Impeachment witness Taylor leaves post

William Taylor, who gave bombshell testimony in the House impeachment inquiry, officially stepped down as the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine on Thursday — just one day before Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was supposed to visit.

Taylor, who became one of the star witnesses in the impeachment probe into President Trump’s suspension of aid to Ukraine, will be replaced by Kristina Kvien, a career foreign service officer, according to the U.S. embassy in Kiev.

Taylor (inset) was contracted to serve as the charge d’affaires in Kiev until this month, and a source close to the diplomat told the Daily News he wasn’t fired.

However, the source also said Taylor understood the precise timing of his departure was not random.

“He’s a big boy. He understands what’s going on,” said the source, who spoke directly with Taylor about the matter. “His departure would be so that he would be gone before Pompeo would come.”

Pompeo was supposed to visit the embassy in Kiev on Friday, but the State Department said Wednesday the secretary had postponed that trip so he could continue monitoring the situation unfolding in Iraq. The State Department said Pompeo is in the process of rescheduling the Kiev trip.

In two rounds of testimony before impeachment investigators last year, Taylor gave a scathing account of Trump’s quid pro quo push for Ukrainian investigations into his political rivals in exchange for $391 million in congressionally approved U.S. military aid. In text messages obtained by investigators, Taylor called Trump’s scheme for investigations “crazy.”

Despite Trump’s dislike for Taylor, Pompeo handpicked him to the Ukraine post in June after the president abruptly removed former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.

Yovanovitch was yanked from her post after she raised concerns about attempts by the president and his allies to pressure officials in Ukraine to launch investigations into Joe Biden and other Democrats before the 2020 election.