By Gregg Re, Alex Pappas | Fox News
Ambassador Kurt Volker, left, former special envoy to Ukraine, and Tim Morrison, a former official at the National Security Council are sworn in to testify before the House Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2019, during a public impeachment hearing of President Donald Trump's efforts to tie U.S. aid for Ukraine to investigations of his political opponents.(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Republicans sounded a celebratory note as House Democrats'
impeachment inquiry wrapped up another day of public hearings Tuesday evening,
saying the day's witnesses had served only to highlight fundamental problems in
the case against President Trump.
“Did anyone ever ask you to bribe or extort anyone at any
time during your time in the White House?" House Intelligence Committee
Ranking Member Devin Nunes, R-Calif., asked at one point in Tuesday's afternoon
hearing.
Former National Security Council (NSC) aide Tim Morrison:
"No."
Former U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt
Volker: “No."
Later, Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., covered similar
ground in asking the witnesses about Trump's fateful July 25 call with
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky: "Mr. Morrison, you were on that
call, and there was no quid pro quo, correct? No bribery? No extortion?"
"Correct," Morrison replied in response to each
question.
"And, Ambassador Volker, I presume you got a readout
of the call. ... Was there any reference to withholding aid? Any reference to
bribery? Any reference to quid pro quo? Any reference to extortion?"
"No, there was not," Volker replied, again and
again.
The answers underscored a problem facing House Democrats
as their impeachment inquiry continued into its second week of public hearings:
With more witnesses testifying, more soundbites have emerged that may help
Republicans and the Trump campaign argue that the proceedings were politically
motivated theater, long in the works and foreshadowed openly by Democrats for
months, if not years.
Morrison, in another key moment, testified Tuesday
afternoon that he understood the transcript of Trump's call with Ukraine's
leader wound up on a highly secured and classified computer system due to an
"administrative error" -- not, as Democrats have alleged, because the
president wanted to hide his conversation.
And, Volker testified repeatedly that he never received
any indications at all that there was an improper quid pro quo with Ukraine, in
which the Trump administration allegedly sought a probe of former Vice
President Joe Biden and his son Hunter in exchange for military aid.
As the hearing concluded, President Trump tweeted,
"A great day for Republicans, a great day for our Country!"
Ohio GOP Rep. Jim Jordan told Fox News, "This was a
very good day for Republicans, for our president."
"Kind of hard to prove a corrupt quid pro quo theory
when the key U.S. policy people, plus the Ukrainians, were never aware of such
an arrangement," Texas GOP Rep. Dan Crenshaw added late Tuesday, noting
that Ukraine's president has said he felt no pressure from Trump to open any
probes. "Can we go back to governing now, that’d be great thanks."
Morrison and Volker's testimony was sought by
the GOP, and the two undercut Democrats' poll-tested claims of White House "bribery" and
a cover-up.
But, they also raised new questions
concerning the administration's use of the little-discussed codeword-level
system that ordinarily held sensitive national-security information. Back in
September, a senior Trump administration official acknowledged that White House lawyers directed
moving the transcript of the call to the secure system,
noting that several of Trump's previous phone calls with foreign leaders
had leaked to the media.
Morrison previously testified behind closed doors
that senior NSC lawyer John Eisenberg had relayed to him that his
secretary accidentally put the transcript in the classified system. Morrison
said Eisenberg wanted to "restrict access" to the transcript, but
maintained that the secretary had apparently misinterpreted that instruction.
"It was represented to me that it was a
mistake," Morrison testified Tuesday, saying he tried to "pull up the
package in our system" but was prevented from doing so. When he asked why
the transcript was unavailable, he testified that he was "informed it
had been moved to the higher classification system" at Eisenberg's
direction. Then, Eisenberg told Morrison that he "gave no such
direction" and that it was an "administrative error," according
to Morrison.
Morrison said to the best of his knowledge, there was no
"malicious intent" in the decision to move the transcript to the
compartmentalized system, and all essential personnel retained access to the
transcript even after it was moved.
Later in the day, Volker made clear he had not seen
anything to support Democrats' contention that Trump improperly withheld
foreign aid to Ukraine as a means of forcing an investigation into the
Bidens' dealings in the country.
Instead, Volker suggested -- in a moment that the
Trump campaign reposted on social media -- that Trump's general
hesitation to provide foreign aid, especially to corrupt countries, was the
prevailing justification for holding up aid to Ukraine temporarily.
