Page:20191203 - full report hpsci impeachment inquiry - 20191203.pdf/86

narrative about Ukraine” that was “being amplified by Rudy Giuliani” and was unfavorably impacting “Ukraine’s image in the United States and our ability to advance the bilateral relationship.”⁴⁷⁴ Ambassador Volker later informed Ukraine’s incoming Minister of Foreign Affairs, Vadym Prystaiko, about his pull-aside with President Zelensky in Toronto via text message: “I talked to him privately about Giuliani and impact on president T[rump].”⁴⁷⁵

On July 3, the day after his pull-aside with President Zelensky in Toronto, Ambassador Volker sent a message to Ambassador Taylor emphasizing that “The key thing is to tee up a phone call w potus and then get visit nailed down.”⁴⁷⁶ Ambassador Volker told Ambassador Taylor that during the Toronto conference, he counseled the Ukrainian president about how he could “prepare for the phone call with President Trump.” Specifically, Ambassador Volker told the Ukrainian leader that President Trump “would like to hear about the investigations.”⁴⁷⁷ In his public testimony, Ambassador Volker confirmed that he mentioned “investigations” to President Zelensky in Toronto, explaining that he was “thinking of Burisma and 2016” in raising the subject, and that his “assumption” was that Ukrainian officials also understood his reference to “investigations” to be “Burisma/2016.”⁴⁷⁸

Ambassador Volker’s efforts to prepare President Zelensky for his phone call with President Trump appear to have borne fruit. As discussed further in Chapter 5, during the July 25 call, President Zelensky expressed his openness to pursuing investigations into President Trump’s political rival, former Vice President Biden, and the conspiracy theory that Ukraine, rather than Russia, interfered in the 2016 U.S. election. President Zelensky also specifically referenced “Burisma” during the call.

Ambassadors Volker and Sondland Worked to Get Mr. Giuliani What He Needed

According to Ambassador Sondland, President Zelensky’s commitment to make a public announcement about investigations into Burisma and the 2016 election was a “prerequisite[]” for the White House meeting.⁴⁷⁹ In fact, Ambassador Sondland testified that the announcement of the investigations—and not the investigations themselves—was the price President Trump sought in exchange for a White House meeting with Ukrainian President Zelensky:

Q: But he had to get those two investigations if that official act was going to take place, correct?

A: He had to announce the investigations. He didn't actually have to do them, as I understood it.

Q: Okay. President Zelensky had to announce the two investigations the President wanted, make a public announcement, correct?

A: Correct.⁴⁸⁰

Ambassadors Sondland and Volker understood that they needed to work with Mr. Giuliani, who was publicly pressing for the announcement of investigations that would benefit President Trump politically. As discussed in Chapter 2, Ambassador Sondland testified that the key to overcoming President Trump’s skepticism about Ukraine was satisfying the President’s personal attorney. Sondland said, “Nonetheless, based on the President’s direction, we were faced with a choice: We could abandon the efforts to schedule the White House phone call and a

86