Trump’s Shadow Ukraine Policy Laid Bare, and Ex-Envoy Is Up Next
Trump’s Shadow Ukraine Policy Laid Bare in Impeachment Opener
(Bloomberg) -- The first public impeachment hearing against Donald Trump laid out how a handful of loyalists led by Rudy Giuliani wrested control of U.S. policy from seasoned diplomats, all to achieve the president’s political ends, and it signaled the battles yet to come.
The testimony Wednesday from George Kent and William Taylor, the two top State Department officials on Ukraine, offered a sense of the stakes that have so far been buried in the impeachment saga. As Trump and Giuliani pressed Ukraine to probe former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, the pair described in detail how U.S. efforts to help a desperate ally and check Russia’s ambitions were stalled.
Their accounts set the stage for Friday’s hearing, when former U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch -- who was recalled to Washington early in May after mounting pressure against her from Giuliani, among others -- is scheduled to testify starting 9 a.m. EST.
Republicans labeled the six-hour hearing on Wednesday “boring” and said the testimony relied on hearsay because neither one ever spoke directly to Trump or officials such as acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney.
Yet the diplomats’ remarks also offered the first full accounting of how Giuliani’s efforts, which were fanned by Trump, eventually saw official policy toward Ukraine held hostage to the president’s demands. It also showed how a number of officials raised alarms -- and were ignored -- about actions they believed undermined U.S. national security.
“The Russians are violating all of the rules and treaties they committed to that actually kept the peace” in Ukraine, Taylor testified at one point. “That rule of law and order was violated by the Russians. And if we don’t push back, and if that continues, that affects the kind of world we live in.”
The picture that Kent and Taylor painted was of a split in American policy that began with the pressure to oust Yovanovitch, and arrived at a point where Giuliani and the American envoy to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, were working at cross-purposes even to senior aides like then-National Security Adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Michael Pompeo.
Caught in the middle was Ukraine’s untested new president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, desperate for military aid and the public validation that support from the U.S. would provide to help counter Russian aggression. His country had already lost 7% of its territory, Kent testified, after Russia invaded in 2014, and 13,000 people had been killed in the conflict.
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According to Taylor, one of his staff reported overhearing Sondland speaking to Trump on the telephone, and the message was that the president was more concerned about an investigation into the Bidens than relations with Ukraine. Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, was working to ensure that the investigation came off.
“I believe he was looking to dig up political dirt against a potential rival in the next election cycle,” Kent said of Giuliani’s efforts, in a rare moment where the two witnesses acceded to requests to offer their opinions rather than just state the facts.
“I agree with Mr. Kent,” Taylor said.
Trump dismissed the allegations in a news conference after the impeachment hearing ended.
It wasn’t long after the hearing began for public attacks on Kent and Taylor to get underway. It began with a Trump tweet about “Never Trumpers.” A video later posted to Twitter by Ronna McDaniel, chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, said the two had no first-hand knowledge to offer.
“Democrats’ star witness: all hearsay,” the video said.
It didn’t mention that the diplomats have more than 30 years experience combined, serving Republican and Democratic administrations, and that Taylor was handpicked by Pompeo for his post just six months ago, with an explicit guarantee that U.S. policy to help Ukraine wouldn’t change.
The Republican argument hinged on the idea that there was no expectation of a quid pro quo in the transcript of Trump’s July 25 call with Zelenskiy. A second point was that there was no wrongdoing because Ukraine didn’t know about the suspension of military aid until later. Ukraine never committed to investigate the Bidens and the aid was eventually approved, lawmakers argued.
There was also a glimpse of the tactic Republicans will take as more witnesses give their testimony in the coming days. Republican Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio said, for example, that Trump’s decision to withhold $391 million in assistance to Ukraine was an effort to “check out this new guy” -- a suggestion that the administration was just trying to make sure Zelenskiy wasn’t corrupt.
“The American people have been lied to again and again on this,” Representative Chris Stewart, a Utah Republican, told the two witnesses. “All you can do is give your opinion of this, this one phone call.”
The result was an unusual spectacle featuring two Trump administration diplomats responsible for implementing U.S. policy -- in Taylor’s case, at Pompeo’s personal direction -- finding themselves facing suspicious questions from Republicans for raising concerns once that policy was undermined from within.
As both sides sought to spin the day’s testimony to their advantage, the Intelligence Committee was also laying out the agenda for the coming week.
Eight more witnesses are scheduled. They include Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, the director for European Affairs on the National Security Council; Jennifer Williams, an aide to Vice President Mike Pence; and Kurt Volker, who was Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine.
To contact the reporter on this story: Nick Wadhams in Washington at nwadhams@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Bill Faries at wfaries@bloomberg.net, ;Kevin Whitelaw at kwhitelaw@bloomberg.net, John Harney
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