"you didn't know that burisma met biden. you didn't know. we have to go through it? you were there on may 23rd with the president when he said talk to rudy, and rudy sure cared about the investigators of this which you now know meant biden. >> i understood at the time that hunter biden and vice president biden's son had been up board member for burisma. >> you didn't read that as a request to investigate the bidens at that time. on july 10th, you were in not one, but two meetings on the white house where ambassador sondland raised the investigations, but you didn't know about the bidens, that's your testimony. >> i did not think he was talking about anything specific. >> you heard him talk about investigations and you thought there was an appropriate and the chairman asked you about that, and i guess when they were in the wardroom and ambassador's ambassador sondland raised that, you are concerned about that too. you knew it was withheld and then in august, you spent a good part of the time with this statement with rudy giuliani, right? you were the guy making the ch

the burisma in 2016 piece was much earlier, ranking member. >> i'm glad you bring up burisma. because there was another issue the democrats don't want to go into. they refuse to call in hunter biden. hunter biden can get to the bottom of all of this he can come in and talk about whether or not it was appropriate for him to receive over $50,000 a month while his dad was vice president. and when they actually were able stop and get an investigator fired, they could call in hunter biden. but they don't want to do it. will it's talk about burisma, ambassador. i know you are the ambassador to the eu. i think some of the members later will get into wlfs it was appropriate for you to be in ukraine or not. i believe it was. i think you have a clear mandate to do it. but you wouldn't be the first ambassador to actually be interested in burisma. did you know that in september 2015 then ambassador to ukraine jeffrey piat publicly called for an investigation into zelensky, the president of burst marks this was the ukrainian ambassador appointed by president obama in ukraine. >> i wasn't a

listen, the only person that doesn't think that burisma is about joe biden is joe biden. the state department prepping the ambassador for nomination hearing was prepared for a question and directed people to joe biden. ambassador to the united states for the obama administration will not send the media or the senators to joe biden unless they thought he knew something about it. but, let me wind you back to something else you just said, sean. you talked about the need to release transcripts. i have done some reporting. in the period after prosecutor shokin raided the home of hunter biden's about, the owner of burisma, and before burisma showed up and started lobbying the state department a few weeks later in february. joe biden had three consecutive phone calls. three. but the president of ukraine. it's the only time in a two-year period i have can find flee consecutive contacts between biden and president. did biden any of those issues come up in calls. joe biden owes us an answer given the circumstances these documents provide to the american public. >> sean: can you bel

so hunter biden is added to theboard of burisma, and do you believe that is creating aproblem 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 so i believe that companiesbuild their boards with a variety of reasons, not only to promote their business plans. >> was hunter biden a corporate governance expert? >> i have no idea what hunter biden studied at university or what his cv says. >> is he the geoffrey sonnenfeld of the ukraine? >> i have no idea what the experience is. >> you don't know if he had prior experience in ukraine prior to joining burisma's 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 sitting vice president? >> i do not. >> ambassador taylor, do you know whether hunter biden offers anything other than fact that his dadis the former vice president or at the time was the vice -- >> i have no knowledge of hunter biden. >> but you would agree it raisesque

-ukraine relationship including other things burisma and election meddling in investigations. andre very much says once we have a date they will announce the investigations and burisma election meddling. mr. kent, are these the same two investigations president trump asked ukrainian president to initiate in the july 25th meeting, 25th call? >> those appear to be the same issues that were mentioned in the call as well as the media campaign that started in march led by rudy giuliani. >> mr. kent, as the day-to-day state department point person in washington on ukraine policy, were you aware of this effort to persuade president zelensky to issue a statement in order to get a white house meeting while they were happening? >> when this exchange happened on august 10th, was i not. >> when did you learn about them? >> as ambassador taylor referenced earlier in his testimony in oral answering he heard on august 16th he then called me and we had a conversation and at that point i memorialized my concerns in a note to the file. >> ambassador taylor, as the point person on the ground in

ambassador burns, we heard volker attempt to explain how he didn't associate burisma with biden. do you find it hard to believe that volker -- you know, the special envoy to ukraine, didn't know about the biden/burisma connection? >> well, don, i know kurt very well. i've worked with him for several decades. this was a surprise because oviously burisma was connected in everybody's mind with the bidens, with hunter biden. and so i think it shocked a lot of people. on the other hand, kurt volker didn't turn out, as you said, to be the witnesses the republican side thought they were going to be. he extolled the virtues of joe biden, and several times was given the opportunity to say in effect he didn't believe any of these stories about vice president biden, and he shouldn't because they're fictitious. they've the product of the imagination of donald trump and rudy giuliani. i think the pieces of the puzzle are beginning to fall into place, and they're revealing a quite considerable months-long conspiracy of sorts to extort the ukrainian government. and you saw that today when the r

