WASHINGTON -- A career Army officer on assignment to President Donald Trump's National Security Council testified Tuesday that he felt it was his duty to object to Trump's "improper" phone call seeking Ukrainian investigations of U.S. Democrats. Republicans answered him with doubts about his loyalty to the United States.
Arriving on Capitol Hill in military blue with medals across his chest, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman told impeachment investigators that he felt no hesitation in reporting the president's request of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
In the second round of testimony Tuesday, the former U.S. special envoy to Ukraine, Kurt Volker, rebuffed claims of corruption made against former Vice President Joe Biden and revised statements he made during closed testimony.
Vindman, a 20-year military officer who received a Purple Heart for being wounded in the Iraq War, was among the officials who listened in to the July 25 call when Trump asked Zelenskiy for a "favor" -- investigations of Biden and other issues.
"It was inappropriate, it was improper for the president to request, to demand an investigation into a political opponent," Vindman told the House Intelligence Committee.
Democrats say Trump's pressure on Ukraine to investigate Biden while withholding U.S. military aid to Kyiv may be grounds for removing the 45th president. Republicans have argued both that there was no linkage between the two matters and that there is nothing inappropriate even if there was.
Vindman testified alongside Jennifer Williams, an adviser in Vice President Mike Pence's office. Both said they had concerns as they listened to Trump speak with the newly elected Ukrainian president about political investigations into Biden.
It wasn't the first time Vindman was alarmed over the administration's push to have Ukraine investigate Democrats, he testified.
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He highlighted a July 10 meeting at the White House when the ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, told visiting Ukraine officials that they would need to "deliver" before next steps -- a meeting Zelenskiy wanted with Trump.
"Ambassador Sondland referred to investigations into the Bidens and Burisma [the Ukrainian gas company] in 2016," he testified.
On both occasions, Vindman said, he took his concerns about the shifting Ukraine policy to the lead counsel at the National Security Council, John Eisenberg. Republicans later criticized him for not reporting to his direct supervisor.
An immigrant who came to the U.S. as a toddler from Ukraine, Vindman opened his testimony by assuring his father that he would be "fine for telling the truth."
Yet Vindman spent long stretches fielding Republican attacks on his loyalty to the U.S. and his career in public service. The Republicans' lead counsel asked at one point about an offer to Vindman from a Ukrainian official to become the country's defense minister.
Vindman called it "comical" and said he swiftly reported it up his chain of command.
"I'm an American," Vindman said. "And I immediately dismissed these offers."
Vindman appeared prepared to defend his loyalty to the United States. At one point, he corrected Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., the House Intelligence Committee's top Republican, after Nunes called him "Mr. Vindman," rather than by his military rank.
"It's Lieutenant Colonel Vindman, please," Vindman said. He later declared himself "never partisan," and, when asked about Trump's attacks, asserted of his testimony: "I knew I was assuming a lot of risk."
The colonel deflected repeated Republican efforts to divulge everyone he told about the Trump call -- thwarting Trump allies' attempts to identify the anonymous whistleblower who spurred the impeachment inquiry.
Nunes asked him and Williams who else they had talked to about their concerns, bearing down once Vindman acknowledged one was from the intelligence community. The whistleblower is a CIA official, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
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Vindman said he does not know who the whistleblower is. He has previously said it is not him.
Trump ally Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio pressed Vindman on whether he had ever leaked information. "Never did, never would," Vindman testified.
Vindman said Trump's remarks strayed from the talking points prepared for him. And both witnesses noted the use of the word "Burisma" on the call. That was a reference to the gas company in Ukraine where Hunter Biden served on the board.
Republicans were eager to hear during the afternoon from former National Security Council official Timothy Morrison, who had supervised Vindman at the National Security Council. "He had concerns about Vindman's judgment," the White House tweeted.
But Morrison, who has since left the administration, told lawmakers that he was not appearing to question his former colleagues' "character or integrity" and does not intend to out the whistleblower.
Morrison, who also was listening to Trump's call, worried that its disclosure would not play well in polarized Washington, and reported it to the National Security Council lawyer. He testified about his sinking feeling as the military aid to Ukraine was stalled.
Morrison testified in the second session Tuesday afternoon alongside Volker, the former U.S. special envoy to Ukraine.
