By Peter Baker, New Analysis, Oct. 23, 2019
William 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.
“I and others sat in astonishment,” William B. Taylor Jr., the top diplomat in Ukraine, told lawmakers Tuesday. “The Ukrainians were fighting the Russians and counted on not only the training and weapons, but also the assurance of U.S. support.” Credit Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times
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.
“If Ukraine succeeds in breaking free of Russian influence, it is possible for Europe to be whole, free, democratic and at peace,” Mr. Taylor said in his opening statement to House investigators, which was provided to reporters after he delivered it behind closed doors. “In contrast, if Russia dominates Ukraine, Russia will again become an empire, oppressing its people and threatening its neighbors and the rest of the world.”
William B. Taylor Jr., the United States’ top diplomat in Ukraine, delivered testimony to impeachment investigators on Tuesday that described an effort by President Trump to withhold aid for Ukraine until the country’s leader agreed to investigate Mr. Trump’s political rivals.
Mr. Taylor’s vivid depiction illustrated the differences between the impeachment inquiry against Mr. Trump and the ones that consumed Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Bill Clinton. While the Watergate and Monica Lewinsky cover-ups involved the integrity of America’s democracy and system of justice, the Ukraine scandal also extends to matters of life and death, as well as geopolitics on a grand scale.
Mr. Taylor’s testimony could make it harder for Republicans to brush off Mr. Trump’s actions as unimportant or distorted by partisan rivals. Defending Ukraine against Russian encroachment, much like defending the United States’ Kurdish allies against Turkey, has been a high priority for many Republicans, who complained that President Barack Obama did not stand up to Moscow aggressively enough.
Mr. Taylor brought to the House hearing a 50-year résumé of public service , starting as a cadet at the United States Military Academy at West Point and an infantry officer with the 101st Airborne Division in Vietnam. He served every administration, Republican and Democrat, since President Ronald Reagan, culminating with a posting as ambassador to Ukraine under President George W. Bush. And he was recruited last spring by Mike Pompeo, Mr. Trump’s secretary of state to return to Kiev to replace Marie L. Yovanovitch, the ambassador tarred by Mr. Trump’s camp as an adversary .
The chain of events that Mr. Taylor laid out in his testimony suggested a clear quid pro quo between the $391 million in suspended assistance and Mr. Trump’s demands that Ukraine investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. as well as a debunked conspiracy theory involving Ukrainian help for Democrats in the 2016 election.
Yet in the publicly released portion of his testimony, Mr. Taylor neither described any direct conversation with Mr. Trump himself nor made any reference to documents or recordings that would explicitly implicate the president. Instead, he provided a road map for investigators by quoting others around Mr. Trump describing his actions and statements.
“President Trump has done nothing wrong — this is a coordinated smear campaign from far-left lawmakers and radical unelected bureaucrats waging war on the Constitution,” Stephanie Grisham, the White House press secretary, said in a statement. “There was no quid pro quo. Today was just more triple hearsay and selective leaks from the Democrats’ politically motivated, closed-door, secretive hearings.”
Mr. Taylor’s testimony once again focused attention on Mr. Trump’s unusual relationship with President Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia. Unlike most leaders in both parties, Mr. Trump has rarely expressed much criticism of Mr. Putin or his aggression against his neighbors, at one point even suggesting that he could accept Russia’s annexation of Crimea, which it seized from Ukraine through force in 2014.
Mr. Trump went further than Mr. Obama by providing lethal military assistance to Ukraine to defend itself against Russia, but privately echoed Mr. Putin’s line about the Ukrainians being untrustworthy and corrupt. By holding up the $391 million in aid allocated by Congress, Mr. Trump essentially reversed his own policy and angered lawmakers of both parties, who finally pressured him into releasing the money last month.
Mr. Trump’s decisions benefiting Russia confound Democrats and Republicans alike. Even as Mr. Taylor testified, Mr. Putin hosted President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey in Moscow to seal an agreement in which Russian troops will join Turkish forces to control a swath of northern Syria just abandoned by American-backed Kurdish fighters after Mr. Trump abruptly abandoned them and pulled out United States troops.
In his 14-page opening statement , bristling with indignation yet chock-full of dates, facts and quotes, Mr. Taylor on Tuesday described “two channels of U.S. policymaking and implementation, one regular and one highly irregular,” run largely by the president’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani , as well as others like Gordon D. Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union.
Mr. Taylor made clear that what he found particularly egregious about the president’s actions was what he regarded as the betrayal of a friend to the not-so-tender mercies of a ruthless invader for corrupt reasons.
“Ukraine is special to me,” he said, and what has happened in the five months since he was asked to return to Kiev was “crazy,” “improper” and “folly” with far-reaching implications.
“We must support Ukraine in its fight against its bullying neighbor,” he told House investigators. “Russian aggression cannot stand.”
He recalled being stunned to learn during a secure video conference call on July 18 that the aid to Ukraine had been delayed with no explanation other than that “the directive had come from the president to the chief of staff to” the Office of Management and Budget.
“I and others sat in astonishment,” he testified. “The Ukrainians were fighting the Russians and counted on not only the training and weapons, but also the assurance of U.S. support.”
No one told the Ukrainians at first, and Mr. Taylor recalled meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kiev on July 26, the day after Mr. Trump pressed the newly elected Ukrainian leader on the telephone to investigate Mr. Biden and the 2016 election conspiracy theory.
After the meeting, Mr. Taylor joined Mr. Zelensky and Kurt D. Volker, the State Department special envoy for Ukraine, on a trip to northern Donbas, the front line of the conflict with Russian-backed separatists, where they were briefed by the commander of Ukrainian forces.
“The commander thanked us for security assistance, but I was aware that this assistance was on hold, which made me uncomfortable,” Mr. Taylor said. “Ambassador Volker and I could see the armed and hostile Russian-led forces on the other side of the damaged bridge across the line of contact. Over 13,000 Ukrainians had been killed in the war, one or two a week. More Ukrainians would undoubtedly die without the U.S. military assistance.”
As weeks went by without a resolution of the aid impasse, Mr. Taylor said he began preparing to resign. His resolve was strengthened when Mr. Sondland and Timothy Morrison, the senior director for European and Russian affairs at the National Security Council, both indicated to him that the aid was conditioned on Ukraine opening the investigations sought by the president.
Mr. Sondland explained that Mr. Trump saw it through a transactional lens. “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,” Mr. Taylor said, quoting Mr. Sondland. Mr. Volker “used the same terms several days later.”
Before he could resign, congressional leaders intervened and persuaded Mr. Trump to lift the suspension. The aid is now flowing again to Ukraine. And Mr. Taylor still serves as the top diplomat in Kiev. For now.
The testimony Tuesday once again focused attention on President Trump’s unusual relationship with Russia. Credit Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times
