In the Ukraine affair, another US diplomat has confirmed a direct intervention by Donald Trump. Accordingly, the intervention of the US president had the goal to enforce legal action in Kiev against the democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
US news channel CNN released statements by diplomat David Holmes at US House hearings on Saturday night. Holmes said that he heard a telephone conversation with Trump's US Ambassador Gordon Sondland at a Kiev restaurant on July 26.
Holmes said he recognized Trump's "very loud" voice on the phone. Trump had asked Sondland if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Selenskyj would initiate investigations against the Bidens as he wished. Sondland has answered that Selenskyj "will do everything you ask of him".
Trump's interest applies to the "big things"
The significance of Holmes' statement is that the phone call in question is dated 26 July. It had long been assumed that only a direct telephone conversation between Trump and Selenskyj on July 25 could be used in the question whether Trump was guilty of abuse of office in dealing with Selenskyj.
At the hearings in the House of Representatives in the coming weeks to clarify whether Trump a planned military aid to Ukraine in the amount of 391 million dollars (about 352 million euros) withheld and used as a lever to obtain legal action in Kiev against the bid.
Holmes asked Sondland, according to a report in the New York Times following the July 26 phone call, whether Trump was not interested in Ukraine at all. Sondland had answered that Trump was only interested in the "big things", especially those that could be of personal use to him.
In the public hearings in front of the House of Representatives, three high-ranking US diplomats said last week:
- William Taylor said in his statement that one of his co-workers overheard a phone conversation between Trump and Sondland about "the investigation." When the employee then asked Sondland what Trump thinks of Ukraine, Sondland is said to have said, "Trump is more interested in the investigation into Biden".
- In particular, George Kent allegedly accused Trump's personal lawyer Rudolph Giuliani of conducting a "campaign of lies" against the US ambassador to Kiev, Kent said. Marie Yovanovitch was early withdrawn from her post in May.
- Marie Yovanovitch , ex-US ambassador to Ukraine, described the methods by which Trump and his co-workers pursued their goals, how they distorted realities, and how they tried to slander anyone who gets in their way, to intimidate or even threaten. (Read a detailed analysis of her performance on Friday before the committee here: The Perfect Witness)