The latest on the Trump impeachment inquiry

David Hale, a high-ranking State Department official, has wrapped up more than six hours of closed door testimony before the impeachment committees. 

Hale is the third highest ranking official at the State Department and the highest ranking career State Department official.  

Three other officials were scheduled to testify but are not expected to show up.

Bill Taylor, the top US Diplomat to Ukraine, leaves Capitol Hill on Oct. 22 in Washington, DC.

Bill Taylor, the top diplomat to Ukraine, said President Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani was pressing Ukraine “to intervene in US domestic policy or politics” by launching investigations into Trump’s political rivals, according to the transcript. 

This testimony corroborates a major allegation from the whistleblower complaint, that Giuliani and Trump were trying to solicit help from the Ukrainians to boost his re-election chances in 2020. Giuliani wanted Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and Democratic National Committee servers. 

Taylor said he saw the requests as so dangerous that he believed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky should ignore them — even if it meant losing a one-on-one meeting with Trump. 

In his testimony, Taylor said it would be unacceptable for a foreign country to meddle in the US election. Other witnesses have also condemned any effort to solicit electoral help from Ukraine.

Bill Taylor, the top diplomat to Ukraine, told the House committees that he felt that the Trump administration’s aid package to Ukraine was an improvement over that of the Obama administration. 

He continued: “There was also a very strong political message that said that the Americans are willing to provide more than blankets. I mean, that was the previous. And these weapons are serious weapons. They will kill Russian tanks. So these were serious weapons. It was a demonstration that we support Ukraine.”

While serving outside of the government, Taylor had urged the Obama administration to provide lethal defensive weapons to Ukraine, but he said, “the objection was that it might provoke the Russians.”

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has repeatedly touted the fact that the Trump administration provided weapons to Ukraine, noting to the New York Post that the “previous administration chose to provide blankets.” 

Taylor explained to the House committees that “the prior administration had been willing to give aid, but ‘blankets’ was just kind of the more derogatory version of it, but it was nonlethal weapons.” 

“So there was communications equipment, there were vehicles, there were maybe some rations, there were blankets, there were night-vision goggles. So it was a significant package, but it stopped short of weapons,” he said.

Top diplomat to Ukraine Bill Taylor sent a text message to former special envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker and Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland on September 9, describing his “nightmare scenario,” as it related to frozen US security aid.

“The message to the Ukrainians (and Russians) we send with the decision on security assistance is key. With the hold, we have already shaken their faith in us. Thus my nightmare scenario,” Taylor wrote on September 9. Russia has made repeated illegal incursions into Ukraine.

“As I said on the phone, I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign,” he added.

During his testimony to lawmakers, Taylor described exactly what he meant by his texts.

“The Russians loving it. The Russians are paying attention. The Russians are paying attention to how much support the Americans are going to provide the Ukrainians,” Taylor continued. “And they, the Russians want to know how much support the Ukrainians are going to get in general, but also what kind of support from the Americans. So the Russians are loving, would love, the humiliation of Zelensky at the hands of the Americans, and would give the Russians a freer hand, and I would quit.”

Taylor said he was worried about such a scenario when he met with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on May 28 and said he told Pompeo that if the US policy on Ukraine changed, he would leave.  

Career diplomat Bill Taylor told lawmakers that one reason why he was worried about taking the post in Kiev was because he was afraid that the Trump administration might abruptly change US policy toward Ukraine to make it much more friendly to Russia. 

Taylor said if that were to happen, “I would have to resign,” according to the transcript.

In the past, Trump has praised how Russian President Vladimir Putin handled the invasion of Crimea, and has parroted Kremlin talking points about the annexed Ukrainian territory. Trump made those controversial comments during the 2016 campaign, saying “the people of Crimea, from what I’ve heard, would rather be with Russia than where they were.”

The Russian military annexed Crimea in 2014, wresting it from Ukrainian control. It has been part of Ukraine since the 1950s.

Top diplomat Bill Taylor’s opening statement was extraordinarily detailed and included information about various phone conversations and in-person meetings.

He told lawmakers that he is a meticulous note-taker and referred to his records when preparing for his testimony. 

The top US diplomat in Ukraine told impeachment committees he believed it was “improper” to ask the Ukrainian government to investigate Burisma, the gas company on whose board Hunter Biden sits.

