Official: Trump needed to hear 3 words
Inquiry prepares for public sessions
WASHINGTON — There were three words President Donald Trump wanted to hear from the Ukraine president: Investigations, Biden, Clinton.
That’s according to the transcript, released Thursday, of an impeachment inquiry interview with career State Department official George Kent.
“Potus wanted nothing less than President Zelenskiy to go to the microphone and say investigations, Biden and Clinton,” Kent testified.
Kent told investigators that was his understanding of what Trump wanted Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to say in public, based on conversations relayed to him by others in the administration who were in contact with Ambassador Gordon Sondland.
Clinton, he explained, was “shorthand” for the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. It was a reference to Trump’s view, pushed by his attorney Rudy Giuliani, but outside of mainstream U.S. intelligence, that Ukraine played a role interfering in the election.
House investigators are releasing key transcripts in the impeachment inquiry as they prepare for public sessions with witnesses next week.
Kent had testified for hours in October, telling investigators that he was instructed to “lay low” on Ukraine policy as administration officials and Giuliani were taking the lead, acting outside of regular foreign policy channels.
Kent said he memorialized in writing his conversations with other diplomats amid his concerns of “an effort to initiate politically motivated prosecutions that were injurious to the rule of law, both in Ukraine and U.S.” The memorandum was submitted to the State Department.
He told investigators he was uncomfortable with what he was hearing about Giuliani pushing investigations and Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, Kurt Volker, engaging Ukrainian officials on the subject.
“And I told Bill Taylor … we shouldn’t be doing that as a matter of U.S. policy,” Kent said, referring to William Taylor, the top diplomat in Ukraine who has also testified in the inquiry.
Kent describes mounting unease over the Trump administration’s July 25 phone call with Zelenskiy that sparked the impeachment inquiry.
Within days of the call, he receive a readout from Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, an Army officer assigned to the National Security Council who was among the officials listening to the call.
“It was different than any readout call that I had received,” Kent said. “He felt I could hear it in his voice … that he felt uncomfortable.”