Diplomat says of Trump Ukraine call: 'I remember it vividly'

The phone call State Department official David Holmes overheard between President Donald Trump and Ambassador Gordon Sondland lasted just two minutes. But it won't be easily forgotten.

I've never seen anything like this, Holmes told Trump impeachment 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.

Holmes' first-hand account of the conversation heard over lunch in Kyiv provides a key piece of the impeachment inquiry.

He is among the only witnesses testifying so far to show Trump personally seeking investigations into Democrats and his potential 2020 rival Joe Biden that are central to the probe.

A transcript of Holmes' closed-door testimony was released Monday.

Holmes, a political counselor at the US Embassy in Ukraine, is scheduled to testify publicly Thursday.

The conversation between the president and the ambassador came one day after the July 25 call when Trump asked Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for a favour with the investigations.

At the time, the Trump administration was withholding USD 391 million in military aid to the ally in what Democrats say amounts to bribery.

Trump says he did nothing wrong.

A whistleblower's complaint about it led the House to launch the impeachment inquiry.

Holmes joined Sondland and others during the lunch meeting and told investigators Trump was talking so loudly he could hear the president clearly on the ambassador's phone.

"I then heard President Trump ask, quote, 'So he's going to do the investigation?' Holmes testified.

Ambassador Sondland replied that 'He's going to do it,' adding that President Zelensky will, quote, 'do anything you ask him to.'"
Holmes said he didn't take notes of the conversation he overheard between Trump and Sondland but remembers it "vividly."
He asked Sondland about Trump's views on Ukraine. Sondland told him Trump does not "give a shit" about Ukraine, saying he only cares about "big stuff."
But Sondland told Trump was more concerned with the "big stuff that matters to him, like this Biden investigation that Giuliani is pushing."