The Impeachment Report
Page 14
At the same time that OMB was implementing the President’s hold through the funding footnotes, officials inside OMB were advocating for release of the funds. On August 7, the National Security Division, International Affairs Division, and Office of Legal Counsel of OMB drafted and transmitted a memo on Ukraine security assistance to OMB Acting Director Vought “in anticipation of a principals-level discussion to address the topic.”418 The National Security Division’s portion of the memorandum recommended to remove the hold because (1) the assistance was consistent with the national security strategy in terms of supporting a stable, peaceful Europe; (2) the aid countered Russian aggression; and (3) there was bipartisan support for the program.419 Mr. Duffey approved the memorandum and agreed with the policy recommendation.420
Sometime in mid-August, DOD raised concerns that it might not be able to fully obligate the Defense Department administered funds before the end of the fiscal year.421 Ms. Cooper testified that the Defense Security Cooperation Agency estimated that $100 million of aid might not be obligated in time and was at risk.422
Because of this, DOD concluded that it could no longer support OMB’s claim in the footnote that “this brief pause in obligations will not preclude DOD’s timely execution of the final policy direction.”423 As mentioned above, Mr. Sandy testified that this sentence was at “the heart of that issue about ensuring that we don’t run afoul of the Impoundment Control Act.” 424
As a result of DOD’s concerns, all of the subsequent footnotes issued by OMB during the pendency of the hold—approved by Mr. Duffey on August 20, 27, and 31, and September 5, 6, and 10—removed the sentence regarding DOD’s ability to fully obligate by the end of the fiscal year.425 Each footnote extended the hold for a period of two to six days.426
Mr. Sandy and his staff “continued to express concerns [to Mr. Duffey] about the potential implications vis-à-vis the Impoundment Control Act,”427 and advised Mr. Duffey to consult with OMB’s Office of General Counsel “on every single footnote.”428 Mr. Sandy was copied on emails with the Office of General Counsel on these topics. 429 Although Mr. Sandy understood that the Office of General Counsel supported the footnotes, he noted that there were dissenting opinions within the Office of General Counsel.430 Concerns about whether the Administration was bending, if not breaking, the law by holding back this vital assistance contributed to at least two OMB officials resigning, including one attorney in the Office of General Counsel.431 Mr. Sandy testified that the resignation was motivated in part by concerns about the way OMB was handling the hold on Ukraine security assistance.432 According to Mr. Sandy, the colleague disagreed with the Office of General Counsel about the application of the Impoundment Control Act to the hold on Ukraine security assistance.433
Nevertheless, at the direction of the President, OMB continued to implement the hold through September 11.
Senior Officials Failed to Convince President Trump to Release the Aid in August
Sometime prior to August 16, Ambassador Bolton had a one-on-one meeting with President Trump about the aid.434 According to Mr. Morrison, at that meeting the President “was not yet ready to approve the release of the assistance.”435 Following the meeting, Ambassador Bolton instructed Mr. Morrison to look for opportunities to get the principals together “to have the direct, in-person conversation with the President about this topic.” 436
On or about August 13 or 14, Lt. Col. Vindman was directed to draft a Presidential Decision Memorandum for Ambassador Bolton and the other principals to present to President Trump for a decision on Ukraine security assistance.437 The memorandum, finalized on August 15, recommended that the hold should be lifted, explained why, and included the consensus views from the July 26 meeting that the funds should be released.438 Lt. Col. Vindman received conflicting accounts about whether the memorandum was presented to the President.439
Mr. Morrison, who was Lt. Col. Vindman’s supervisor at the NSC and agreed with the recommendation to lift the hold, testified that the memorandum was never provided to the President.440 Mr. Morrison explained that Ambassador Bolton intended to present the memorandum to the President during an unrelated meeting in Bedminster, New Jersey, on August 15, but the “other subject matter of that meeting consumed all the time.”441 However, while at Bedminster, the principals “all represented to Ambassador Bolton that they were prepared to tell the President they endorsed the swift release and disbursement of the funding.”442
Mr. Morrison testified that he attempted to gather the “the right group of principals” to meet with the President but was unable to do so because of scheduling issues.443 According to Mr. Morrison, the next possible opportunity was during a trip to Warsaw, Poland at the beginning of September, but President Trump did not end up making that trip.444
Ms. Cooper recalled receiving an email at the end of August from Secretary of Defense Esper referencing a meeting or discussion with the President, and that there was “no decision on Ukraine.”445
Ukrainian Officials Learned About the Hold in July 2019
Witnesses testified that officials in the Ukraine government knew of President Trump’s hold on security assistance before it was publicly reported in the press on August 28, 2019. Ms. Croft testified that after July 18—when the hold was announced by OMB at the interagency meeting—it was “inevitable that it was eventually going to come out.”446
Two individuals from the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, D.C., approached Ms. Croft approximately a week apart “quietly and in confidence to ask me about an OMB hold on Ukraine security assistance.”447 Ms. Croft could not precisely recall the dates of these conversations, but testified that she was “very surprised at the effectiveness of my Ukrainian counterparts’ diplomatic tradecraft, as in to say they found out very early on or much earlier than I expected them to.”448
