Perry Plays Down Talk of Departure as Ukraine Inquiry Heats Up

(Bloomberg) -- U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry said he’s staying put in his job for the time being and had no plans -- “not today, not tomorrow“ -- to leave.

Perry’s relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump, which has been solid, took a hit last week when the president told Republican lawmakers that it was Perry who’d urged him to speak with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a phone call that’s now at the center of a Democratic impeachment inquiry.

Perry had told confidants that he plans to leave by the end of the year, according to two people familiar with the matter. He had been contemplating an exit long before the Ukraine controversy erupted. Now he may be called to testify in the impeachment probe, and he has said he’ll cooperate with House Democrats.

“I’m here. I’m serving,” Perry told journalists in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius Monday. “They’ve been writing the story that I was leaving the Department of Energy for at least nine months now. One of these days they will probably get it right. But it’s not today, it’s not tomorrow, not next month. Keep saying it and one day you’ll be right.”

The secretary, who has met at least three times with Zelenskiy as well as with his predecessor Petro Poroshenko, said previous discussions with Ukraine had focused on increasing Kyiv’s energy independence. Perry also said he had repeatedly asked Trump to speak of Ukraine about that topic.

“Absolutely. I asked the president multiple times: ‘Mr. President we think it is in the United States’ and Ukraine’s best interest that you and the president of Ukraine have conversations that you discuss the options that are there,” Perry said. “That was the message day in and day out.”

The visits to Ukraine included one in May when Perry led a delegation to the new leader’s inauguration in place of Vice President Mike Pence. That trip was referenced in the U.S. whistle-blower complaint that sparked the House’s impeachment inquiry.

Perry also said that the U.S. planned to double its gas supplies in the next 24 months, “with the potential of doubling it again in the next two to three years” and that U.S. natural gas “will be competitive with anybody in the world.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Milda Seputyte in Vilnius at mseputyte@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Andrea Dudik at adudik@bloomberg.net, Michael Winfrey

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