In newly released transcript, state department official details exchange in which Trump raised Ukraine investigations
David Holmes, a state department official, said he had “never seen anything like” the phone call he overheard between Donald Trump and Gordon Sondland, the EU ambassador, in which Trump personally raised the investigations he had requested from Ukraine.
The call, which Holmes overheard during a lunch with Sondland in Kyiv, was so distinctive that no one needed to refresh his memory, according to testimony released late on Monday in the impeachment inquiry.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Holmes told House investigators, “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.”