Ambassador William Taylor, the Trump administration’s top official in Ukraine, returned to the impeachment proceedings for the first day of public testimony with a potentially damning revelation.
In his prepared remarks, Taylor revealed:
This implies that it was way back in July that U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland had explained to the Ukrainians that they would not get U.S. aid until they announced they were investigating the Bidens and that Trump had known even then.
Until now, it was at least theoretically possible that Sondland was freelancing, taking things further than Trump had ordered when he used the aid as leverage. But Taylor’s testimony may have just thrown a fatal wrench into that defense. Although Taylor had testified earlier that it wasn’t until Sept. 1 that he was specifically told about this demand for an investigation announcement in exchange for the aid, Taylor has now moved up the timeline by more than a month. Trump might have been in on this scheme as early as July 26.
Sondland needs to answer under oath, as soon as possible, whether this July conversation did indeed happen as Taylor characterized it and whether he had included the aid extortion in his July meeting with Andriy Yermak, the top aide to the Ukrainian president. If not, Trump’s defense can still hold up if he just throws Rudy Giuliani and company under the bus. Otherwise, we now have evidence that the attempt to extort Ukraine for political purposes came right from the top.
