Here's Bill Taylor's opening statement today via @CNN cnn.com/2019/10/22/pol…
@CNN TAYLOR: "I found a confusing and unusual arrangement for making U.S policy towards Ukraine... There was an irregular, informal channel of U.S. policy-making with respect to Ukraine..."
@CNN TAYLOR: "I sensed something odd when Ambassador Sondland told me on June 28 that he did not wish to include most of the regular interagency participants in a call... [He] said that he wanted to make sure no one was transcribing or monitoring as they added President Zelenskyy..."
@CNN TAYLOR: "By mid-July it was becoming clear to me that the meeting President Zelenskyy wanted was conditioned on the investigations of Burisma and alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections."
@CNN TAYLOR: "A voice on the call -- the person was off-screen -- said that she was from OMB... All that the OMB staff person said was that the directive [to hold security assistance to Ukraine] had come from the President to the Chief of Staff to OMB."
TAYLOR: "I exchanged text messages with Ambassador Volker in which I learned that Mr. Yermak had asked that the United States submit an official request for an investigation into Burisma's alleged violations of Ukrainian law, if that is what the United States desired."
TAYLOR: "[Mr. Morrison] went on to describe a conversation Ambassador Sondland had with Mr. Yermak at Warsaw. Ambassador Sondland told Mr. Yermak that the security assistance money would not come until President Zelenskyy committed to pursue the Burisma investigation."
TAYLOR: "I was alarmed by what Mr. Morrison told me about the Sondland-Yermak conversation. This was the first time I had heard that the security assistance -- not just the White House meeting -- was conditioned on the investigations."
TAYLOR: "Ambassador Sondland told me that President Trump had told him that he wants President Zelenskyy to state publicly that Ukraine will investigate Burisma and alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. election."
TAYLOR: "Ambassador 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 Zelenskyy was dependent on a public announcement of investigations..."
TAYLOR: "...In fact, Ambassador Sondland said, "everything" was dependent on such an announcement, including security assistance. He said that President Trump wanted President Zelenskyy 'in a public box' by making a public statement about ordering such investigations."
TAYLOR: "The push to make President Zelenskyy publicly commit to investigations of Burisma and alleged interference in the 2016 election showed how the official foreign policy of the United States was undercut by the irregular efforts led by Mr. Giuliani."
TAYLOR: "According to Mr. Morrison, President Trump told Ambassador Sondland that he was not asking for a 'quid pro quo.' But President Trump did insist that President Zelenskyy go to a microphone and say he is opening investigations of Biden and 2016 election interference."
TAYLOR: "Ambassador Sondland said that he had talked to President Zelenskyy and Mr. Yermak and told them that, although this was not a quid pro quo, if President Zelenskyy did not 'clean things up' in public, we would be at a 'statemale.'"
TAYLOR: "I understood a 'stalemate' to mean that Ukraine would not receive the much-needed military assistance. Ambassador Sondland said that this conversation concluded with President Zelenskyy agreeing to make a public statement in an interview with CNN."
TAYLOR: "Ambassador Sondland tried to explain to me that President Trump is a businessman. When a businessman is about to sign a check to someone who owes him something, he said, the businessman asks that person to pay up before signing the check."
TAYLOR: "I argued to [Ambassador Sondland and Ambassador Volker] that the explanation made no sense: the Ukrainians did not 'owe' President Trump anything, and holding up security assistance for domestic political gain was 'crazy.'"
TAYLOR: "[President Trump] also released the transcript of the July 25 call. The United States gave the Ukrainians virtually no notice of the release, and they were livid."
TAYLOR: "I had come to understand well before [the release of the July 25 transcript] that 'investigations' was a term that Ambassadors Volker and Sondland used to mean matters related to the 2016 elections, and to investigations of Burisma and the Bidens."
