Will Bill Taylor Wind Up As The Hero Of The Trump Impeachment? And Viktor Orban, Along With Putin, Of Course, The Villain?

Rebecca Ballhaus, Siobhan Hughes and Natalie Andrews reported for the Wall Street Journal that members of Congress were shocked by Bill Taylor's testimony. Michigan Democrat Andy Levin, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee who has just come back from an official visit to the sprawling Rohingy refugee camps in Bangladesh seemed gobsmacked telling the reporters "All I have to say is that in my 10 short months in Congress-- it’s not even noon, right-- and this is my most disturbing day in Congress so far. Very troubling."

Washington Post reporters Anne Gearan, Rachel Bade and John Wagner wrote that Acting Ambassador to Ukraine, Bill Taylor's testimony directly contradicted Trump’s denial that he used the money allocated by Congress for Ukraine's defense as leverage for his own political gain. "Upon arriving in Kyiv last spring he became alarmed by secondary diplomatic channels involving U.S. officials that he called “weird,” Taylor said, according to a copy of his lengthy opening statement obtained by the Washington Post. Taylor walked lawmakers through a series of conversations he had with other U.S. diplomats who were trying to obtain what one called the “deliverable” of Ukrainian help investigating Trump’s political rivals. Taylor said he spoke to Ambassador Gordon Sondland, the U.S. envoy to the European Union. 'During that phone call, Amb. Sondland told me that President Trump had told him that he wants President [Volodymyr] Zelensky to state publicly that Ukraine will investigate Burisma and alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election,' Taylor said in the statement... 'Amb. Sondland also told me that he now recognized that he had made a mistake by earlier telling the Ukrainian officials to whom he spoke that a White House meeting with President Zelensky was dependent on a public announcement of investigations-- in fact, Amb. Sondland said, everything was dependent on such an announcement, including security assistance,' Taylor told House investigators."

“He said that President Trump wanted President Zelensky ‘in a public box’ by making a public statement about ordering such investigations.’

...“It was just the most damning testimony I’ve heard,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) said in an interview partway into Taylor’s testimony.

...“He drew a very specific direct line from President Trump to the withholding of foreign aid and the refusal of a meeting,” between Trump and the new Ukrainian leader, Wasserman Schultz said, “directly related to both insisting on Zelensky publicly say that he’ll have an investigation, that they will investigate.”

...An official working on the impeachment inquiry said Tuesday that Taylor is testifying under subpoena after the State Department attempted to block his appearance.

“The House Intelligence Committee issued a subpoena to compel his testimony this morning,” said the official, who requested anonymity to discuss the arrangements. “As is required of him, Ambassador Taylor is now complying with the subpoena and answering questions from both Democratic and Republican Members and staff.”

Taylor took the job on temporary assignment earlier this year after the sitting ambassador was removed, in what she told the committees was political retaliation by the Trump administration.

Taylor, a retired former ambassador to Ukraine and a foreign policy elder statesman, had exchanged text messages with two other diplomats in which he called it “crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign” and a “nightmare scenario.”

“It’s like if you have a 1,000 piece puzzle, which is what this is,” Wasserman Schultz said. “This filled in a ton of that puzzle.”

She and other Democratic lawmakers said Taylor’s morning testimony stood in contrast to the appearance last week of Sondland, a Trump donor and a key player in efforts to secure a statement from Zelensky committing to investigations.

“There were many things that Ambassador Sondland didn’t remember that Ambassador Taylor remembered in excruciating detail,” Wasserman Schultz said.

...Taylor agreed to go to Kyiv as a placeholder ambassador because he thought the U.S.-Ukraine relationship was at a critical moment following Zelensky’s election last spring, other diplomats said.

Taylor wanted to reinforce U.S. support for Zelensky’s anti-corruption agenda and his independence from Russia, people who know Taylor said.

He also told friends he worried that the relationship would drift after the forced recall of former ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, and he made it clear within the State Department that he objected to her treatment, current and former administration officials said.

On July 21, four days before Trump and Zelensky had a phone call in which Trump asked Zelensky to conduct those investigations, Taylor exchanged text messages with Sondland.

Zelensky wants Ukraine to be “taken seriously” and not just serve as “an instrument in Washington domestic, reelection politics,” Taylor told Sondland, a key player in the effort to draw Ukraine into the election-related investigations.

