- Title: Ex-Ukraine envoy Volker meets with lawmakers
- Date: 4th October 2019
- Summary: WASHINGTON, D.C., UNITED STATES (OCTOBER 3, 2019) (UNRESTRICTED POOL) REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMAN MARK MEADOWS WALKING TO MICROPHONE TO SPEAK TO REPORTERS AFTER MEETING WITH VOLKER (SOUNDBITE) (English) REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMAN, MARK MEADOWS, SAYING: "Obviously today was eight hours of testimony and I can tell you Ambassador Volker was just unbelievably professional. It's, it's sad for the United States to lose such a man of great integrity and talent. He was very transparent I don't know that there was a single question that was asked today that he didn't answer and answer fully which is unique. And what we do know is there was definitely no quid pro quo. I mean it's it came out over and over it was asked probably 20 different times and we know for a fact that in this expert witness's testimony and I would say he's probably the Democrats star witness on and the most informed witness, it was it was certainly a day that I believe that the American people need to see the transcripts." WHITE FLASH (SOUNDBITE) (English) REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMAN, MARK MEADOWS, SAYING: "Any comments that would indicate that there was some nefarious purpose on behalf of this president, was not backed up by the facts today." WHITE FLASH MEADOWS DEPARTING DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSMAN ERIC SWALWELL ARRIVING TO SPEAK TO REPORTERS (SOUNDBITE) (English) DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSMAN, ERIC SWALWELL, SAYING: "We just we just concluded an eight plus hour long interview with Ambassador Volker, Special Envoy to Ukraine. We learned a lot, a lot of details that will advance our investigation. I will say we saw further evidence that there was a shadow shakedown going on and that the lead, I would say print the lead deputy for the president was Rudy Giuliani. You had an experienced diplomat working for free a Special Envoy Mr. Volker, who in many ways was a front for work that was being done on the side parallel to his efforts by Rudy Giuliani. We have evidence of text messages between State Department officials expressing concern as early as May, that Rudy Giuliani had a...there was a Giuliani-Biden thing going on that had concerned a State Department official. We have evidence that a State Department official was concerned that there was linkage between security assistance and as he described, a domestic political campaign. So we're going to continue to follow those leads pursue those witnesses, but you have more and more evidence that the president of the United States was improperly using his office using our taxpayer dollars to leverage help from an ally in our upcoming 2020 election."
- Embargoed: 18th October 2019 01:55
- Keywords: Kurt Volker Ukraine Whistleblower Donald Trump Eric Swalwell Mark Meadows
- Location: WASHINGTON, D.C., UNITED STATES
- City: WASHINGTON, D.C., UNITED STATES
- Country: USA
- Topics: Government/Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA002AZOKDAF
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker on Thursday (October 3) became the first of five former and current U.S. diplomats to give a deposition to the congressional committees conducting an impeachment inquiry into U.S. President Donald Trump.
Democratic and Republican lawmakers gave contrasting accounts of Trump's culpability.
Volker resigned last week as Trump's special representative for Ukraine negotiations.
Democratic lawmakers are examining whether there are grounds to impeach Republican Trump based on a whistleblower's account that said he asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a July 25 phone call to help investigate Democratic political rival Joe Biden.
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