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White House Aide Tells House of Concerns Over Trump and Ukraine

White House Aide Tells House of Concerns Over Trump and Ukraine

(Bloomberg) -- A White House aide told U.S. House impeachment investigators Thursday of his concern on multiple levels after listening in on President Donald Trump’s July 25 call with the Ukrainian president, but not because he believed what he heard was illegal.

Tim Morrison, a Russia and Ukraine specialist on the National Security Council, said in his prepared opening testimony Thursday that he promptly asked an NSC legal adviser to review a memo of the call because he was concerned that details of the conversation could be leaked out.

“I had three concerns about a potential leak,” he said.

White House Aide Tells House of Concerns Over Trump and Ukraine

“First, how it would play out in Washington’s polarized environment; second, how a leak would affect the bipartisan support our Ukrainian partners currently experience in Congress; and third, how it would affect the Ukrainian perceptions of the U.S.-Ukraine relationship,” Morrison said in the statement.

But he also told the impeachment committees in the prepared remarks, “I want to be clear, I was not concerned that anything illegal was discussed.”

Morrison’s testimony also contributed his knowledge of other angles being explored in the impeachment inquiry.

Morrison specifically identified Gordon Sondland, Trump’s envoy to the European Union, as having communicated to a Ukrainian official that the U.S. military aid to that country would be released if the country investigated Burisma, an energy company linked to Hunter Biden, former Vice President Joe Biden’s son.

In doing so, he corroborated much of the substance of similar testimony by William Taylor, the acting ambassador to Ukraine, about what Sondland told the Ukrainian official, Andriy Yermak.

Taylor had testified last week that Sondland told the Ukrainian official that security assistance money would not be forthcoming until Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy “committed to pursue the Burisma investigation.”

On Thursday, Morrison said, “My recollection is that Ambassador Sondland’s proposal to Mr. Yermak was that it could be sufficient if the new Ukrainian prosecutor general — not President Volodymyr Zelenskiy — would commit to pursue the Burisma investigation.”

In his prepared testimony, Morrison also describes learning from Trump’s former Russia adviser Fiona Hill “of her concerns about two Ukraine processes that were occurring: the normal interagency process led by the NSC with the typical department and agency participation and a separate process that involved chiefly the U.S. Ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland.”

“Dr. Hill told me that Ambassador Sondland and President Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, were trying to get President Zelenskiy to reopen Ukrainian investigations into Burisma,” Morrison said in his prepared remarks.

“At the time, I did not know what Burisma was or what the investigation entailed,” he said.

“After the meeting with Dr. Hill, I Googled Burisma and learned that it was a Ukrainian energy company and that Hunter Biden was on its board,” he said. “I also did not understand why Ambassador Sondland would be involved in Ukraine policy, often without the involvement of our duly-appointed chief of mission, Ambassador Bill Taylor.”

Morrison’s reported departure from his White House job has not been finalized, he told the committees, adding that he planned to leave after his testimony had been completed.

He said that he did not want anyone to think there is a connection between his appearance on Thursday “and my impending departure.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Billy House in Washington at bhouse5@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kevin Whitelaw at kwhitelaw@bloomberg.net, John Harney, Chelsea Mes

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