In April of 2019, after 14 years in foreign service in the State Dept, Williams was detailed to the Office of the Vice President as a special advisor on the foreign policy team.
Williams closely followed events in Ukraine and kept Pence up to date on developments.
April 21: Trump congratulated Zelensky on his victory in a phone call. Afterward, Williams learned from Pence’s Chief of Staff Marc Short that Trump said Pence would attend the inauguration.
Pence made a congratulatory call on 4-23.
To prep Pence for the call, Williams reviewed a readout of Trump’s 4-21 congratulatory call. It was a brief call congratulating Zelensky and looking forward to a good relationship.
During his 4-23 call to Zelensky, Pence accepted an invitation to attend his inauguration, provided the dates worked.
Pence was planning to attend. Then, on May 13, the White House asked him not to go.
Williams testified that if neither Trump nor Pence attended, this could create concern in Ukraine that Ukraine didn’t have full U.S. support.
May 28: From a NY Times article, Williams learned that Giuliani wanted Ukraine to investigate Burisma, and that Burisma was connected to Hunter Biden. She flagged this and other articles for Pence.
July 3: Williams learned of the hold on security assistance. She received no explanation for the hold.
She attended the July 23 meeting where a topic of discussion was how to get Congress to remedy the hold on the security assistance, what legal recourse was appropriate, and how to get the funds paid by the end of the fiscal year.
She made the point that the security assistance goes to the US defense contracting companies, so while it benefits Ukraine, it also benefits US companies.
On July 25 She listened to the Trump-Zelensky call in the Situation Room. She took notes.
Like Vindman, she testified that Zelensky said “Burisma” and not “the company.” (Vindman’s deposition.)
William found the references to Biden and Burisma to be “more specific to the president in nature, to his personal political agenda” as opposed to a “broader foreign policy objective of the U.S.”
It was also the first time she heard of “crowdstrike.”
Rep. Heck asked Williams how she felt when she heard Trump mention the Bidens and Burisma.
She said, “I guess for me it shed some light on possible other motivations behind a security assistance hold.”
She put these two things together.
Tim Morrison, also in the situation room, did not see a link between these two things. [This probably helps explain why Morrison was on the GOP list of witnesses, and Trump tweeted this about Williams:
Williams accompanied Pence to Warsaw when he met Zelensky on Sept. 1. She was present at the meeting.
Two days earlier, the Politico story broke (meaning everyone knew about the hold on security aid) so they made sure to brief Pence to respond to questions about that.
Zelensky’s first question was about the security assistance.
Pence responded by asking Zelensky about the status of his reform efforts, so those could be communicated back to Trump. He also asked about whether more European countries would be supporting Ukraine.
Zelensky explained that aid from the US had symbolic value as well, and any hold or appearance of a hold might embolden Russia to think the US was no longer committed to Ukraine.
Pence assured Zelensky that there was no change in US policy.
Pence said he’d report back to Trump, and hopefully get a decision on the security assistance as soon as possible. He spoke to Trump later that day.
Nobody mentioned Biden or Burisma. This didn’t surprise Williams; she didn’t expect these things to be mentioned.
Rep Mark Meadows seemed to think the fact that “Burisma” and “investigations” were not mentioned in the meeting exonerates the president. (See! there was no demand!)
Williams obliterated Meadows’ theory by saying, “it was only later on through this process that I understand there were other conversations happening outside of what we would consider to be official diplomatic channels.”
The GOP is struggling to find a defense that works.
