It’s not a smoking gun, it’s more than that. It’s a smoldering crater.
From the deposition of David Holmes, Political Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine:
PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE, joint with the
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM
and the
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
WASHINGTON, D.C.
DEPOSITION OF: DAVID A. HOLMES
[….]
THE CHAIRMAN: Okay. During the meeting, you said President Zelensky stated that during the July 25th call, President Trump had three times raised some very sensitive issues and that he would have to follow up on those issues when they met in person. Now having read the call record, do you understand what he meant by the very sensitive issues he had raised three times?
MR. HOLMES: There were only a couple issues that the President raised in that call, and so, I assume those are the issues he meant.
THE CHAIRMAN: And those involve the investigations that the President wanted Zelensky to do?
MR. HOLMES: Yes, sir.
THE CHAIRMAN: So Zelensky here is saying he’ll have to follow up with those issues when he gets his White House meeting, is that the import ?
MR. H0LMES: Yes, sir.
THE CHAIRMAN: So Zelensky is communicating that he wants this meeting, and if the President wants to talk further about this, he needs to give him the meeting. Is that right?
MR. HOLMES: I think that’s a reasonable interpretation.
THE CHAIRMAN: On page 6, you mentioned how you were excluded from the meeting between Ambassador Sondland and Mr. Yermak, and that you waited outside with a member of Ambassador Sondland’s staff. Was there a member of Ambassador Sondland’s staff that accompanied him on most of the Ukraine trips?
MR. HOLMES: There was a member of his staff on this trip. I don’t know if his standard practice — I don’t recall- if he had a staff member accompany him on his other trips. I don’t recall.
THE CHAIRMAN: Do you recall who that staff member was?
MR. HOLMES: Yes. It’s a State Department officer in the U.S. mission to the EU. Her name is [redacted].
THE CHAIRMAN: Let me move ahead to the call that you overheard at the restaurant. You said Ambassador Sondland placed this call on his mobile phone?
MR. HOLMES: Yes, sir.
THE CHAIRMAN: Did that cause you any concern about the security of that phone call?
MR. HOLMES: It was surprising to me that he — yes. In my experience, generally, phone ca11s with the President are very sensitive and handled accordingly.
THE CHAIRMAN: And making a cell phone call from Ukraine, is there a risk of Russians listening in?
MR. HOLMES: I believe at least two of the three, if not a11 three of the mobile networks are owned by Russian companies, or have significant stakes in those. We generally assume that mobile communications in Ukraine are being monitored.
THE CHAIRMAN: And, in fact, Ambassador Nuland’s communications at one point had been monitored and released for political effect?
MR. HOLMES: Yes, sir.
THE CHAIRMAN: So there was not only the concern with the ownership of the telecommunication companies, but past practice?
MR. HOLMES: Yes, sir.
THE CHAIRMAN: Now, you said the President’s voice was loud and recognizable, and Ambassador Sondland held the phone away from his head. Is that night?
MR. HOLMES: Yes, sir. He sort of was waiting for him to come on, and then when he came on, he sort of winced and went like that for the first couple exchanges. And then —
THE CHAIRMAN: Now, the reporter can’t record that.
MR. HOLMES: I’m sorry. He sort of winced —
THE CHAIRMAN: He moved his head away from the phone?
MR. H0LMES: — winced and then moved the phone away from his ear, because the volume was 1oud, and then — for the first portion of the cal1, and then he stopped doing that. I don’t know if he turned the volume down on got used to it or if the person, the President, I believe, on the other line moderated his volume. I don’t know what happened, but for the first part, he was pulling it away from his head.
THE CHAIRMAN: And you heard Ambassador Sondland greet the President and say he was calling from Kyiv, and then you could hear President Trump wanting to clarify that Ambassador Sondland was, in fact, in Ukraine?
MR. HOLMES: Yeah. Yes. You mean, Ukraine? Yes, Ukraine.
THE CHAIRMAN: And then you said President Zelensky or Ambassador Sondland went on to say that “President Zelensky loves your ass, ” meaning that he loves the President?
MR. HOLMES: Yes, sir.
THE CHAIRMAN: And then you could hear President Trump say, so he’s going to do the investigation?
MR. HOLMES: Yes, sir.
