--:-- [Discussion continues from previous episode]
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Welcome back to Act Two of today's circus, ladies and gentlemen. We are here to continue what the Democrats tell us is a serious, somber, and even prayerful process of attempting to overthrow a duly elected president.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Thanks, Representative Nunes. Representative Prokop, who did Vindman and Williams open up for today?
--:-- Andrew Prokop: The afternoon witnesses were Kurt Volker, the former U.S. special representative to Ukraine, and Tim Morrison, the top National Security Council staffer handling Europe and Russia. He is a Bolton guy and he was involved in some of these conversations with Ambassador Gordon Sondland and others about the potential withholding of aid to Ukraine in exchange for investigations.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Kurt Volker, we will remember, was part of the three amigos who had a large role in Ukraine policy. This is along with Gordon Sondland, who we'll hear from tomorrow, and Rick Perry, who we may never hear from again.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Yeah, that's right. And Volker is big because he was actually the first witness to give closed-door testimony back in early October. And when he did that, he turned over a lot of text messages that he exchanged with Sondland, with Rudy Giuliani, and with other people. They include, for instance, the famous message where Bill Taylor, the top diplomat in Ukraine, raised concerns that security assistance was being linked for help with a political campaign.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: These are the texts that really prove the quid pro quo. Volcker and others were telling the Ukrainians that a White House meeting depended on whether President Zelensky would agree to the investigations Trump wanted. And though these texts have been so useful for Democrats in sort of laying out this story, it was the Republicans who called on these two witnesses.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Yeah. So as part of the rules around the impeachment inquiry, the Democrats said that the Republicans could nominate various possibilities for witnesses they wanted to call, except they had to be approved by the Democratic majority. So Republicans did want to call some people like Hunter Biden, but the Democrats said, no, they don't have any relevant knowledge to the topic of whether Donald Trump committed impeachable acts.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They did however suggest Volcker and Morrison and another witness David Hale who will be coming Wednesday. All of these three people testified behind closed doors already. Republicans seem to have concluded that these weren't people who were going out of their way to try to, you know, really criticize Trump.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Okay. So if the Republican strategy with these two witnesses, Volcker and Morrison was these guys make this look less bad. How did that strategy play out in the hearings today?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It didn't play out very well for the Republicans because they were happy to talk about the facts of what happened. And those facts generally do not make President Trump look good.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Volcker, in particular, contradicted talking point after talking point from the president's defenders in his sworn testimony. Okay, so what's the first one?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So a lot of Trump's defenders have been saying that it was perfectly legitimate for Trump to ask the Ukrainians to investigate Biden because there was something really shady that was going on here involving Biden trying to push the Ukrainians to oust a top prosecutor.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: And Kurt Volker basically said, The accusation that Vice President Biden acted inappropriately did not seem at all credible to me. Volker explained that he was personally quite involved with this effort to push Ukraine to announce these investigations that Trump wanted. But he said he made a distinction in his mind at the time. He viewed what he was doing as pushing for an investigation of Burisma, the natural gas company in Ukraine that Hunter Biden sat on the board of, but not an investigation into the Bidens.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The problem for Trump's defenders is that Volker now says, In retrospect, I should have seen that connection differently. And had I done so, I would have raised my own objections. You know, he's essentially admitting that he was a little too credulous and that he should not have gone along with this.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: He should have realized what it was really about, that it wasn't just about fighting corruption about some Ukrainian natural gas company. So drawing out this controversy about the Bidens and Burisma in Ukraine didn't really work for the Republicans. What's point two?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So Volker actually changed some of his testimony from the first time around. There was this key meeting on July 10th with White House officials and Ukrainian officials Volcker had initially said that it was uneventful that not much happened But a bunch of other witnesses have testified that it was actually quite tense that Gordon Sondland brought up investigations in front of the Ukrainians during the meeting
--:-- Andrew Prokop: And Volker says that he now does recall this. As I remember, the meeting was essentially over when Ambassador Sondland made a general comment about investigations. I think all of us thought it was inappropriate. The conversation did not continue and the meeting concluded.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So basically, Volcker is no longer disputing the basic facts that investigations were brought up. OK, so a meeting that Volcker didn't initially remember, he now remembers as an appropriate classic case.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: What was the third point that didn't work out for the Republicans?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So Volker, when he went in for his closed-door testimony, he was the first such witness. And he said that he didn't know about any connection between the Trump administration's holdup of nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine with Trump's demands for investigations.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Now he says, I've learned many things that I did not know at the time of the events in question. He seems to be referring to the testimony of other witnesses and eventually also Ambassador Gordon Sondland that Sondland did, in fact, tell the Ukrainians that they would likely only get their held up military aid if they committed to the investigations Trump wanted in a public statement.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So you're saying that Kurt Volker, this witness that the Republicans called for, didn't dispel the idea of a quid pro quo. He actually reaffirmed it?
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Volker didn't really dispute that a quid pro quo was happening. But the guy who really confirmed that it was expressed was the guy sitting next to him, Tim Morrison. Morrison said that on September 1st, he saw Ambassador Sondland go and talk to one of Zelensky's top advisers and that Sondland then told him that the Ukrainians would have to have the prosecutor general make a statement with respect to the investigations as a condition of having the aid lifted.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This is Marcin viewed as a friendly witness by Republicans. Conservative credentials are unimpeachable. And he is saying, you know, I heard it from Gordon Sondland's own mouth. He tried to tie this military aid to the investigations and told the Ukrainians that specifically.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: All told, if this was the Republicans' big moment to make something go right for them in this impeachment inquiry, it doesn't sound like much did.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I think they got some clips they wanted Morrison said that he personally did not think there was anything improper about the July 25th call between Trump and Zelensky. Volcker kept saying that he didn't really understand that investigating Burisma meant investigating Biden.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: You know, there are certain things that could be spun as perhaps helpful to Republicans, but they really didn't have much. If these are their best witnesses who are relevant to the actual events, then it looks like the underlying facts here are pretty bad for the president.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And with Sondland testifying tomorrow, things could potentially get worse.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Yeah. So Sondland's testimony will be big. He is the only person on this witness list this week who is known to have had repeated personal interactions with President Trump on this topic. And his previous testimony was notably filled with statements that he couldn't recall this or that, especially when it came to President Trump.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: He had to update his initial sworn testimony once already to say that, oh, now I do recall telling the Ukrainians that aid was contingent on investigations. So the stakes are high for him. We'll have to see whether he ends up improving his memory even further whether he stays a staunch Trump defender or whether even he pursues another path such as pleading the fifth.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: I look forward to talking about it with you tomorrow, Andrew.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So do I. Representative Andrew Prokop covers politics here at Vox.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: I'm Sean Rameswaram, and this is Ukraine Explained. There's a website that you can go to. It's kiwico.com slash explain, where you can try out these projects, crates, activities, learn about the world for one month or so for free. And it doesn't matter whether you're, you know, 2, 20, or 73, you might have a great time. KiwiCo.com slash Explained.
