Kurt Volker, a former special envoy to Ukraine, has been tied to what Acting Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor dubbed the “irregular channel” of Ukraine policy, featuring Rudy Giuliani, Gordon Sondland, and others. But Volker sought to distance himself from this channel during his testimony on Tuesday, making himself out to be a naive pawn in Giuliani’s meddling.

As Volker saw it, there was an important distinction between an investigation into Burisma, the Ukrainian oil company Hunter Biden worked for, and an investigation into President Trump’s political rival, he said. If he had been aware that Giuliani and Sondland intended to pursue the latter, he would have raised objections of his own, he noted. In fact, Volker called the allegations against Joe Biden “self-serving and not credible.”