David Holmes, a top state department aide, today told a House Committee that he had overheard President Trump’s conversation with the US ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland.
Holmes said during the conversation, Sondland told Trump that the Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky would do “anything you ask him to,” and that he confirmed the Ukrainians were going to “do the investigation.”
“Sondland told Trump that Zelensky ‘loves your ass,'” Holmes said in his opening statement.
“I then heard President Trump ask, ‘So, he’s gonna do the investigation?’ Ambassador Sondland replied that ‘he’s gonna do it,’ adding that President Zelensky will do ‘anything you ask him to.'”
Holmes explained that Sondland placed the call to Trump, and he could hear Trump because the call was so loud in the restaurant where they were with two others.
“While Ambassador Sondland’s phone was not on speakerphone, I could hear the President’s voice through the earpiece of the phone. The President’s voice was very loud and recognizable, and Ambassador Sondland held the phone away from his ear for a period of time, presumably because of the loud volume,” Holmes testified.
“Even though I did not take notes of those statements, I have a clear recollection that these statements were made,” Holmes added.
After the call ended, Holmes asked it if was true that Trump did not care about Ukraine.
The ambassador replied that Trump cared only about the “big stuff,” like investigations that his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani was pushing for, because they affected him personally.
[READ: David Holmes’ Opening Statement]
The call took place on July 26, one day after Trump personally pressed Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, as well as unproven allegations that Ukraine conspired with Democrats to interfere in the 2016 election.
The existence of call between Trump and Sondland was first revealed on Wednesday during public testimony from Holmes’s boss, William Taylor, the top American envoy in Ukraine.
Taylor said then that he had only learned of the episode recently.
Sondland did not mention the episode to investigators last month when he answered their questions in private.
He will almost certainly be asked about it next week when he appears for public testimony before the House Intelligence Committee.
He has already revised his initial testimony once, admitting to the panel last week that he told a top Ukrainian official that the country would probably not receive a package of nearly $400 million in security assistance unless it committed publicly to the investigations Trump sought.
On Thursday, two people familiar with the matter said that a second embassy official, Suriya Jayanti, also overheard the call and could corroborate Holmes’s account.
It is unclear if investigators will also call her to testify.
Today, Holmes indicated there was a third person present who would have overheard it, as well.
Holmes is a career Foreign Service officer who currently serves as the political counselor in the American Embassy in Kiev.