William Taylor, the US executive ambassador to Ukraine, has further charged Donald Trump with a statement in the wake of the Ukraine affair. As the Washington Post reports, citing a statement transcript from the non-public hearing, Taylor said he assumed that the US president was seeking a barter.
There is a suspicion in the room that Trump may have withheld US aid to Ukraine in order to get incriminating evidence from Kiev about the possible democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. His son Hunter Biden had worked as a consultant for the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. (Read more about the current state of the Ukrainian economy here.)
Trump could have abused his office - three investigating parliamentary committees are currently hearing witnesses in the case, which could end up impeachment for Trump.
Meeting with Selensky apparently also dependent on investigation
Taylor said that he believed that Trump had not only withheld military aid, but also made a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Selensky dependent on Ukraine initiating investigations into Burisma's activities.
Part of this accusation, Trump's chief of staff Mulvaney had admitted in front of cameras last round, shortly after he denied his own statement.
According to Taylor, the US Ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland, said the call for compensation was communicated with a senior Ukrainian government official. Sondland also told him, Taylor, that in a conversation.
So far, Sondland had only testified in the investigation that Trump had instructed him to support his private lawyer Rudy Giuliani in the Ukraine work.
Trump had previously expressed confidence that he would emerge victorious from a possible impeachment trial.
So some day, if a Democrat becomes President and the Republicans win the House, even by a tiny margin, they can not impeach the President, without due process or any legal rights. All Republicans must remember what they are witnessing here - a lynching. But we want WIN!
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 22, 2019"All Republicans need to remember what they are witnessing here - a lynching," Trump tweeted. Many MPs then sharply criticized Trump's choice of words. The term "lynching" in the US has historically been associated with brutal and racially motivated killings of thousands of blacks in the southern states.