The Impeachment Report Read online

  While ambassadors serve at the pleasure of the president, the manner and circumstances of Ambassador Yovanovitch’s removal were unusual and raise questions of motive.109

  Ambassador Yovanovitch queried “why it was necessary to smear my reputation falsely.”110 She found it difficult to comprehend how individuals “who apparently felt stymied by our efforts to promote stated U.S. policy against corruption” were “able to successfully conduct a campaign of disinformation against a sitting ambassador using unofficial back channels.” 111

  Dr. Hill similarly testified that while the President has the authority to remove an ambassador, she was concerned “about the circumstances in which [Ambassador Yovanovitch’s] reputation had been maligned, repeatedly, on television and in all kinds of exchanges.” Dr. Hill “felt that that was completely unnecessary.”112

  Recall of Yovanovitch Threatened U.S.-Ukraine Policy

  The smear campaign questioning Ambassador Yovanovitch’s loyalty undermined U.S. diplomatic efforts in Ukraine, a key U.S. partner and a bulwark against Russia’s expansion into Europe. As Ambassador Yovanovitch explained:

  Ukrainians were wondering whether I was going to be leaving, whether we really represented the President, U.S. policy, et cetera. And so I think it was—you know, it really kind of cut the ground out from underneath us.113

  Summarizing the cumulative impact of the attacks, she emphasized: “If our chief representative is kneecapped it limits our effectiveness to safeguard the vital national security interests of the United States.”114

  President Trump’s recall of Ambassador Yovanovitch left the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine without an ambassador at a time of electoral change in Ukraine and when the Embassy was also without a deputy chief of mission. Mr. Kent explained:

  During the late spring and summer of 2019, I became alarmed as those efforts bore fruit. They led to the outer [ouster] of Ambassador Yovanovitch and hampered U.S. efforts to establish rapport with the new Zelensky administration in Ukraine.115

  …

  One of the unfortunate elements of the timing was that we were also undergoing a transition in my old job as deputy chief of mission. The person who replaced me had already been moved early to be our DCM and Charge in Sweden, and so we had a temporary acting deputy chief of mission. So that left the embassy not only without—the early withdrawal of Ambassador Yovanovitch left us not only without an Ambassador but without somebody who had been selected to be deputy chief of mission.116

  It was not until late May that Secretary Pompeo asked Ambassador Bill Taylor, who had previously served as Ambassador to Ukraine, to return to Kyiv as Chargé d’Affaires to lead the embassy while it awaited a confirmed Ambassador. Ambassador Taylor did not arrive in Kyiv until June 17, more than a month after Ambassador Yovanovitch officially left Kyiv.117 His mission to carry out U.S. objectives there would prove challenging in the face of ongoing efforts by Mr. Giuliani and others—at the direction of the President—to secure investigations demanded by the President to help his reelection.

  2. The President Put Giuliani and the Three Amigos in Charge of Ukraine Issues

  After President Trump recalled Ambassador Yovanovitch, his personal agent, Rudy Giuliani, intensified the President’s campaign to pressure Ukraine’s newly-elected president to interfere in the 2020 U.S. election. President Trump directed his own political appointees to coordinate with Mr. Giuliani on Ukraine, while National Security Council officials expressed alarm over the efforts to pursue a “domestic political errand” for the political benefit of the President. Officials at the highest levels of the White House and Trump Administration were aware of the President’s scheme.

  Overview

  On April 21, 2019, the day that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was elected as president of Ukraine, President Trump called to congratulate him. After a positive call—in which Mr. Zelensky complimented President Trump and requested that President Trump attend his inauguration—President Trump instructed Vice President Mike Pence to lead the U.S. delegation to the inauguration. However, on May 13—before the inauguration date was even set—President Trump instructed Vice President Pence not to attend.

  Rudy Giuliani also announced a plan to visit Ukraine in mid-May 2019—not on official U.S. government business, but instead to pursue on behalf of his client, President Trump, the debunked conspiracy theories about alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election and discredited claims about the Bidens. After public scrutiny in response to his announced visit, Mr. Giuliani cancelled his trip and alleged that President-elect Zelensky was surrounded by “enemies of the President.”

  Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, and Ambassador Kurt Volker, Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations, ultimately led the U.S. delegation to President Zelensky’s inauguration. Upon returning to Washington, D.C., the three U.S. officials—who dubbed themselves the “Three Amigos”—debriefed the President in the Oval Office and encouraged him to engage with President Zelensky. Instead of accepting their advice, President Trump complained that Ukraine is “a terrible place, all corrupt, terrible people,” and asserted that Ukraine “tried to take me down in 2016.” The President instructed the “Three Amigos” to “talk to Rudy” and coordinate with him on Ukraine matters. They followed the President’s orders.

  Dr. Fiona Hill, Deputy Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Europe and Russian Affairs at the National Security Council, would later observe that Ambassador Sondland “was being involved in a domestic political errand, and we [the NSC staff] were being involved in national security foreign policy, and those two things had just diverged.”

