Trump’s former Ukraine envoy reveals damaging texts

Source: Politico | October 3, 2019 | John Bresnahan

Kurt Volker, the former special envoy to Ukraine, gives House Democrats the first deposition in their impeachment inquiry.

Even as President Donald Trump ignited a huge controversy over China and the 2020 election on Thursday, House members were clashing over the closed-door testimony of the former special envoy to Ukraine and Trump’s alleged efforts to pressure officials in that country for dirt on Joe Biden and his son.

The former envoy, Kurt Volker, who is at the center of a scandal that may lead to Trump’s impeachment, spent more than eight hours on Thursday being deposed by lawmakers and aides from three House committees. The committees are looking into allegations that include whether Trump and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani improperly pressured Ukrainian officials to launch an investigation into Biden while withholding U.S. military aid.

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Volker provided Democrats with 60 pages of text messages and other documents that showed some senior State Department officials were outraged that the Trump administration would try to make aid to Ukraine contingent on efforts to help the president’s reelection campaign.

One text between Volker and Andrey Yermak, a top Zelensky adviser, on July 25 — the day of the Trump-Zelenksy call — linked a Zelensky visit to the Washington to whether the Ukrainians moved ahead with the Biden probe. Volker said “Heard from the White House. Assuming President Z convinces [T]rump he will investigate/ ‘get to the bottom of what happened in 2016, we will nail down date for visit to Washington.”

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And in another more controversial text, a senior American diplomat expressed outrage to any linkage between U.S. aid to whether the Ukrainians took the steps Trump and Giuliani wanted.

“I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign,” said Bill Taylor, the chargé d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine’s capital, Kiev, in a Sept. 9 text message.

But Gordon Sondland, U.S. ambassador to the European Union, strongly denied in a response to Taylor that this was Trump’s purpose.

“Bill, I believe you are incorrect about President Trump’s intentions,” Sondland wrote. “The President has been crystal clear: no quid pro quo’s of any kind. The President is trying to evaluate whether Ukraine is truly going to adopt the transparency and reforms that President Zelensky promised during his campaign.”

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But Sondland and Volker — under pressure from Giuliani — were also asked to draft a statement saying Ukrainian officials were committed to beginning investigations into Biden and other Trump rivals. Volker testified about that episode to congressional investigators on Thursday, according to several people involved in the hearing. The New York Times first reported the intent to draft the statement.

One source said Volker testified that he wanted a broader statement on the Ukrainians fighting corruption. Giuliani, though, pushed for a statement more narrowly focused on Burisma — the Ukrainian energy firm on whose board Hunter Biden sat — and a possible Ukrainian role in the 2016 U.S. election, a near obsession with Trump. No statement was ever drafted, Volker said.

Volker also told investigators that he warned Giuliani that he was being fed some incorrect information on the Bidens from Ukrainian contacts, particularly Yuriy Lutsenko, the country’s former top prosecutor.

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