Political appointees are clashing with longtime professional staffers over the president’s Ukraine scandal, with witnesses sparring over major elements of the story
The fault lines are most easily seen in the witnesses summoned to testify in open hearings this far: Democrats’ first public hearings last week featured Taylor, Kent and Yovanovitch and will continue this week with Sondland, Williams and Pentagon official Laura Cooper, among others. Republicans, meanwhile, have asked for an additional nine witnesses, only some of whom were greenlit by the majority, including Volker, National Security Council official Tim Morrison and Trump appointee David Hale.
Hill testified that Sondland “started to basically talk about discussions that he had had with the chief of staff,” Mick Mulvaney. “He mentioned Mr. Giuliani, but then I cut him off because I didn't want to get further into this discussion at all.” Morrison, a former Republican Senate staffer and arms-control specialist who was selected by Bolton to replace Hill as a top Europe and Russia adviser on the NSC, testified that he “was not concerned that anything illegal was discussed” on the call.
Morrison also told lawmakers he kept Taylor apprised of the back-channel’s efforts, briefing him on the July 25 call, calls between Sondland and Trump, calls between Sondland and Yermak, and Trump’s desire to withhold all security aid from Ukraine—which Taylor said he was prepared to resign over. “Assuming President Zelensky convinces Trump he will investigate/get to the bottom of what happened in 2016, we will nail down date for visit to Washington. Good luck,” Volker wrote on July 25.A key disagreement has emerged over why the record of the July 25 call was placed in a top-secret system used by the NSC to store code-word-level information, and whether it was edited to remove the word “Burisma.
Vindman said he didn’t believe Ellis had “malicious intent” in suggesting the call record be placed on the top-secret server, and that Eisenberg ultimately “gave the go-ahead” to do so.
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