SUPPORT FOR BIDEN
Sought by Republicans to testify, Volker spoke up instead for Biden, rejecting "conspiracy theories" embraced by Trump and some of his allies.
Volker said he has known Biden as an honorable man for more than two decades, rebuffing debunked corruption allegations that Trump is said to have wanted the Ukrainians to investigate in exchange for military aid to hold off Russian aggression.
"The allegations against Vice President Biden are self-serving and noncredible," Volker declared.
Broader corruption in Ukraine was "plausible," but corruption by Biden wasn't, he said.
Volker was the first person to give closed testimony in the inquiry that started in September, resigning his position shortly before he did so.
He said he opposed any hold on security assistance to Ukraine. And he said, "I did not understand that others believed that any investigation of the Ukrainian company, Burisma, which had a history of accusations of corruption, was tantamount to investigating Vice President Biden. I drew a distinction between the two."
That was even though, he said, he understood that Hunter Biden had been a board member -- and he himself had been deeply involved with Ukrainian officials on a statement, never released, that would have committed the country to investigating Burisma and the 2016 U.S. election.
Volker himself requested a meeting on July 19 with Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer, at which Giuliani mentioned accusations about the Bidens as well as the discredited theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 U.S. election.
He said he believes now, thanks to hindsight and the testimony of other witnesses, that Trump was using the aid to pressure Ukraine to investigate Hunter Biden and his role on the company's board.
"In retrospect I should have seen that connection differently, and had I done so, I would have raised my own objections," Volker testified.
Morrison, who stepped down from Trump's National Security Council shortly before he gave closed testimony last month, said he was not concerned that anything illegal was discussed on Trump's July 25 call with Ukraine's leader, testimony that Republicans have repeatedly highlighted.
"As I stated during my deposition, I feared at the time of the call on July 25th how its disclosure would play in Washington's political climate," he said Tuesday. "My fears have been realized."
He told lawmakers Tuesday that the transcript of the call was incorrectly placed in a highly secure location.
Democrats have seen ill intent in that action, but he said, "It was a mistake ... an administrative error."
Morrison has confirmed to investigators that he witnessed a key September conversation in Warsaw between Sondland and a Ukrainian official. Sondland told the official that U.S. aid might be freed if the country's top prosecutor "would go to the mike and announce that he was opening the Burisma investigation," Morrison said in his closed testimony.
Volker shifted his account of a pivotal July 10 interaction at the White House. In his closed interview last month, he said there was no discussion of Giuliani's activities in Ukraine or investigations sought by the president.
But on Tuesday, he said the meeting was essentially over when Sondland made a "general" comment about investigations.
"I think all of us thought it was inappropriate; the conversation did not continue and the meeting concluded," Volker said.
A series of text messages Volker provided to lawmakers showed conversations between him, Sondland and other leaders in which they discussed a need for Ukraine to open investigations, including into Burisma.
He testified that he wasn't part of an irregular foreign-policy channel led by Giuliani, as others have testified. He also rejected the idea that Trump dubbed him, Sondland and Energy Secretary Rick Perry the "three amigos" in charge of Ukraine policy.
"My role was not some irregular channel, but the official channel," Volker said.
Sondland is to appear before the House committee today.
The evidence gathered to date points to Sondland as the witness who, more than any other, could tie Trump directly to the effort to persuade Ukraine to open investigations that might benefit him politically.
"The impeachment effort comes down to one guy, Ambassador Sondland," said Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., who like many Republicans has argued that only a first-person account of Trump leveraging U.S. power for personal gain could give Democrats grounds to impeach. "All the other testimony has a Sondland core to it and a Sondland connection."
Information for this article was contributed by Lisa Mascaro, Mary Clare Jalonick, Alan Fram, Zeke J. Miller, Laurie Kellman, Colleen Long, Eric Tucker, Lolita Baldor, Jill Colvin, Bruce Schreiner and Matthew Daly of The Associated Press; and by Aaron C. Davis, Rachael Bade, Karoun Demirjian, Matt Zapotosky, Elise Viebeck, Colby Itkowitz, Devlin Barrett, Shane Harris, Rosalind S. Helderman and Carol D. Leonnig of The Washington Post.
A Section on 11/20/2019