Asked again whether he saw any evidence that Trump had
committed "bribery" -- the term Democrats have taken to
using, after focus groups indicated that it would help them sell impeachment
to voters -- Volker was unequivocal that he had not. In fact, Volker
said, Trump never linked any probe of Burisma or the Bidens to any military
aid. Hunter Biden sat on Burisma's board while his father spearheaded Ukraine
policy as vice president.
"I have only seen an allegation of bribery in the
last week," Volker said. "I was never involved in anything that I
considered to be bribery at all, or extortion."
In one remarkable moment, Volker contradicted a media
headline; asked about a Daily Mail story claiming he had "walked
back" his testimony and had "now learned" there was a link
between U.S. aid and Biden probe, Volker refuted the website outright.
Volker also said he didn't initially realize the
connection between a Trump-sought investigation of Burisma and the Bidens,
given that Burisma was seen as a symbol of Ukraine's endemic corruption
problem.
Hunter Biden was a board member of the Ukrainian natural
gas company Burisma Holdings, which had been under investigation before
then-Vice President Joe Biden pressured Ukraine to fire the prosecutor in
charge. In his call with Zelensky, Trump suggested the Ukrainians look into the
circumstances of the prosecutor's termination, including Joe Biden's boast that
he had the prosecutor fired by threatening to withhold $1 billion
in critical aid. "Biden went around bragging that he stopped the
prosecution, so if you can look into it…It sounds horrible to me," Trump
said.
In a lengthy opening statement, Volker said he
didn't have any problem with pushing Ukraine to open an investigation into
Burisma or corruption.
"It has long been U.S. policy under multiple
administrations to urge Ukraine to investigate and fight internal corruption,"
Volker said.
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent
similarly testified behind closed doors last month that he
had qualms about Hunter Biden's lucrative role on the board of Burisma.
However, Volker said he felt a discussion of
investigations was “inappropriate” in a July meeting between Ukrainian and U.S.
officials at the White House.
Volker confirmed others’ testimony that Trump's
European Union ambassador, Gordon Sondland, raised the investigations “in a
generic way," and that then-national security adviser John Bolton
immediately ended the meeting.
"I saw them as very different – the former being
appropriate and unremarkable, the latter being unacceptable," Volker said.
"In retrospect, I should have seen that connection differently, and had I
done so, I would have raised my own objections."
Volker added: “The allegations against Vice President
Biden are self-serving and non-credible."
Volker went on to say that during a September dinner
with top Ukrainian official Andriy Yermak, he’d discouraged Ukraine from
trying to prosecute the country’s previous president. Volker says he warned it
would sow deep societal divisions.
Volker said Yermak quipped in response, “You mean
like asking us to investigate Clinton and Biden?” Volker claimed he didn’t
“quite understand” the head-turning remark and was “kind of puzzled” by it.
Both Volker and Morrison previously gave closed-door
interviews to the inquiry: Volker provided investigators with a package of text
messages with Sondland and William Taylor, the U.S. chargé d'affaires for
Ukraine, who said he grew alarmed at the possible linkage of the investigations
to the aid.
For his part, Morrison, who served as the NSC's
senior director of European and Russian affairs, told lawmakers Trump
didn't want tax dollars funding Ukrainian corruption and remarked that he
wasn't concerned Trump's calls with Ukraine's leader were tied to his political
interests.
Morrison resigned from the NSC last month. In his
testimony Tuesday, he said he left on his "own volition" and
made the decision "before I decided to testify."
The testimony from Volker and Morrison followed five
hours of testimony earlier in the day with the NSC's Lt. Col. Alexander
Vindman and Vice President Pence aide Jennifer
Williams, who were each critical of Trump's conversation with Zelensky.
In a particularly remarkable moment, Vindman testified
that he was asked to serve as Ukraine’s defense minister three
times -- but repeatedly denied the offers -- when he traveled to Kiev
for the inauguration of Ukraine's president. Oleksander Danylyuk, the
former Chairman of the National Security and Defence Council in Ukraine, reportedly
said on Tuesday the offer was "clearly a joke."
