Diplomat David Holmes’s Ukraine phone call recall: ‘I remember it vividly’

The phone call diplomat David Holmes overheard between Donald Trump and Gordon Sondland was so distinctive that no one needed to refresh his memory.

Career diplomat David Holmes leaves Capitol Hill. Picture: AP

The phone call diplomat David Holmes overheard between Donald Trump and ambassador Gordon Sondland during a lunch in Ukraine was so distinctive that no one needed to refresh his memory, according to testimony released on Tuesday in the impeachment inquiry.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Mr Holmes told House of Representatives investigators, “someone calling the President from a mobile phone at a restaurant, and then having a conversation of this level of candour, colourful language.

“There’s just so much about the call that was so remarkable that I remember it vividly.”

Mr Holmes’s account of the conversation in Kiev is the first with Mr Trump personally calling about the investigations into Democrats and Joe Biden that are central to the impeachment inquiry.

The political counsellor at the US embassy in Kiev told investigators Mr 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?’,” he testified. “Ambassador Sondland replied ‘He’s going to do it,’ adding that (Ukraine) President (Volodymyr) Zelensky will, quote, ‘Do anything you ask him to’.”

Mr Holmes said he didn’t take notes of the conversation but remembered it “vividly”.

Pressed if anyone helped him recall the details, he said: “That wouldn’t have been needed, sir, because, as I said, the event itself was so distinctive that I remember it very clearly.”

AP