Army officer offers firsthand account of critical episodes in alleged quid pro quo

WASHINGTON - The details that National Security Council Ukraine expert Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman will share Tuesday with impeachment investigators shed new light on how Trump administration officials tried to pressure Ukrainian leaders into a quid pro quo to secure investigations that could benefit the president. The planned remarks corroborate the testimony of other diplomats with a firsthand account of what transpired.

Vindman's testimony also directly challenges witnesses such as U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, who defended the president's actions, telling top American diplomat in Ukraine, Ambassador William Taylor, in September text messages that they were not a quid pro quo. The text messages were provided to investigators by former special U.S. envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker earlier this month.

To date, Taylor's testimony from last week, which laid out in meticulous detail how a shadow Ukraine policy directed by Trump's lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani prioritized securing investigations of Trump's political rivals over U.S. national security interest, has been held up as the most incriminating. But Vindman's recollections, while narrower, illuminate key episodes in Taylor's narrative. Vindman was in the room and told by the Trump officials involved in the exchanges, which Democrats believe amount to a quid pro about the intentions in those interactions.

Vindman not only listened in on the July 25 call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, he was also briefed about a July 10 meeting in which Sondland demanded that Ukrainian leaders deliver "specific investigations" to secure a meeting between the two heads of state.

Vindman knows that because he was told about it directly by Sondland himself in the immediate aftermath of the meeting, according to prepared opening remarks he will deliver before the panels. During the previously scheduled debrief, "Sondland emphasized the importance that Ukraine deliver the investigations into the 2016 election, the Bidens, and Burisma," Vindman's prepared testimony reads.

"I stated to Amb. Sondland that his statements were inappropriate, that the request to investigate Biden and his son had nothing to do with national security, and that such investigations were not something the NSC was going to get involved in or push," Vindman adds, noting that he took his concerns to the NSC's lead counsel.

Sondland is under pressure from lawmakers to return to Capitol Hill to answer more questions his part in the Giuliani-directed Ukraine effort in which he, Volker and Energy Secretary Rick Perry played leading roles. Sondland appeared to demur during his closed-door deposition earlier this month about whether believed that almost $400 million in military aid for Ukraine was being withheld to secure investigations into the role Hunter Biden, son of former vice president and now 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden, played on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma, and a debunked conspiracy theory involving a Democratic National Committee that was hacked in 2016.

Vindman's prepared testimony does not address whether military aid was being withheld to secure U.S. elections; it just stresses that Sondland held back the promise of a phone call between the two heads of state until Ukraine pledged to conduct the investigations. That matches testimony from previous officials. And in recent days, Sondland's lawyer Robert Luskin told the Wall Street Journal that his client believes - and that he told House investigators - that the actions amounted to a quid pro quo.

Sondland appeared on Capitol Hill again on Monday to review the transcript of his previous testimony in a secure facility, a courtesy afforded to all interviewees.