discussing the hold on security assistance. The White House first received notice of the whistleblower complaint alleging wrongdoing concerning the President's July 25 call with President Zelensky on August 26—over a week before the "no quid pro quo" denial.949 In addition, Ambassador Sondland wrote his text message on September 9, the same day that the ICIG informed the Committee of the existence of a "credible" and "urgent" whistleblower complaint that was later revealed to be related to Ukraine.950 The Administration received prior notice of the ICIG's intent to inform the Committee.951
Ambassador Sondland's Testimony is the Only Evidence the Committees Received Indicating That President Trump Denied Any "Quid Pro Quo" on the Phone on September 9
Ambassador Sondland testified in his deposition that he sent a text message to Ambassador Taylor after speaking directly with President Trump on September 9. However, testimony from other witnesses and documents available to the Committees do not confirm that Ambassador Sondland and President Trump spoke on that day.
Ambassador Sondland's own testimony indicated some ambiguity in his recollection of the timing of the call. At a public hearing on November 20, Ambassador Sondland testified that he "still cannot find a record of that call [on September 9] because the State Department and the White House cannot locate it."952 While Ambassador Sondland testified that "I'm pretty sure I had the call on that day,"953 he acknowledged that he might have misremembered the date of the September 9 call—"I may have even spoken to him on September 6th"—and that without his call records, he could not be certain about when he spoke to President Trump.954
After the deposition transcripts of Ambassador Taylor and Mr. Morrison were made public, including their detailed accounts of the September 7 conversation that Ambassador Sondland had with President Trump, Ambassador Sondland submitted a written addendum to his deposition based on his "refreshed" recollection.955 In that addendum, Ambassador Sondland amended his testimony and stated, "I cannot specifically recall if I had one or two phone calls with President Trump in the September 6-9 time frame."956
Furthermore, the conversation recalled by Ambassador Sondland as having taken place on September 9 is consistent with a conversation that Ambassador Sondland relayed to Mr. Morrison and Ambassador Taylor during the previous two days. Both Mr. Morrison and Ambassador Taylor, after reviewing their contemporaneous written notes, provided detailed testimony about Ambassador Sondland's description of his call with President Trump. For example, Ambassador Sondland shared with Ambassador Taylor that even though President Trump asserted that "there is no quid pro quo," President Trump "did insist that President Zelensky go to a microphone and say he is opening investigations of Biden and 2016 election interference."957 Mr. Morrison and Ambassador Taylor both testified that this conversation occurred on September 7.958 Ambassador Sondland acknowledged that he had no basis to dispute the recollections of Mr. Morrison and Ambassador Taylor.959 Ambassador Sondland,
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