ROPEA-DOPE
Impeach noose tightens as Kiev envoy confirms quid pro quo Untethered Don hits racist ‘cord,’ calls Dem probe ‘lynching’
President Trump wanted Ukraine’s head of state to publicly commit to investigating Joe Biden’s family and debunked claims about the 2016 election before he would release crucial U.S. military aid to the eastern European country, a top American diplomat testified in the House impeachment inquiry Tuesday.
The bombshell closeddoor testimony by Bill Taylor, the acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, blatantly contradicted Trump’s denial of a quid pro quo trading nearly $400 million in sorely needed American aid for investigations into his political rivals. Taylor’s testimony also contradicts previous depositions in the impeachment probe from administration officials.
According to Taylor’s 15-page opening statement, which was obtained by the Daily News and first reported by The Washington Post, the career diplomat testified to the three House committees leading the impeachment charge that he immediately “sensed something odd” about U.S. foreign policy in Ukraine upon arriving for his new post in Kiev in May.
In addition to regular diplomatic channels, a team led by Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, operated a shadow effort to pressure newly elected President Volodymyr Zelensky’s administration to investigate unsubstantiated corruption claims about the Bidens as well as a dubious right-wing conspiracy about the 2016 U.S. election, according to Taylor.
Gordon Sondland, a mega Trump donor and the president’s hand-picked ambassador to the European Union, was part of that team and told
Taylor on a Sept. 8 phone call that Trump had certain preconditions for Zelensky to be given $391 million in security aid approved by Congress in a bipartisan manner, according to Taylor’s prepared remarks.
“Sondland told me that President Trump had told him that he wants President Zelensky to state publicly that Ukraine will investigate Burisma and alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election,” Taylor told lawmakers.
Joe Biden’s son Hunter used to sit on the board of Burisma, a large Ukrainian gas company. Trump, Giuliani and other Republicans have floated baseless allegations that the elder Biden used his vice presidential pulpit to help his son evade corruption charges stemming from his role with Burisma. There’s no evidence to corroborate such claims.
The “alleged Ukrainian interference” mentioned by Taylor is a debunked theory claiming anti-Trump forces sought to help Hillary Clinton in 2016 and are hiding a Democratic National Committee computer server in the country. There’s no evidence for those claims, either.
Trump had at the time of Sondland’s Sept. 8 call with Taylor put a freeze on the military aid, which Ukraine depends on to stave off Russian aggression.
If Zelensky didn’t announce the requested investigations, Trump could deprive him of U.S. aid as well as the chance to sit down with him at the White House, Taylor testified that Sondland had told him.
“Sondland said ‘everything’ was dependent on such an announcement, including security assistance,” Taylor told lawmakers.
Amid immense bipartisan pressure, Trump released the
aid to Ukraine on Sept. 11, without explaining why it had been held up in the first place.
Taylor’s stunning testimony blows a massive hole in the shifting narrative from the White House about whether there was a quid pro quo.
Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney admitted last week that a quid pro quo took place, but claimed it only pertained to a commitment from the Ukrainians to launch an investigation into the dubious 2016 claims, not one into the Bidens.
Mulvaney then tried to walk back that admission hours later after even some Republicans said such a quid pro quo could be evidence of impeachable offenses.
Sondland, meanwhile, told impeachment investigators last week that he recalled “no discussions” with anyone about investigating Biden or his son — sworn testimony contradicted by Taylor’s account.
Trump’s State Department tried to block Taylor from testifying, an impeachment inquiry official told The News. The House Intelligence Committee subsequently issued a subpoena Tuesday morning compelling Taylor’s testimony, and he appeared for questioning as planned, the official said.
Democratic lawmakers who left the closed-door hearing said Taylor’s testimony was the most consequential yet in the rapidly developing inquiry into whether Trump should be impeached over alleged attempts to solicit Ukrainian interference in the 2020 election.
“The testimony is very disturbing,” said New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney, the newly minted acting chairwoman of the House Oversight Committee.
Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz said Taylor “drew a straight line” — backed up with documents and timelines — between Trump’s freeze on U.S. security aid and his deep-rooted desire for Ukrainian investigations into Democrats.
“I do not know how you would listen to today’s testimony from Ambassador Taylor and come to any other [conclusion] except that the president abused his power and withheld foreign aid,” Wasserman Schultz said.
But White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham claimed Taylor’s testimony was nothing but “a coordinated smear campaign from far-left lawmakers and radical unelected bureaucrats.”
“President Trump has done nothing wrong,” Grisham said in a statement. “There was no quid pro quo.”
Taylor’s name first surfaced after special U.S. envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker earlier this month handed over private text messages to the impeachment committees, in which Taylor had blasted Trump’s quid pro quo attempts as “crazy.”
“I believed that then, and I still believe that,” Taylor told lawmakers Tuesday.
Taylor first served as ambassador to Ukraine between 2006 and 2009, having been appointed by President George W. Bush. A Vietnam War veteran and a career public servant, Taylor has served in both Democratic and Republican administrations.
“He’s a straight shooter,” a former colleague who has known Taylor for 25 years told The News before his Tuesday testimony, adding the longtime diplomat believes “strongly” in traditional U.S. foreign policy goals in Ukraine, particularly as it relates to counteracting
Russian aggression.
Taylor testified he had strong reservations about Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s offer for him to return to Ukraine to serve as the top U.S. diplomat after Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was unceremoniously yanked from the post in May after resisting Giuliani’s dirt-digging efforts.
“Yovanovitch had been treated poorly, caught in a web of political machinations both in Kiev and Washington,” Taylor said.
Ultimately, Taylor said he decided to take the job after “a respected former senior Republican official” convinced him that “if your country asks you to do something, you do it.”
“But once I arrived in Kiev, I discovered a weird combination of encouraging, confusing and ultimately alarming circumstances,” Taylor said.