Tag: Ambassador Taylor

Taylor testifies Trump cared more about ‘investigations’ than Ukraine

The Hill logoWilliam Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, on Wednesday said that U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland told a member of his staff in July that President Trump cared more about an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden than he did about Ukraine.

Taylor described the conversation relayed to him last week by a member of his staff during his opening remarks at the first hearing in the House impeachment inquiry on Wednesday.

According to Taylor, the conversation took place on July 26, the day after a phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in which Trump raised investigations into the 2016 election interference and the Biden family. Taylor said his staffer, who he did not name, overheard a phone call between Sondland and Trump during which the president asked the EU ambassador about the investigations.

View the complete November 13 article by Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

Bill Taylor spent years fighting corruption in Ukraine. His last four months under Trump were the ‘antithesis’ of that.

Washington Post logoBefore the top U.S. diplomat to Ukraine became the most explosive witness in the House’s impeachment inquiry, he was anything but a household name in the United States. But in Ukraine, William B. Taylor Jr.’s reputation preceded him.

He had spent much of the 1990s telling Ukrainian politicians that nothing was more critical to their long-term prosperity than rooting out corruption and bolstering the rule of law, in his role as the head of U.S. development assistance for post-Soviet countries.

But in the summer of 2019, he and his colleagues were sending a very different message to Ukraine.

View the complete October 23 article by John Hudson and Carol Morello on The Washington Post website here.

An Envoy’s Damning Account of Trump’s Ukraine Pressure and Its Consequences

New York Times logoWilliam B. Taylor Jr. laid out in visceral terms the potentially life-or-death stakes of what he saw as an illegitimate scheme to pressure Kiev for political help by suspending American security aid.

WASHINGTON — He stood on one side of a war-damaged bridge in Ukraine staring across at Russian-backed forces and saw the real-world consequences of President Trump’s efforts to advance a personal agenda. “More Ukrainians,” he said, “would undoubtedly die.”

Recalling that moment during explosive testimony on Tuesday, William B. Taylor Jr., the top American diplomat in Ukraine, laid out in visceral terms the stakes of what he saw as an illegitimate scheme to pressure the Kiev government for political help by suspending American security aid.

In by far the most damning account yet to become public in the House impeachment inquiry Mr. Taylor described a president holding up $391 million in assistance for the clear purpose of forcing Ukraine to help incriminate Mr. Trump’s domestic rivals. Mr. Trump’s actions, he testified, undercut American allies desperately fighting off Russia’s attempt to redraw the boundaries of Europe through force.

View the complete October 22 article by Peter Baker on The New York Times here.

All The Ways Bill Taylor Was Told Trump Sought A Quid Pro Quo

Bill Taylor – Trump’s own top diplomat to Ukraine – made it clear in his testimony today that Trump engaged in a quid pro quo.

TRUMP INSISTED ON AN ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE INVESTIGATIONS: Trump himself pressed for the Ukrainian president to make a public announcement of investigations into Trump’s political rival and a conspiracy theory about the 2016 election.

“According to Mr. Morrison, President Trump told Ambassador Sondland that he was not asking for a ‘quid pro quo.’ But President Trump did insist that President Zelenskyy go to a microphone. Continue reading “All The Ways Bill Taylor Was Told Trump Sought A Quid Pro Quo”

Amid Mounting Evidence of a Quid Pro Quo, DFL Calls on Republican Congressmen to Support Investigation

SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA – On October 22, Bill Taylor, an Army veteran and the top United States diplomat to Ukraine, testified before the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, and Oversight committees that President Donald Trump withheld military aid to Ukraine in order to pressure their government into declaring they would investigate one of Trump’s domestic political opponents. This is the latest piece of evidence of a quid pro quo in which Donald Trump sought to exchange U.S. military aid for electoral support from the Ukranian government.

Late last month, the White House released a summary of Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Zelensky. In that call, Zelensky requested the military aid that Congress passed and Trump blocked, to which Trump responded “I would like you to do us a favor though…” Trump then asks Zelensky to investigate his political rivals in what many argue is an explicit quid pro quo arrangement. Two weeks ago, text message between top U.S. diplomats strongly corroborated the existence of that quid pro quo. Last week, acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney openly confessed to a quid pro quo before attempting to walk his comments back.

In response to the growing evidence of a quid pro quo, DFL Chairman Ken Martin released the following statement calling on Minnesota’s Republican Congressional Delegation to support the House investigation into Trump’s conduct: Continue reading “Amid Mounting Evidence of a Quid Pro Quo, DFL Calls on Republican Congressmen to Support Investigation”