachment inquiry have requested that acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney come in for a closed door deposition.

In a letter, the chairs write to Mulvaney that, based on the public reporting, they believe he has “substantial firsthand knowledge related to the House and impeachment inquiry.”

The transcripts from two impeachment witnesses are set to be released today by the House, an official told CNN’s Manu Raju. They are:

Leaving the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility where witness Wells Griffith did not appear for his deposition, Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin weighed in on how six White House witnesses have already defied requests for subpoenas and depositions this week.

Raskin said witnesses not showing up would add more evidence to obstruction. He said it would be “better” if John Bolton and others appear — however, he said the evidence is “overwhelming” right now.

Wells Griffith, special assistant to the President and senior director for international energy and environment at the National Security Council, is not expected to appear for his testimony today, per a source involved in the deliberations.

Griffith was scheduled to arrive on Capitol Hill at 9 a.m. ET for his deposition.

Michael Duffey, associate director for national security programs with the Office of Management and Budget, was also scheduled to testify today but is not expected to appear.

More on this: Griffith and Duffey’s plans not to appear are in line with other witnesses scheduled to be interviewed in the impeachment inquiry this week.

Four White House officials — including John Eisenberg, deputy counsel to the President for national security affairs — were scheduled to testify yesterday, but none of them showed up.

An administration official said Eisenberg didn’t appear because of executive privilege while Robert Blair, Michael Ellis and Brian McCormack aren’t going to appear because they won’t be able to have an administration lawyer present.

Ahead of his remarks at the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence conference in Washington today, CNN attempted to ask outgoing Energy Secretary Rick Perry about his involvement in Ukraine and whether he’ll be cooperating with the impeachment inquiry.

Perry did not engage.

His spokeswoman told CNN this morning Perry would consider testifying publicly, but wouldn’t go beyond that.

In and interview to promote his book release on Fox and Friends, Donald Trump Jr. said he is “100% fine” with his testimony being released from the Mueller investigation adding, “like my father, here’s the transcript.”

The Justice Department said attempts by impeachment investigators to compel testimony from executive branch witnesses about the President’s dealings with Ukraine are “legally invalid” — unless they allow for the witness to bring a government lawyer.  

The guidance comes from the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). It amounts to a new legal reasoning that the White House and other agencies can use to prevent House depositions, after Democrats curtailed the previous legal argument that the House wasn’t in a formal impeachment inquiry with a vote last week.

Impeachment investigators had so far benefited from several depositions from current and former national security officials about the Ukraine saga, but in recent days, a number of current and former government witnesses, including former national security advisor John Bolton and a top national security aide to Vice President Pence, have all skipped out on scheduled depositions.

In the memo, OLC lawyers write that the President — who has not been asked or subpoenaed to testify — must be allowed to have a representative present in depositions to be able to protect privileged information from disclosure.

The five-page memo appears limited in scope but potentially sets up a future fight over the impeachment investigators’ ability to pierce the administration’s shield of executive privilege, which could block witnesses from providing valuable information about Trump’s direct involvement in the case.

Some background on all of this: The administration’s new legal memo is untested in court. Witnesses are not permitted to bring lawyers into criminal grand juries, and federal courts have generally not allowed executive privilege to stand in the way of criminal investigators or of Congress’ needs during impeachment proceedings. As recently as last month, a federal judge told the administration it couldn’t block the House’s pursuit of confidential grand jury information sought for the impeachment proceedings, for example.

The House Intelligence Committee, which is leading the ongoing investigation, has so far only allowed witnesses to appear for depositions with personal counsel.

What this means: The memo is certain to anger Democrats as it furthers a strategy of non-cooperation from the White House in the inquiry, and once again puts the Justice Department in the position of blocking the President from further scrutiny.

Republican congressman Jim Jordan is expected to be moved to the Intelligence Committee temporarily for the impeachment inquiry, according to a source familiar with the process.

The move follows Jordan’s active role behind the scenes during the closed-door phase of the closed-door impeachment inquiry hearings, where he was known as an active participant and played a role in keeping the White House informed about the proceedings.  

How this works: Republican leader Kevin McCarthy has the authority to change committee assignments. This will mean that another Republican member of the Intelligence committee will have to step down while Jordan is added.

CBS reported on Monday that the move was under “active and serious” consideration.

The House Intelligence Committee yesterday released transcripts from interviews with two US officials, which were conducted as part of the impeachment inquiry into President Trump — marking the first that have been made public.

The transcripts were from depositions with former US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch and former State Department adviser Michael McKinley.

Here are the key details from each:

Yovanovitch’s testimony

McKinley’s testimony

Donald Trump Jr. was interviewed on CBS this morning.

Asked about the impeachment injury into his father, Trump criticized Adam Schiff and repeated Trump’s favorite line to read the transcript.

Remember: The White House released a transcript of the call, but it’s only a rough log and not a word-for-word readout. The rough transcript shows Trump repeatedly pushed Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

When asked about the polls showing a majority supports impeachment and removal of his father from office, Trump said “We can go through the process because the reality is the process is totally gonna vindicate him. And I think it’s gonna hurt people in the middle. There are still reasonable people left in this country.”

Wells Griffith, a White House adviser on energy, is scheduled to be deposed this morning.

Remember: It’s unclear whether he will appear. All four witnesses supposed to testify yesterday did not show, and several others scheduled for this week have indicated they are not coming.

Here’s what we know about Griffith:

He is a special assistant to the President and senior director for international energy and environment for the National Security Council.

He joined the Trump administration in 2017 as a senior White House adviser for the Department of Energy and then became principal deputy assistant secretary in the department’s Office of International Affairs.

At the UN COP24 climate change conference in Poland in 2018, he was mocked by protesters while promoting fossil fuels and coal.

He was born and raised in Mobile, Alabama, and attended St. Ignatius Catholic School. He graduated high school from St. Paul’s Episcopal. He graduated from the Virginia Military Institute in 2004 with a bachelor of arts degree in history and a minor in modern languages (Spanish), according to his Linkedin profile.

Democrats running the impeachment inquiry have started releasing transcripts of closed-door testimony, which has taken place over the last month.

First up, they released the depositions of Marie Yovanovitch, the former US ambassador to Ukraine who was besmirched and who raised concerns about Rudy Giuliani’s shadow foreign policy.

They also released testimony from Michael McKinley, a former ambassador and top aide to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who quit his job in protest when Pompeo and others would not stand up for Yovanovitch.

There were a number of details released in the depositions of Yovanovitch including how the former envoy told impeachment investigators that a Ukrainian official warned her in 2019 to “watch my back” because of Giuliani and his associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman.

Yovanovitch also said that she felt threatened by the US President’s words after reading a transcript of the call between Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. She also testified that when she asked for support over attacks from Giuliani and others, she was informed of a concern that Trump could undercut the State Department.

Read more on what the newly-disclosed transcripts revealed here.

It is unclear which, if any, of the following witnesses will show up for their depositions in the impeachment inquiry this week.

But here’s what we know about whose been summoned this week to testify:

Here are the latest developments in the impeachment inquiry into President Trump: