The Daily - A Public Hearing, and a Feud Over Ukraine

Episode Date: November 14, 2019

The House of Representatives opened historic impeachment hearings on Wednesday, with William B. Taylor Jr. and George P. Kent, senior career civil servants, caught in the crossfire. Democrats underscored the constitutional import of the proceedings, while Republicans branded the whole investigation into President Trump’s dealings with Ukraine a sham. Mr. Taylor and Mr. Kent — carefully, if cinematically — detailed the emergence of a shadow foreign policy, one which had the capacity to determine the fate of an ally in the face of Russian aggression. We discuss what this phase of the impeachment inquiry could mean for the president — and for the 2020 election.Guest: Michael S. Schmidt, who covers national security and federal investigations for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Background reading: Mr. Taylor said that, in a call with Gordon D. Sondland, the American ambassador to the European Union, President Trump had made clear he cared “more about the investigations of Biden” than Ukraine’s security.Here are key moments from the first public impeachment hearing.

Come on in. Whoa. I'm so scared. Yeah, we're not scared. Come on in. OK, so it's about 9.52 AM, and we are headed into the glass conference room where about 10 reporters in the Washington Bureau.

There's Peter Baker. Hey, Peter. Mike Schmidt, Andy Carney, Maggie Haverman. Sign in. Tell us your wisdom. We're all gathered. So we're watching C-SPAN, and the room is completely packed. No, no, the link was what Mike wanted.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is the volume up? Oh no, it's muted right now. There's Kent and Taylor. Two witnesses are now at the witness table. Bill Taylor, George Kemp. Can you turn it up a little bit? Alright, here we go. Today, day one of the public hearings in the impeachment inquiry. It's Thursday, November 14th.

So, Mike Schmidt, two days in a row. I guess we're in the middle of a big story. We are. So, today is day one in the public hearings of this impeachment inquiry. How does this begin? 10.06 a.m. Committee will come to order. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, gavels the hearing room to order. He's got the Democrats on the panel to his right. He has the Republicans on the left. And he has two longtime State Department officials sitting in front of him. George Kent, who's in charge of basically the State Department's policy towards Ukraine,

and Bill Taylor, the acting ambassador to Ukraine. With that, I now recognize myself to give an opening statement in the impeachment inquiry into Donald J. Trump, the 45th president of the United States. And Schiff begins to lay out his argument for why he believes that what Donald Trump did in regards to Ukraine is so important that he needs to be impeached. In 2014, Russia invaded the United States' ally, Ukraine, to reverse that nation's embrace of the West and to fulfill Vladimir Putin's desire to rebuild a Russian empire. Schiff says that Donald Trump tried to take advantage of a country that was in a very vulnerable spot.

14,000 Ukrainians died as they battled superior Russian forces. They needed the United States' support and perhaps more importantly, its military aid. Earlier this year, Vladimir Zelensky was elected president of Ukraine on a platform of ending the conflict and tackling corruption. He was a newcomer to politics and immediately sought to establish a relationship with Ukraine's most powerful patron, the United States. Right. And what Schiff seems to be trying to do is to remind the public that the stakes of what

was happening here, in what most people think of as a quid pro quo, was the actual life and death of Ukraine and its people. The questions presented by this impeachment inquiry are whether President Trump sought to exploit that ally's vulnerability and invite Ukraine's interference in our elections, whether President Trump sought to condition official acts, such as a White House meeting or U.S. military assistance, on Ukraine's willingness to assist with two political investigations that would help his re-election campaign. And if President Trump did either, whether such an abuse of his power is compatible with the office of the presidency. And Schiff poses the question, is this such an

egregious thing the president has done that we as a country have to take a move that we've only done twice before in history? The matter is as simple and as terrible as that. Our answer to these questions will affect not only the future of this presidency, but the future of the presidency itself, and what kind of conduct or misconduct the American people may come to expect from their commander-in-chief. Then, the top Republican on the committee, Thanks, gentlemen. Devin Nunes, gives his opening statement.

In a July open hearing of this committee following publication of the Mueller report, the Democrats engaged in a last-ditch effort to convince the American people that President Trump is a Russian agent. It starts with him laying out how the Democrats tried as hard as they could to prove that Donald Trump was a Russian agent. That hearing was the pitiful finale of a three-year-long operation by the Democrats, the corrupt media, and partisan bureaucrats to overturn the results of the 2016 election. They failed at that. On July 25th, here they go again. They turned on a dime and now claim the real malfeasance

is Republicans' dealings with Ukraine. And then... What we will witness today is a televised theatrical performance staged by the Democrats. He turns to the witnesses. Ambassador Taylor and Mr. Kent, I'd like to welcome you here. I'd like to congratulate you for passing the Democrats' star chamber auditions held for the last weeks in the basement of the Capitol.

