Trump was infuriated by the testimony of an American diplomat in the Biden case
US President Donald Trump said that the Ukrainian side knew that military assistance would be refused, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
He wrote about this on Twitter, commenting on the testimony in Congress of US Chargé d'Affaires for Ukraine William Taylor.
“Neither he (Taylor) nor any other witness testified that the Ukrainians knew that military assistance was being withheld. You can’t get a quid pro quo without a favor... The Do Nothing Democrats’ case is Dead!” - the US President emphasized.
The day before, William Taylor testified in the US Congress in the impeachment case of American President Donald Trump.
According to him, the release of military aid to Ukraine depended on the announcement of an investigation into former US Vice President Joe Biden and his son, and that the order came from Donald Trump, contrary to the US President's assertion to the contrary.
The diplomat said during a closed hearing on Tuesday that he called it “crazy” to make military aid to Ukraine contingent on an investigation into the machinations of Trump’s political rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
Taylor said that after his appointment as ambassador this year, he was alarmed by the existence of a secondary, “irregular” diplomatic channel and that other U.S. officials said they were trying to persuade Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the Bidens. The US President's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, was in charge of the plan, the diplomat claimed.
In a conversation with EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland, Taylor said he was told that the US president said aid was conditional on a public announcement that Ukraine was opening an investigation into Hunter Biden's business dealings with the Ukrainian oil company Burisma.
“During that call, Ambassador Sondland told me that President Trump told him that he wanted President Zelensky to publicly state that Ukraine would be investigating Burisma and alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election,” Taylor said.
“Ambassador Sondland also told me that he now acknowledges that he made a mistake in previously telling Ukrainian officials with whom he spoke that the White House meeting with President Zelensky was contingent on a public announcement of the results of the investigation. In fact, Ambassador Sondland said that “everything” depends on such an announcement, including security assistance. He stated that President Trump wants President Zelensky to be “in the public box” by making a public statement about ordering such an investigation,” the diplomat said.
Taylor is the latest US official to defy State Department orders to disobey Democrats' subpoenas to testify in Trump's impeachment trial.
“This was the most damning testimony I have ever heard,” Democratic Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz told The Washington Post.
“He drew a very specific direct line from President Trump to the denial of foreign aid and the meeting,” Wasserman Schultz commented on Taylor’s testimony.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.