my third question, why did burisma hire hunter biden? what did he do for them and did his position affect any u.s. government actions under the obama administration? we have now heard testimony from the democrats own witnesses that diplomats were concerned about a conflict of interest involving hunter biden. that's because he had secured a well-paid position despite having no qualifications on the board of a corrupt ukrainian company while his father was vice president charged with overseeing ukrainian issues. after trying out several different accusations against president trump, they settled o bribery. according to widespread reports, they replaced their quid pro quo allegation because it wasn't polling well. but if the democrats and the media are suddenly so deeply concerned about bribery, you would think they would take some interest in burisma, paying hunter biden $83,000 a month. and you think they would be interested in joe biden threatening to withhold u.s. loan guarantees unless the ukrainians fired a prosecutor who was investig

i said burisma. >> you were involved in ukrainian policy, right sir? >> i told you what my role was, which was quite limited and focused. weis it your opinion that should be debunking conspiracy. about the 2016 election, sir? i testified was that in order to get president zelensky it was house visit, conveyed that president trump wanted these announcements to happen. >> of course it was not. it was part of the president's political agenda and it with them to benefit the president personally -- it was done to personally president and politically. were you following the president's orders, ambassador? >> i was following his direction to speak with mr. giuliani. >> thank you. mr. chairman, i yield back. i just want to point out a couple things, ambassador, in response to my colleagues. my colleagues seem to be under the impression that unless the president spoke the words ambassador sondland, i am bribing ukrainian president, that there is no evidence of bribery. if he did not say ambassador sondland, i am telling you, i'm not going to give the aid unless

then we were all announce investigations into burisma meddling. is this what resident trump asked you to initiate in the july 25 meeting? it appears to be the same issues. mr kent, as the day—to—day state department in washington, where you aware of this effort to persuade president zelensky to issue a statement in order to get a white house meeting while they were happening? when this exchange happened on august the 10th, i was not. wendy to learn about it? as ambassador taylor referenced earlier, answering that he heard on august the 16th, he then called me and we had a conversation. at that point, i memorialised my concerns. ambassador taylor, is the point person on the ground in ukraine, where you aware of this effort to get ukraine to issue this written statement in early august? not the written statement, no sir. the entire discussion about a public statement, that president trump wanted, was done in an irregular channel involving ambassador sunman and volker. isn't that correct, mr kent? that would be my understanding. the same. and to

>> that is a stolen assets that were in the name of the owner of burisma. he was the one who we believed had stolen thesm money. >> sure. so, the first case, this was the first case that the u.s., the uk and ukraine investigators worked on was against the owner of burisma? >> that is correct. >> this was during the obama administration? >> that's correct. >> so, forni the millions of americans viewing, the first investigation against the owner of burisma was under obama's administration? >>mi that's correct. >> we spent money in support of the fbi and this investigation to build capacity and track down stolenan assets, end quote, is that etcorrect? >> that is correct. it was launched in may 2014 by the attorney general of the u.s. and uk in conjunction with the world bank. >> in fact by 2016 you were so concerned about corruption questions related to burisma that when there was an effort to sponsor an essay you asked usad to stop it. >> that's correct. >> you testified it was because burisma had a poor reputation in the business and you didn't think it was

. >> so when you heard burisma, you did not see that as code for biden, the bidens? >> i did not. >> when did you even know that? is your testimony that you only realized that burisma included the bidens when the readout came out in september 25th? >> no, my testimony wasn't specific as to the date because i really don't recall the date. it was very late in the game, though. >> september? >> i don't recall the date. >> so if i told you that the legal definition of bribery was an event of offering, giving, soliciting, or receiving of any item of value as a means of influencing an action of an individual holding a public or legal duty, do you believe, that not only was it a quid pro quo but it was bribery? >> i'm not a lawyer and i'm not going to characterize what something was or wasn't legally. >> you also said in your opening statement that secretary perry and yourself as well as ambassador volker worked with giuliani on the ukraine matter as -- at express direction of the president, is that right? >> that's correct. >> you also go on to say that we did not want to

like one of the other callers previously stated, the burisma, the president of burisma was caught today stating that $16.5 million was given to biden's son. so where is their concern on the democratic side about finding out those issues. >> do you think that's something, fred, that we should leave to the ukrainian authorities or given that there's allegedly an american involved in this case, hunter biden, that is something that u.s. authorities should look at? >> absolutely should take care of it ourselves. this is a u.s. personnel and his father is running to be the president of the united states. i think every american should have the right to know if there is corruption in that family and where it is, whether it's in the united states or whether it's overseas. >> we'll go to our republican line next and here from the democrats' line we'll hear from doris in alabama. >> good afternoon. i've been watching this, and i just find the whole thing disgusting for republicans and democrats, even though i'm a democrat. the law as is stated, mr. trump -- he committed an illegal act by using his