You have been recruited by the Democrats because of how well you performed in these private secret depositions. It seems you agreed, witting or unwittingly, to participate in a drama. But the main performance, the Russia hoax, has ended. And you've been cast in the low-rent Ukrainian sequel. Right before these witnesses even have a chance to utter a word, the top Republican on the committee is besmirching them and saying, you're here in cahoots with the Democrats and everything you're about to say is therefore poisoned by that reality.

Correct. This spectacle is doing great damage to our country. It's nothing more than an impeachment process in search of a crime. That I yield back. In response, Schiff starts reading the resumes of the witnesses. Ambassador William Taylor has served our country for over half a century. They're the resumes of career diplomats who have served both parties. In 2006, President Bush nominated him as ambassador to Ukraine.

And come from backgrounds that are pretty apolitical. Good morning. My name is George Kent, and I am the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. And then, when George Kent starts to give his opening statement, I have served proudly as a nonpartisan career foreign service officer for more than 27 years under five presidents, three Republican and two Democrat. He sort of echoes that theme.

I represent the third generation of my family to have chosen a career in public service and sworn the oath of office that all U.S. public servants do in defense of our Constitution. Indeed, there has been a George Kent sworn to defend the Constitution continuously for nearly 60 years. Nunes is trying as hard as he can to paint them as part of this Democratic effort. And their resumes are rising up and speaking for themselves. The United States has very clear national interests at stake in Ukraine. Ukraine's success is very much in our national interest. And it set a tone early on that these

two witnesses were going to speak with great authority about not only what happened, but how it fits into the larger story of the United States' foreign policy. Ukraine has been on the front lines, not just of Russia's conventional war in Eastern Europe since 2014 and its broader campaign of malign influence, but of the greater geopolitical challenges now facing the United States. And then it's Bill Taylor's turn. Mr. Chairman, I'm appearing today at the committee's request

to provide my perspective on the events that are the subject of the committee's inquiry. I want to emphasize at the outset that while I am aware that the committee has requested my testimony as part of impeachment proceedings, I am not here to take one side or the other. And as soon as he begins speaking, his commanding nature and booming voice really start to steal the show. Once I arrived in Kiev, I discovered a weird combination of encouraging,

confusing, and ultimately alarming circumstances. He starts to describe how American foreign policy was functioning under Donald Trump. There appeared to be two channels of U.S. policymaking and implementation, one regular and one highly irregular. As the acting ambassador, I had authority over the regular, formal diplomatic processes. There's essentially the American foreign policy on paper, which the State Department and diplomats are trying to carry out. At the same time, however, I encountered an irregular, informal channel of U.S. policymaking with respect to Ukraine.

Unaccountable to Congress. And then there's this other track. I was clearly in the regular channel, but I was also in the irregular one, And then there's this other track. It operated mostly outside of official State Department channels. That has some diplomats who usually wouldn't deal with Ukraine and a bit of Rudy Giuliani mixed in. I began to sense that these two separate decision-making channels, the regular and the irregular, were separate and at odds. For those of us that have followed this closely, we're sort of sitting there saying, well, that was in his testimony. We read that in the transcript that came out last week.

But for everyone else in the country, it's bringing this story to life. It was so important that security assistance was so important for Ukraine, as well as our own national interest. To withhold that assistance for no good reason other than help with the political campaign made no sense. It was counterproductive to all of what we had been trying to do. It was illogical. It could not be explained. It was crazy.

Right. So much of this has been laid out in closed-door testimony and in transcripts from that testimony that has been released to the public. So we know a lot of what Bill Taylor is saying here. So do we actually learn anything new? Taylor comes with two new pieces of information. One of the chief arguments the Trump administration has made is that how could there be a quid pro quo? Because they didn't know the aid was being held up.

The Ukrainians never really understood the money was being withheld, they argue. Correct. No harm, no foul. They didn't know what was going on. Also, on July 20th, I had a phone conversation with Alexander Danilyuk, President Zelensky's national security advisor, who emphasized that President Zelensky did not want to be used as an instrument in a U.S. reelection campaign. But Taylor begins to describe conversations that he had with Ukrainians that give us a sense that this was being felt by them.

They were feeling the pressure when he was asking them for the favor. I got several questions, other officials got several questions as well, from Ukrainians asking about the security assistance. So what I know is the security assistance was very important to the Ukrainians. They had begun to hear from Ambassador Sondland that the security assistance was not going to come until the investigations were pursued. They knew that if they didn't do what Trump wanted, they weren't going to get the thing that they needed. And it makes the whole ploy more substantive and substantial because the argument's been they didn't know, but they did. And Taylor says, here's how I know that. And what's the second thing? The second thing is new evidence that draws Donald Trump deeper into the story.

