Ambassador Kurt Volker's Testimony Re Ukraine Hoax

Yesterday's testimony by US Ambassador to Ukraine Kurt Volker is important for explaining what was going on in President Trump's telephone conversation with Ukraine President Zelenskyy. This is particularly so regarding the role of Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, which has been a focus of the false Ukraine Hoax narrative. By any fair reading, the testimony utterly destroys the false narrative put out by the CIA and House Dems, led by Adam Schiff.

You'll recall that at the time the whole Ukraine Hoax came up, and after reading the call transcript, I pointed out that it was Zelenskyy who was adamant about wanting to speak with Giuliani, whereas Trump repeatedly introduced AG Bill Barr's name. Volker explains in his testimony that he, too, attempted to explain the distinction between the president's personal attorney and the Attorney General, but that Zelenskyy insisted that he needed to speak with Giuliani.

Volker's testimony provides the reason for Zelenskyy's strong desire to speak with Giuliani--it arose from Volker's own representations to Zelenskyy. Volker relates that he believed, as far back as May, that Trump was receiving an unduly negative perception about Ukraine from Giuliani--and he communicated this concern to Zelenskyy. Volker admits that, in the event, his impression was mistaken. Nevertheless, as a result of hearing Volker's apprehensions, Zelenskyy not unnaturally concluded that it was important for him to speak directly with Giuliani in order to convince Giuliani, and through him Trump, that Ukraine was now on a new path and was serious about rooting out corruption.

I don't have any reason to disbelieve that, but I believe another factor was probably involved as well. Zelenskyy is a product of a deeply corrupt culture--not merely in independent Ukraine but also reaching back to Ukraine's past as a major component of the USSR. In any corrupt system personal connections are paramount. I suspect that Zelenskyy believed that Giuliani's views would simply carry more weight with Trump than those of Barr. That betrays a misunderstanding of the American system of governance--as revealed by Trump's repeated attempts to introduce Barr's name into the conversation--but an entirely understandable one from Zelenskyy's standpoint.

The other important point that emerges from Volker's testimony is that he never informed Ukrainian officials that a hold on US aid was being discussed. The reason he didn't mention this to Ukraine officials was that he believed strongly that such a hold wouldn't be adopted, so there was no point in even introducing the topic in his discussions with the Ukrainian side. So, there was no pressure--Trump didn't mention the possibility of withholding aid and Zelenskyy had not awareness of it in the first place.


With that intro, here are the relevant portions (edited) of Volker's testimony--gleaned from Sean Davis' summary at The Federalist. A few of Davis' interpolations are also included. The full testimony is here.

“[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. 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. 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.”

“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.” 

“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. 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.”

“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. I therefore faced a choice: do nothing, and allow this situation to fester; or try to fix it.” 

“I tried to fix it.” 

“To my surprise, Mr. Giuliani had already come to the conclusion on his own that Mr. Lutsenko was not credible and acting in a self-serving capacity. He mentioned both the accusations about Vice President Biden and about interference in the 2016 election, and stressed that all he wanted to see was for Ukraine to investigate what happened in the past and apply its own laws.” 

While Volker said he did not believe any of the accusations of corruption levied against Biden, he felt that allegations of Ukrainian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections were “plausible.” Contrary to Democratic assertions that Trump’s diplomatic team was actively demanding that Ukraine interfere in the 2020 U.S. presidential campaign, Volker said his team did the opposite.

“The point about Ukraine avoiding anything that could play into U.S. elections in 2020 is a message that I know our Chargé in Ukraine, Amb. Bill Taylor, reinforced in other meetings.”  

The diplomat also said he didn’t even know the Biden family had been referenced at all in Trump’s July 25 phone call with Zelensky. 

“I was not on the July 25 phone call,” Volker said. “I received a general readout via our Chargé and my own State Department staffer, as well as from Mr. Yermak.” 

“All said it was a good, congratulatory call, that they discussed the importance of fighting corruption and promoting reform in Ukraine, and that President Trump reiterated his invitation to President Zelensky to visit the White House,” he testified. “I was not made aware of any reference to Vice President Biden or his son, which I only learned about when the transcript of the call was released on September 25, 2019.”