>> 2016 burisma. the bidens did not come up. >> but you would ultimately learn burisma meant the bidens when you saw the call record, correct? >> okay, today i know exactly what it means. i didn't know at the time. >> and then on july 26th, you confirm you did, indeed, have the conversation with president trump from a restaurant in kiev that david holmes testified about last week. is that right? >> correct. >> and have you no doubt, no reason to doubt mr. holmes' recounting of your conversation with the president? >> ah, the only part of mr. holmes' recounting that i take exception with is i do not recall mentioning the binds. >> that did not enter my mind. it was burisma and 2016 elections. >> have you no reason to believe mr. holmes would make that up if that's what you recall him saying? you have no reason to recall that, do you? >> i don't recall saying biden. i never recall saying biden. >> but the rest of mr. holmes' recollection is consistent with your own? >> well, i can't testify as to what m

we need to talk about the 2016 election and the burisma investigations. that's of course hunter biden's firm. it kept getting more insidious as the timeline went on. it's just become more and more clear every day how rotten and corrupt this whole thing is. this is not just an addendum, not just an ask or demand. it's not just a bit of impeachable extortion. this is the entirety of u.s. policy with regard to ukraine and the entire geostrategic lay of the land with this occupied country. and it revolves around the president's personal lawyer and shadow foreign policy and a whole conspiracy to squeeze this nation, ukraine, that the president has come to hate because rudy giuliani along with putin and others told him. to here with me now, someone who was in the room when gordon sondland testified, democratic congressman sean patrick maloney of the house who sits on the house intelligence committee. your reaction to the addendum from ambassador sondland. >> right, well, it's about time. ambassador sondland has now aligned his testimony with the testimony of ev

>> yes, i am. >> turning our attention to the company of burisma. the cofounder of burisma, it's one of ukraine's largest natural gas producers, correct? >> that is my understanding, yes. >> and it's been b subject to numerous investigations over the years. >> i'm not aware, i guess i couldn't point to specific investigations, but there is a what i would call a, a pattern of questionable dealings and questions about corruption. >> he had served as minister of e kole ji during president yamakovich's tenure? >> yes. >> george kent testified about this that under the obama administration, the u.s. government encouraged ukraine to investigate whether he 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 fount of knowledge on ukraine. much deeper than p i have. if he, if he attested to that, then i take his word for it. >> and he testified that the u.s. along with the united kingdom was engaged in trying recoup u about 23 million in taxpayer dollars. >> yes. >> oka

not burisma, biden. i think mr. bolton is having a lot of people talk for him because experienced potential witnesses know if someone else says it, it's not perjury. so i think that's the wider view here. i don't know who the heroes and angels are. i do know that mr. sondland moved from denying quid pro quo bribery to admitting it today. i do know mr. volker tried to help execute aspects of this planning and then walked away from it. everyone who's been under heat, and i will pass it back to andrew who knows more than i, do but everyone who has been under heat has been moving towards confirming an international bribery plot. mick mulvaney still confirmed it in public and then walked it back. so with this and the new york investigation of giuliani, who else is under enough heat to move? because i haven't seen anyone under heat move back towards donald trump and what he claimed because he denied this once before. that's proof that it didn't happen. >> so i think it's a very fair point. one of the things you have to as

it would have been fine if he said burisma. i think what you hear from the foreign policy experts during the time is they thought it was burisma, not the bidens. >> what's his best defense? >> the president's best defense? >> yes. >> is that -- well, since i don't think he has a very good one, it's a hard question. i think the best defense is this is within the power of the presidency is that i have mixed motives, i think rick makes the point that, look, i was concerned about corruption, i was concerned about burden sharing, i was concerned about biden, i'm allowed to do this as president. you can't impeach me for it. now, the problem with that defense is that he doesn't acknowledge the facts that are clear on the ground, which was he was withholding the aid and withholding the meeting because at least, in part, that he wanted dirt on biden and that's an abuse of power and that's what congress has to take action on. >> the part that we can't explain is how sondland got it so wrong. >> he's changed his testimony three times. >>