Questioned by Rep. Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, on whether it was also improper because the goal was to influence US elections, Taylor said yes.

Later, he described Ukrainian officials as increasingly aware of the request to launch investigations as a condition for setting up a meeting with President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“I think it was becoming clear to the Ukrainians that, in order to get this meeting that they wanted, they would have to commit to pursuing these investigations,” he said.

Taylor said he was “embarrassed” in conversations with Ukrainian officials when they asked about stalled US aid since he didn’t know the reasons behind the freeze.

Top diplomat to Ukraine Bill Taylor testified that he “never talked to the President” when pressed by a GOP lawmaker on whether he knew firsthand Trump was conditioning investigations on meeting with Ukrainian president 

In response to GOP Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York, Taylor stated that he “had no conversations with the President” and later added, “I’ve never talked to the President.” 

During Zeldin’s questioning, Taylor also said, “What I know is that the direction was coming from Giuliani.” 

Top diplomat in Ukraine Bill Taylor stated unequivocally to the House committees that he thought the call for Ukraine to launch investigations was “a bad idea.” 

He said that former special envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker had “volunteered” to reach out to Deputy Assistant Attorney General Bruce Swartz about the investigations and that was “fine with (him).”

Volker testified that, spurred by questions from Ukrainian officials, he wanted to check if the Justice Department had asked for such investigations.

Impeachment investigators asked Bill Taylor, the top diplomat to Ukraine, to read excerpts from a May 2019 article in The New York Times, which revealed Rudy Giuliani’s plans to travel to Ukraine to dig up dirt on the Bidens. Taylor said he found the news troubling and it gave him second thoughts about taking ambassador job in Kiev. 

To hash out with those qualms, Taylor said he spoke with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and State Department Counselor Ulrich Brechbuhl, and that he specifically raised concerns about Giuliani. 

“I let them know up front going into the meeting that I had not decided whether to accept the offer to go back out to Kyiv because I was troubled by what I was hearing, not just this Giuliani article, but I was troubled by other things as well and I made this clear to both, both Mr. Brechbuhl and Secretary Pompeo,” Taylor said. 

In response, Pompeo told Taylor that he would always support a “strong US Policy” toward Ukraine, and that he would “make this case to President Trump,” according to Taylor’s testimony. 

Top US Diplomat in Ukraine Bill Taylor said in congressional testimony that he “was told a couple of times by people at State and people at the NSC that the Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, the National Security Adviser, and the head of the CIA all strongly supported the resumption of this assistance,” referring to Ukraine aid held up by the US.

Among those relaying this information, Taylor said he was told by Deputy Assistant Secretary George Kent and Tim Morrison, the top Russia and Europe adviser on President Donald Trump’s National Security Council.

Taylor also noted that he “had known from earlier conversations with people that (John Bolton) was also trying with the two secretaries and the Director of the CIA to get this reversed. So he confirmed that and urged me to make my concerns known to the Secretary again.” 

In his opening statement, Taylor had relayed that Bolton wanted him to send a cable to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. 

“It was he who suggested then at that meeting that I write this note to Secretary Pompeo, which I did the next day,” Taylor said in testimony. “He indicated that he was very sympathetic.”

Bill Taylor, the top US diplomat in Ukraine, said he heard that military assistance to Ukraine had been unfrozen in an email from a Senate Armed Services Committee staffer on Sept. 11.

“It was September 11th. So, yeah, I remember getting an email from a staffer, a Senate Armed Services Committee staffer. And of course Senate staffers House staffers too, I’m sure get the word much earlier than anybody else. And so i got this email, I think it was probably overnight, which I then sent to Tim Morrison and I think maybe to George Kent saying: ‘Oh, this is great news. This is what we’ve been waiting for.’ And Tim hadn’t heard it yet. So that’s how I first heard. And then he later that day confirmed,” Taylor told the House committees.

The White House is adding two new aides to its ranks as it battles House Democrats in their impeachment inquiry.

Tony Sayegh, the former senior Treasury aide, and Pam Bondi, the former Florida attorney general, are both expected to start in the coming days — both on a temporary basis.

It’s a tacit acknowledgement from the White House that, despite denials, they needed to bolster their communications staff. The details are still being finalized but offers have been made. 

The top US diplomat in Ukraine told lawmakers it was his “clear understanding” that American financial assistance to Kiev wouldn’t come unless the country’s president said publicly he would investigate President Trump’s political rivals.