And on Sept. 1, the day Vice President Pence was set to meet with Zelensky, Taylor again texted Sondland.

“Are we now saying that security assistance and WH meeting are conditioned on investigations?” Taylor asked.

“Call me,” Sondland replied, in what Democrats have said is probably an effort to prevent a paper trail.

On Sept. 8, Taylor and Sondland tried to get on the phone with Kurt Volker, then the special U.S. envoy for Ukraine, but Volker couldn’t hear the conversation.

“Gordon and I just spoke,” Taylor texted Volker. “I can brief you if you and Gordon don’t connect.” Taylor continued: “The nightmare is they give the interview and don’t get the security assistance. The Russians love it. (And I quit.)”

Taylor probably was referring to a potential statement to the press from the Zelensky government committing to the investigations. He was apparently worried that Zelensky would give in, but still not receive his promised aid, and that Russia would then use that opening to portray the new Ukrainian leader as a patsy.

Volker turned over copies of the text messages when he testified voluntarily earlier this month.

“The message to the Ukrainians (and Russians) we send with the decision on security assistance is key,” Taylor texted the next day. “With the hold, we have already shaken their faith in us. Thus my nightmare scenario.”

Sondland replied, saying that “we have identified the best pathway forward.”

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

Five hours went by before Sondland replied. Sondland later testified that he was relaying only what Trump had told him in an intervening phone call.

“Bill, I believe you are incorrect about President Trump’s intentions,” he wrote. “The President has been crystal clear no quid pro quo’s of any kind. The President is trying to evaluate whether Ukraine is truly going to adopt the transparency and reforms that President Zelensky promised during his campaign.”

Democrats have pointed to that message, which differs in tone and detail from the chatty earlier exchanges, as an effort to establish a cover story.

Taylor is a former Army officer and Vietnam War veteran who has served in government posts in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. He is expected to return to his senior position at the U.S. Institute for Peace sometime next year.

The official White House response, from Trumpist Regime Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham, was absolutely classic... and beyond shameful in the way it smeared Taylor, a West Point graduate who fought in Vietnam and has honorably served this country ever since: "President Trump has done nothing wrong-- this is a coordinated smear campaign from far-left lawmakers and radical unelected bureaucrats waging war on the Constitution. There was no quid pro quo. Today was just more triple hearsay." Meanwhile, Rep. William "Lacy" Clay (D-MO) termed Taylor's testimony yesterday "a smoking canon."

What a shame Congress can't subpoena Hungarian neo-Nazi Viktor Orban, who-- along with Putin-- persuaded that Ukraine is an enemy. David Brennan, reporting for Newsweek wrote that White House aides were so worried about Trump's affinity for authoritarian leaders that they attempted to block his meeting with far-right Hungarian strongman Prime Minister Viktor Orban. The efforts to keep Orban away from Trump broke down early in the year "as some officials left the White House and were replaced by others more sympathetic to Orban's euroskeptic, anti-immigration, anti-free press and other far-right sentiments-- among them acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney. Orban eventually visited the White House in May. His visit began with an hour-long meeting with Trump at which nobody took notes. After, the pair were joined by the Hungarian foreign minister and then-National Security Advisor John Bolton. Trump praised Orban at the meeting, telling reporters, 'I know he's a tough man but he's a respected man.' He also suggested that the prime minister had 'done the right thing, according to many people on immigration.' Democrats Eliot Engel, chairman of the Foreign Affairs committee, and Marcy Kaptur co-chair of the Congressional Hungarian caucus, didn't share Trump's admiration for Orban. Before the May meeting, the pair released a joint statement that said Orban represents 'so many things that are antithetical to core American values.' They continued: 'He has overseen a rollback of democracy in his country, used anti-Semitic and xenophobic tropes in his political messaging, and cozied up to Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin. He has also suppressed independent media and academic freedom in an effort to consolidate his increasingly autocratic rule.'" Sounds like Trump's kind of guy.

Orban's role was detailed by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent at a closed-door session with House impeachment investigations last week, the Post explained. He said Trump's conversations with Orban helped undermine the president's opinion of Zelenskiy in the lead up to the now-infamous July phone call. Orban's opposition to Zelenskiy and his reformist government in neighboring Ukraine is both ideological and driven by regional political concerns.

Orban hopes Russia continues dismembering Ukraine so that Hungary can grab the Transcarpathia region on its own border.