The private testimony of a U.S. embassy official who overheard a cell phone conversation directly implicating Donald Trump in the Ukraine scandal has reportedly 'shaken' some GOP lawmakers, according to CNN.
David Holmes, set to testify publicly Thursday morning, is the U.S. diplomat revealed to have witnessed a loud conversation on July 26 between Trump and Ambassador to the E.U. Gordon Sondland, who is due to testify Wednesday afternoon. Holmes testified privately last week that Sondland placed a cell phone call to Trump while dining with several embassy staffers in which Trump could be heard asking Sondland explicitly about "investigations" into his political rivals.
"So, he's gonna do the investigation?" Trump asked Sondland of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Holmes testified. "He's gonna do it," Sondland replied, telling Trump that Zelensky would do "anything you ask him to." When Holmes later asked Sondland what Trump thought of Ukraine, Sondland reportedly said that Trump didn't "give a shit about Ukraine" and that Trump was only interested in "big stuff" like "this Biden investigation that Giuliani is pushing."
The testimony blows several GOP talking points out of the water, including the notion that Trump was somehow interested in corruption more broadly and not simply the Biden probe.
But Republicans were reportedly particularly flummoxed by the fact that the call, witnessed by multiple people, directly tied Trump to efforts to pressure Ukraine into launching the investigations Trump sought. Naturally, Republicans aimed their ire at Sondland for making such a public phone call. But in the end, it was no accident that Sondland got patched through directly to Trump—Trump was clearly interested in hearing from Sondland.
But Holmes was in agreement with Republicans about the extraordinary nature of the call.
"I've never seen anything like this, someone calling the president from a mobile phone at a restaurant, and then having a conversation of this level of candor, colorful language. There's just so much about the call that was so remarkable that I remember it vividly," Holmes testified. Indeed.