In his testimony last month, Bill Taylor told lawmakers his believed the money wouldn’t flow unless the investigations were announced publicly was derived from conversations with other senior US officials, including US ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland.

Taylor said Sondland told him repeatedly that Trump did not view the arrangement as a “quid pro quo.” But he said, “I observed that, in order to move forward on the security assistance, the Ukrainians were told by Ambassador Sondland that they had to pursue these investigations.”

Later, Taylor was pressed on how he knew the security assistance was conditioned on the announcement of the investigations. He acknowledged he never heard that from Trump himself.

“I didn’t hear it from the President. I can’t say what the President was thinking,” Taylor said.

He said he “had no conversations with the President.”

Top US diplomat in Ukraine Bill Taylor was hesitant about the job and noted that President Trump hadn’t even sent a congratulatory letter to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Rep. Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, slammed the Democratic-run process at the beginning of diplomat Bill Taylor’s deposition, calling it a “lawless” proceeding.

Since that deposition in October, the House passed a resolution setting the rules for the impeachment inquiry. 

Senior US diplomat in Ukraine Bill Taylor told lawmakers he was hesitant to take the Ukraine job, saying he was concerned it was a “snake pit” in Washington, DC, and Kiev.

“All to say that I was concerned that there was I think I put it a snake pit in Kyiv and a snake pit here, and I was not sure that I could usefully serve in that context,” he said, according to the transcript.

House committees have released the transcript from Bill Taylor’s testimony. We’re going through the document now, and we’ll post highlights here when we get them.

The senior US diplomat in Ukraine testified behind closed doors as part of the House impeachment inquiry on Oct. 22. 

Today, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff announced that Taylor will testify in an open hearing next Wednesday.

Sen. Ron Johnson downplayed US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland’s testimony reversal when speaking to reporters today.

The Wisconsin senator said that “people’s memories of the same event varies” and added that he doesn’t find it “overly surprising” that somebody, like Sondland, would hear new information and change their recollection.

Johnson added that he is also “trying to recall” exactly what happened in these meetings and told reporters an example that shows a disparity between his and Sondland’s memory.

Some background: On Monday, Sondland revised his testimony to impeachment investigators to admit a quid pro quo linking US aid to Ukraine with an investigation into President Trump’s political rivals.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC), speaks after introducing a resolution condemning the House Impeachment inquiry on October 24, 2019.

Sen. Lindsey Graham just spoke with reporters outside of the Senate Judiciary Committee about the ongoing impeachment investigation.

Graham said that the anonymous whistleblower’s name should be made public because “you can’t be prosecuted based on an anonymous accusation. The only way you lose your property rights or your liberty rights in America is to have due process.”

The senator also called the impeachment process a “sham” and said the testimony presented in the impeachment investigation seems “to be incapable of forming a quid pro quo.”

He added that he expected Rudy Giuliani, who is at the center of the Trump administration’s dealings with Ukraine, to claim executive privilege and refuse to testify.

Echoing the Trump administration’s focus on the rough transcript of Trump’s call with the Ukrainian president, he said:

Remember: The White House released a transcript of the July call, but it’s only a rough log and not a word-for-word readout. The rough transcript shows Trump repeatedly pushed Ukraine’s president to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

A lot of news has happened today in the impeachment inquiry into President Trump.

Here’s what has happened so far and what we’re watching:

Republican Rep. Mark Meadows spoke with reporters about what he heard from State Department official David Hale this morning during his testimony in the impeachment inquiry.

Meadows told reporters that Hale has “brought some new facts to the committees’ attention, and I think if I were to characterize it one way, it would be that the suspension of foreign aid and the evaluation of that is not a new thing.” 

House impeachment investigators have requested testimony from four people today — but we’re only expecting one to speak to the committees.

David Hale, a high-ranking State Department official, is the only official expected to show up for his testimony today.

The other scheduled witnesses are:

Why this matters: The White House strategy so far has been to impede the impeachment investigation as much as possible by refusing subpoenas and calling the process itself illegitimate. Republican leadership has complained that the impeachment process is unfair and overly restrictive on their ability to question witnesses.

House Intel Chair Adam Schiff announced today that public hearings will start next week in the impeachment inquiry.

Schiff said that diplomats Bill Taylor and George Kent will be the first witnesses to testify publicly next Wednesday.