Last Friday, a member of my staff told me of events that occurred on July 26th. Taylor says, this is not something I saw, but one of my aides, the day after the now famous call between Trump and the Ukrainian president, overhears a phone conversation between Trump and a top American diplomat. The member of my staff could hear President Trump on the phone asking Ambassador Sondland about the investigations. Ambassador Sondland told President Trump the Ukrainians were ready And by investigations, he means the president's desired digging into his political rivals, namely Joe Biden. Correct. And after the call, the aide follows up with the American diplomat and says, what was that all about? the American diplomat and says, what was that all about? Following the call with President Trump,

the member of my staff asked Ambassador Sondland what President Trump thought about Ukraine. Ambassador Sondland responded that President Trump cares more about the investigations of Biden, which Giuliani was pressing for. And the diplomat said, the thing Trump cares more about is the investigations. More than Ukraine and its security. Correct. So here we are, a day after the famous call, learning about a new incident in which the president is reiterating how important these investigations, particularly on the Bidens, are to him. And this is all unfolding, chronologically,

at a moment where the U.S. aid to Ukraine is being withheld, after the president has, as you said, asked for a favor. So this is one more data point showing that the president wants Ukraine to do these politically motivated investigations into his rivals. And it becomes increasingly hard, correct, for anyone to claim that the president's intentions and conduct here are ambiguous. Correct. You're building towards a larger narrative of what Trump was up to and what he really

wanted. Mr. Chairman, I recognize that this is rather a lengthy recitation of the events of the past few months, told from my vantage point in Kyiv. But I also recognize the importance of the matters your committee is investigating. And I hope that this chronology will provide some framework for your questions. So at this point, Mike, it feels like the Democrats are pulling off a pretty successful day one of their public hearing from their perspective. pulling off a pretty successful day one of their public hearing from their perspective.

They are demonstrating that Ukrainian lives were at stake when this money was being withheld in this quid pro quo scheme. They established that the Ukrainians felt the pressure of this arrangement, that it was not abstract to them. And finally, they are putting the president directly at the center of this all. Correct. They're adding new details that bolster their story. And for the first day of testimony, that's a pretty good accomplishment. But then the Republicans have a chance to ask questions, and they have a pretty effective strategy of their own. We'll be right back. So, Mike, once Republicans get to ask these two witnesses questions, what does their strategy actually look like?

One by one, the Republican representatives try and water down the Democrats' argument. They take on the issue of whether the Ukrainians truly felt pressure to commit to these investigations. Note this important fact. The security assistance was provided to Ukraine without the Ukrainians having done any of the things they were supposedly being blackmailed to do.

And when the Ukrainians were asked, did you feel pressure from Donald Trump to do this? Ukrainians said no. The Ukrainian president stood in front of the world press and repeatedly, consistently, over and over again, interview after interview, said he had no knowledge of military aid being withheld, meaning no quid pro quo, no pressure, no demands, no threats, no blackmail, nothing corrupt. So this is a clear strategy of trying to take the air out of what the Democrats are arguing and saying instead, so there's always talk for quid pro quo, but actually the military aid gets to the Ukrainians. so that takes away one half of it. And those investigations that were sought, they never happened, which they argue

takes away the other half of it. It's the argument of quid pro so? So what? I mean, can both those things be true, though, that you can ask for something and not get it and it still be wrong? Well, the Democrats, when they try and come back and clean this up, say, is attempted murder a crime? Is attempted robbery a crime? Even if Donald Trump didn't succeed in this, he tried. And that matters. But how do the Republicans on this panel grapple with the new revelations

that appear pretty damning from Bill Taylor? Ambassador Taylor, the reason why the Sixth Amendment doesn't allow hearsay is because it's unreliable. It's unreliable because frequently it's untruthful. They say it's hearsay. Ambassador, you testified about a number of things that you heard. Isn't it possible that the things that you heard were not true? That some of the beliefs and understandings that you had are not accurate? That in fact you're mistaken about some of the things that you testified today on a factual basis? Was that Stafford that Taylor was talking about?

