Impeachment inquiry witness appears after quitting White House – Los Angeles Times

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A second senior member of the National Security Council told House impeachment investigators Thursday that he immediately expressed concerns to his superiors after President Trump pressed Ukraine to investigate his political rivals, according to a source familiar with his testimony.

Tim Morrison, who testified behind closed doors a day after he abruptly quit as Trump’s top advisor for Russian and European affairs, was the second official to say he had complained after he heard Trump ask Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, for a “favor” during a controversial phone call on July 25.

Morrison, the first White House political appointee to appear, echoed the testimony of Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman, another White House expert on Ukraine, who told the panel on Tuesday that he was so alarmed after the call that he went to the NSC lead counsel to complain.

Morrison’s testimony has been widely anticipated since August, when a CIA officer assigned to the White House filed an anonymous whistleblower complaint that said multiple officials at the White House had said Trump was “using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election.”

Morrison’s name also appeared more than a dozen times in testimony last week by William Taylor, the acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, that appeared to contradict Trump’s repeated denials of using foreign policy for personal gain.

Taylor told impeachment investigators that Trump had frozen nearly $400 million in congressionally approved military aid to Kyiv unless Zelensky publicly promised to investigate Trump’s political rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter. He said Trump also was holding up a long-promised meeting with Zelensky until the Ukrainian leader agreed.

Taylor said Morrison had also expressed concerns about a July 10 meeting between Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, and Andriy Yermak, a top aide to Zelensky. Taylor said that Sondland had told Yermak that the military aid would not be released until Zelenskiy committed to investigate Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company that once employed Biden’s son.

“I was alarmed by what Mr. Morrison told me about the Sondland-Yermak conversation,” Taylor testified. “This was the first time I had heard that the security assistance — not just the White House meeting — was conditioned on the investigations.”

Taylor testified that Morrison told him he had a “sinking feeling” after learning about a Sept. 7 conversation that Sondland had with Trump.

“According to Mr. Morrison, President Trump told Ambassador Sondland that he was not asking for a quid pro quo,” Taylor testified. “But President Trump did insist that President Zelenskiy go to a microphone and say he is opening investigations of Biden and 2016 election interference, and that President Zelenskiy should want to do this himself. Mr. Morrison said that he told Ambassador Bolton and the NSC lawyers of this phone call between President Trump and Ambassador Sondland.”

Known as a hawk in foreign policy circles, Morrison stepped down from his NSC post on Wednesday. A senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Morrison has been considering leaving the administration for “some time.”

Morrison, who had worked for numerous Republican members of Congress, was brought into the White House in July 2018 by national security advisor John Bolton to work on arms controls issues, but later shifted to the portfolio that focuses on Russia and Europe.

Bolton stepped down in September after clashing with Trump over the president’s policies on North Korea, Syria and other issues. House impeachment investigators have asked him to testify on Nov. 7, but it’s unclear if Bolton will comply without a subpoena.

Both Bolton and Morrison were deeply involved the in-house squabble about the back-channel diplomacy with Ukraine undertaken by Trump’s personal attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani. that now is the focus of the impeachment inquiry.

Republican lawmakers will be hard-pressed to dismiss Morrison, formerly a longtime Republican staffer on Capitol Hill. Over the last two decades, he has worked for Rep. Mark Kennedy (R-Minn.) and Sen. Jon Kyl, (R-Ariz.) and as a senior GOP staffer on the House Armed Services Committee, including for nearly four years when it was chaired by Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas).

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2019-10-31/house-impeach-vote-morrison-20191031

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