Official testifies that Bolton had ‘one-on-one meeting’ with Trump over Ukraine aid

Former top National Security Council (NSC) official Tim Morrison testified that President Trump and former national security adviser John Bolton had a private meeting in August over withheld security aid to Ukraine, according to a transcript of Morrison’s testimony that was released Saturday. 

“The President was not yet ready to approve the release of the assistance,” Morrison said while discussing the Trump-Bolton conversation, which he described as a “one-on-one meeting.” 

“The extent of my recollection is that Ambassador Bolton simply said he wasn’t ready to do it,” the NSC official added. 

Morrison testified late last month as part of the House’s impeachment inquiry into President Trump over his dealings with Ukraine. 

He also told congressional investigators that U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland has pressed for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to pursue investigations that could benefit Trump politically. 

Bolton departed the White House in September, and his name has come up in the testimony of several other impeachment inquiry witnesses.

Democrats invited him to testify but declined to subpoena him. His lawyer Charles Cooper recently wrote in a letter to House counsel Douglas Letter that Bolton knew about “many relevant meetings and conversations that have not yet been discussed in the testimonies thus far.”

One area Democrats are looking into in their investigation is whether the military assistance to Ukraine was conditioned on investigations. 

Trump has denied this, saying he withheld the aid because of corruption concerns and because he wanted other countries to give more money to Ukraine.