Ambassador Bill Taylor's Troubling Testimony

Powerline ^ | 10/23/2019 | Paul Mirengoff

[SeekAndFind]

Text messages released weeks ago showed that Bill Taylor believed the Trump administration was conditioning the release of military aid to Ukraine on a Ukrainian investigation of Trump’s political opponents. Yesterday, in testimony before Congress, Taylor described the events that caused him to believe this.

If Taylor is telling the truth, he had a sound basis for believing that, for a while, there was a quid pro quo relationship between the release of aid and an investigation by Ukraine of the Bidens. He testified about a conversation with a National Security Council official who informed him that Gordon Sondland, our ambassador to the EU, had told a high level Ukrainain that “security assistance money would not come until President Zelenskyy committed to pursue the Burisma investigation.” Burisma is the company on whose board Hunter Biden served.

Taylor also testified that he asked Sondland whether aid was conditioned on the investigation. Sondland responded that Trump had told him he wants President Zelenskyy to state publicly that Ukraine will investigate Burisma and alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. election and that “everything” was dependent on such an announcement, including security assistance.

That’s a quid pro quo.

Is Taylor telling the truth? I think so. There’s nothing in his background that suggests he’s a partisan Democrat or sleazy “Deep Stater” who would lie to hurt the president.

Taylor is a West Point grad. He served in Vietnam. He was appointed ambassador to Ukraine by George W. Bush and asked to return to the diplomatic corps as charge d’affaires in Ukraine by Mike Pompeo.

Ask yourself which is more likely, that Trump, the “transactional” president, would scheme as Taylor describes to injure a political opponent or that Taylor would invent a story to this effect. I think it’s former.

Was Sondland telling Taylor the truth about what Trump said to him? Again, I assume so. Why would Sondland misrepresent Trump’s instructions? He had no strong reason to want an investigation of Joe Biden. Trump did.

Later Sondland told Taylor that Trump had insisted there is no quid pro quo. But this seems like a case of exalting labeling over substance (as well as a case of CYA). Indeed, Sondland informed Taylor that he had told Ukraine’s president Zelenskyy that, although this was not a quid pro quo, if Zelenskyy did not “clear things up” in public, we would be at a “stalemate.”

Taylor said he understood a “stalemate” to mean that Ukraine would not receive the military assistance. I don’t think there’s any other rational way to understand “stalemate” in this context. When military assistance is “dependent” on the public announcement of an investigation into Hunter Biden’s company, that’s a quid pro whether one uses the label or disavows it.

Fortunately, soon after Taylor complained to Sondland about the withholding of aid for domestic political purposes, the hold on aid was lifted. Ukraine received the military aid and, to my knowledge, did not agree to investigate the Bidens.

Thus, the most we can say is that aid was held up for maybe two months while the Trump administration used it as leverage to try to get Ukraine to investigate his chief (at the time) rival for the presidency. We cannot say that aid was denied.

How serious an offense is it for a president to withhold aid for a few months because the recipient hasn’t agreed to investigate his political opponent? Pretty serious, in my view.

Corruption is rampant in Ukraine and around the globe. There was no reason for Trump to fixate on one Ukrainian company, Burisma, other than the fact that Hunter Biden was associated with it. And there was no reason for Trump to fixate on Hunter Biden other than the fact that his father might well be Trump’s opponent in 2020.

Some will disagree with me as to whether there is a serious offense here. There’s not much point in arguing about it. One either sees significant impropriety or one doesn’t.

But those who don’t might ask themselves whether they would see a major problem if, under the same facts, it was President Obama who withheld the aid and Donald Trump whom Obama insisted had to be investigated before it could be released.

The offense would be more serious if Trump hadn’t ultimately released the aid. In that scenario, I think there would be a case for impeaching him. But that scenario didn’t happen so I don’t have to assess how the substantial the case for impeachment would be if it had.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: Freedom to spread Trump lies .

Let me correct that, Freedom to post articles that you are not happy about so that PEOPLE CAN REFUTE THEM WITH EVIDENCE REASON AND LOGIC.

RE: Your hobby !

My right as a poster

RE: Fraud

If the article is fraudulent, REFUTE IT. I want to read your refutation.

[xkaydet65]

Powerline has done and is doing those things you demand. And it struck me that Paul’s conclusions are far more in sadness than in any sense of exultation.

[confederatecarpetbag]

Thus clown ha ps no idea what Taylor testified to, since he obviously wasn’t privy to the testimony - and the Democrats refuse to allow transcripts to be released to the public. That’s point No. 1.

Point No. 2 - the entire article ignores the elephant in the room: name,y, why should the U.S. be obligated to provide $400 million of taxpayer aid to a country with no discernible strategic value? If the Preaident wanted to withhold aid, it would be within his purview to do so.

And most important is point No. 3 - how is Trump conditioning aid (presuming he did) to a foreign country any different from Obama sending $150 billion to Iran, on the facile “condition” that Iran would cease enriching uranium? If any Presidential behavior has been impeachable in recent years, it’s Obama sending pallets of cash to Iranian mullahs. All done under the guise of a treaty, without a single authorizing vote from Congress.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: What the author doesn’t tell you because it’s damning is that under questioning the so called witness admitted that he had NO first hand knowledge only third and fourth hand gossip and rumors

Yes, and what the writer failed to mention is that the Ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland responded to Taylor’s so-called “concern” by responding in a text message:

“The President has been crystal clear no quid pro quo’s of any kind,”

[kiryandil]

You are supposed to be serving the interest of your country, not yourself.

