Administration officers have provided a gentle stream of damaging revelations throughout their closed-door depositions as part of Home Democrats' impeachment investigation into President Donald Trump's dealings with Ukraine.
But through the marathon hours of testimony, the high-stakes discussions of army help, Ukrainian corruption and alleged quid pro quos have sometimes devolved into mentions of late-night comedians, disagreeable odors and a context-free assortment of pecans.
Listed here are a number of the most baffling and entertaining excerpts hidden within the official transcripts documenting the historic probe.
Nickname-checked
When Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, sat for a deposition on Oct. 11, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) had some questions for the ex-envoy about her nickname.
MEADOWS: “And since we're out of time, I just need to know one thing. Ambassador Volker stated awful nice things about you, and he stated that you simply're referred to as Masha.”
YOVANOVITCH: “Sure.”
MEADOWS: “The place did you get that identify from?”
YOVANOVITCH: “Nicely, despite my posting to Ukraine, I'm truly half Russian, and it's a Russian nickname.”
MEADOWS: “I yield again.”
Requested and answered
Yovanovitch had little endurance for a meandering line of inquiry by one other GOP lawmaker, Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), who needed to know extra about her skilled relationship with a staffer on the House Overseas Affairs Committee.
ZELDIN: “Did you know this individual?”
YOVANOVITCH: “Yes.”
ZELDIN: “And how did — the place did you know that individual from?”
YOVANOVITCH: “She had beforehand labored on the State Division.”
ZELDIN: “And how have you learnt that individual on the State Division?”
YOVANOVITCH: “As a result of she labored on the State Department.”
‘Locker room’ speak
About two-thirds of the best way by means of Yovanovitch’s deposition, House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) ready handy over questioning to Republicans in the room, however not without first making a quick housekeeping announcement that — if his staffers are to be believed — was possible much welcomed.
SCHIFF: "And just to let members know, we're going to flip the air back on. It’s feast or famine right here, and we’re — my employees tells me it began to odor like a locker room in right here. So we’ll turn it over to the minority and we’ll flip the air back on."
‘Comply with me on Twitter’
As lawmakers prepared to wrap up their marathon questioning of Yovanovitch, she revealed that Gordon Sondland, the U.S. Ambassador to the European Union, implied to her at one level that to save lots of her job, it might be useful for her to publicly categorical help for Trump on social media.
However Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.) injected some levity into the deposition, plugging his Twitter account and prompting some mild (if puzzling) ribbing from his colleagues.
MALINOWSKI: Okay. Lastly, I might say to aIl of my colleagues on each side that I might be honored in case you adopted me on Twitter, and I can't accuse you of monitoring me. My deal with is @malinowski.
MEADOWS: How do you spell that one?
MALINOWSKI: It's arduous. Virtually as onerous as Yovanovitch.
YOVANOVITCH: Exactly. Thank you.
SCHIFF: Mr. Goldman.
GOLDMAN: Thank you. Just some last issues. You finally —
SCHIFF: I assumed your handle was @pecan.
More pecans
Throughout an trade between Yovanovitch, Meadows and Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) about so-called "unmasking," Perry apparently stood to abruptly depart the room. Yovanovitch then requested whether someone might repeat the query posed to her.
YOVANOVITCH: “Okay. So —”
MEADOWS: “You'll be able to answer. He is obtained to run.”
PERRY: “I’ll be back.”
YOVANOVITCH: “Okay.”
PERRY: “Sorry. Thank you.”
MEADOWS: “It is nothing you stated.”
STEVE CASTOR (Republican employees of the House Oversight Committee): "Welcome to Congress."
YOVANOVITCH: "So I received misplaced a bit of bit within the dialog. Are we talking about --"
DANIEL GOLDMAN (the Home Intelligence Committee’s senior adviser and director of investigations): "Let's ask him to repeat it. Oh."
MEADOWS: "You'll be able to ask the pecans."
‘I watch HBO’
Throughout his appearance earlier than Home impeachment investigators on Oct. 17, Sondland sought to go off questions relating to his information of Rudy Giuliani’s interest in Burisma, a Ukrainian power agency on whose board Hunter Biden served.
Sondland advised he was more doubtless catching up on “Recreation of Thrones” than tuning into the former New York mayor’s frequent cable news appearances.
CASTOR: “Before I get into this letter, there was some frustration about whether you had seen that New York Occasions article. I imply, there's a variety of media these days. You understand, have you ever seen each article, each story that references Rudy Giuliani because you started your submit?”
SONDLAND: “No. I imply, I've so many cables and other issues to learn, I just do not have time.”
CASTOR: “And you are not watching TV, U.S. TV at night time when you're i n Brussels?”
SONDLAND: “Typically.”
CASTOR: “Okay. So have you seen Rudy Giuliani on — you know, talk about these issues on TV?”
