VOLKER’S ABOUT-FACE
Ex-diplo now sees link to aid in Ukraine call
The House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday grilled four senior US officials in a marathon day of impeachment hearings rife with bitter partisan broadsides but short on revelations.
Two of the witnesses — National Security Council aide and Army vet Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and Jennifer Williams, an aide to Vice President Mike Pence — were called by the Democrats, while Republicans called former US special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker and Tim Morrison, the National Security Council’s former Russia expert.
Volker’s appearance, at least, added some life to a day of otherwise reheated testimony.
He reversed course on previous statements, saying that based on others’ testimony, he now sees a “connection” between President Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky and the holdup of nearly $400 million in military aid to the Eastern European nation.
Volker last month testified behind closed doors that he was unaware of any connection between the US aid package and Trump asking Zelensky for “a favor” — announcing a probe of former Vice President Joe Biden over son Hunter’s lucrative position on the board of a Ukrainian energy company.
“Since I gave my testimony on Oct. 3, a great deal of additional information and perspectives have come to light,” Volker said. “In retrospect, I should have seen that connection differently and, had I done so, I would have raised my own objections.”
He also took shots at Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
At a July 19 meeting, “Mayor Giuliani raised, and I rejected, the conspiracy theory that Vice President Biden would have been influenced in his duties as vice president by money paid to his son,” Volker said.
“He [Biden] is an honorable man and I hold him in the highest regard.”
Volker added, though, “I was never involved in anything that I considered bribery . . . or extortion.”
Among the other highlights of the third day of public impeachment-hearing testimony:
Vindman, reiterating what he had expressed in his closed
door testimony last month, said he was “concerned” by the Trump-Zelensky call, on which he and Williams — unlike previous witnesses — personally listened in.
“What I heard was improper,” Vindman said.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) — a staunch Trump supporter who, in a bid to protect Republican interests, was appointed to the committee shortly before the hearings began — pointedly asked Vindman whether he had publicly “leaked information” on the call.
“I never did, never would,” insisted Vindman, who testified in full Army regalia. “That is preposterous.”
California Rep. Devin Nunes, the panel’s ranking Republican, continued his strategy of dedicating his allotted time to attacking the impeachment process as a “circus” with leading Democrats the ringmasters.
“Whatever drug deal Democrats are cooking up here on the dais, Americans aren’t buying it,” Nunes said prior to Volker’s and Morrison’s testimony.
After hearing from five Democratic-picked witnesses over the hearings’ first three days, Tuesday afternoon’s session marked the first chance to hear from witnesses of Republicans’ choosing.
Volker and Morrison, however, failed to strike the decisive blow that the GOP had likely hoped for when lobbying for their inclusion on the witness roster.
In addition to Volker changing course, Morrison, under questioning from Republican counsel Steve Castor, appeared unable to explain why the full transcript of the Trump-Zelensky call was stored on a highsecurity server.
The White House has released a less-detailed version of the transcript, which Morrison said “accurately and completely reflects the substance of the call.”
As to why the entire transcript was stored under top security if there was nothing inappropriate about the call, Morrison said, “I spoke with the NSC executive secretariat staff, [and] asked them why.
“They informed me it had been moved to the higher-classification system at the direction of John Eisenberg,” an NSC attorney.
Eisenberg later denied giving such an order, Morrison testified, and blamed it on “a kind of administrative error.”
It was that security classification — unusually stringent for most calls between heads of state — that purportedly prompted a Beltway whistleblower to sound the alarm, sparking the impeachment inquiry.
By the day’s waning moments, Nunes fumed at Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the Intelligence Committee chair: “We still ask for witnesses that you did not depose — including the whistleblower.”
Three more witnesses will testify beginning at 9 a.m. Wednesday, headlined by Gordon Sondland, Trump’s ambassador to the European Union.