The senior U.S. diplomat in Ukraine told lawmakers Tuesday that President Trump made the release of military aid contingent on public declarations from Ukraine that it would investigate the Bidens and the 2016 election, contradicting Trump’s denial that he used the money as leverage for political gain.
The explosive, closed-door testimony from acting ambassador William B. Taylor Jr. undermined the repeated statements of the president and the depositions of other administration officials, with the potential to reset the House impeachment probe of Trump.
Taylor, a seasoned diplomat, Army veteran and meticulous note taker, provided an expansive description of a series of events at the heart of an investigation that poses the most serious threat to the Trump presidency.
In a 15-page opening statement, obtained by The Washington Post, Taylor stood by his characterization that it was “crazy” to make the assistance contingent on investigations he found troubling.
He described how officials from the Pentagon, State Department, CIA and former National Security Adviser John Bolton tried unsuccessfully to get a meeting with Trump to release the aid. He testified that Ukrainian officials were blindsided by the White House’s decision to release a rough transcript of Trump’s July 25 call with President Volodymyr Zelensky in which the president asked for a favor with “virtually no notice of the release and they were livid.”
Upon arriving in Kyiv last spring Taylor became alarmed by secondary diplomatic channels involving U.S. officials that he called “weird,” he said.
“In August and September of this year, I became increasingly concerned that our relationship with Ukraine was being fundamentally undermined by an irregular informal channel of U.S. policy-making and by the withholding of vital security assistance for domestic political reasons,” Taylor said.
Taylor’s testimony filled in some blanks about the activities of U.S. officials who appear to have sought Ukrainian help at the behest of Trump and his personal attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani. Taylor contradicted earlier testimony from Gordon Sondland, Trump’s ambassador to the European Union, a key player in the effort to draw Ukraine into the election-related investigations.
Sondland told House investigators last week that he recalls “no discussions” with anyone at the State Department or White House about investigating former vice president and 2020 president candidate Joe Biden or his son, Hunter.
Taylor testified that Trump told Sondland himself in a September 7 phone call that Zelensky must “go to a microphone and say he is opening investigations of Biden and 2016 election interference, and that President Zelensky should want to do this himself.”
The contents of this conversation were given to Taylor by the White House official in charge of Europe, Tim Morrison, who after hearing that call notified Bolton and National Security Council lawyers, Taylor said.
In a crucial Sept. 8 telephone call, Taylor testified, Sondland “tried to explain to me that President Trump is a businessman. When a businessman is about to sign a check to someone who owes him something, he said, the businessman asks that person to pay up before.
This is the guy who Stephanie Grisham calls "A radical unelected bureaucrat" partaking in a "coordinated smear campaign" against Trump.
quote:
Former officials of both parties described Mr. Taylor in glowing terms and suggested that his credibility would be difficult for Mr. Trump’s allies to question.
“Ambassador Bill Taylor is a person of integrity with a strong, ethical base,” said R. Nicholas Burns, a former under secretary of state in the Bush administration. “I would also describe him as a true patriot. His entire professional life has been in service to the U.S.”
Posts: 12759 | Location: Williamsburg, VA | Registered: 19 July 2005
Two days later, on September 7, I had a conversation with Mr. Morrison in which he described a phone conversation earlier that day between Ambassador Sondland and President Trump. Mr. Morrison said that he had a "sinking feeling" after learning about this conversation from Ambassador Sondland.
Although it gets a little tricky to parse some of this statement, it looks like this particular incident is third hand information (Sondland told Morrison who told me). It will take some time to parse the whole statement, but I'm pretty sure third hand info isn't very useful.
Posts: 976 | Location: Northern California | Registered: 18 July 2005
Totality, accuracy, confirmability, and content. All are important.
The whistleblower's account was second hand and as far as I know, it has been corroborated by multiple witnesses and even by the White House's rough transcript of the conversation with Zelinskyy.
Taylor's testimony on the particular conversation you highlighted is one of many pieces of the puzzle; his detailed account has dozens of other potentially important pieces.
If this particular one is consistent with all the other pieces as described by other people involved, it's meaningful. Especially if most or all of his story is consistent and confirmable. One doesn't have to be everywhere in person to know what's going on.
He also has first hand knowledge of many other conversations.
I think Taylor's testimony brings forth the need to talk to Sondland again (we may have a he said/he said or we may not - see https://www.politico.com/news/...e-testimony-055825), and to question Bolton, Barr, and others.
The stuff that's coming out now is what the DOJ would have uncovered had they decided to investigate the whistleblower's complaint after the IG found it credible, rather than shelving it.
-------------------------------- When the world wearies and society ceases to satisfy, there is always the garden - Minnie Aumônier
Posts: 38223 | Location: Somewhere in the middle | Registered: 19 January 2010
