'What I heard was improper': NSC Ukraine director Vindman testifies in impeachment hearing

Trump asked Zelensky “to do us a favor,” by looking into a CrowdStrike conspiracy theory during their July 25 phone call. He also urged Zelensky to investigate “the other thing,” referring to allegations of corruption related to Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden stemming from the younger Biden’s lucrative position on the board of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy company, and the elder Biden advocating for the firing of Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin.

“I was concerned by the call, what I heard was improper,” Vindman testified, adding, “It is improper for the President of the United States to demand a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen and political opponent. It was also clear that if Ukraine pursued an investigation into the 2016 election, the Bidens, and Burisma, it would be interpreted as a partisan play. This would undoubtedly result in Ukraine losing bipartisan support, undermine U.S. national security, and advance Russia’s strategic objectives in the region.”

Vindman said he became concerned about U.S. policy toward Ukraine in the spring.

“I became aware of two disruptive actors — primarily Ukraine’s then-Prosecutor General Yuri Lutsenko and former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, President Trump’s personal attorney — promoting false information that undermined the United States’ Ukraine policy,” Vindman testified. “The NSC and its inter-agency partners, including the State Department, grew increasingly concerned about the impact that such information was having on our country’s ability to achieve our national security objectives.”

Vindman then described a July 10 meeting in Washington, D.C., between Ukrainian national security adviser Oleksandr Danylyuk and national security adviser John Bolton, then-U.S. special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker, U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, NSC Russia expert Dr. Fiona Hill, and himself, during which Sondland pushed Ukraine to carry out the investigations Trump would mention in his call two weeks later.

“Ambassador Bolton cut the meeting short when Ambassador Sondland started to speak about the requirement that Ukraine deliver specific investigations in order to secure the meeting with President Trump,” Vindman said. “Following this meeting, there was a short debriefing during which Ambassador Sondland emphasized the importance of Ukraine delivering the investigations into the 2016 election, the Bidens, and Burisma. I stated to Ambassador Sondland that this was inappropriate and had nothing to do with national security. Dr. Hill also asserted his comments were improper.”

Vindman said he reported his concerns about the July 10 meeting and the July 25 call to the NSC’s lead counsel John Eisenberg.

There is speculation Vindman was the “shaken” official mentioned in the Ukraine whistleblower’s August complaint, who described Trump’s controversial phone call with Ukraine’s president as “frightening,” “crazy,” and “completely lacking in substance related to national security.”

Vindman has said he doesn’t know who the whistleblower is.

During his closed-door testimony, Vindman said he thought Trump’s actions related to Ukraine had been improper, but Vindman also showed gaps in his Ukraine knowledge, including admitting, “I frankly don’t know a huge amount” about Burisma — Ukraine’s second-largest energy company — and incorrectly believing Javelins were provided to Ukraine during the Obama administration, when it was actually the Trump administration which first provided the Ukrainians with offensive weaponry.

Timothy Morrison, a former deputy assistant to the president and the National Security Council’s former senior director for Europe and Russia, testified on Oct. 31 behind closed doors that he and others on the National Security Council, including the NSC’s former senior director for Europe and Russia, Dr. Fiona Hill, had concerns about Vindman’s judgment — and some on the NSC viewed him as a leaker.

Vindman finished his opening statement Tuesday by thanking his father for fleeing the USSR for the U.S.

“Dad, my sitting here today, in the U.S. Capitol talking to our elected officials is proof that you made the right decision forty years ago to leave the Soviet Union and come here to the United States of America in search of a better life for our family,” Vindman said. “Do not worry, I will be fine for telling the truth.”