Q. So I would assume, then, that the Ukrainians never told you that [Mayor] Giuliani had told them that, in order to get a meeting with the President, a phone call with the President, military aid or foreign aid from the United States, that they would have to do these investigations.
A. No.[1]
Similarly, Deputy Assistant Secretary Kent testified in his closed-door deposition that he also did not "associate" the security assistance to investigations."[2]Kent relayed how Ambassador Taylor had told him that Ambassador Sondland was "pushing" President Zelensky to give an interview during the Yalta European Strategy (YES) conference in Kyiv in midSeptember.[3] Ambassador Taylor told Kent that the "hope" was if President Zelensky gave a public signal on investigations, the security assistance pause would lift; however, Ambassador Taylor asserted that "both Tim Morrison and Gordon Sondland said that they did not believe the two issues were linked."[4] During his sworn deposition, Ambassador Sondland testified that he could not recall "any discussions with the White House about withholding U.S. security assistance from Ukraine in exchange for assistance with President Trump's 2020 election campaign." [5] Ambassador Sondland testified that he was "never" aware of any preconditions on the delay of security assistance to Ukraine, or that the aid was tied to Ukraine undertaking any investigations.[6]
Although media reports allege that Ambassador Sondland later recanted this testimony to "confirm" a quid pro quo,[7] those reports exaggerate the supplemental information that Ambassador Sondland later provided. In a written supplement to his deposition testimony, Ambassador Sondland asserted that by the beginning of September 2019, "in the absence of any credible explanation for the suspension of aid, [he] presumed that the aid suspension had become linked to the proposed anti-corruption statement."[8] Ambassador Sondland asserted that he spoke to Yermak in Warsaw on September 1 and conveyed that U.S. aid would not "likely" flow until Ukraine provided an anti-corruption statement.[9] Yermak, however, in an interview with Bloomberg, disputed Ambassador Sondland's account, saying that he "bumped into" Ambassador Sondland and "doesn't remember any reference to military aid." [10]
- ↑ Impeachment Inquiry: Ambassador Kurt Volker and Mr. Timothy Morrison, supra note 8.
- ↑ Kent deposition, supra note 65, at 323.
- ↑ Id. at 269.
- ↑ Id.; see also id. at 323.
- ↑ Sondland deposition, supra note 51, at 35.
- ↑ Id. at 197.
- ↑ See, e.g., Andrew Desiderio & Kyle Cheney, Sondland reverses himself on Ukraine, confirming quid pro quo, Politico, Nov. 5, 2019.
- ↑ Declaration of Ambassador Gordon D. Sondland at ¶ 4 (Nov. 4, 2019) (emphasis added) [hereinafter "Sondland declaration"].
- ↑ Id. at ¶ 5.
- ↑ Stephanie Baker & Daryna Krasnolutska, Ukraine's fraught summer included a rogue embassy in Washington, Bloomberg, Nov. 22, 2019.
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