A top aide to Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky refuted a key claim made during last month’s impeachment inquiry hearing by Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, according to Time.
The aide, Andriy Yermak, denied that he and Sondland were ever in conversation alone and said Sondland never told him that military aid was dependent upon Ukraine opening or announcing investigations into the 2016 election interference and Hunter Biden’s board appointment at Ukrainian energy company Burisma.
“Gordon and I were never alone together,” Yermak said. “We bumped into each other in the hallway next to the escalator, as I was walking out. And I remember — everything is fine with my memory — we talked about how well the meeting went. That’s all we talked about.”
Sondland testified that he told Yermak he believed that “the resumption of U.S. aid would likely not occur until Ukraine took some kind of action on the public statement that we had been discussing for many weeks,” referring to a public statement about the investigations. – READ MORE