White House Ukraine Expert Testifies On Concerns Over Trump-Zelensky Call

Topline: Alexander Vindman, a top-ranking U.S. national security official, has told congressional impeachment inquiry that he reported President Donald Trump's call with Ukraine's president to a senior government lawyer over concerns that it would "undermine U.S. national security."

Vindman sat in on the July 25 call, in which Trump asked his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, to investigate his political rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter. That call is the basis of a congressional impeachment inquiry into the president.

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• The Army lieutenant colonel and Ukraine expert had earlier raised concerns to a National Security Council lawyer after a meeting between U.S. ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland, and Ukrainian officials on July 10.
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• In that meeting, Sondland had told Ukrainian representatives that in order to secure a meeting with Trump, they needed to "deliver specific investigations," according to a copy of Vindman's statement seen by Reuters.
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• After that meeting, which was cut short by national security adviser John Bolton, Sondland told the officials that the investigations should focus on Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian energy company that had hired Hunter Biden as a director, Vindman claims.
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• But Sondland told impeachment investigators earlier this month that he was not aware of Burisma's link to the Bidens until later, and his lawyers said he could not remember pressuring Ukraine to investigate the Bidens by threatening to withhold aid, according to the Washington Post.
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• Vindman, a senior policy adviser on the National Security Council, is the first current White House official to testify in the impeachment inquiry, and is also the first person who sat in on the call, to testify, Reuters reports.

On Tuesday morning, Trump tweeted: "Why are people that I never even heard of testifying about the call" and urged critics to re-read the transcript of his call with Zelensky, released in September. "Ukrain [sic] said no pressure," he wrote.

Crucial quote: "I was concerned by the call. I did not think it was proper to demand that a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen, and I was worried about the implications for the U.S. government's support of Ukraine," Vindman wrote in his opening statement to the closed-door House of Representatives Foreign Affairs, Intelligence and Oversight committee.

Additional fact: Vindman is a U.S. Army lieutenant colonel and was awarded the Purple Heart medal after being wounded in Iraq. He is expected to say on Tuesday: "I am a patriot and it is my sacred duty and honor to advance and defend OUR country, irrespective or party or politics."