Acting US Ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor on Tuesday will testify before three House of Representatives committees in President Donald Trump's impeachment inquiry, and is expected to talk about text messages exchanged with other US diplomats regarding Trump's policy toward Ukraine, media reported
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 22nd October, 2019) Acting US Ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor on Tuesday will testify before three House of Representatives committees in President Donald Trump's impeachment inquiry, and is expected to talk about text messages exchanged with other US diplomats regarding Trump's policy toward Ukraine, media reported.Taylor is expected to discuss a series of text messages exchanged with US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland and former US Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker about Trump's order to withhold security assistance to Ukraine, CNN reported citing a source familiar with Taylor's testimony.
According to the exchanged texts, Taylor told Sondland in September that he think it is "crazy" to withhold US security assistance for help with a political campaign. Sondland responded by saying the claim was incorrect, a position he arrived at after speaking with Trump, the report said.
Taylor will give the reason for the exchanged text messages and give a chronological order of events between June and October, the period he has served in his current role as acting envoy, the report said.
On September 24, US House Democrats launched an impeachment inquiry into Trump's July 25 telephone call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during which the president asked Kiev to probe allegations of corruption by former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter. The inquiry was initiated after a whistleblower sent a complaint to Congress, saying that Trump threatened to withdraw military aid to Ukraine if Kiev failed to probe the Bidens.
Democrats have argued that the alleged quid pro quo and Trump soliciting a foreign power to investigate a political rival violate US laws. However, Trump denied the allegations as another attempt at a political witch hunt to reverse the outcome of the 2016 US presidential election, and published the transcript of his telephone call with Zelenskyy.