SONDLAND: “I watch HBO.”
‘The three amigos’ experience once more
Sondland was additionally pressured to answer for a nickname bestowed upon him and two other administration officers — Power Secretary Rick Perry and Kurt Volker, the previous special envoy for Ukraine negotiations — throughout a trip to the Japanese European nation’s capital.
Adam Schiff, the House Intelligence chairman who Trump has memorably mocked as a “pencil neck” and “little Adam Schitt,” weighed in with some perspective.
GOLDMAN: “Did you and Ambassador Volker and Secretary Perry ever develop a nickname for the three of you?”
SONDLAND: “I feel you're referring to the three amigos.”
GOLDMAN: “Yeah, who coined that?”
SONDLAND: “I feel we have been all in Kyiv collectively, and someone walked as much as US, and stated, you appear to be the three amigos, we have been all standing together, and I feel that is where it came from.”
GOLDMAN: “You sort of appreciated that nickname, right?”
SONDLAND: “I do not —”
MR. LUSKIN: “We have all heard worse.”
THE CHAIRMAN: “I can attest to that.”
Zelensky’s late-night ‘hero’
Virtually midway by means of Home investigators’ deposition with Sondland, the ambassador described a dinner party in Brussels celebrating U.S. Independence Day attended by Zelensky, State Division officials and different world leaders.
Sondland stated U.S. officials noticed the dinner, which followed a a lot bigger event, “as a chance to current President Zelensky to varied EU and U.S. officers and to construct upon the enhanced government ties.” He sought to right the report on a few factors, telling investigators that “opposite to some reporting, [U2 lead singer] Bono didn't attend or carry out.” He additionally disclosed an entertaining revelation into Zelensky’s comedic position fashions.
SONDLAND: "The subject of the dinner was not Ukraine and was not President Zelensky. The Prime Minister of Romania was there. The President of Poland was there. Jay Leno was there. Mr. Kushner was there. There were numerous celebrities, friends, and it was a really kind of light-hearted night. It was not a enterprise dinner."
GOLDMAN: "Did President Zelensky, as a comedian, get along properly with Jay Leno?"
SONDLAND: "He was honored to satisfy him. Apparently, Jay Leno was his hero."
‘The Greenland question’
William Taylor’s testimony before lawmakers on Oct. 22 relating to his information of the Ukraine scandal included a reference to an odd diplomatic dust-up that originated in the White House — Trump’s short-lived bid to purchase Greenland.
Taylor, the top American envoy to Ukraine, stated the president’s fascination over the summer time with the U.S. authorities probably shopping for the semi-autonomous Arctic territory made it troublesome to schedule a gathering between Trump and senior administration officials relating to the resumption of army help to Ukraine.
SCHIFF: “What do you deduce from that, that our alIy is preventing with the Russians, however all of these businesses that help this will't get a meeting with the President to debate it?”
TAYLOR: “It turns out, Mr. Chairman, that these principals, as we name them, have been on totally different journeys at totally different occasions. I feel this was also concerning the time of the Greenland question, about buying Greenland, which took up lots of power in the NSC.”
SCHIFF: “Okay. That is disturbing for an entire totally different purpose.”
Fishing for an evidence
Taylor’s testimony before impeachment investigators made waves when his prolonged opening assertion turned the first proof tying Trump directly to a quid professional quo.
It was additionally notable for the extent of private recordkeeping that Taylor described to lawmakers, prompting Rep. Ted Lieu to take an odd strategy to aim to elucidate the distinction between Taylor’s deep recollection of crucial events with Sondland’s, who later considerably revised his testimony.
LIEU: “The general public reporting on Ambassador Sondland's testimony is that he did not keep in mind loads of stuff. You have got a number of conversations here with Ambassador Sondland. I simply need to ensure, in these conversations, there was no indication he was drunk, right?”
TAYLOR: “Right.”
LIEU: “He did not slur his phrases, right?”
TAYLOR: “Right.”
LIEU: “There was no indication that he was beneath any drugs that brought about him short-term reminiscence loss, right?”
TAYLOR: “Not that I do know of.”
LIEU: “Okay.”
Underneath the sea
Fiona Hill, a former National Security Council official, might have been hunkered down in a basement-level SCIF when she was deposed on Oct. 14, but on a couple of events during her testimony, she was capable of reminisce about some underwater actions she enjoyed while on her summer time trip.
CASTOR: “Did you converse with anybody? You had left on the 19th, however had you spoken to anybody concerning the call?”
HILL: “I didn't. I was on trip [redacted]. And at the time the telephone call befell, I feel, based mostly on my date-stamp on my telephones, I used to be snorkeling.”
VOICE: “You have been beneath water.”
