Murphy: Ukrainian Gov’t Was Confused About Whether They Should Listen to the U.S. Embassy or Trump’s Campaign

‘Now we have a question of how deep this goes into the State Department’

EXCERPT:

CAMEROTA: "You went to Ukraine. You met with President Zelensky as much of this was unfolding. So let’s just go through it and what he told you, and what you heard. So let’s start with the phone call. What did President Zelensky tell you about this now infamous phone call with President Trump?"
MURPHY: "So I had heard back in the spring when the initial revelations were coming out about Rudy Giuliani’s overtures to the Ukraine government that the government there which is a novice government, President Zelensky has never held office before, was very confused about whether they should be listening to the U.S. embassy or they should be listening to the president's campaign advisers who were making these demands on them about investigations. So part of the reason I decided to go over there in early September with Republican Senator Ron Johnson was to make sure the Zelensky government understood that the proper channel of communication with the United States was through the State Department and the embassy, not the re-election campaign of the president. Now, I did not talk about that specific phone call with Zelensky, I did raise with him the general problem of communicating with the president’s campaign representatives. And he did separately represent great concern about the aid being cut off. It was only after I left that I found out that the president had raised this issue directly with him. The desire to enlist Zelensky in the president's re-election effort personally on that phone call."

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