US diplomat says Trump linked Ukraine aid to demand for probe

WASHINGTON (AP) — A top U.S. diplomat testified Tuesday that
President Donald Trump was holding back military aid for Ukraine unless
the country agreed to investigate Democrats and a company linked to Joe
Biden’s family, providing lawmakers with a detailed new account of the
quid pro quo central to the impeachment probe.

In a lengthy opening statement to House investigators obtained The Associated Press, William Taylor described Trump’s demand that “everything” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy wanted, including vital aid to counter Russia, hinged on making a public vow that Ukraine would investigate Democrats going back to the 2016 U.S. election as well as a company linked to the family of Trump’s potential 2020 Democratic rival.

Taylor testified that what he
discovered in Kyiv was the Trump administration’s “irregular” back
channel to foreign policy led by the president’s personal lawyer, Rudy
Giuliani, and “ultimately alarming circumstances” that threatened to
erode the United States’ relationship with a budding Eastern European
ally facing Russian aggression.

In a date-by-date account,
detailed across several pages, the seasoned diplomat who came out of
retirement to take over as charge d’affaires at the embassy in Ukraine
details his mounting concern as he realized Trump was trying to put the
newly elected president of the young democracy “in a public box.”

“I
sensed something odd,” he testified, describing a trio of Trump
officials planning a call with Zelenskiy, including one, Ambassador
Gordon Sondland, who wanted to make sure “no one was transcribing or
monitoring” it.

Lawmakers who emerged after nearly 10 hours of the private deposition were stunned at Taylor’s account, which some Democrats said established a “direct line” to the quid pro quo at the center of the impeachment probe.

“It
was shocking,” said Rep. Karen Bass, a California Democrat. “It was
very clear that it was required — if you want the assistance, you have
to make a public statement.”

She characterized it as “it’s this for that.”

Rep. Dina Titus, a Democrat from Nevada, said, “You can see how damning this is.”

Titus said, “This certainly makes it pretty clear what was going on. And it was a quid pro quo.”

The
account reaches to the highest levels of the administration, drawing in
Vice President Mike Pence and Trump’s acting chief of staff, Mick
Mulvaney, and slices at the core of the Republican defense of the
administration and the president’s insistence of no wrongdoing.

It
also lays bare the struggle between Trump’s former national security
adviser John Bolton and those who a previous State Department witness
described as the “three amigos” — Sondland, Energy Secretary Rick Perry
and special envoy Kurt Volker— who were involved in the alternative
Ukraine policy vis-a-vis Russia.

It’s illegal to seek or receive contributions of value from a foreign entity for a U.S. election.

“President
Trump has done nothing wrong,” said White House press secretary
Stephanie Grisham. “This is a coordinated smear campaign from far-left
lawmakers and radical unelected bureaucrats waging war on the
Constitution. There was no quid pro quo.”

Taylor’s appearance was
among the most anticipated before House investigators because of a
series of text messages with the other diplomats in which he called
Trump’s attempt to hold back military aid to Ukraine “crazy.”

His
testimony opens a new front in the impeachment inquiry, and it calls
into question the account from Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the
European Union, who told Congress last week that he did not fully
remember some details of the events and was initially unaware that the
gas company Burisma was tied to the Bidens.

Taylor told lawmakers
that Sondland, a wealthy businessman who donated $1 million to Trump’s
inauguration, was aware of the demands and later admitted he made a
mistake by telling the Ukrainians that military assistance was not
contingent on agreeing to Trump’s requests.

“In fact, Ambassador
Sondland said, ‘everything’ was dependent on such an announcement,
including the security assistance,” Taylor recalled.

“Ambassador
Sondland told me that President Trump had told him that he wants
President Zelenskyy to state publicly that Ukraine will investigate
Burisma and alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. election,”
Taylor said about a Sept. 1 phone call between them.

Taylor apparently kept detailed records of conversations and documents, including two personal notebooks, lawmakers said.

The
retired diplomat, a former Army officer, had been serving as executive
vice president at the U.S. Institute of Peace, a nonpartisan think tank
founded by Congress, when he was appointed to run the embassy in Kyiv
after Trump suddenly recalled Ambassador Maria Yovanovitch.

Taylor
testified that he had concerns about taking over the post under those
circumstances, but she urged him to go “for policy reasons and for the
morale of the embassy.” He had served as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from
2006 to 2009.

Lawmakers described the career civil servant’s
delivery as credible and consistent, as he answered hours of questions
from Democrats and Republicans, drawing silence in the room as lawmakers
exchanged glances.

Taylor testified that he “sat in astonishment”
on a July 18 call in which a White House budget official said that
Trump had relayed a message through Mulvaney that the aid should be
withheld.

A month later, his concerns had so deepened that he was
preparing to resign. Sensing the U.S. policy toward Ukraine has shifted,
he described an Aug. 22 phone call with Tim Morrison, a Russia adviser
at the White House, who told him, the “president doesn’t want to provide
any assistance at all.”

“That was extremely troubling to me,” Taylor said.

Taylor’s
description of Trump’s position is in sharp contrast to how the
president has characterized it. Trump has said many times that there was
no quid pro quo, though Mulvaney contradicted that last week. Mulvaney
later tried to walk back his remarks.

“The testimony is very disturbing,” said Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y. Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., used the same word.

Rep.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., said Taylor “drew a straight line”
with documents, timelines and individual conversations in his records.

“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,” she said.

The
impeachment probe was sparked by a whistleblower’s complaint of a July
call. In that call, Trump told Zelenskiy he wanted “a favor,” which the
White House later acknowledged in a rough transcript of the conversation
was Trump’s desire for Ukraine to investigate the Democratic National
Committee’s email hack in 2016 as well as the Ukrainian gas company
Burisma tied to Biden’s family.

___

Associated Press writers
Lynn Berry in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Matthew Lee, Alan Fram, Jill Colvin
and Michael Balsamo in Washington contributed to this report.