. >> did you know the final records show that burisma routed more than 300 to the accounts of hunter biden >> were you familiar with that? >> only from newspaper reports. >> did you know that burisma's american legal representatives met with officials days after the vice president forced the firing of the country's chief prosecutor? did you know they tried to secure a meeting the same day that victor shoken's firing was announced. >> did you know they called three times in february 2016 shortly after the president and owner of burisma's home was raided by the state prosecutor's office. >> no. >> did you never devin archer and hunter biden reaches out to tony bli tony blinken shortly after the raid on burisma. >> dr. hill, did you know, i don't want to go through and ask -- >> i also did not know any of those? >> no. >> okay. >> so you know the president had concerns about burisma, 2016 election meddling by the ukrainians. when you fwhr there as the head of the head of the ukraine desk, did you ever raise any of these -- did you ever brief the president or raise it up to ambassador bo

she had also told investigators she did not know why burisma, the ukrainian gas company that put joe biden's son on the board, was not in the call summary that we all got to see, the one released to the public. tomorrow afternoon we'll see lawmakers question w former special envoy to ukraine kurt volker and former senior national security council official tim morrison. "the new york times" reporting tonight that volker will tell lawmakers he was out of the loop at key points in trump's effort to pressure ukraine. peter baker among the authors of that piece. he's standing by to join us in a moment. tim morrison worked for former national security adviser john bolton. and over thena weekend, his deposition was released. he testified that bolton had met privately with trump in august to trywi to persuade the boss t release nearly $400 million in aid to ukraine and that, quote, ambassador bolton simply said he wasn't ready to do it. morrison also told investigators about trump donor-turned-ambassador to the eu gordon sondland's involvement in the administration's effort to pressure ukrai

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 i had encountered, particularly victor shokin and yuriy lutsenko. they were now peddling false information in order to extract revenge against those who had exposed their misconduct, including u.s. diplomats, ukrainian anti-corruption officials and reform-minded civil society groups in ukraine. during the late spring and summer of 2019, i became alarmed as those efforts bore fruit. they led to the ouster of ambassador yovanovitch and hampered u.s. ef

investigating burisma is in our national interest. for weeks we've been told it's a conspiracy theory about hunter biden's work for burisma. oh, really? >> the company, burisma, it's a leader has a little bit of a storied history of corruption. >> he used his regulatory authority to award gas exploration licenses to companies that he himself controlled. >> how does the ukrainian government pursue that? >> $23 million was frozen until somebody in the general prosecutor's office of the ukraine shut the case and that money went proof. >> that is our strong assumption. u.s. taxpayer dollars have been used to recover frozen assets. since u.s. taxpayer dollars were wasted i would love to see the ukrainian prosecutor general's office find who the corrupt prosecutor was that took the bride. >> laura: wait a second. so there was a ton of corruption going on in the ukraine. is this not wilder? just to sum up what you heard. when it stays star witnesses contradicted the democrats main talking point. oops. now what really became apparent today wa

, he said there's nothing to investigate in burisma despite the burisma founder was one of the most corrupt individuals in the ukraine. the conflict of interest continues to the very day the way joe biden talks about it. >> hannity: david axelrod is supporting deffal patrick and his entry and the remarks of obama saying you don't want to go too far hard left here. it seems like team obama, i'm reading the tea leaves, has given up on elizabeth warren and mr. sanders and mayor pete and i think they'll do one last push to get deval patrick to capture the infrastructure of team obama to help him? what do you say? >> i don't think his camp was in from the beginning and they were not particularly enthusiastic about his entrance into the contest and rather than strongly behind him, they were sitting on the side lines. you've seen the mored to rat forces in the -- more moderate forces in the democratic party and some were enthusiastic about pete . >> i think it's splintered in largely inactive. where's jim macina and members of the cabinet? most the voices we heard have supported bide jon but it st

burisma hires a lobbying team to lobby hard the obama administration. get rid of this prosecution, get rid of these corruption allegations, and then -- the next thing that happens joe biden goes over there -- and says fire the prosecutor you know what we have the tape let's play the tape. >> we're not going to give you the billion dollar you're not the president. president said i should call him. i said i'm telling you you're not getting billion dollar i said you're not getting billion i'm relieving to hear and it was six hours i look at him saying we're leaving in six hours and prosecutor is not fired you're not getting the money. well son of a -- got fired. >> i mean when you see the whole thing coming into perspective, it changes the entire biden defense. 30 seconds. enches let me tell you one other thing the day that that prosecutor was fired -- that same american legal team that have been lobbying state department they show up in ukraine asking to meet the replacement prosecutor right away. let's make this thing go away. these events were tied toge

