The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Murphy tells of Sept. visit to Ukraine
WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy sent a letter describing his September trip to Ukraine to House impeachment investigators Tuesday night, highlighting Ukraine’s concerns about the withholding of U.S. security aid and the anxieties of American diplomats about President Donald Trump’s backchannel push for investigations.
Although many details of Murphy’s trip have been previously reported and discussed by the Connecticut Democrat, the letter underlines Murphy’s role in the complicated narrative unfolding during days of impeachment public hearings.
In the letter, Murphy described a dinner he had with acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor, who testified publicly to the House Intelligence Committee last week.
“At dinner, I raised with Taylor the news reports of (the president’s personal lawyer Rudy) Giuliani’s shadow foreign policy operation in Ukraine and asked him the impact it was having on U.S.Ukraine policy,” Murphy wrote. “‘It’s a problem’ he told me.”
Murphy said Taylor encouraged him to “raise the Giuliani issue” with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy when Murphy met with him.
Murphy recounted in his letter that Zelenskiy immediately broached the topic of U.S. military aid in their meeting. Murphy and U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, RWis., who traveled to Ukraine with him, assured the Ukrainian president that Congress would press for the release of the aid.
“Finally, I broached the topic of the pressure on Zelenskiy from Rudy Giuliani and the president’s other emissaries to launch investigations into Trump’s political rivals,” Murphy wrote. “I urged him to ignore requests from Trump’s personal political representatives and to conduct relations with the United States through official channels. … President Zelenskiy said he understood, and represented to us that he had no desire to interfere in a U.S. election.”
Murphy sent this letter to
House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, DCalif., and House Oversight Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, DN.Y., in response to a letter sent to House investigators by Johnson.
Republicans on the House Intelligence and Oversight Committees asked Johnson to recount details of the MurphyJohnson trip to Ukraine to them and Johnson did so in a letter sent on Monday.
At points, Murphy’s letter rebutted some of the conclusions of Johnson’s account.
“In his letter, Senator Johnson indicates that he believes it was significant that Zelenskiy did not raise
concerns, in the face of my warning, regarding the pressure he was getting from the administration to conduct investigations,” Murphy wrote. “I interpreted Zelenskiy’s answer to my question as a concession of the premise of my question — that he was receiving improper overtures from Giuliani to interfere in the 2020 election. He did not contradict the facts that I laid out in my question, and instead simply relayed his desire to say [sic] clear of becoming enmeshed in American politics. To me, this was confirmation that Zelenskiy was indeed feeling the pressure I described.”
A Murphy aide said the letter was not intended to contradict the basic facts Johnson laid out regarding their Ukraine meetings, but instead provide testimony about more events and context that were left out of Johnson's letter and push back on Johnson’s claim of a deep state conspiracy around Ukraine policy.
Murphy and Johnson’s trip to Ukraine was discussed in a House Intelligence Committee public hearing last week.
The trip was Murphy’s fifth to Ukraine and third with Johnson, he said.