Former ambassador Marie Yovanovitch will testify publicly next Friday, Schiff said.

House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff just announced that Congress will release a transcript from the testimony of top US diplomat in Ukraine Bill Taylor today.

About the testimony: Taylor testified last month that he had been told President Trump would withhold military aid to the country until it publicly declared investigations would be launched that could help his reelection chances — including into former Vice President Joe Biden, according to a copy of Taylor’s opening statement obtained by CNN.

House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff just took a break form the deposition of David Hale, a high-ranking State Department official, to speak to reporters.

Moments ago, he tweeted that public hearings in the impeachment inquiry will begin next week.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff tweeted that the committee “will hold its first open hearing” on Wednesday, November 13.

Schiff said that top diplomat William Taylor and Deputy Assistant Secretary George Kent would testify then, followed by former US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch on Friday, November 15.

Taylor currently serves as the Chargé D’affaires for the US State Department in Ukraine. Kent serves as Deputy Assistant Secretary in the European and Eurasian Bureau at the US Department of State.

Remember: Last week the House passed a resolution outlining the rules for public hearings and formalizing the impeachment process.

Fiona Hill, former Special Assistant to U.S. President Donald Trump and Senior Director for European and Russian Affairs on the United States National Security Council, arrives on Capitol Hill on October 14 to testify in the impeachment inquiry.

A lawyer for Fiona Hill, Trump’s former top Russia adviser, says that Ambasador to the European Union Gordon Sondland “fabricated communication” with Hill in his testimony in the impeachment inquiry.

Hill’s attorney, Lee Wolosky, tweeted this morning that “Sondland has fabricated communications with Dr. Hill, none of which were over coffee.”

Wolosky continued: “Dr. Hill told Sondland what she told lawmakers — the lack of coordination on Ukraine was distastorous (sic), and the circumstances of the dismissal of Amb Yovanovitch shameful.”

What this is all about: According to Sondland’s testimony released yesterday, he told lawmakers he had coffee with Fiona Hill in July and that she was “pretty upset” about her role at the administration. Sondland added that Hill was “sort of shaking.” 

Vice President Mike Pence walks to the Republican policy luncheon at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday

During a lunch with Republicans senators yesterday, Vice President Mike Pence had a piece of advice for the lawmakers in the room who have struggled with a viable defense strategy: Read the transcript. 

The Vice President urged the lawmakers in the room to point out that the Trump administration has provided Ukraine with lethal aid and he advised them to simply refer back to the transcript when facing questions about the president’s conduct. 

The advice is not new and comes as some senators have complained to the White House that they need a better defense strategy. It’s unclear if what he said yesterday will be sufficient. 

Remember: The White House released a transcript of the July call, but it’s only a rough log and not a word-for-word readout. The rough transcript shows Trump repeatedly pushed Ukraine’s president to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway maintained there was no quid pro quo related to withheld military aid for Ukraine by President Trump — despite ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland’s amended testimony.

Asked if there was no quid pro quo, Conway said: “That is the White House’s position, and I don’t think that his latest revisions change that.”

Sondland, a Republican donor turned diplomat, reversed his testimony to say that a quid pro quo was needed from Kiev to free up military aid, according to documents released yesterday.

Conway continued:

Republican Rep. Jim Jordan was asked about the transcripts released this week in the impeachment inquiry as he arrived for more testimony on Capitol Hill today.

On Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland stating in his amended testimony that he now believes that there was a quid pro quo related to withheld military aid for Ukraine by President Trump, Jordan said, “It is Sondland’s opinion.”

Jordan added:

Jordan called the testimony of special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker — released along with the Sondland transcript yesterday — in which Volker said he wasn’t aware of any quid pro quo the “definitive account on all this.”

“His account is consistent with the fundamental facts. There was nothing wrong on the call transcript,” Jordan added about Volker’s testimony.

David Hale, right, arrives on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, November 6.

Impeachment witness David Hale has arrived on Capitol Hill for his deposition.

Hale, a high-ranking State Department official, is one of four witnesses scheduled to testify today — but he’s the only one who’s expected to show up.

According to the AP, Hale intends to tell Congress that the Secretary of State was reluctant to defend his Ukraine ambassador because it would hurt efforts to get Ukraine military aid and there was worry about the reaction of Rudy Giuliani. 