i said burisma. >> you were involved in ukrainian policy, right, sir? >> i told you what my role was which was quit limited and focused. >> was it your understanding that ukraine policy should involve investigations into americans or debunked conspiracy theories? >> what i testified was that in order to get president zelensky a white house visit, mr. giuliani conveyed the notion that president trump wanted these announcements to happen. >> of course it was not. it was a part of the president's political agenda. and it was done to benefit the president personally and politically. were you following the president's orders, mr. ambassador? >> i was following the president's direction to speak with mr. giuliani. >> thank you, sir. mr. chairman, i yield back. >> i thank the gentleman for yielding. want to point out a couple things ambassador in response to my colleagues. my colleagues seem to be under the impression that unless the president spoke the words, ambassador sondland, i am bribing the ukrainian president, that there's no evidence of bribery. if he

, he is saying there is no corruption at burisma, nothing to investigate at burisma despite the fact that burisma's founder was one of the most corrupt officials in ukraine under the previous president. biden has already judged, saying there is nothing to investigate because his son worked there. the conflict of interest continues to this very day, the way joe biden talked about it. >> sean: karl rove, i have a theory. david axelrod, reading, supporting deval patrick and his entry. i don't -- i think the timing of the remarks of obama saying, oh, you don't want to go too far hard left ear, it seems like team obama, i'm reading the tea leaves, has given up on biden. they don't think that elizabeth warren or sanders can win or mayor pete, and i think they are going to do a last-minute push and try and get deval patrick to capture, you know, the infrastructure of team obama to help him. what do you see? >> i don't think team obama wasn't biden's camp even at the beginning of this. i think for my conversations with some members of the obama world, they were not particularly enthusiastic

so that leaves us with burisma joe biden's son, hunter biden was on the board of burisma while the vice president was working on ukraine policy. we have heard that a lot from republicans. what ambassador volker is trying to say is that he thoughthat the ukrainians should vestigate buisma and investigate the ukrainians on burisma. what the president was trying to do is investigate burisma in order to investigate hunter biden ae biden. it is the difference between the trump administration policy of investigating corruption in ukraine and president trump's own policy when ith comes to to investigate in ukraine in terms of corruion. volker admitted today for the first time that he failed, that he id, in hind siht, he should have realized that other people weren't makinthe distinction and for other people burisma meant biden, because tho single phe failed to convince was president trump. he finally admitted that president trump did not make that distinction and he should have and he would have done policy different. of course, the story of why we're here is that that distinguishing point wa

burisma. in his use of understanding when president trump mentioned the bidens that that referred to the company for reason myio soundedo you like use prompter prepared for this call is that right? >> that is correct. >> i want to go to the next slide if we could which is a text message that neither of you is on but this is from ambassador kirk booker to andre. and who is andre? >> he is a senior advisor within the presidential administration as senior advisor for president zelensky. this text messageid is left more than a half hour after the call on july 25 and since neither of you are on it i'll read it. from ambassador volker, good lunch, thanks, heard from white house, assuming presidency convinces trump he will investigate, get to the bottom of what happened in 2016, we will nail down visits to washington. good luck, seee you tomorrow kirk. >> is this the thing you are referring to when you say sounded like president zelensky was prepared for this call? >> this would be consistent. yes. >

>> i meant that the investigation of burisma and the bidens was clearly identified by mr. guiliani in public for months. as way to get information on the two bidens. >> that investigation at the very least was mentioned by president trump in the july 25th phone call with president zelensky, is that right? >> as we now know, september 25th, that transcript was released. >> ambassador taylor, in your decades of military service and diplomatic service representing the united states around the world, have you ever seen another example of foreign aid conditioned on the personal or political interests of the president of the united states? >> no, mr. goldman, i have not. >> mr. kent, that vital military assistance that was not the only thing that president trump was withholding from ukraine, what els was contingent on ukraine initiating these investigations? >> as we talked earlier today, the possibility of a white house meeting was being held contingent to an announcement. >> how important to president zelensky was a white house meeting? >> new leaders, particularly countries t

