House releases transcript of testimony by top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine

Taylor stunned lawmakers in his testimony on October 22, when he told them that U.S. aid to Ukraine had explicitly been tied to the country’s willingness to investigate Democrats, and he provided new details about the events at the center of the impeachment inquiry.

Taylor is one of three officials set to testify publicly in the first open hearings before the House Intelligence Committee next week.

Read the full text of Taylor’s testimony here

“Irregular channel” 

In his testimony, Taylor described a concerted effort to use U.S. leverage to get Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to commit to opening investigations into debunked allegations of Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, as well as the gas company Burisma, which had hired former Vice President Joe Biden’s son in 2014. Taylor said these efforts came via an “irregular, informal channel of U.S. policy-making” consisting of Rudy Giuliani, then-special envoy Kurt Volker, Energy Secretary Rick Perry and U.S. Ambassador to the E.U. Gordon Sondland.

He said he became aware of the parallel policy-making paths when working to schedule a phone call with Zelensky in late June. Taylor said Sondland “cut out” other officials who would normally participate in the call and “requested that the call not be transcribed.”

“This suggested to me that there were the two channels,” Taylor said under questioning. “This suggested to me that the normal channel, where you would have staff on the phone call, was being cut out, and the other channel, of people who were working, again, toward a goal which I supported, which was having a meeting to further U.S.-Ukrainian relations, I supported, but that irregular channel didn’t have a respect for or an interest in having the normal staff participate in this call with the head of state.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.