One of the four witnesses scheduled to testify this morning will show up for his deposition.

Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale is expected to appear this morning. He’ll tell investigators “that political considerations were behind the agency’s refusal to deliver a robust defense of the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine,” according to the AP. 

Three more witnesses — Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Acting Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought and State Department counselor Ulrich Brechbuhl — were scheduled to testify today but are not expected to show. 

Hale is a high-ranking official in the State Department. And he has a lot of foreign affairs experience: He was executive assistant to then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright during the Clinton administration and the director for Israel-Palestinian affairs from 2001 to 2003.

He became ambassador to Jordan in 2005. In 2008, he became deputy assistant secretary of state for Israel, Egypt and the Levant. He was deputy special envoy in 2009 and special envoy for Middle East peace from 2011 to 2013. He was US ambassador to Lebanon from 2013 until 2015, when he became ambassador to Pakistan.

The House is pressing forward with its impeachment inquiry into President Trump today — but we’re not exactly sure what to expect.

There are two key questions here:

Investigators have requested testimony from four people today — but yesterday’s and Monday’s scheduled witnesses refused to show up.

Today’s scheduled witnesses are…

The House also requested testimony from State Department counselor Ulrich Brechbuhl, but he is instead traveling with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Germany, according to a pool report.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from south Carolina, responded to Gordon Sondland revising his testimony to impeachment investigators and admitting a quid pro quo linking US aid to Ukraine with an investigation into President Trump’s political rival.

“If the person being threatened with withholding the aid, if they say I wasn’t threatened, I don’t care what any bureaucrat says,” he added.

Watch more:

Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., speaks to reporters outside a secure area of the Capitol where Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a military officer at the National Security Council, arrived for a closed door meeting to testify as part of the House impeachment inquiry on October 29.  

In a pattern established over four closed-door depositions whose transcripts were released this week, Republicans have used their allotted time to question the impeachment inquiry’s validity and accuse Democrats of shutting them out of the process.

But for all of the Republicans’ complaints about unfairness, the transcripts indicate they were fully involved in the questioning of witnesses during the sometimes-contentious closed door hearings. Over the course of the lengthy sittings, Republicans, Democrats and witnesses’ lawyers have clashed over the propriety of questions and the terms of the proceedings.

It mirrors their public attempts to discount the impeachment probe, including an attempt to storm the secure hearing room where the depositions have occurred.

The transcripts provide the fullest picture yet of the closed depositions, which have occurred over long days inside a stuffy room in the basement of the US Capitol. As the inquiry enters a more public phase, the back-and-forth that transpired in private provides a likely preview of upcoming open hearings, where procedural matters and questions of the impeachment probe’s legitimacy are likely to arise.

Read Liptak’s full story here.

President Donald Trump talks to reporters before departing the White House on Friday.

President Donald Trump’s impeachment defense is being stripped away plank by plank by some of the administration officials caught up in his scheme to pressure Ukraine for political favors.

A dramatic reversal by Republican donor turned diplomat Gordon Sondland, who now says that a quid pro quo was needed from Kiev to free up military aid, rocked Washington Tuesday and undercut GOP strategy.

In testimony released by impeachment investigators, the US ambassador to the European Union also testified that he assumed it would be “illegal” for Trump’s fixer and personal attorney Rudy Giuliani to push Ukraine to investigate the President’s political opponents.

Sondland’s adjusted testimony did much to dismantle the President’s core and repeated defense: that he did not hold up aid to Kiev to force it to open a probe into Joe Biden and that any suggestion to the contrary is simply the “crazed” delusion of “Never Trumpers.”

Read more of Collinson’s analysis here.

Here is the response from White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham in full following the transcript releases of US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland and former special envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker:

In a stunning reversal that further confirms the notion of a quid pro quo, US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland says that after he first testified, he began to remember fresh details about a link between US security aid and Ukrainian investigations of President Donald Trump’s political rival Joe Biden.

Sondland filed and the House Intelligence Committee released a three-page sworn addendum to congressional testimony Tuesday in which he said that reading testimony from other witnesses reminded him of some key details. Here they are:

Why is this so important?

Sondland is the GOP donor and political appointee who was in direct contact at times with Trump about Ukraine. And now he remembers what amounts to a direct quid pro quo, although he still can’t remember everything.

Here are the latest developments in the impeachment inquiry into President Trump: