Kane Dane
WASHINGTON — In the behest of President Trump and his private attorney, U.S. diplomats participated in a frenetic, months-long attempt to push Ukraine’s newly elected president to openly promise he’d order an investigation to Joe Biden’s son and probe a conspiracy theory regarding Ukraine’s alleged part in the 2016 U.S. election.
In trade, the diplomats thought, Trump would benefit Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky using an extremely sought-after meeting with Trump in the White House along with the launch of almost $400 million in U.S. army support that Trump had placed on hold.
Text messages involving Kurt Volker, then-Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, along with other U.S. diplomats — released late Thursday by House Democrats resulting an impeachment question — paint a picture of American international policy choices being pushed by Trump’s domestic political concerns and also an ad-hoc program made by Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s private lawyer.
“Heard in the White House,” Volker composed in a text into some leading Zelensky advisor on July 25, before Trump and Zelensky were scheduled to talk by telephone in call which helped ignite the impeachment inquiry.
“Assuming President Z (Zelensky) convinces trust he’ll investigate/”reach the bottom of exactly what occurred” at 2016, we’ll nail down a date for a visit into Washington. Great luck! ,” Volker told his Ukrainian counterpart.
House Democrats introduced the text messages later Volker, who resigned in the Ukraine envoy article a week, spent over nine hours Thursday testifying behind closed-doors as part of the Democrats’ impeachment question.
“These text messages signify serious issues raised by a State Department official concerning the harmful effects of critical military help from Ukraine, along with also the significance of establishing a meeting between President Trump along with the Ukrainian President,” that the chairmen of the three House committee major the impeachment probe said in a statement released Thursday night. The following three chairmen include: Intelligence Committee Chair Adam B. Schiff, Oversight and Reform Committee Chair Elijah E. Cummings, and Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Eliot L. Engel.
The Democrats said the communications demonstrate that State Department workers were profoundly worried that U.S. military aid and a Trump-Zelensky assembly”were withheld as a way to put extra pressure on Ukraine to provide to the President’s need for Ukraine to establish politically motivated investigations”
Republicans recognized the event as a sham that did little to supply Democrats any ammunition to impeach Trump.
Talking to reporters outside the hearing room as Volker was testifying, Rep. Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, slammed Schiff, D-Calif., for not permitting State Department attorneys to take part in the session. In addition, he explained the testimony that he heard from Volker didn’t encourage Democrats’ impeachment narrative.
“Ambassador Volker has been quite impressive and has stated nothing which contrasts with what the Democrats are visiting their entire impeachment story,” said Jordan, the leading Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Reform.
However, the text messages show a high degree of apprehension among State Department officials who Trump had connected U.S. help to Ukraine to a agreement from Zelensky which he’d reciprocate by taking measures that might help Trump politically in the home.
“Many impt is for Zelensky to state he will aid with the investigation,” Volker wrote in a July 17 message into 2 other U.S. diplomats using purview over Ukraine coverage: Gordon Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union, along with Bill Taylor, the top American diplomat stationed in Ukraine.
Following Trump and Zelensky talked on July 25, Zelensky’s top aide, Andriy Yermak stated that the call”went well,” including:”Please remind Mr. Mayor to discuss the Madrid dates” That is a reference to Giuliani’s strategies to match with Zelensky’s advisers, in Madrid in August, to followup on the Trump-Zelensky telephone call.
For weeks, Giuliani was pressing on the Ukrainians for damaging info on Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, who sat on the plank of a Ukrainian energy firm after Biden was Obama’s No. 2. Trump and Giuliani have alleged wrongdoing from the Bidens, but Ukrainian officials have stated they haven’t discovered any evidence to support those charges.
Taylor, the direct diplomat in Kiev, appeared the most alarmed by the obvious connection between Trump’s freeze on U.S. help to Ukraine along with the president’s requirements for probes to Biden and the 2016 presidential elections.
“Are we saying that safety assistance and WH assembly are conditioned on investigations?” Taylor requested in a Sept. 1 text message into Volker and Sondland. “Call me,” Sondland texted back.
Taylor later increased a”nightmare” situation, where Zelensky would assert to dictate the investigations that Trump desired, but the U.S. wouldn’t discharge the military guidance, which Ukraine had to cancel Russian aggression.
“The Russians adore it,” Taylor texted on Sept. 8. The following dayhe texted again which the U.S. had “shaken (Ukraine’s) religion in us” and cautioned Sondland:”Counting for you to be correct about it.”
Sondland indicated he was not certain what could happen. “Let us hope it works,” he texted to Taylor on Sept. 9.
Taylor responded:”As I said on the telephone, I think that it’s mad to withhold safety support for help with a political campaign”
Sondland pushed right back, stating Trump was”crystal clear no quid pro quo of any sort.” He told Taylor to call”S,” presumably referring to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, if he wished to explore the issue further.
Zelensky never made a public commitment to establish some U.S.-related investigations. And Trump eventually introduced the army help under bipartisan pressure from U.S. lawmakers.
Trump ordered the grip on the help of Ukraine at mid-July, soon before he talked with Zelensky. He’s given conflicting explanations for this conclusion, originally saying he wished to make sure Ukraine would crack down on corruption and afterwards implying he desired European allies to donate to Ukraine’s defense.
Democrats emerged from Thursday’s session convinced that the aid was utilized as a member of an attempted quid-pro-quo.
“It had been further proof of the inherent truth that has spurred this formal impeachment question,” Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., told USA TODAY Thursday evening. The president”utilized military help and other leverage to try to extort (the Ukrainian leader) to get a narrow partisan national political motive: getting dirt onto his potential political rival.”
Another Democrat, Rep. Eric Swalwell of California, stated Volker’s testimony revealed that Trump held out the possibility of a White House meeting Zelensky about the condition that Ukraine research Biden — along with Ukraine’s alleged participation in disturbance using the 2016 U.S. election. The American intelligence community has concluded that Russia attempted to influence the 2016 election Trump’s favor, true that has clouded Trump’s presidency.
“For Zelensky to receive a meeting with Trump, Zelensky needed to, one, explore the 2016 election, basically return and exonerate the Russians’ function,” Swalwell told reporters after Volker’s residue stopped. “And two, that Zelensky would need to research Biden. This was a known predicate for the assembly.”
Rep. Lee Zeldin, a New York Republican, proposed that Democrats had cherry-picked out of Volker’s texts to offer a deceptive account of his own testimony.
“Rather than House Dems releasing Ambassador Volker’s texts drip by drip, simply release all his texts Congress’ possession at this time in addition to the transcribed interview,” Zeldin tweeted Thursday night. “Just provide the public & media EVERYTHING so Americans could produce their own independent decisions.”
Volker, a former foreign service officer and longtime Europe specialist, is the very first official interviewed by House Democrats since they research possibly impeachable allegations which Trump employed the energy of his office to seek out foreign interference from the 2024 presidential elections. Thursday’s deposition, directed by staff attorneys with all the House Intelligence Committee, was attended by a few lawmakers from both sides.
The Democrat-led House established an impeachment question a week to analyze the president’s stress campaign, which eventually became public when the White House published a record of a July 25 telephone call between Trump and Zelensky.
Volker resigned less than 24 hours following Giuliani posted a personal text message in the special envoy — where Volker offered to establish a meeting with a leading adviser to Zelensky. Giuliani was attempting to receive Ukrainian officials to research Biden, the former vice president who’s trying to unseat Trump at 2024.
As stated by the whistleblower complaint, Volker and Sondland had fulfilled with Giuliani to attempt to”include the damage” his attempts were having to U.S. national safety. The whistleblower stated Volker and Sondland also met with Ukrainian officials to help them browse the”differing messages” they had been getting through official U.S. government stations and Giuliani’s personal outreach.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., combines Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., directly, in a press conference as House Democrats moves about depositions from the impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump, in the Capitol at Washington, Oct. 2, 2019. (Photo: J. Scott Applewhite, AP)
Volker consented to Thursday’s residue, also as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has stalled other State Department officials in testifying.
Volker was called as Trump’s special envoy at July 2017, by then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. He also came to the post with a leading resume: a former U.S. ambassador to NATO from the George W. Bush administration and former advisor to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a longtime Russia critic.
He also took the envoy project on a volunteer basis, while continuing to function as executive manager of the McCain Institute for International Leadership at Arizona State University.