and the ukraine, was it to the owner of the company of burisma? >> i'm aware of that now. >> you testified that burisma had questionable business dealings as part of its track record. you also testified that money laundering, tax evasion, comports with your understanding of how the business has been done. >> i'm not aware of specific instances but my understanding is that it would not be out of the realm of possibilities for burisma. >> you are aware that hunter biden did sit on the board of burisma at this time? >> i am. >> i know my constituents in 2021 was aware of the fact that -- the obama administration and state department was also concerned and yet adam schiff refuses to call hunter biden despite a request. every witness who has testified and has asked has answered yes. do you agree that hunter biden on the board of burisma has the potential for the appearance of conflict of interest. >> certainly the potential, yes. >> and miss williams? >> yes. >> shifting to -- lieutenant colonel vindman, you testified that congress had passed under the

george kent at the state department said burisma was dirty and everybody knew burisma was dirty. wee should have been pushing ukraine to investigate that corruption and get out of our country and theirs. >> they are the majority in the house.us if they do that, is there another hearing or is there just a vote? >> nancy pelosi can never be criticized for not being an effective tactician. she has preserved maximum option at. the rules would allow democrats to bring witnesses before the judiciary committee. in the past when they brought robert mueller and corey lewandowski in, the hearings have been a disaster. i think they will take up a report that has been written by the biased lying schiff and they will try to fashion that into articles of impeachment. judge jeanine: should there be a trial in the senate where at the very least the minority or majority in the senate will be able to call witnesses? we haven't heard from one witness on behalf of the president. >> i don't believe a trial will be warranted. this isat the type of thing whee a motion to dismiss would resolve this in t

knew burisma was dirty. we should have been pushing ukraine to investigate that corruption and get it out of their country and ours. judge jeanine: what happens from here. let's assume they draft these articles of impeachment. they are the majority in the house. about they do that. is there another hearing or just a vote? >> nancy pelosi can never be criticized for not being an effective tactician. the rules would allow democrats to bring witnesses before the judiciary committee. but it's my expectation they will not do that. in the past when they brought robert mueller in and corey lewandowski in. all of the hearings for democrats in the judiciary committee have been a disaster. i think they will take up a report written by the biased, lying adam schiff. and they will try to fashion that report in articles of impeachment. judge jeanine: should there be a trial in the senate where at the very least the minority in the senate will be able to call witnesses. we haven't heard from one witness on behalf of the p

what we don't know is how much of that money went to burisma, the company. we know some of it went because some of it was specifically earmarked for burisma, by congress. but remember, joe biden boasted on camera about controlling the aid of. we don't know the answer to how much of that $4 billion, roughly $4 billion ended up in the bank account of burisma while hunter biden was on the board. the other financial information that we know, that burisma after hunter biden went on the board, they hired as a lobbyist guy called david later -- >> marie: who i had never heard of, by the way. >> steve: john kerry's secretary of state at the time. he paid $90,000 by burisma, makes $60,000 of donations to democrats, three of them, richard blumenthal, then pressed the administration to specifically give aid to the ukrainian gas industry. >> marie: but not burisma, and this is the point. i get to say my piece because you just did yours. you laid out a bunch of facts and you are making insinuations about why u.s. policy was in place to support the ukrainian gas industry.

that biden essentially meant burisma. and chris, it's often in investigations that witnesses for a variety of reasons are not entirely forthcoming the first time they're asked to give a version of events. but they evolve. and we have a witness tomorrow in a very similar position. but i think the best we can do is point out how volker's testimony is corroborated by so many others that it is believable that burisma meant biden. and whenever he came to understand that, that's what evidence in this case shows. >> in the morning session, numerous colleagues of yours sought to undermine the credibility of lieutenant colonel vindman. the president today made a kind of crack about him wearing his uniform which was then echoed by a colleague of yours, congressman stewart who said it. he said it in a complementary fashion but it was hard to interpret it that way. the real loyalties of lieutenant colonel vindman was actually with ukraine, perhaps disloyal and were you surprised by that insiniation, those lines of questions from your

holmes, you understood that burisma was code for bidens? >> yes. >> do you think that anyone involved in ukraine matters in the spring and summer would understand that as well? >> yes. >> now, are either -- dr. hill, are you aware of any evidence to support the allegations against vice president biden? >> i am not, no. >> and in fact, mr. holmes, the former prosecutor general of ukraine, who vice president biden encouraged to fire, was actually corrupt, is that right? >> correct. >> and was not pursuing corruption investigations and prosecutions, right? >> my understanding is the prosecutor general at the time, shokin, was not at that time pursuing investigations of burisma or the bidens. >> and in fact removing that corrupt prosecutor, general, was part of the u.s.' antiskrupgs policy, isn't that correct? >> that's correct. not just us but all of our allies and others involved in the ukraine. >> dr. hill, you underu indicated that you understood that a white house meeting was conditioned on the pursuit by ukraine of these investigations. a

