that he believed the Ukrainians became aware of the hold sometime in the beginning or middle of August—well before the Aug. 28 story in Politico. He testified that he began receiving soft inquiries from the Ukrainian embassy, asking him whether he had heard about any developments with the assistance or whether there were any issues with the appropriated funding. He did not recall how he responded to these inquiries, but testified that he likely said that the review was ongoing. Vindman noted that he was not aware of any substantive review of the assistance.

In his public testimony, Sondland—in an exchange with Schiff—describes quite unambiguously a corrupt demand on Trump’s part for something personally valuable (investigations of political opponents) in return for being influenced in the performance of twoconversation? COOPER: The only two topics that I recall are the urgency of lifting the hold on security assistance and then him relaying this separate diplomatic effort that I had previously been unaware of.

Finally, of course, Mulvaney himself publicly spilled the beans about the quid pro quo nature of the transaction, though he later tried to deny he had done so. At a White House press conference on Oct. 17, Mulvaney had the following exchange with reporters, in which he candidly acknowledged that one of the reasons aid was held up was over these investigative matters:

Q: Can you clarify—and I’ve been trying to get an answer to this: Was the President serious when he said that he would also like to see China investigate the Bidens? And you