Prior to his testimony to Congress today, former Ukraine Ambassador William Taylor provided a 15-page “opening statement.” It was initially released as a pdf here, with a clearer copy here. Vox has just released a copy of the statement that is searchable and can be excerpted as well.
Both Taylor’s statement and his testimony were backed up by “meticulous” notes that Taylor had made of the communications at issue.
The statement should be read in full to appreciate the gravity of the criminal acts committed by this administration, and their implications not only regarding the Congressional impeachment inquiry but also regarding the undermining of our foreign policy towards Ukraine, a subject with which Taylor is extremely well-versed.
Someone kindly bracketed some of the more relevant parts of the .pdf version, linked above, at pp 11-13.
Some highlights:
Former National Security Advisor John Bolton freaked out at the idea of Trump/Zelensky discussing this issue —calling it a recipe for “disaster.” As things have played out, his assessment was accurate.
Trump said he wanted Zelensky in a “public box,” to be seen ordering an investigation of the Bidens, and specifically Burisma, the company on which Hunter Biden had served as a director (this is directly channeling the debunked right-wing fantasy about Vice President Joe Biden that was fabricated and spread through conservative media and Fox News).
Ambassador Sondland told me that President Trump had told him that he wants President Zelenskyy to state publicly that Ukraine will investigate Burisma and alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. Ambassador Sondland also told me that he now recognized that he had made a mistake by earlier telling the Ukrainian officials to whom he spoke that a White House meeting with President Zelenskyy was dependent on a public announcement of investigations-in fact, Ambassador Sondland said, “everything” was dependent on such an announcement, including security assistance. He said that President Trump wanted President Zelenskyy “in a public box” by making a public statement about ordering such investigations.
Pence was clearly informed of Trump’s efforts to extort Ukraine but apparently wiggled out of incriminating himself by saying nothing substantive that could be recorded (however we do not yet have the benefit of Taylor’s closed-door testimony before Congress).
It’s “not a quid pro quo” but if Zelensky doesn’t accede to Trump’s extortion, “we’re at a stalemate” with regard to the Congressional-allocated assistance for Ukraine. In other words, the aid would be denied unless Ukraine agreed to make public statements indicating it was proceeding to investigate the Bidens. Taylor explains that’s exactly what was meant, as he understood it.
...I had a conversation with Mr. Morrison in which he described a phone conversation earlier that day between Ambassador Sondland and President Trump. Mr. Morrison said that he had a “sinking feeling” after learning about this conversation from Ambassador Sondland. 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 and say he is opening investigations of Biden and 2016 election interference, and that President Zelenskyy should want to do this himself. Mr. Morrison said that he told Ambassador Bolton and the NSC lawyers of this phone call between President Trump and Ambassador Sondland.
The following day, on September 8, Ambassador Sondland and I spoke on the phone.He said he had talked to President Trump as I had suggested a week earlier, but that President Trump was adamant that President Zelenskyy, himself, had to “clear things up and do it in public.” President Trump said it was not a “quid pro quo.” Ambassador Sondland said that he had talked to President Zelenskyy and Mr. Yermak and told them that, although this was not a quid pro quo, if President Zelenskyy did not “clear things up” in public, we would be at a “stalemate.” I understood a “stalemate” to mean that Ukraine would not receive the much-needed military assistance. Ambassador Sondland said that this conversation concluded with President Zelenskyy agreeing to make apublic statement in an interview with CNN.
One comment to the Twitterfeed below notes Trump wanted Zelensky to make the announcement on CNN, because that would likely to have the maximum effect on Biden’s base of electoral support.
Sondland’s craven nature and obsequiousness to Trump also comes out strongly in Taylor’s statement:
[D]uring our call on September 8, Ambassador Sondland tried to explain to me that President Trump is a businessman. When a businessman is about to sign a check to someone who owes him something, he said, the businessman asks that person to pay up before signing the check. Ambassador Volker used the same terms several days later while we were together at the Yalta European Strategy Conference. I argued to both that the explanation made no sense: the Ukrainians did not “owe”President Trump anything, and holding up security assistance for domestic political gain, was “crazy,” as I had said in my text message to Ambassadors Sondland and Volker on September 9.
It would be “crazy”—to any decent, law-abiding and moral public servant, like Ambassador Taylor. But neither Donald Trump, Michael Pence, Rudolph Giuliani, Michael Pompeo or Gordon Sondland, all of whom are implicated in Ambassador Taylor’s statement, are men of such caliber. To the contrary, they behaved here as common thugs and mafia-like criminals. Their singular intent was to maintain their political power by extorting the Ukrainian government in order to persuade Ukrainian officials to interfere in the 2020 American election. Our country’s actual interests-- if they were a concern at all--were an afterthought.
From the Guardian’s updated feed:
According to the opening statement of Bill Taylor, Gordon Sondland said that “everything,” including the release of military aid to Ukraine, was tied to the country’s president publicly announcing investigations into Joe Biden and the 2016 election.
Taylor, the acting US ambassador to Ukraine, said to the House committees investigating impeachment: “Ambassador Sondland also told me that he now recognized that he had made a mistake by earlier telling the Ukrainian officials to whom he spoke that a White House meeting with President Zelenskyy was dependent on a public announcement of investigations – in fact, Ambassador Sondland said, ‘everything’ was dependent on such an announcement, including security assistance.