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Diplomat Who Called Quid Pro Quo ‘Crazy’ in Texts to Testify in Impeachment Probe

Democrats to Press Key Impeachment Witness on Trump Quid Pro Quo

(Bloomberg) -- House Democrats are looking to significantly advance the impeachment probe of Donald Trump with testimony Tuesday from the top U.S. diplomat to Ukraine, who had warned it was “crazy” to withhold military aid in a bid to get dirt on the president’s political rivals.

Acting U.S. Ambassador William Taylor is a key witness because of his text messages to colleagues expressing concern about back-channel Ukraine negotiations led by Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. Taylor’s exchanges with Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, form a crucial part of the inquiry.

Diplomat Who Called Quid Pro Quo ‘Crazy’ in Texts to Testify in Impeachment Probe

“That’s pretty big because he’s on the scene, he was involved in those conversations, he registered his disapproval, he was pretty explicit about this is a quid pro quo and ‘I don’t approve, and it’s crazy,’” said Representative Gerald Connolly of Virginia, a Democratic member of the Oversight and Reform Committee.

That committee and two others are looking into whether Trump withheld nearly $400 million in U.S. military aid from Ukraine to prod that country to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and look into a separate theory about the theft of emails from Democrats in 2016.

Taylor arrived for his testimony on Capitol Hill just before it was scheduled to begin Tuesday morning. The panels are set to hear from Laura Cooper, a deputy assistant secretary of Defense, on Wednesday.

Multiple officials familiar with the inquiry’s workings said on Monday that the crunch of remaining depositions and other aspects of the investigation were threatening to undo any possible conclusion of the investigation by Thanksgiving or the beginning of December.

Some Saturday depositions are being scheduled to speed up the work flow; Philip Reeker, the acting assistant secretary of European and Eurasian affairs at the State Department, is to appear this Saturday. But with Democrats also promising to hold public hearings, the officials said the committees were now looking at finishing up perhaps well into December.

A growing number of Republican lawmakers are starting to equivocate in their support for the president. More Americans are backing his removal from office amid revelations from the inquiry, as well as Trump’s handling of Syria and his short-lived decision to hold next year’s G-7 meeting at his own resort in Miami.

In the last two weeks, former U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch and other current and former diplomats and national security officials have told House investigators that they also had concerns about Giuliani’s Ukraine work outside of normal diplomatic protocols.

Diplomat Who Called Quid Pro Quo ‘Crazy’ in Texts to Testify in Impeachment Probe

During a July 25 call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the American president urged the Ukraine leader to investigate Biden, according to a rough memorandum of the call. The White House released the memo after an unidentified whistle-blower’s complaint surfaced in late September.

Taylor became acting ambassador to Ukraine after Yovanovitch was abruptly recalled from her post in May as some Republicans said she was undermining Trump. She testified last week there was a “concerted campaign against me” led by Giuliani and Trump.

Taylor’s texts vividly reflect real-time concerns within the State Department before the emergence of the whistle-blower’s complaint.

Those texts -- provided to the three House committees earlier this month alongside testimony from former Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker -- show that Taylor pressed about why military aid to Ukraine was being withheld. The texts cover a period until Sept. 9 and discuss dates and conditions for a White House visit sought by Zelenskiy.

‘Nightmare Scenario’

“Are we now saying that security assistance and WH meeting are conditioned on investigations?” Taylor asked in a Sept. 1 text message to Volker and Sondland. “Call me,” Sondland replied.

Then, on Sept. 8, Taylor said about the Ukrainians in a text: “The nightmare is they give the interview and don’t get the security assistance. The Russians love it. (And I quit.).”

The next day, Taylor added, “The message to the Ukrainians (and Russians) we send with the decision on security assistance is key. With the hold, we have already shaken their faith in us. Thus my nightmare scenario.”

“As I said on the phone, I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign,” he wrote. Sondland later responded, “Bill, I believe you are incorrect about President Trump’s intentions. The president has been crystal clear no quid pro quo’s of any kind.”

‘No Quid Pro Quo’

In his own testimony last week to the three committees, Sondland said he took Taylor’s concerns seriously that the Ukrainians could perceive a link between U.S. security assistance and the president’s 2020 re-election campaign. Sondland said he asked Trump what he wanted from Ukraine.

“The president responded, ‘Nothing. There is no quid pro quo.’ The president repeated ‘no quid pro quo’ multiple times,” said Sondland in prepared testimony.

Connolly said it will help House impeachment investigators hear directly from Taylor about his concerns.

“I think he can shed a lot of light on the Giuliani involvement and can give his take on what we’ve heard from Sondland and Volker,” Connolly said.

Asked if Republicans view Taylor as an important witness, Intelligence Committee member Michael Conaway of Texas said he didn’t know but conceded, “He was kind of at the center of a lot of stuff, time-frame-wise.”

It’s unclear whether the unidentified whistle-blower whose complaint sparked the investigation will be called to testify. A person familiar with the matter said Monday that congressional investigators have moved on to witnesses whose knowledge of events either substantiates or exceeds that of the whistle-blower.

--With assistance from Laura Litvan.

To contact the reporter on this story: Billy House in Washington at bhouse5@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kevin Whitelaw at kwhitelaw@bloomberg.net, Laurie Asséo, John Harney

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