HILL: “I used to be beneath water, yeah. It was a reasonably good alibi. I didn't take underwater footage, but, you realize, I can principally —”
Politics and punctuation
Along with being quizzed on issues associated to the potential impeachment of a president, Hill was asked to weigh in on one other notably divisive difficulty.
DANIEL NOBLE (Democratic counsel): “Are you a fan of the Oxford comma?”
HILL: “I’m confused, is sort of principally where I am. Because once I was rising up, they changed the comma formatting, and then once I came right here, I found there was all types of different comma formatting. So I are likely to put commas in all places.”
In search of leakers
In the midst of Hill's testimony, phrase started to get out about a few of the substance of her deposition. When a GOP staffer started to ask her about Manu Raju, a CNN reporter omnipresent on Capitol Hill, Hill famous she'd had a reasonably ironclad alibi. Raju, for his part, backed up her story.
DAVID BREWER (Republican staffer for Oversight Committee): “Ma'am, at the moment at 1:16, Manu Raju, who I understand is a reporter for CNN —”
HILL: “Who?”
BREWER: “Manu Raju.”
HILL: “I don' t know who that is. Manu Raju?”
BREWER: “He is a reporter, I perceive, from CNN. He tweeted some substance of your testimony here right now.”
HILL: “I do not understand how that was potential because I've been in here with you the entire time.”
BREWER: “That's what I was going to ask you. Have you spoken —”
HILL: “There's been plenty of individuals in and out, so I suppose you need to ask your colleagues if any person's been speaking to CNN.”
BREWER: “So, just for the document, you haven't spoken to Manu Raju since you've got been here in the present day?”
HILL: “I've not had my phone. I've been in your full and I have not met with Manu Raju in the rest room right here. And I assume you possibly can attest you noticed me in the toilet. They usually have had full custody of me at all times.”
BREWER: “And only one last question, ma'am: Have you directed anybody on your behalf to talk with Mr. Raju about your testimony?”
HILL: “No. I don' t know who Manu Raju is.”
Call me, beep me
At one level in her testimony, Hill described how broad Sondland's jurisdiction seemed to be, complaining that the EU ambassador incessantly bypassed her White Home-issued telephone, giving officers her private telephone number as an alternative, and sending these individuals to the White Home where they believed that they had a meeting with NSC officials. She referred to as the difficulty "comical" but in addition "deeply concerning."
HILL: “And so I was spending an inordinate amount of time making an attempt to coordinate in some trend with Ambassador Sondland on an entire range of points related to visits by heads of states, conferences. And Ambassador Sondland would often give individuals my personal cellular phone to call up and demand conferences with Ambassador BoIton or with me.
"We had all types of officials from Europe, notably when [redacted] was the the president within the workplace of the European Union, actually appearing at the gates of the White House, calling on our private telephones, which are actually in lock packing containers, so it was sort of troublesome to pay money for them. I might find infinite messages from irate [redacted] officials who'd been advised that they have been supposed to satisfy with me by Ambassador Sondland."
Sibling rivalry
Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, an Army officer and Ukraine specialist on the National Safety Council, was a singular witness in that he's acquired an similar twin brother who simply so happens to additionally serve within the White House, as the highest ethics lawyer on the National Security Council. Vindman, whose testimony was among the most damaging collected by impeachment investigators, couldn't let his deposition go by with out taking a dig at his womb-mate.
CASTOR: Okay. After you spoke with Eisenbeng, who else did you communicate to about this meeting?
VINDMAN: So my kid brother, my twin brother is on the White Home Nationwide Security Council legal workforce.
CASTOR: And is Is he your kid brother or your twin brother?
VINDMAN: He is 9 minutes younger. He is my kid brother, whether or not he Iikes it on not. I informed him I was going to get that in there
‘I don’t know her’
Earlier than Vindman might get underway with questions from Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), one among his attorneys have to get one thing taken care of. Specifically, simply who they have been being quizzed by.
MICHAEL VOLKOV (Vindman's lawyer): First off, I don't know who you're, in the event you might determine yourself for the document. But second off, might you be particular as to 2 calls? We're speaking about one name right here.
CASTOR: “That is Representative Stefanik.”
REP. ELISE STEFANIK: “I am on the House Intelligence Committee.”
VOLKOV: “Okay. I don't know who you have been. I apologize —”
STEFANIK: “Yeah. I'm from New York. I am a third time period member.”
CASTOR: “There isn't any staffers talking apart from me and the Members.”
VOLKOV: “I understand that and I respect that, I just did not —”
STEFANIK: “I get asked this quite a bit.”
VOLKOV: “Oh, that is good.”
STEFANIK: “No, it isn't good. However I will continue my line of questioning, which is, the witness testified—”
Article initially revealed on POLITICO Magazine
Src: Pecans, Jay Leno and the Oxford comma: Hidden gems of the impeachment transcripts
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