Tag: Bill Taylor

4 big takeaways from Bill Taylor’s full transcript

Washington Post logoHouse Democrats on Wednesday released the impeachment inquiry’s full testimony of the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, William B. Taylor.

We already knew Taylor was the first U.S. official to indicate that an explicit quid pro quowas communicated to top Ukrainian officials, based upon his publicly released opening statement. That claim that has since been confirmed by White House aide Tim Morrison and European Union Ambassador Gordon Sondland, who personally conveyed the quid pro quo.

Below are some takeaways from Taylor’s full testimony.

View the complete November 6 article by Aaron Blake on The Washington Post website here.

Bill Taylor spent years fighting corruption in Ukraine. His last four months under Trump were the ‘antithesis’ of that.

Washington Post logoBefore the top U.S. diplomat to Ukraine became the most explosive witness in the House’s impeachment inquiry, he was anything but a household name in the United States. But in Ukraine, William B. Taylor Jr.’s reputation preceded him.

He had spent much of the 1990s telling Ukrainian politicians that nothing was more critical to their long-term prosperity than rooting out corruption and bolstering the rule of law, in his role as the head of U.S. development assistance for post-Soviet countries.

But in the summer of 2019, he and his colleagues were sending a very different message to Ukraine.

View the complete October 23 article by John Hudson and Carol Morello on The Washington Post website here.

Amid Mounting Evidence of a Quid Pro Quo, DFL Calls on Republican Congressmen to Support Investigation

SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA – On October 22, Bill Taylor, an Army veteran and the top United States diplomat to Ukraine, testified before the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, and Oversight committees that President Donald Trump withheld military aid to Ukraine in order to pressure their government into declaring they would investigate one of Trump’s domestic political opponents. This is the latest piece of evidence of a quid pro quo in which Donald Trump sought to exchange U.S. military aid for electoral support from the Ukranian government.

Late last month, the White House released a summary of Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Zelensky. In that call, Zelensky requested the military aid that Congress passed and Trump blocked, to which Trump responded “I would like you to do us a favor though…” Trump then asks Zelensky to investigate his political rivals in what many argue is an explicit quid pro quo arrangement. Two weeks ago, text message between top U.S. diplomats strongly corroborated the existence of that quid pro quo. Last week, acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney openly confessed to a quid pro quo before attempting to walk his comments back.

In response to the growing evidence of a quid pro quo, DFL Chairman Ken Martin released the following statement calling on Minnesota’s Republican Congressional Delegation to support the House investigation into Trump’s conduct: Continue reading “Amid Mounting Evidence of a Quid Pro Quo, DFL Calls on Republican Congressmen to Support Investigation”