On Tuesday, October 22, Ambassador William B. Taylor made public his fifteen-page powerful and courageous opening statement to the relevant committees of Congress as part of his testimony in the impeachment inquiry
Taylor has a fifty-year record of service to his country starting as a cadet at West Point and service as an infantry officer in Vietnam, later serving under all administrations since 1985, and serving two stints as our leading diplomat in Ukraine, first as Ambassador under George W. Bush from 2006 to 2009 and finally as Charge d’Affaires there starting on June 17 of this year.
He believes in the vital importance of Ukraine breaking free from Russia if Europe is to “be whole, free, democratic, and at peace.” Ukraine is at war with Russia, a war it must win to save the fledgling democratic nation. Congress agrees and has ordered lethal assistance to Ukraine for use in that war.
Taylor outlines the existence of two channels of “U.S. policy-making and implementation, one regular and one highly irregular.”
Let’s turn to the “irregular channel.” This was an alternate State Department emanating from Trump and including then-Special Envoy Kurt Volker, Amb. Gordon Sondland, Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Rudolph Giuliani. The “regular” channel headed by Taylor learned by August that the channels “had diverged in their objectives.”
The divergence related to a May 29 promise by Trump to President Zelensky of Ukraine to hold a White House meeting with Trump. The irregulars, sans Giuliani, agreed in June that there would be a meeting, something that Zelensky really wanted. A meeting with a foreign leader in the White House signifies approval at the highest level of the U.S., a meeting in the Oval Office and is accreditation by the most powerful nation on Earth.
The irregulars began to throw the meeting promise in doubt when Sondland told Taylor that Trump “wanted to hear from Zelensky” that he “was not standing in the way of investigations.” Taylor, a symbol and personification of the highest traditions of fidelity to the public trust, had no idea “what this meant.”
In July Taylor was told that the promised meeting was conditioned on investigation of the Bidens, Burisma and since-debunked alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election.
On July 10 Taylor heard from Zelensky’s chief of staff that the phone call between Trump and Zelensky as a predicate to the White House visit “was unlikely to happen” according to Giuliani. This caused alarm and disappointment.
On July 18 in an NSC secure video-conference an off-screen voice, saying she was from OMB, told the participants that there would be “no additional spending of security assistance for Ukraine until further notice” by order of the President. Apparently, per the President, Congress, the appropriator, be damned.
After some attempted dictation by Sondland of what Zelensky should say to Trump in a phone call (“no stone unturned” with regard to investigations) and after Taylor learned from Zelensky’s chief of staff that he “did not want to be used as a pawn in a U.S. re-election campaign,” the now-famous July 25 Trump-Zelensky call happened.
The disgraceful irregulars, Giuliani, Sondland, Perry and Volker deserve condemnation as those who would pollute U. S. policy in Ukraine to achieve a political purpose. They are outrageous.
As is apparent from Taylor’s statement, there is a lot of meat on the bones of the published readout of the July 25 conversation, one that Trump has called “perfect” and “beautiful”, but that is actually a villainy few president have attempted. Those seeking “more” than the readout now have it.