THE CHAIRMAN: And Sondland replied, He’s going to do it?
MR. HOLMES: Yes. He said, Oh yeah, he’s going to do it.
THE CHAIRMAN: And then he went on to say, President Zelensky will do anything you ask him to?
MR. HOLMES: Yes.
THE CHAIRMAN: And those are the words you heard, to the best of your recollection?
MR. HOLMES: Yes, sir.
THE CHAIRMAN: And, you know, I think you said you have quite a clean recollection of that. It left an impression on you, did it?
MR. HOLMES: This was an extremely distinctive experience in my Foreign Service career. I’ve never seen anything like this, someone calling the President from a mobile phone at a restaurant, and then having a conversation of this level of candor, colorful language. There’s just so much about the call that was so remarkable that I remember it vividly.
THE CHAIRMAN: I won’t go though the conversation about the rapper, but let me ask you about after the call ended. Anything else you can recall about the Ukraine portion of the conversation?
MR. HOLMES: It was very brief. It was exactly as I have described it, three sentences on whatever. It was — and then it was immediately, what about Sweden and then the rapper portion.
THE CHAIRMAN: So the call ends. You’re still at the restaurant. You take the opportunity to ask Ambassador Sondland for his candid impression of the President’s views on Ukraine and, in particular, you ask him, is it true the President doesn’t give a shit about Ukraine?
MR. HOLMES: Yes, sir.
THE CHAIRMAN: Now, what 1ed you to believe that the President didn’t give a shit about Ukraine? That’s an interesting way to start a question asking for feedback.
MR. HOLMES: Yeah. I’m not proud of my language. But the informal tone of the lunch and the language I had heard him using in his call with the President, we were just sort of, you know, two guys oven lunch talking about stuff, and it seemed to me that was the kind of language that he used. And so I was — I, at that point, believed that it had been very difficult for us to get the President interested in what we were trying to do in Ukraine. Those are the words I chose.
THE CHAIRMAN: And Sondland agreed with you that the President did not give a shit about Ukraine. So his answer was to you, the President doesn’t give a shit about Ukraine?
MR. HOLMES: My recollection, he said, Nope, not at all, doesn’t give a shit about Ukraine.
THE CHAIRMAN: And you asked him why not, and what did the President say?
MR. HOLMES: Sondland?
THE CHAIRMAN: I’m sorry. What did Ambassador Sondland say?
MR. HOLMES: Yeah. He said, he only cares about big things.
THE CHAIRMAN: Big things on big stuff?
MR. HOLMES: Big things. Big stuff. Big.
THE CHAIRMAN: And you noted that there was big stuff going on in Ukraine, like a war with Russia?
MR. HOLMES: Yes.
THE CHAIRMAN: And what did Ambassador Sondland say in reply?
MR. HOLMES: He said, no, big stuff that matters to him, like this Biden investigation that Giuliani is pushing.
THE CHAIRMAN: So Ambassador Sondland conveyed that the big stuff the President cared about was stuff that benefited the President, like the investigation into the Bidens?
MR. HOLMES: That was my understanding, yes.
THE CHAIRMAN: And then after that, the conversation moved in other directions?
MR. HOLMES: Yes.
THE CHAIRMAN: When you returned to the Embassy, you told the Deputy Chief of Mission about this conversation?
MR. HOLMES: Yes. So she’s my direct supervisor.
THE CHAIRMAN: And who is your Deputy Chief of Mission?
MR. HOLMES: Kristina Kvien, K-v-i-e-n.
THE CHAIRMAN: And how much detail did you go into with the Deputy Chief of Mission?
MR. HOLMES: I believe I told her the whole thing. I said, You’re not going to believe what I just heard, and then I just went through — every element of this was extraordinary.
THE CHAIRMAN: What was her reaction?
MR. HOLMES: You know, on the one hand, she was shocked, as I was, that that just happened. It was pretty exceptional. She thought parts of it were funny. Parts of it, I think, she — confirmed some of the things we thought were the case, as I said, because for months, we’d been hearing about things like the Biden investigation and having trouble trying to get traction on the meetings we were seeking. So it had a ring of truth to it. So that was the kind of reaction that I got.
[….]
A phone call on a non-secure mobile phone, carried by a service owned by Russians. What could possibly go wrong?