Ms. Croft explained that the Ukrainian officials came to her quietly because they would not want the hold to become public:
I think that if this were public in Ukraine it would be seen as a reversal of our policy and would, just to say sort of candidly and colloquially, this would be a really big deal, it would be a really big deal in Ukraine, and an expression of declining U.S. support for Ukraine.449
DOD also received questions from the Ukraine Embassy about the status of the military assistance. Ms. Cooper testified that those occurred on July 25, 2019—the same day as President Trump’s call with President Zelensky:
On July 25th, a member of my staff got a question from a Ukraine Embassy contact asking what was going on with Ukraine security assistance, because at that time, we did not know what the guidance was on USAI [DOD-administered funds]. The OMB notice of apportionment arrived that day, but this staff member did not find out about it until later. I was informed that the staff member told the Ukrainian official that we were moving forward on USAI, but recommended that the Ukraine Embassy check in with State regarding the FMF [State Department-administered funds].450
On July 25, Ms. Cooper’s staff received two emails from the State Department revealing that the Ukrainian Embassy was “asking about security assistance” and that “the Hill knows about the FMF situation to an extent, and so does the Ukrainian Embassy.”451
One of Ms. Cooper’s staff members reported that sometime during the week of August 6, a Ukrainian Embassy officer stated that “a Ukrainian official might raise concerns about security assistance in an upcoming meeting,” but that the issue was “not, in fact, raised.”452 Ms. Cooper’s staff further reported that Ukrainian officials were aware of the hold on security assistance in August.453
Lt. Col. Vindman testified that, by mid-August, he too was getting questions from Ukrainians about the status of the hold on security assistance:
So to the best of my knowledge, the Ukrainians, first of all, are in general pretty sophisticated, they have their network of, you know, Ukrainian interest groups and so forth. They have bipartisan support in
Congress. And certainly there are—it was no secret, at least within government and official channels, that security assistance was on hold. And to the best of my recollection, I believe there were some of these light inquires in the mid-August timeframe.454
While numerous individuals, including Ukrainians, were aware of the hold, it did not become publicly known until a Politico report on August 28, 2019.455
4. The President’s Meeting with the Ukrainian President Was Conditioned on An Announcement of Investigations
President Trump demanded the public announcement by President Zelensky of investigations into President Trump’s political rival and alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. election in exchange for an Oval Office meeting. The President’s representatives made that quid pro quo clear to Ukrainian officials.
Overview
After ordering the hold on security assistance to Ukraine against the unanimous advice of the relevant U.S. government agencies, President Trump used his hand-picked representatives to demand that Ukrainian leaders publicly announce investigations into his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, and into the debunked conspiracy theory that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 U.S. election. President Trump, through his agents, made clear that his demand needed to be met before a coveted White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would be scheduled. A face-to-face meeting with President Trump in the Oval Office would have conferred on the new Ukrainian leader much-sought prestige and would have signaled to Russia that Ukraine could continue to count on the support of the President of the United States, which was particularly important as Russia continued to wage war in eastern Ukraine.
To date, the White House meeting for President Zelensky has not occurred. Following the May 23 meeting in the Oval Office, President Trump’s hand-picked representatives—the so-called “Three Amigos”—worked with the President’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, to pressure Ukrainian leaders to announce publicly investigations that would benefit the President’s reelection campaign. Testimony of multiple witnesses and contemporaneous text messages exchanged between and among President Trump’s representatives confirm that the White House meeting—and later the release of security assistance for Ukraine—was conditioned on Ukraine acquiescing to the President’s demands.
In the weeks leading up to the July 25 call between President Trump and President Zelensky, President Trump’s representatives repeatedly relayed the message of conditionality to Ukrainian government officials—including to President Zelensky himself—in meetings in Kyiv, Toronto, and Washington, D.C. President Zelensky and his advisors struggled to navigate these demands, recognizing that President Trump’s desire that Ukraine announce these political investigations threatened to render Ukraine a “pawn” in U.S. domestic reelection politics.
An Oval Office Meeting for President Zelensky Was Important to Ukraine and U.S. National Security
A face-to-face meeting with the President of the United States in the Oval Office was critical to President Zelensky as the newly-elected Ukrainian leader sought U.S. support for his ambitious anti-corruption agenda and to repel Russian aggression. A White House meeting was also important for U.S. national security because it would have served to bolster Ukraine’s negotiating position in peace talks with Russia. It also would have supported Ukraine as a bulwark against further Russian advances in Europe.
