Congressional testimony from the former top American envoy to Ukraine directly contradicts the impeachment narrative offered by congressional Democrats and their media allies. Ambassador Kurt Volker, who served for two years as the top U.S. diplomatic envoy to Ukraine, testified on Thursday that he was never aware of and never took part in any effort to push the Ukrainian government to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden or his son Hunter. He also stressed that the interactions between Giuliani and Ukrainian officials were facilitated not to find dirt on Biden, but to assuage concerns that the incoming Ukrainian government would not be able to get a handle on corruption within the country.
Volker’s full remarks, which were obtained by The Federalist, can be read here.
“As you will see from the extensive text messages I am providing, which convey a sense of real-time dialogue with several different actors, Vice President Biden was never a topic of discussion” during negotiations with Ukraine, Volker testified. Cherry-picked snippets of those texts were released by the office of Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., late Thursday evening.“[A]t no time was I aware of or took part in an effort to urge Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Biden,” Volker told lawmakers.
Volker said that an advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked Volker to connect the advisor to Rudy Giuliani, a personal attorney for President Donald Trump.
“[I]n May of this year, I became concerned that a negative narrative about Ukraine, fueled by assertions made by Ukraine’s departing Prosecutor General, was reaching the President of the United States, and impeding our ability to support the new Ukrainian government as robustly as I believed we should,” Volker said. “After sharing my concerns with the Ukrainian leadership, an advisor to President Zelensky asked me to connect him to the President’s personal lawyer, Mayor Rudy Giuliani.”
“I did so solely because I understood that the new Ukrainian leadership wanted to convince those, like Mayor Giuliani, who believed such a negative narrative about Ukraine, that times have changed and that, under President Zelensky, Ukraine is worthy of U.S. support,” Volker said. “I also made clear to the Ukrainians, on a number of occasions, that Mayor Giuliani is a private citizen and the President’s personal lawyer, and that he does not represent the United States government.”
Volker vehemently denied that he ever urged the Ukrainian government to dig up dirt on the Biden family.
“As you will see from the extensive text messages I am providing, which convey a sense of real-time dialogue with several different actors, Vice President Biden was never a topic of discussion,” he said.
Volker testified that he never even mentioned a delay on U.S. military assistance to Ukrainian officials until late August, when news reports indicated that funding had been put on hold. Volker’s statement directly undercuts claims that the funding was part of a quid pro quo meant to force the Ukrainians to take certain actions in order for the military aids to be released.
“I became aware of a hold on Congressional Notifications about proceeding with that assistance on July 18, 2019, and immediately tried to weigh in to reverse that position,” Volker testified. “I was confident that this position would indeed be reversed in the end, because the provision of such assistance was uniformly supported at State, Defense, NSC, the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the expert community in Washington.”
“As I was confident the position would not stand, I did not discuss the hold with my Ukrainian counterparts until the matter became public in late August,” he said.
Volker explained in his remarks that Trump had a dim view of the Ukrainian government given its involvement in 2016 efforts to damage Trump’s presidential campaign, and that the president’s view of rampant and widespread corruption in the country was a significant barrier to cooperation between the two nations going forward. According to Volker, the interactions between Giuliani and Ukraine were sought in an effort to persuade Trump that Zelensky’s government could be a trusted U.S. partner.
“It was clear to me that we had a growing problem in the negative narrative about Ukraine, built on these earlier accusations by Mr. Lutsenko, that was impeding the development of our bilateral relationship and the strengthening of our support for Ukraine,” Volker said. “I therefore faced a choice: do nothing, and allow this situation to fester; or try to fix it.”
“I tried to fix it,” he testified.
Volker said Giuliani eventually came to believe that the Ukrainian prosecutor, Yuriy Lutsenko, was not credible.
Seems the Government of Ukraine could not fathom at first they didnt have to pony up fake info for the 2020 election as they had to for the 2016 election.They were blackmailed and threatened by the previous pointman for the US, and came to expect it.
Trump was simply making sure that the President of the Ukraine would keep campaign promises. US tax dollars wouldnt just vanish into a corrupt political system.
I would like to see the texts without attached opinion or analysis by propagandists.
Just clean documents.
Whatever else one might say about Democrats (most of it true) one thing is certain; when it comes to running scams, they can sure take a lot of embarrassing punishment showing the extent of their lying weaseldom and just keep on scamming as if their credibility is still partially intact. Of course, having a media that is promoting their same lies helps a bit.
ONCE AGAIN, just like collusion, just like obstruction, just like Scotland, the Democrats have made big, bold accusations, swearing they have the smoking gun with a pencil in the barrel and fresh fingerprints on the grips and trigger only to be PROVEN to be total, complete, unmitigated, unrepentant, unapologetic LIARS of the lowest order.