in the wardroom, ambassador sondland raised burisma on the bidens in 2016, you missed that, too, as i understand it. on july 18th, you new aid was withheld and in august, you spent a good part of the time with a statement with rudy giuliani. you were the guy making the changes and interacting with ukrainians. you were putting in rudy's changes, which included a call for investigating burisma and a 2016 elections, which you now know meant the seven, right? you did not know it at the time. right? but now we know it, right? on september 1st, you were in warsaw. i mean, you are at every point in this, you were in warsaw, you were there were an ambassador sondland told andriy yermak that he was not going to give security assistance, he was not going to get a white house meeting unless there was the investigation and i understand you missed that, you are out of the loop then. >> that is not correct. i was not in warsaw. >> excuse me. what you heard about it right after from sondland, is that right? >> no, that is not quite correct. it was sometime later. >> i got it. but now you know what i

i said burisma. >> you were involved in ukrainian policy, right, sir? >> i told you what my role was which was quit limited and focused. >> was it your understanding that ukraine policy should involve investigations into americans or debunked conspiracy theories? >> what i testified was that in order to get president zelensky a white house visit, mr. giuliani conveyed the notion that president trump wanted these announcements to happen. >> of course it was not. it was a part of the president's political agenda. and it was done to benefit the president personally and politically. were you following the president's orders, mr. ambassador? >> i was following the president's direction to speak with mr. giuliani. >> thank you, sir. mr. chairman, i yield back. >> i thank the gentleman for yielding. want to point out a couple things ambassador in response to my colleagues. my colleagues seem to be under the impression that unless the president spoke the words, ambassador sondland, i am bribing the ukrainian president, that there's no evidence of bribery. if he

castro, i think we were talking about 2016 and burisma. the investigations generally was really early in the -- >> do we know that secretary pompeo knows that. >> i think so. >> why? >> only because i think ambassador or i'm sorry, counselor brechbuhl was briefed. >> by who? by you? >> by ambassador volker, by myself -- >> that's not what he testified to. did you -- >> ambassador or counselor brechbuhl testified -- >> no, ambassador volker. >> oh, okay. >> he didn't testify that he briefed mr. brechbuhl. i mean, this email to the secretary is talking about this statement which, by the way, you said kurt and i negotiated a statement and the statement never went -- >> didn't go anywhere. >> ambassador volker said it wasn't a good idea and mr. yermak said it wasn't a good idea and -- what you wrote to the secretary here relates to a generic openness subject, right? >> yeah, but i think the secretary, though, was on the july 25th call which obviously i wasn't on and i didn't know about. >> you use this email to suggest that everyone was in the

the "new york times" reporting about aides and joe biden and the burisma job. we are not seeing a broad effort on the part of the left wing thankingal media to deal with the story and give the broader truth that will be revealed. they are on grudgingly touching the margins of this story right now. >> abc news has done a good job. there is a very clear narrative, the documents i see would enforce the release of last week at the state department clearly show hunter biden's company was lobbying the state department to help make the corruption allegations go away in ukraine. when they approached that state department, they invoked hunter biden's name as the robe why they needed help. that's the conflict of interest ethics laws were created to avoid. i think we are going to learn a lot more about what those state department bureaucrats were doing in the middle of the 2016 election to address the burisma crisis joe biden is facing. lou: i want to touch on a different topic here. his berlin wall moment as you style it. the distraction with impeachment and r the develo

you are aware that hunter biden did sit on the board of burisma at this time? >> i am. >> i know my constituents have many concerns about the fact that hunter biden, the son of the vice president, sat on the board of a corrupt company like burisma. the obama administration's state department was also concerned. and yet adam schiff refuses to allow this committee to call hunter biden despite our requests. every witness who has testified and has been asked this has answered yes. do you agree that hunter biden on the board of burisma has the potential for the appearance of a conflict of interest? >> certainly the potential, yes. >> and ms. williams? >> yes. >> now, shifting to the legal requirements that our aid to ukraine is conditioned on anticorruption, lieutenant colonel vindman, you testified that you understood that congress had passed under the ukrainian security assistance initiative a legal obligation to certify that corruption is being addressed? >> that is correct. >> you also testified that it is required by the national defense authorization act. >> t

official to shield burisma from scrutiny. in fact, i and other u.s. officials consistently advocated reinstituting an investigation of 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 par nas to run a campaign to smear ambassador yovanovitch and others at the embassy in kiev. they were some of the same former prosecutors i encountered. they were now pedaling false information in order to extract revenge against those who had exposed their misconduct, including u.s. diplomats, ukrainian officials and civil society groups in ukraine. during the late spring and summer of 2019, i became alarmed as those efforts bore fruit. they led to the ouster of ambassador yovanovitch. in mid august, it became clear to me that giuliani's efforts to gin up politically motivated investigations were now affecting u.s. engagement with ukraine, leveraging president zelensky's desire for a white hous

