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The former US special envoy for Ukraine told House investigators that he urged Ukraine’s leadership not to interfere in US politics in a conversation that followed a phone call between President Trump and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, according to two sources familiar with the testimony.
Volker’s testimony seems to confirm the whistleblower description in the complaint that Volker and another US diplomat “provided advice to the Ukrainian leadership about how to ‘navigate’ the demands that the president made.”
He also told lawmakers that the Ukrainian government had a lot of questions why the military aid was being held up and he did not have a good explanation, according to the sources describing the testimony.
Volker also testified that the Ukrainian government was concerned that a meeting with the Ukrainians and Trump was being put on hold but did not understand the reason.
The meeting was important to Zelensky, who pushed to come to Washington on the July 25 call. According to the rough transcript, the President responds first that he will have Attorney General William Barr and his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, get in touch and then says: “Whenever you would like to come to the White House, feel free to call. Give us a date and we’ll work that out. I look forward to seeing you.”
But the meeting never happened. A planned meeting in Poland ended up being scrubbed because the President stayed in the United States to deal with the hurricane and he sent Vice President Mike Pence in his place.
Volker also told congressional investigators that he raised concerns with Giuliani about using former Ukrainian prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko as a source for information about the Bidens and other controversies, warning that Lutsenko was not credible.
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