Was that Stafford talking to the president? No, that Stafford was not. The Stafford just overheard that conversation. And by the way, that staffer then conveys it to you, Bill Taylor, so it's essentially third-hand. Correct. And the Republicans asked Kenton Taylor. You weren't on the call, were you? The president, you didn't listen on President Trump's

call and President Linsky's call? I did not. Did you ever talk to the president about the quid pro quo? No. You've never talked with Chief of Staff Mulvaney? I never did. Did you ever talk to the president? You never met the president? That's correct. No. This is what I can't believe, and you're their star witness. You're their first witness. So where are these firsthand accounts? If we're going to impeach the president and remove him from office, where is the direct evidence tying him to this? Why is it important that those two diplomats did or didn't have a conversation with the president?

As best I can tell, all the testimony so far has been from career diplomats who are essentially in the middle of the bureaucracy and experienced what they regarded as this improper scheme in the places where they were, not as people who work directly with the president. Correct. Much of the testimony so far has been from this sort of second layer of folks who were not directly talking to the president. And I think what the Republicans are trying to say is that if we are going to take this extreme measure of removing a president for the firstand-such to so-and-so, and therefore we got impeached the president. That's what we're going to hear. So by that argument, Republicans seem to be making the case that until they hear directly from a witness who heard something directly from the president, they are not going to be persuaded.

Correct. And it's a little disingenuous because the White House is blocking those people closest to the president from talking to Congress. So in that sense, it's kind of a convenient strategy. Correct. But is it effective? It starts to build room for Senate Republicans to say,

we do not have enough evidence directly tying Trump to this. And it begins to open up that gap and water down the Democrats' argument that this is something Trump should be removed for. It feels like this line of questioning from the Republicans, especially the hearsay argument, reveals a pretty complicated reality for the Democrats who are running these hearings, which is it's easy to poke holes in the case for impeachment, whereas it's relatively difficult to make a highly compelling case to the whole country for impeachment, as you said, especially when the White House is blocking the witnesses with the most direct access to the president. Without those witnesses, the Democrats are sort of fighting with one hand tied behind their back. They do not have access to those closest to Trump.

And to take such a severe move, Republicans are going to say, where are those accounts? Where is that evidence? And that's where the Democrats will struggle. Over the weeks to come, or over the days to come, rather, we will hear from other dedicated public servants. So, Mike, how does this hearing come to an end? After six hours of back and forth between the Republicans and the Democrats and the witnesses,

Schiff sort of bookends the hearing and tries again to remind people of what was at stake here. At the end of the day, we're going to have to decide based on the evidence that you and others provide whether we're prepared to accept a situation where the president can condition military aid, diplomatic meetings, or any other performance of an official act in order to get help in their re-election. And why this was so important. With that, this concludes this portion of the hearing. And he gavels it to a close.

When we resume shortly, we'll take up Mr. Conaway's motion. Mike, this hearing was designed very much for the public, and it was the first time that the public got a chance to meet these career Foreign Service officers who believe that the president did something wrong here. So what do you think that that public will take away from this day? They will have seen two witnesses in Kent and Taylor who saw things that they thought were real problems. They had been in government a long time, and this thing came along and could be real trouble in terms of life and death. Up until this point, we had heard about these concerns. We had read about them. But today, in Bill Taylor's voice, you felt them, and that was different. But on the other hand, as the Republicans would point out,

the thing they most feared, what Bill Taylor was so scared of, didn't happen. It didn't happen, and that dilutes the importance of it. Which suddenly creates an intriguing question that I suppose may hang over the rest of all these hearings. Are the president's motivations, are his proven conduct, no matter what the outcome, no matter if the thing he plotted and schemed happened or didn't happen, is the fact that he wanted it to happen and he put it in motion, is that enough to be impeached? It's a reoccurring theme in the Trump story. The president tries to do something,

but ultimately is not effective enough to actually get it done. So should we penalize him for those attempts? Is the attempt and everything that goes into it and everything that gets set in motion reach that bar for Congress to remove the president? And that's where the debate may be in the coming weeks for the rest of these hearings.

Thank you, Mike. Thanks for having me. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States and the president of the Republic of Turkey. On Wednesday, President Trump hosted Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, at the White House, despite the fact that Turkey has invaded Syria in a widely condemned operation that killed Kurdish allies of the U.S. We've assured each other that Turkey will continue to uphold what it's supposed to uphold. I'm a big fan of the president, to tell you that. During a joint news conference with Erdogan, Trump declined to criticize Erdogan for the operation,

instead praising him for reaching a ceasefire in Syria. And I know that the ceasefire, while complicated, is moving forward and moving forward at a very rapid clip. And the Times reports that the former governor of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick, has told senior Democrats

that he will enter the presidential race, adding even more volatility to an already unusually fluid Democratic primary. Patrick's decision comes just three months before the Iowa caucuses, and days after the former mayor of New York City, Mike Bloomberg, took steps of his own to enter the Democratic primary. Democratic primer. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro.

See you tomorrow.