Page 175 - The Trump-Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry Report

Q: In the July 2nd or 3rd meeting in Toronto that you had with President Zelensky, you also mentioned investigations to him, right?
A: Yes
Q: And again, you were referring to the Burisma and the 2016 election.
A: I was thinking of Burisma and 2016.
Q: And you understood that that what the Ukrainians interpreted references to investigations to be, related to Burisma and the 2016 election?
A: I don’t know specifically at that time if we had talked that specifically, Burisma/2016. That was my assumption, though, that they would’ve been thinking that too.
479 Sondland Hearing Tr. at 27.
480 Sondland Hearing Tr. at 43.
481 Sondland Hearing Tr. at 21-22.
482 Kent Dep. Tr. at 246.
483 Hill-Holmes Hearing Tr. at 59.
484 Kent Dep. Tr. at 246-47. (“I do not recall whether the follow-on conversation I had with Kurt about this
was in Toronto, or whether it was subsequently at the State Department. But he did tell me that he planned to start reaching out to former Mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani. And when I asked him why, he said that it was clear that the former mayor had influence on the President in terms of the way the President though of Ukraine. And I think by that moment in time, that was self-evidence to anyone who was working on the issues, and therefore, it made sense to try to engage the mayor. When I raised with Kurt, I said, about what? Because former Mayor Giuliani has a track record of, you know, asking for a visa for a corrupt former prosecutor. He attacked Masha, and he’s tweeting that the new President needs to investigate Biden and the 2016 campaign. And Kurt’s reaction or response to me at that was, well, if there’s nothing there, what does it matter? And if there is something there, it should be investigated. My response to him was asking another country to investigate a prosecution for political reasons undermines our advocacy of the rule of law.”)
485 Kurt Volker Document Production, Bates KV00000036 (Oct. 2, 2019).
486 Kurt Volker Document Production, Bates KV00000036 (Oct. 2, 2019).
487 Kurt Volker Document Production, Bates KV00000006 (Oct. 2, 2019).
488 Volker Transcribed Interview Tr. at 308; Kurt Volker Document Production, Bates KV00000018 (Oct. 2, 2019).
489 Volker Transcribed Interview Tr. at 138. 490 Sondland Hearing Tr. at 23.
491 Hill Dep. Tr. at 63.
492 Hill Dep. Tr. at 63-67, 155.
493 Hill Dep. Tr. at 63-67, 155.
Q: Did anything happen in that meeting that was out of the ordinary?
A: Yes. At one point during that meeting, Ambassador Bolton was, you know, basically trying very hard not to commit to a meeting, because, you know – and, again, these meetings have to be well- prepared. They’re not just something that you say, yes, we’re going to have a meeting without there being a clear understanding of what the content of that meeting is going to be. ... And Ambassador Bolton is always – was always very cautious and always very much, you know, by the book and was not going to certainly commit to a meeting right there and then, certainly not one where it wasn’t – it was unclear what the content of the meeting would be about, what kind of issues that we would discuss that would be pertaining to Ukrainian-U.S. relations. ... Then
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