Trump Denies Quid Pro Quo for Ukraine, but Envoys Had Their Doubts

Mr. Volker, a former ambassador to NATO who served unpaid and part-time as Ukraine special envoy before abruptly resigning last week, was not a hostile witness who went into the testimony intending to make accusations against the president. Instead, he told investigators that he was devoted to helping Ukraine resolve its grinding five-year-old conflict with Russian-armed separatists and tried to satisfy the president’s suspicions about Ukraine but was never fully kept in the loop.

Nonetheless, his account, as related by a person familiar with his testimony and the documents released by the committee, raises significant questions for the president as well as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and others.

Mr. Volker told the House investigators that he was eager to help the newly elected Mr. Zelensky build a relationship with Mr. Trump that would bolster Ukraine but found last May that Mr. Giuliani’s efforts were convincing the president that Ukraine was full of “terrible people” who “tried to take me down” in 2016.

The new Ukrainian government sought Mr. Volker’s help in managing Mr. Giuliani. In July, Mr. Yermak asked Mr. Volker to connect him with the former New York mayor, which Mr. Volker agreed to do. Mr. Volker met with Mr. Giuliani for breakfast on July 19 and, he told the committee investigators, warned the former mayor that his theory about corruption involving Mr. Biden was unfounded and implausible and that his sources about it were not credible.

The Ukrainians were wary of being dragged into American domestic politics. “President Zelenskyy is sensitive about Ukraine being taken seriously, not merely as an instrument in Washington domestic, reelection politics,” William B. Taylor, the top American diplomat in Kiev, wrote in a text message a couple days after the breakfast.

Mr. Giuliani talked with Mr. Yermak the next day and then advocated a phone call between the two presidents. At the same time Mr. Trump had ordered his aides to hold up the $391 million in congressionally approved aid to Ukraine, with no explanation provided to the agencies involved. Then he got on the phone with Mr. Zelensky to ask for “a favor.”

A week after the phone call, on Aug. 2, Mr. Giuliani met in Madrid with Mr. Yermak and then said the Ukrainian president should issue a statement committing to fighting corruption. A week later, Mr. Volker talked with Mr. Yermak and then reached out to Mr. Giuliani.