It's Trump's JOB.

And it was his top priority to find out whether the Biden family was influenced by Ukraine, while there is an ongoing election cycle.

[semimojo]

Someday a Republican...or a representative of the President...will be allowed to be physically present during testimony.

There are more that 40 Republicans who can be, and probably have been, present at the depositions.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: It’s Trump’s JOB.

I agree.

If there is evidence of someone using US foreign aid as a leverage to benefit his son, then telling Ukraine, a signatory to an agreement with the USA to investigate cases of corruption ( under Bill Clinton ), to pursue such an investigation is ENFORCING THE LAW, something the President has an obligation to do.

That it happens to benefit him in the 2020 elections and happens to make his political opponent look dirty is irrelevant. If there is DIRT, it’s the truth. What’s illegal about exposing the truth?

[Chaguito]

No mention of Crowdstrike?

This is yet another reason that there needs to be vigorous cross-examination of such witnesses.

[Chaguito]

If you keep thinking like that, you’ll just get an ulcer. And the Bidens will still walk free.

[july4thfreedomfoundation]

I remember Haig saying on TV, “I’m in control here, awaiting the return of the Vice President.” (George H. W. Bush, who was in Houston at the time of the attempt on President Reagan’s life). Haig certainly did get a bum rap.

The VP immediately hopped on Air Force 2 and headed back to Washington.

[DesertRhino]

Doesn’t matter. Today is all that matters. At the exact moment the Dems are moving to force an impeachment trial, A-holes like Romney start sniping at Trump.

And that BS that Powerline was saying Trump committed an unethical impeachable offense....with sadness.

At the moment when he is under attack, they get in a stab or two and try to do more damage. They are trash.

Their article today should have been about State insubordination, CIA treason in the whitehouse, Bidens massive corruption and personally motivated quid pro quo.
But no, they dedicated their page to weakening Trump.

They are trash now. Irredeemable trash... even if 15 years ago they did something good.

[US_MilitaryRules]

Corruption is bad in the Ukraine? Lol. How about the politicians in the USA?

President Trump is trying to get rid of the scum here in the USA.

[Coronal]

Republican members of the House Intelligence, Oversight and Foreign Affairs committees have been present from the start.

[21twelve]

Also Admiral Moorer from that book Silent Coup. He was the one that had Bob Woodward (when he was a navy radioman) spy on Kissinger. The military was actively trying to weaken Nixon's power. I can see them trying to do the same to President Trump.

In the book he is quoted as saying something like “It is ludicrous and a total fabrication that I would spy on the State Department.”

Perhaps ten years ago, Admiral Moorer was involved in buying military hardware (as a private citizen) and shipping them to other countries. He claimed (in some magazine article) it was for their museums! He was quoted saying the EXACT same thing “It is ludicrous and a total fabrication that I would sell military hardware to foreign countries!”

When I saw the more recent quote I remembered him from the book and I must have remembered the quote as well, as I found the book on the shelf and compared the two - they were word for word!

[lastchance]

You would think VP Biden was aware of this caveat.

[xkaydet65]

Paul did not say it was impeachable as the aid was sent eventually even though the request for action on Burisma had not occurred. He said it was serious. And you know as well as I that NOTHING will be done to those at State who have interfered and to those in the FBI and IC who have staged a coup. NOTHING will happen to those people so calling for action in an article in a site rarely read by non conservatives would be worse than useless. What Paul did here was preempt Schiff et al and allow conservatives to marshal responses that go beyond name calling.

[DesertRhino]

It was a stab in the back. Their time should have been spent on the things nothing will be done about. It should have been spent on Schiffs connections to the serial homosexual murders in California. It should have been spent on all the deep state connections to Ukrainian graft. To Pelosi’s son. Etc...

Instead, they grimly intone that Trump is corrupt, and at best barely managed to not be overtly criminal. They gave a veneer (that means a fake appearance) of legitimacy to this whole farce.

A stab in the back. Not to mention these people are Trump opponents.

[jonrick46]

In the latest, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, in Tuesday’s closed-door session, deconstructed a key part of the latest Trump impeachment inquiry witness, acting U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor. “In 90 seconds, we had John Ratcliffe destroy Taylor’s whole argument,” McCarthy said. It destroyed Democrats’ allegation that President Trump pushed Ukraine to investigate both election interference and a company linked to Joe Biden’s son with a quid pro quo.

Ratcliffe said on Fox’s “The Story with Martha MacCallum” that it is all is a “frame job.” “Neither this witness or any other witness has provided any evidence of Trump’s alleged attempt to hold back military aid to Ukraine,” he continued.

[Moorka]

The Center for Strategic and International Studies was apparently founded by CIA official Ray Cline, father-in-lawn to Stefan Halper. Admiral Moorer was a leading member, along with General William B. Taylor, George Will, Morris Leibman (the Chicago lawyer Al Haig selected to choose defense lawyers for Nixon), James Woolsey, Kissinger, Brzinsky, Mort Zuckerman, James Schlesinger. Al Haig seems to have been close to General William B. Taylor. They were West Point classmates along with Fred Buzhardt. Silent Coup fingers Al Haig, Bob Woodward, Thomas Moorer and Fred Buzhardt as the major players in Nixon’s demise.

[21twelve]

“Al Haig seems to have been close to General William B. Taylor.”

So the guy testifying, William B. Taylor, Jr. is the General’s son!!??