> and you also understood burisma was code for bidens? mr. holmes: yes. >> do you think anyone involved in ukraine matters would understand that as well? mr. holmes: yes. are you awarell, of any evidence to support the allegations against vice president biden? dr. hill: i am not, no. thend in fact, mr. holmes, former prosecutor general of ukraine, who vice president biden encouraged to fire, was actually corrupt, is that right? mr. holmes: correct. >> and was not pursuing corruption investigations and prosecutions, right? mr. holmes: my understanding, the prosecutor general at the time, shokin, was not at that time pursuing investigations of burisma or the bidens. >> and removing that corrupt prosecutor general's part of the u.s. anticorruption policy, correct? mr. holmes: correct, and not just us but all of our allies involved in ukraine at the time. >> dr. hill, you indicated earlier that you understood a white house meeting was conditioned on the pursuit by ukraine of these investigations, and i want to focus on the july 10 leading in

holmes, you also understood burisma was code for bidens? >> yes. >> you never put burisma together with the bidens? >> i didn't. i proceeded to look it up on the internet. i googled it. >> did you find it had some association with hunter biden? >> yes. >> i was not made aware of any reference to biden or his son until the call was released on september 25th, 2019. >> how do you explain those discrepancies. >> difficult to explain. one company, obviously a big important company in ukraine but one company, and nobody thought to ask, hmm, why burisma? why is the president so fixated on this one natural gas company? all you have to do is google it. in 30 seconds or less you can see the connection to the biden family and hunter biden. it was unusual. i thought it was particularly interesting sondland and volker, no long ear career service officer, cam in as a political appointee, they're the ones that say they didn't put this together but the career officials, foreign service officers, nonpartisan officials did. >> and sondland said in his openi

that's part of this whole burisma biden fiction, right? as long as they say the investigation was just about burisma, it's maybe not a crime. but once you say it's about biden, a political opponent, he knows he would have been admitting to a campaign finance crime. but i think all of these people -- i mean if we had an independent uncorrupted department of justice right now, i think that these people would all be investigated for those crimes. and, by the way, part of that includes getting interviews from them if they're willing to give them subpoenaing them, documents from them. all the things that the white house and state department are stone walling on which is part of why that is obstructive. >> what's so interesting is john bolton who's apparently written a big book contract, and i understand those things, he's going to be called by history in the next couple of weeks. they're having a decision on articles of impeachment probably by mid-december perhaps and he's sitting on the side lines. how's that going to work in. >> it's in the e

investigating burisma is in our national interest. now, for weeks we have been told that it's a conspiracy theory to be concerned about hunter biden's work for burisma. oh, really. >> the company burisma, its leader has a little bit of a storied history of corruption, doesn't he? >> he uses regulatory authority to award gas exploration licenses to companies that he himself controlled. >> how did the ukrainian government ultimately pursue that? >> $23 million was frozen until somebody in the general prosecutor's office of ukraine shut the case and that money went poof. >> essentially, paid a bribe to make the case go away. >> that is our assumption. u.s. taxpayer dollars have been used to try to recover assets. since u.s. taxpayer dollars are wasted, i would love to see the ukrainian prosecutor general's office find who the prosecutor was who took the bribe. >> so there was a ton of corruption going on in ukraine. is this not wild? that was a key part of what happened today. again, just to sum up what you heard, one of today's star wit

like burisma and i think it's appropriate to say was burisma attempting to use hunter biden as a way to influence american foreign policy? that's a legitimate, you know, thing for them to investgate as to whether burisma was doing things wrong. the question is whether joe biden was doing something wrong is a completely separate question. and i think that's what ambassador volker was saying yesterday. but again, i want to disagree with charlie that i don't think just for the fact that the president mentioned it in a call or, you know, happened to mention joe biden. i think that was wrong. he shouldn't have mentioned joe biden's name. but investigating burisma is legitimate. >> i didn't say what the president did was illegal. i said it was potentially illegal. and there's a difference. like i said, my former mayor is sitting in jail for 15 years for exchanging contracts for political contributions. >> but that's not what he's doing, charlie. he's not exchanging it for political contributions. >> he's using -- this is an official government act. withholding $400 million worth of aid to