Without hesitation, President Trump immediately denied such an arrangement existed. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, I quoted the President as saying, "[Expletive deleted]—No way. I would never do that. Who told you that?" I have accurately characterized his reaction as adamant, vehement and angry—there was more than one expletive that I have deleted.[1]
At the end of the phone call, President Trump circled back to Senator Johnson's request to release the pause on security assistance. President Trump said: "Ron, I understand your position. We're reviewing it now, and you'll probably like my final decision."[2] This conversation occurred on August 31, well before the Democrats initiated their impeachment inquiry, and undermines the assertion that the President fabricated legitimate reasons for the pause in security assistance in response to the Democrats' impeachment inquiry.
During his deposition, Ambassador Sondland testified that he called President Trump on September 9 and asked him "What do you want from Ukraine?" The President's response was "Nothing. There is no quid pro quo."[3] During his deposition, Ambassador Sondland testified:
Q. So when you telephoned the President, tell us what happened.
A. Well, from the time that the aid was help up until I telephoned the President there were a lot of rumors swirling around as to why the aid had been help 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 to 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 wanted 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.[4]
When asked about his conversation with Senator Johnson—which prompted Senator Johnson to call President Trump—Ambassador Sondland testified that he was "speculating" about the linkage between security assistance and investigations. [5] He explained: I noticed in the media [Senator Johnson] had come out and said that he and I had a conversation on the phone about it. And he had said
49