Among the biggest revelations Tuesday morning came when
Vindman acknowledged communications with an unnamed intelligence official --
during an at-times tense exchange with Republicans, immediately raising
apparent questions over whether he could have been a source of information for
the anonymous whistleblower who reported the call.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff,
D-Calif., interjected to express concern that Republicans were trying to out
the whistleblower through the questioning. After consulting his attorney,
Vindman said, "Per the advice of my counsel, I've been advised not to
answer the specific questions about members of the intelligence
community."
Still, Vindman told lawmakers, "I do not know who
the whistleblower is."
That claim didn't hold water with Republicans, and
prompted Donald Trump Jr. to accuse Vindman of perjury. “I’d like them to
be treated like I would be if I lied to Congress," he told Fox News late
Tuesday.
On the whole, Vindman was largely critical of Trump's
call with Zelensky, describing the investigation "demand" as
"improper." At one point, Vindman described his reaction to
Trump’s call as one of "shock."
"Frankly, I couldn’t believe what I was
hearing," he testified. "In certain regards, my worst fear of how our
Ukraine policy could play out was playing out."
However, Vindman was caught in an apparent
contradiction late in the day by Republican Ohio Rep. Brad Wenstrup. Vindman
testified earlier in the day that he did not discuss his concerns about Trump's
July phone call with Morrison, his superior, because he was unavailable.
But, under questioning from Wenstrup, Morrison confirmed that
Vindman had given him edits of the transcript of the call, on the same day that
Vindman testified Morrison was unreachable.
"Frankly, I couldn’t believe what I was
hearing."
— NSC's Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, concerning
Trump's July call with Ukraine's leader
Arizona GOP Rep. Paul Gosar offered a blunt
assessment of Vindman's testimony, tweeting: "I think people need a
reminder: the democrats said they would impeach starting in December
2016–before @realDonaldTrump was even sworn in. This is a hearing looking
for a reason. It’s corrupt and immoral. The dude in the uniform is a
seditionist."
Morrison, meanwhile, also said he had heard others
express concern that Vindman was a leaker, and could not be trusted with key
information. Asked about that allegation, Vindman read from a glowing
performance review that described him as an exemplary officer.
Lt. Col. Vindman
testified earlier today that he didn’t take his concerns to Mr. Morrison
because he wasn’t available, but that same day he took his edits to the
transcript to Mr. Morrison.
The other morning witness, Williams, also expressed
concern about Trump's call with Zelensky, saying, "I found the July 25th
phone call unusual because, in contrast to other presidential calls I had
observed, it involved discussion of what appeared to be a domestic political
matter."
Until Tuesday, none of the witnesses who have testified
at the public hearings had first-hand knowledge of the president's thinking,
which Republicans have used to cast doubt on Democrats' allegations, but
Vindman, Williams, and Morrison all listened in on Trump's July 25 phone call
with Zelensky.
Morrison said his understanding was that Trump generally
was skeptical of foreign aid, and wanted to make sure that taxpayers were
"getting their money's worth."
"The president was concerned that the United States
seemed to bear the exclusive brunt of security assistance to Ukraine,"
Morrison said. "He wanted to see the Europeans step up and contribute more
security assistance."
The impeachment inquiry has focused on a possible link
between military aid to Ukraine and investigations sought by Trump pertaining
to the Bidens and Democrats. The questions arose after the July 25 phone
call led to a whistleblower complaint alleging that Trump was trying to
pressure Ukraine into helping him.
"As we have heard from other witnesses, when Joe
Biden was considering whether to enter the race for the presidency in 2020, the
president’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, began a campaign to weaken Vice
President Biden’s candidacy by pushing Ukraine to investigate him and his
son," Schiff said in his opening statement.
Nunes opened his remarks by welcoming people to "Act
Two of today's circus," dismissing the inquiry as a partisan exercise.
"It's an ambitious attack to deprive the American
people of their right to elect a president that the Democrats don’t like,"
Nunes said. "The chairman of this committee claims that democracy is under
threat. If that's true, it's not the president who poses the danger."
Morrison, though, suggested the impeachment brouhaha was
predictable partisan politics as usual.
"I feared at the time of the call on July 25th how
its disclosure would play in Washington's political climate," Morrison
said in his opening statement. "My fears have been realized."
Fox News' Chad Pergram and The Associated
Press contributed to this report.
Gregg
Re is a lawyer and editor based in Los Angeles. Follow him on Twitter @gregg_re or email
him at gregory.re@foxnews.com.
