Thread by @jaketapper

Excerpts from LTC ALEXANDER VINDMAN and DR. FIONA HILL on the July 10 WH meeting with Ukrainian government officials Yermak and Danylyuk, from the testimony released today. (Thread) 1/

2/ VINDMAN: "When the Ukrainians raised this issue of trying to figure out what the date would be for the Presidential meeting, Ambassador Sondland proceeded to discuss the deliverable required in order to get the meeting, and he alluded to investigations."

3/ HILL says SONDLAND said: "Well, we have an
agreement with the Chief of Staff for a meeting if these
'investigations in the energy sector start."

(Remember that phrase: "investigations in the energy sector.")

HILL: NSA "Bolton immediately stiffened and ended the meeting."

4/ SONDLAND took the Ukrainians down to the Ward Room in the WH basement where the conversation continued. VINDMAN attended as well.

Upstairs, HILL says BOLTON told her "Go down to the Ward Room right now and find out what they’re talking about and come back and talk to me…."

5/ VINDMAN says SONDLAND said Ukrainians needed to conduct investigations; "I heard him say that this had been coordinated with White House Chief of Staff Mr. Mick Mulvaney....he had had a conversation with Mr. Mulvaney, and this is what was required in order to get a meeting."

6/ What did you hear Sondland say?

VINDMAN: That the Ukrainians would have to deliver an investigation into the Bidens.

Q Into the Bidens. So in the Ward Room he mentioned the word "Bidens" ?

VINDMAN: To the best of my recollection, yes.

7/ HILL: "Ambassador Sondland, in front of the Ukrainians, as I came in, was talking about how he had an agreement with Chief of Staff Mulvaney for a meeting with the Ukrainians if they were going to go forward with investigations...

8/ Q So it was you personally who heard Ambassador Sondland mention Burisma—

HILL: Correct.

Q: —in the Ward Room?

HILL: Correct.

9/ HILL then tells BOLTON what happened.

He gets upset.

10/ HILL: BOLTON "believed that they were making, basically, an improper arrangement to have a meeting in the White House, that they were predicating the meeting in the White House on the Ukrainians agreeing..to restart investigations that had been dropped in the energy sector"

11/ HILL then defines "investigations that had been dropped in the energy sector" as "code" for Burisma, the firm where Hunter Biden had served on the board.

(She also says Burisma for Giuliani means investigating the Bidens though "it was never explicitly said.")

12/ BOLTON tells her: "You go and tell (NSC Counsel) Eisenberg that I am not part of whatever drug deal Sondland and Mulvaney are cooking up on this, and you go and tell him what you’ve heard and what I’ve said…"

13/ Adding this from SONDLAND testimony

Q In the Ward meeting do you remember ever mentioning the word "Burisma"?
A I can't say that the word "Burisma" wasn't mentioned. I don't know if I mentioned it or if Ambassador Volker did or if Mr. Vindman I have no idea.