 |
| "I have it on good word that this version is the whole truth and nothing but the truth...maybe." Financial Times illustration. |
I, Gordon Sondland, do
hereby swear and affirm as follows:
1. I have reviewed the
October 22, 2019, opening statement of Ambassador William Taylor. I have also
reviewed the October 31, 2019, opening statement of Tim Morrison. These two
opening statements have refreshed my recollection about certain conversations
in early September 2019.
2. Ambassador Taylor
recalls that I told Mr. Morrison in early September 2019 that the resumption of
U.S. aid to Ukraine had become tied to a public statement to be issued by
Ukraine agreeing to investigate Burisma. Ambassador Taylor recalls that Mr.
Morrison told Ambassador Taylor that I told Mr. Morrison that I had conveyed
this message to Mr. Yermak on September 1, 2019, in connection with Vice
President Pence’s visit to Warsaw and a meeting with President Zelensky. Mr.
Morrison recalls that I said to him in early September that resumption of U.S.
aid to Ukraine might be conditioned on a public statement reopening the Burisma
investigation.
3. In my October 17,
2019 prepared testimony and in my deposition, I made clear that I had
understood sometime after our May 23, 2019, White House debriefing that
scheduling a White House visit for President Zelensky was conditioned upon
President Zelensky’s agreement to make a public anti-corruption statement. This
condition had been communicated by Rudy Giuliani, with whom President Trump
directed Ambassador Volker, Secretary Perry, and me, on May 23, 2019, to
discuss issues related to the President’s concerns about Ukraine. Ambassador
Volker, Secretary Perry, and I understood that satisfying Mr. Giuliani was a
condition for scheduling the White House visit, which we all strongly believed
to be in the mutual interest of the United States and Ukraine.
4. With respect to the
September 1, 2019, Warsaw meeting, the conversations described in Ambassador
Taylor’s and Mr. Morrison’s opening statements have refreshed my recollection
about conversations involving the suspension of U.S. aid, which had become
public only days earlier. I always believed that suspending aid to Ukraine was
ill-advised, although I did not know (and still do not know) when, why, or by
whom the aid was suspended. However; by the beginning of September 2019, and in
the absence of any credible explanation for the suspension of aid, I presumed
that the aid suspension had become linked to the proposed anti-corruption
statement. As I said in my prepared testimony, security aid to Ukraine was in
our vital national interest and should not have been delayed for any reason.
And it would have been natural for me to have voiced what I had presumed to
Ambassador Taylor, Senator Johnson, the Ukrainians, and Mr. Morrison.
5. Also, I now do recall
a conversation on September 1, 2019, in Warsaw with Mr. Yermak. This brief
pull-aside conversation followed the larger meeting involving Vice President
Pence and President Zelensky, in which President Zelensky had raised the issue
of the suspension of U.S. aid to Ukraine directly with Vice President Pence.
After that large meeting, I now recall speaking individually with Mr. Yermak,
where I said that resumption of U.S. aid would likely not occur until Ukraine
provided the public anti-corruption statement that we had been discussing for
many weeks. I also recall some question as to whether the public statement
could come from the newly appointed Ukrainian Prosecutor General, rather than
from President Zelensky directly.
6. Soon thereafter, I
came to understand that, in fact, the public statement would need to come
directly from President Zelensky himself. I do not specifically recall how I
learned this, but I believe that the information may have come either from Mr.
Giuliani or from Ambassador Volker, who may have discussed this with Mr.
Giuliani. In a later conversation with Ambassador Taylor, I told him that I had
been mistaken about whether a public statement could come from the Prosecutor
General; I had come to understand that the public statement would have to come
from President Zelensky himself.
7. Finally, as of this
writing, I cannot specifically recall if I had one or two phone calls with
President Trump in the September 6-9 time frame. Despite repeated requests to
the White House and the State Department, I have not been granted access to all
of the phone records, and I would like to review those phone records, along
with any notes and other documents that may exist, to determine if I can
provide more complete testimony to assist Congress. However, although I have no
specific recollection of phone calls during this period with Ambassador Taylor
or Mr. Morrison, I have no reason to question the substance of their
recollection about my September 1 conversation with Mr. Yermak.
I declare under penalty
of perjury that the aforementioned is true.
Executed on November 4,
2019.
No comments:
Post a Comment