What William Taylor told Congress about Ukraine aid
A retrospective on the testimony given by the acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine during the impeachment inquiry.
What did the acting U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine tell Congress about military aid for Kyiv? On 22 October 2019, William B. Taylor Jr. testified in the impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump, and his account put Ukraine at the centre of Washington's political dispute.
Taylor told Congress he had been informed that President Donald Trump would withhold military aid to Ukraine until the country publicly declared that investigations would be launched. According to that account, the aim was to help Trump's reelection chances.
The investigations in question concerned Burisma Holdings, a company that had hired Hunter Biden, son of former Vice President Joe Biden, and Ukraine's alleged involvement in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
The wider scandal
The testimony formed part of what became known as the 2019 Trump–Ukraine scandal. As later described, the affair arose from attempts to press Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, a rival for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. It involved a congressionally mandated $400 million military aid package, which Trump blocked, and contacts between the White House and the Ukrainian government. These culminated in a telephone call between Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy on 25 July 2019.
Taylor's appearance on 22 October 2019 was a significant moment in the inquiry, because it set out before Congress the link he had been told of between the withheld aid and public declarations by Ukraine.
