There’s been little traction in the media or on here about the most damaging thing in the impeachment hearings to date, the written statement of Ukraine Ambassador Bill Taylor. You first met the guy in incriminating text messages between Ambassador Gordon Sondland, Ambassador Kurt Volker, and him. Volker produced the text messages in his deposition and they can and should be read here:
Sondland didn’t testify about this, and then did (against the wishes of his bosses)…apparently so poorly that after Taylor’s testimony Peter Welch said Sondland is exposed to perjury. Taylor fills in all the blanks about what you were using conjecture for in the text messages.
My take is that Volker is as much up to his eyeballs in this as Sondland. He just wasn’t as stupid as Sondland with how publicly he broadcast what they were doing. In my opinion, Volker is the guy in the TV show who is told, ‘Whoever talks first gets the best deal’, and snap accepts it.
I think every one of you should read the entire Taylor statement, because it is unreal. This is a link to it:
The person to really pay attention to in my breakdown as he shows up is Tim Morrison, Fiona Hill’s replacement at the National Security Council. He’s scheduled to testify next week, and he is going to be a JUICY witness based on just these two pulls I’m listing below. He seems to be the king of understatement:
About the Ukraine phone call: Morrison says the call ‘could have been better’
About the Trump/Sondland phone call prior to the Sondland ‘no quid pro quo’s’ text: Morrison ‘said that he had a ‘sinking feeling’ after learning about this conversation from Sondland.
One thing to note about Taylor’s statement is that he jumps around in chronology, creating an often confusing or fractured narrative. I’ve fixed that with a timeline of events based on what he said in the statement. This will be very long, and will cover multiple posts. My quoting/citing pages/lack of plagiarism is not great here, so forgive it just to get the info. If it’s a sticking point with anyone, I’ll go in and cite pages for everything I’m writing. Without further ado, here’s my breakdown of the Bill Taylor written statement:
Bill Taylor Timeline of Events (Part 1 of 2):
May 23, 2019:
The irregular ‘diplomatic’ channel you’ll read about below began after Volker, Sondland, Rick Perry, and Senator Ron Johnson briefed Trump after returning from Zelenskyy’s inauguration. They were all enthusiastic about the new guy, and urged Trump to meet him early to cement the U.S.-Ukraine relationship. Taylor said that from what he understood, Trump did not share their enthusiasm.
May 28, 2019:
Pompeo asks Bill Taylor to become acting ambassador to Ukraine.
May 29, 2019:
Trump writes letter congratulating Zelenskyy on his win.
June 17, 2019:
Taylor arrives in Kyiv, and is surprised at conditions on the ground.
In his early time, he describes encouraging, confusing, and ‘ultimately alarming’ conditions.
Encouraging: The idea of reform was happening fast, with several actions by Zelenskyy, and Taylor says ‘There was much excitement in Kyiv that this time things could be different—a new Ukraine might finally be breaking from its corrupt, post-Soviet past’. -Page 4, Paragraph 1
Confusing: He saw two channels of U.S. policy making, one regular and one highly irregular. Taylor was the face of the regular. The irregular, informal channel included Kurt Volker, Ambassador Sondland, Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, and as he later learned, one Rudy Giuliani. Taylor was in the regular channel, but was included in certain conversations by Volker and Sondland in the irregular channel. This irregular channel, while heavily connected to Washington, ‘operated mostly outside of official State Department channels’.
Alarming: Keep reading.
June-July, 2019:
While there were two channels, the overall goals appeared to be the same, a strong U.S.-Ukraine partnership. He said it ‘became clear to [him] by early August that the channels had diverged in their objectives.’
June 18, 2019:
A conference call is had between Volker, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Phil Reeker, Perry, Sondland, and Counselor of the U.S. Department of State Ulrich Brechbuhl. The agreed upon goal was a meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy.
During later communications with Sondland and Volker, they told Taylor that ‘the President ‘wanted to hear from Zelenskyy’ before scheduling the meeting in the Oval Office. It was not clear to me what this meant.’
June 27, 2019:
Sondland tells Taylor in a phone call ‘that Zelenskyy needed to make clear that he, Zelenskyy, was not standing in the way of ‘investigations’’.
June 28, 2019:
Taylor ‘sensed something odd’ when Sondland told him that a call scheduled for later that day should not include ‘most of the regular interagency participants’. Sondland, Volker, Perry, and Taylor were on this call. Sondland wanted no transcription or monitoring of the phone call. Before the phone call, Volker told the others that he would explicitly tell Zelenskyy in a one-on-one meeting with him ‘what he should do to get the White House meeting’ at a meeting in Toronto on July 2. Taylor is still not clear on what this meant, but Volker ‘noted that he would relay that President Trump wanted to see rule of law, transparency, but also, specifically, cooperation on investigations to ‘get to the bottom of things’’.
