- Bill Taylor, top US diplomat in Ukraine, testified that his staffer overheard President Donald Trump ask the US ambassador to the EU about Ukrainian "investigations" in a previously unreported July 26 call.
- "The member of my staff could hear President Trump on the phone asking Ambassador Sondland about the investigations," Taylor said in new testimony on Wednesday.
- Taylor said that Sondland told his staffer after the phone call that "President Trump cares more about the investigations of Biden, which Giuliani was pressing for."
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Bill Taylor, the top US diplomat in Ukraine, testified during the first day of public impeachment hearings on Wednesday that his staffer overheard President Donald Trump ask Gordon Sondland, the US ambassador to the European Union, about Ukrainian "investigations" in a previously unreported July 26 phone call.
Taylor said that a member of his staff witnessed Sondland call Trump at a restaurant the day after Trump's phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. After the call, Sondland told the staffer that Trump was focused on Ukraine investigating former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.
"The member of my staff could hear President Trump on the phone asking Ambassador Sondland about the investigations," Taylor said on Wednesday. "Ambassador Sondland told President Trump the Ukrainians were ready to move forward."
Following the call, Taylor's staffer asked Sondland what Trump "thought about Ukraine."
Sondland "responded that President Trump cares more about the investigations of Biden, which Giuliani was pressing for," Taylor went on.
Taylor said that Rudy Giuliani, the president's personal lawyer, was engaged in "highly irregular" efforts to influence Ukrainian actions that undermined official US policy.
Details of this phone call weren't included in Taylor's private testimony before congressional investigators last month because Taylor said he was only informed of the call after his testimony.
In Taylor's statement, the rest of which was reflected in his previous testimony, he said that Trump was threatening to withhold "everything," including nearly $400 million in US security assistance and a White House meeting, from Ukraine if the country didn't announce investigations into the Bidens.
This, from William Taylor's prepared remarks, is new: pic.twitter.com/ZM4P2vknV6
- Phil Mattingly (@Phil_Mattingly) November 13, 2019