Perry defends urging Trump to make call to Ukraine leader
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Outgoing U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry said Saturday that he asked President Donald Trump to make the phone call at the center of the impeachment inquiry because it was “important” for the country’s energy needs and had nothing to do with former Vice President Joe Biden or his son Hunter.
Perry told The Associated Press that he urged Trump to call Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to offer “Ukraine an alternative to Russian gas” and said he never once heard the word Biden or Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company that once employed Biden’s son. He said he merely wished to deliver the same message to Zelenskiy as he had to his predecessor.
“We had had enough conversations with him that we had felt comfortable that he actually was going to do what he said he was going to do when he ran for office, which was have that that type of transparency, have that type of anti-corruption efforts,” Perry said in Dubai, where he was meeting local officials and attending an international youth robotics contest. “(I said) Mr. President, call this guy. It’s good for him and it’s good for us and we can go forward in helping supply gas, preferably U.S. gas to Ukraine. Pretty straight-forward story.”
Perry recently announced that he will leave his job by the end of the year, citing the nation nearing its goal of energy independence. Perry, 69, a former Texas governor, has been energy secretary since March 2017, making him one of the longest-serving members of Trump’s Cabinet, which has seen huge turnover.
But the move comes as he’s been caught up in scrutiny over the role he played in the president’s dealings with Ukraine.
The impeachment inquiry is investigating whether Trump was withholding military aid unless Zelenskiy went public with a promise to investigate the Bidens.
A top U.S. diplomat, William Taylor, has named administration officials who he said told him Trump had demanded of the Ukrainians an investigation of Burisma. The elder Biden is running for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.
No evidence has emerged that Perry explicitly pressured Ukrainian officials to comply with Trump’s push. He has been subpoenaed for his involvement in the call but says he won’t cooperate.