The actual call with Zelenskyy was about energy policy and the Stanytsia-Luhanska bridge. Zelenskyy told them he looked forward to the WH visit Trump offered in his May 29 letter.
Taylor reports call to Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent (responsible for Ukraine).
June 30, 2019:
Taylor writes a memo summarizing the June 28 conversation.
Mid-July, 2019:
Taylor says it was becoming clear than any meeting between the two presidents was conditioned on investigating Burisma and ‘alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections’. He says it was clear this condition was coming from the irregular channel, that he by now had learned was being guided by Rudy Giuliani.
July 10, 2019:
A meeting is had at the White House between Alexander Danyliuk, Ukranian national security adviser, Andriy Yermak, an assistant to Zelenskyy, Rick Perry, John Bolton, Volker, and Sondland. Taylor did not participate in this meeting.
(from Taylor’s account he received on July 19) Bolton abruptly ends this meeting when Sondland brings up ‘investigations’. The Ukrainians were ‘confused’. In the regular channel, Bolton’s goals were to talk about security, energy, and reform. Sondland, part of the irregular channel, ‘wanted to talk about the connection between a White House meeting and Ukrainian investigations.’
Taylor meets with Zelenskyy’s chief of staff Andrei Bohdan in Kyiv, and then foreign policy advisor (now Foreign Minister) Vadim Prystaiko. These two said they had heard from Giuliani that the phone call between the two presidents ‘was unlikely to happen and that they were alarmed and disappointed’. Taylor relays their concerns to Ulrich Brechbuhl.
July 18, 2019:
‘In a regular NSC secure video-conference call’, Taylor heard a staff person from the OMB say ‘there was a hold on security assistance to Ukraine but could not say why’. This was a routine meeting. Toward the end of it, an unidentified voice off screen from the OMB, said ‘her boss had instructed her not to approve any additional spending of security assistance for Ukraine until further notice’.
This ‘astonishes’ others on the call, due to the fact that the Ukrainians were fighting the Russians and ‘counted on not only the training and weapons, but also the assurance of U.S. support’. The voice said the directive had gone from the President to the Chief of Staff to OMB.
At this moment, Taylor realizes that ‘one of the key pillars of our strong support for Ukraine was threatened. The irregular policy channel was running contrary to the goals of longstanding U.S. policy.’
It’s worth noting that, similar to the Ukraine call, that this was a routine meeting that featured bombshell revelations.
Shortly after this call, many reviews across many departments happened and all concluded the security assistance should be resumed. Taylor was under the assumption that the Secretaries of Defense and State, the CIA Director, and the NSA ‘sought a joint meeting with the President to convince him to release the hold, but such a meeting was hard to schedule and the hold lasted well into September.’
July 19, 2019:
Taylor did not receive a readout of the July 10 meeting until he spoke with Senior Director for European and Russian Affairs, Fiona Hill, and the NSC’s Director of European Affairs, Alex Vindman.
On the phone, Hill and Vindman ‘tried to reassure’ Taylor that ‘they were not aware of any official change in U.S. policy toward Ukraine, OMB’s announcement notwithstanding.’ Both confirmed Mick Mulvaney was responsible for the hold, and that he ‘maintained a skeptical view of Ukraine’.
In this same call, Hill and Vindman let him know about the July 10 meeting. They told Taylor that ‘Sondland had connected ‘investigations’ with an Oval Office meeting for President Zelenskyy, which so irritated Ambassador Bolton that he abruptly ended the meeting, telling Dr. Hill and Mr. Vindman that they should have nothing to do with domestic policy. He also directed Dr. Hill to ‘brief the lawyers.’ Dr. Hill said that Ambassador Bolton referred to this as a ‘drug deal’ after the July 10 meeting. Ambassador Bolton opposed a call between President Zelenskyy and President Trump out of concern that it ‘would be a disaster.’’
Hill also lets Taylor know during this call that Volker had met with Giuliani to discuss Ukraine. Taylor says, ’This caught me by surprise.’
Beginning later on July 19 and in the early morning of July 20 (Kyiv time) the three way text messages via WhatsApp with Volker and Sondland begin. Sondland relates that a call between Trump and Zelenskyy would happen soon. Volker said ‘that what was ‘[m]ost impt is for Zelensky to say that he will help investigation—and address any specific personnel issues—if there are any.’
July 20, 2019:
Taylor asks Volker about his meeting with Giuliani, but Volker does not respond. This is the day Taylor ‘began to sense that the two decision making channels—the regular and irregular—were separate and at odds.’
Later in the day Sondland and Taylor speak while Sondland was on a train from Paris to London. Sondland tells Taylor that he recommended Zelenskyy ‘use the phrase ‘I will leave no stone unturned’ with regard to ‘investigations’’ when the two presidents have a phone call.
On the same day, Taylor speaks to Ukrainian national security adviser Danyliuk. Danyliuk tells Taylor that Zelenskyy ‘does not want to be used as a pawn in a U.S. re-election campaign’.