Page 124 - The Trump-Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry Report

being pressured to conduct politically-motivated investigations. Mr. Kent told Ambassador Taylor “that’s wrong, and we shouldn’t be doing that as a matter of U.S. policy.”823
After speaking to Ms. Croft and Ambassador Taylor, Mr. Kent wrote a memo to file on August 16 documenting his “concerns that there was an effort to initiate politically motivated prosecutions that were injurious to the rule of law, both in Ukraine and U.S.”824 Mr. Kent testified:
At the time, I had no knowledge of the specifics of the [July 25] call record, but based on Bill Taylor’s account of the engagements with Andriy Yermak that were engagements of Yermak with Kurt Volker, at that point it was clear that the investigations that were being suggested were the ones that Rudy Giuliani had been tweeting about, meaning Biden, Burisma, and 2016.825
On August 17, Mr. Yermak reached out to both Ambassador Sondland and Ambassador Volker.826 Ambassador Sondland texted Ambassador Volker that “Yermak just tapped on me about dates. Havent responded. Any updates?”827 Ambassador Volker responded that “I’ve got nothing” and stated that he was contacting the Department of Justice to find out about requesting an investigation.828
Ambassador Sondland then asked: “Do we still want Ze [Zelensky] to give us an unequivocal draft with 2016 and Boresma [sic]?” Ambassador Volker replied: “That’s the clear message so far ...” Ambassador Sondland said that he would ask that Mr. Yermak “send us a clean draft,” to which Ambassador Volker replied that he had spoken to Mr. Yermak and suggested that he and Ambassador Sondland speak the following day, August 18, to discuss “all the latest.”829
Ambassador Volker claimed that he “stopped pursuing” the statement from the Ukrainians around this time because of concerns raised by Mr. Yermak that Yuriy Lutsenko was still the Prosecutor General. Mr. Lutsenko was likely to be replaced by President Zelensky, and because Mr. Lutsenko was alleging the same false claims that President Trump and Mr. Giuliani were demanding of President Zelensky, Ukrainian officials “did not want to mention Burisma or 2016.”830 Ambassador Volker testified that he “agreed” and advised Mr. Yermak that “making those specific refences was not a good idea” because making those statements might “look like it would play into our domestic politics.”831
Mr. Yermak agreed and, according to Ambassador Volker, plans to put out a statement were “shelved.”832 Ambassador Volker reasoned that the plan for a public statement did not materialize partly because of “the sense that Rudy was not going to be convinced that it meant anything, and, therefore, convey a positive message to the President if it didn’t say Burisma and 2016.”833 He added:
I agreed with the Ukrainians they shouldn’t do it, and in fact told them just drop it, wait till you have your own prosecutor general in place. Let’s work on substantive issues like this, security assistance and all. Let’s just do that. So we dropped it.834
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