EX-TRUMP ADVISER TELLS OF EFFORTS MADE BY GIULIANI
Fiona Hill, President Donald Trump’s former top Russia adviser, spends roughly 10 hours telling impeachment investigators of Rudy Giuliani’s efforts in Ukraine on behalf of the president.
WASHINGTON» Fiona Hill, the White House’s former top Russia adviser, told impeachment investigators on Monday that Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, ran a shadow foreign policy in Ukraine that circumvented U.S. officials and career diplomats in order to personally benefit President Donald Trump, according to a person familiar with her testimony.
Hill, who served as the senior official for Russia and Europe on the National Security Council, was the latest witness in a fastmoving impeachment inquiry focused on whether the president abused his office by using the promise of military aid and diplomatic support to pressure Ukraine into investigating his political rivals.
In a closed-door session that lasted roughly 10 hours, Hill told lawmakers that she confronted Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, about Giuliani’s activities, which, she testified, were not coordinated with the officials responsible for carrying out U.S. foreign policy, this person said on the condition of anonymity to disclose details of her deposition.
Sondland played a leading role in the Trump administration’s efforts to pressure Ukraine to open investigations of the president’s political rivals, text messages obtained and later released by House Democrats show. Three congressional committees are now probing how Trump pressured Ukraine to investigate former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who was on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, as well as a debunked theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 U.S. election in an attempt to damage Trump’s candidacy.
Sondland is scheduled to appear before lawmakers later this week.
And in a sign the impeachment inquiry is widening, investigators were discussing whether to question John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, according to people familiar with the matter. Bolton was Hill’s direct superior at the NSC.
“Rudy Giuliani has clearly been a leading force for the administration in defining a shadow foreign policy in Ukraine,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., told reporters after emerging from Hill’s testimony, though he declined to say whether Hill testified to that effect. “There was an official foreign policy, which was attempting to counter Russia in Ukraine, and then there was Rudy Giuliani and the gang that couldn’t shoot straight that worked for him, who were involved precisely connecting with corruption in Ukraine and promoting corruption in Ukraine.”
Giuliani on Monday night said: “I don’t know Fiona and can’t figure out what she is talking about.” He added that his contact with Ukrainian officials was set up with the State Department.
Hill, who left the NSC voluntarily this summer, worked closely on Ukraine matters with two diplomats who have become central to the impeachment inquiry. One, Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, testified last week about her understanding of Giuliani’s efforts to remove her from her post. Giuliani and some of his allies in Ukraine saw Yovanovitch, a career diplomat, as a threat to their financial and political interests, she told lawmakers last week.
Hill told the committees that she was infuriated by Yovanovitch’s ouster. The ambassador, who had a reputation for combating corruption in Ukraine, told impeachment investigators last week that her departure came as a direct result of pressure Trump placed on the State Department to remove her.
Raskin, speaking Monday after Hill’s deposition, said that Yovanovitch was the “victim of a political hit job,” but that both she and Hill would be considered heroes after the impeachment inquiry concludes.
Vice President Mike Pence, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Giuliani and officials at the Pentagon and the Office of Management and Budget have all been served with document requests about the administration’s policies in Ukraine.