State official George Kent’s transcript about to be released, official says
Here it is: docs.house.gov/meetings/IG/IG…
Kent testified that Kurt Volker told him in July that he would be reaching out to Giuliani bc he had “had influence on the President in terms of the way the President thought of Ukraine.”
More corroboration in Kent testimony that Gordon Sondland asked Yovanovitch to write a “tweet declaring full support for the foreign policy of President Trump” - which Kent said was an ask for her to “defend herself as opposed to having the State Department defend her.”
“Mr. Giuliani, at that point, had been carrying on a campaign for several months full of lies and incorrect information about Ambassador Yovanovich, so this was a continuation of his campaign of lies,” Kent said.
Kent, who is in charge of Ukrainian policy, was ordered by senior State officials to “keep my head down and lower my profile in Ukraine.” This came after Rudy Giuliani attacked Kent, Yovanovitch and “the entire embassy”
Kent testified that Guiliani sought a visa for a former Ukrainian prosecutor who was “very unfavorably known” to State, but Giuliani went around and appealed to the WH, though no visa was ultimately granted. Here’s our story on it from last month. cnn.com/2019/10/18/pol…