Multiple witnesses unanimously attested to the importance of a White House meeting for Ukraine and the United States. For example, David Holmes, the Political Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, testified that a White House meeting was “critical” to President Zelensky’s ability to “encourage Russian President Putin to take seriously President Zelensky’s peace efforts.”456 Likewise, Deputy Assistant Secretary George Kent explained that a White House meeting was “very important” for Ukrainians to demonstrate the strength of their relationship with “Ukraine’s strongest supporter.” He also said that it “makes sense” for the United States to meet with the Ukrainians as they were on “the front lines of Russian malign influence and aggression.”457
Dr. Fiona Hill, Deputy Assistant to the President and Senior Director of European and Russian Affairs at the NSC, explained that a White House meeting would supply the new Ukrainian Government with “the legitimacy that it needed, especially vis-à-vis the Russians,”—and that the Ukrainians viewed a White House meeting as “a recognition of their legitimacy as a sovereign state.”458 Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the NSC Director for Ukraine, testified that a White House meeting would provide a “show of support” from “the most powerful country in the world and Ukraine’s most significant benefactor,” which would help the Ukrainian President “establish his bona fides” and “implement his agenda.”459
Ambassador Kurt Volker, Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations, also recognized that it was “a tremendous symbol of support” to have President Zelensky visit the White House.460 He explained that a meeting “enhances [President Zelensky’s] stature, that he is accepted, that he is seen at the highest level. The imagery you get from being at the White House is the best in the world, in terms of how it enhances someone’s image.”461
President Trump “Wanted to Hear from Zelensky” Before Scheduling Oval Office Meeting
Ambassador William B. Taylor, Jr. arrived in Ukraine as the new Chargé d’Affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv on June 17, 2019. After arriving, Ambassador Taylor worked to secure an Oval Office meeting between President Trump and President Zelensky. This was “an agreed-upon goal” of policymakers in both Ukraine and the United States.462
Ambassador Taylor worked with Ambassador Volker and Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland—two of the Three Amigos—to try to schedule this meeting. Just days after beginning his new position, Ambassador Taylor learned that President Trump “wanted to hear from Zelensky” before scheduling the Oval Office meeting, but Ambassador Taylor did not understand what that meant at the time.463 On June 27, Ambassador Sondland informed Ambassador Taylor that President Zelensky needed to “make clear” to President Trump that he, President Zelensky, was not “standing in the way of ‘investigations.’”464 Ambassador Taylor relayed this conversation to Mr. Holmes, who testified that he understood “investigations” in that context to mean the “Burisma-Biden investigations that Mr. Giuliani and his associates had been speaking about” publicly.465
On June 28, Secretary of Energy Rick Perry—the third of the Three Amigos—and Ambassadors Sondland, Volker, and Taylor participated in a conference call to prepare for a discussion later that day with President Zelensky. During this preparatory call, Ambassador Volker explained that he planned to be “explicit” with President Zelensky in an upcoming one-on-one meeting in Toronto, Canada. Specifically, Ambassador Volker intended to inform President Zelensky that President Trump would require Ukraine to address “rule of law, transparency, but also, specifically, cooperation on investigations to get to the bottom of things” in order to “get the meeting in the White House.”466
For the subsequent call with President Zelensky on June 28, Ambassador Sondland sought to limit the number of U.S. government personnel listening in. According to Ambassador Taylor, Ambassador Sondland stated that he did not want to include “most of the regular interagency participants” and that “he wanted to make sure no one was transcribing or monitoring” the call when President Zelensky was patched in. Ambassador Taylor testified that he considered Ambassador Sondland’s requests to be “odd.”467 During that call, President Zelensky and the U.S. officials discussed energy policy and the conflict with Russia in eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian president also noted that he looked forward to the White House visit that President Trump had offered in a letter dated May 29.468
The exclusion of State Department staff and notetakers from the June 28 call was an early indication to Ambassador Taylor that separate channels of diplomacy related to Ukraine policy
—an official channel and an irregular channel—were “diverging.” Ambassador Taylor testified:
This suggested to me that there were the two channels. This suggested to me that the normal channel, where you would have staff on the phone call, was being cut out, and the other channel, of people who were working, again, toward a goal which I supported, which was having a meeting to further U.S.-Ukrainian relations, I supported, but that irregular channel didn’t have a respect for or an interest in having the normal staff participate in this call with the head of state.469
Given Ambassador Sondland’s efforts to exclude staff on the June 28 call with President Zelensky, Ambassador Taylor asked Ambassadors Sondland and Volker by text message how they planned to handle informing other U.S. officials about the contents of the call. Ambassador Volker responded: “I think we just keep it among ourselves to try to build working relationship and just get the d*** date for the meeting!”470 Ambassador Sondland then texted: “Agree with KV. Very close hold.”471 Nevertheless, Ambassador Taylor informed Mr. Kent about the call and wrote a memo for the record dated June 30 that summarized the conversation with President Zelensky.472
Ambassador Volker Pressed “Investigations” with President Zelensky in Toronto
On July 2, Ambassador Volker met with President Zelensky and his chief of staff on the sidelines of the Ukraine Reform Conference in Toronto. As he later texted to Ambassador Taylor, Ambassador Volker “pulled the two of them aside at the end and explained the Giuliani factor.”473 Ambassador Volker clarified that by “the Giuliani factor,” he meant “a negative 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