  A Political Newcomer Won Ukraine’s Presidential Election on an Anti-Corruption Platform

  On April 21, popular comedian and television actor, Volodymyr Zelensky, won a landslide victory in Ukraine’s presidential election, earning the support of 73 percent of voters and unseating the incumbent Petro Poroshenko. Mr. Zelensky, who had no prior political experience, told voters a week before his victory: “I’m not a politician. I’m just a simple person who came to break the system.”118 Five years earlier, in late 2013, Ukrainians had gathered in Kyiv and rallied against the corrupt government of former President Viktor Yanukovych, eventually forcing him to flee to the safety of Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Mr. Zelensky’s victory in April 2019 reaffirmed the Ukrainian people’s strong desire to overcome an entrenched system of corruption and pursue closer partnership with the West.119

  Following the election results, at 4:29 p.m. Eastern Time, President Trump was connected by telephone to President-elect Zelensky and congratulated him “on a job well done…a fantastic election.” He declared, “I have no doubt you will be a fantastic president.”120

  According to a call record released publicly by the White House, President Trump did not openly express doubts about the newly-elected leader.121 And contrary to a public readout of the call originally issued by the White House, President Trump did not mention corruption in Ukraine, despite the NSC staff preparing talking points on that topic.122 Indeed, “corruption” was not mentioned once during the April 21 conversation, according to the official call record.123

  In the call, President-elect Zelensky lauded President Trump as “a great example” and invited him to visit Ukraine for his upcoming inauguration—a gesture that President Trump called “very nice.”124 President Trump told Mr. Zelensky:

  I’ll look into that, and well—give us the date and, at a very minimum, we’ll have a great representative. Or more than one from the United States will be with you on that great day. So, we will have somebody, at a minimum, at a very, very high level, and they will be with you.125

  Mr. Zelensky persisted. “Words cannot describe our country,” he went on, “so it would be best for you to see it yourself. So, if you can come, that would be great. So again, I invite you to come.”1
26 President Trump responded, “Well, I agree with you about your country and I look forward to it.”127 In a nod to his past experience working with Ukraine as a businessman, President Trump added, “When I owned Miss Universe…Ukraine was always very well represented.”128

  President Trump then invited Mr. Zelensky to the White House to meet, saying: “When you’re settled in and ready, I’d like to invite you to the White House. We’ll have a lot of things to talk about, but we’re with you all the way.” Mr. Zelensky promptly accepted the President’s invitation, adding that the “whole team and I are looking forward to that visit.”129

  Mr. Zelensky then reiterated his interest in President Trump attending his inauguration, saying, “it will be absolutely fantastic if you could come and be with us.” President Trump promised to let the Ukrainian leader know “very soon” and added that he would see Mr. Zelensky “very soon, regardless.”130

  Shortly after the April 21 call, Jennifer Williams, Special Advisor to the Vice President for Europe and Russia, learned that President Trump asked Vice President Pence to attend Mr. Zelensky’s inauguration.131 Ms. Williams testified that in a separate phone call between Vice President Pence and President-elect Zelensky two days later, “the Vice President accepted that invitation from President Zelensky, and looked forward to being able to attend…if the dates worked out.”132 Ms. Williams and her colleagues began planning for the Vice President’s trip to Kyiv.133

  Rudy Giuliani and his Associates Coordinated Efforts to Secure and Promote the Investigations with Ukrainian President Zelensky

  As previously explained in Chapter 1, Mr. Giuliani, acting on behalf of President Trump, had for months engaged corrupt current and former Ukrainian officials, including Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko. The April election of Mr. Zelensky, however, raised the possibility that Mr. Lutsenko might lose his job as Prosecutor General once Mr. Zelensky took power.

  In the immediate aftermath of President-elect Zelensky’s election, Mr. Giuliani continued publicly to project confidence that Ukraine would deliver on investigations related to the Bidens. On April 24—before Ambassador Yovanovitch received calls abruptly summoning her back to Washington—Mr. Giuliani stated in an interview on Fox and Friends that viewers should,

  [K]eep your eye on Ukraine…I think you’d get some interesting information about Joe Biden from Ukraine. About his son, Hunter Biden. About a company he was on the board of for years, which may be one of the most crooked companies in Ukraine.134

  Behind the scenes, however, Mr. Giuliani was taking steps to engage the new Ukrainian leader and his aides.

  The day before, on April 23, the same day that Vice President Pence confirmed his plans to attend President-elect Zelensky’s inauguration, Mr. Giuliani dispatched his own delegation—consisting of Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman—to meet with Ihor Kolomoisky, a wealthy Ukrainian with ties to President-elect Zelensky. Instead of going to Kyiv, they booked tickets to Israel, where they met with Mr. Kolomoisky.135 Mr. Kolomoisky owned Ukraine’s largest bank until 2016, when Ukrainian authorities nationalized the failing financial institution. Although he denied allegations of committing any crimes, Mr. Kolomoisky subsequently left Ukraine for Israel, where he remained until President Zelensky assumed power.136

  Mr. Kolomoisky confirmed to The New York Times that he met with Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman in late April 2019. He claimed they sought his assistance in facilitating a meeting between Mr. Giuliani and President-elect Zelensky, and he told them, “you’ve ended up in the wrong place,” and declined to arrange the requested meeting.137

  Mr. Giuliani was not deterred.

  During the time surrounding Ambassador Yovanovitch’s recall, Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Parnas connected over a flurry of calls around a planned trip to Ukraine by Mr. Giuliani, which he would eventually cancel after growing public scrutiny. As previously described in Chapter 1, call records obtained by the Committees show a series of contacts on April 23 and 24 between Mr. Giuliani, the White House, Mr. Parnas, and John Solomon, among others.138

  On April 25, 2019, former Vice President Biden publicly announced his campaign for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States and launched his effort to unseat President Trump in the 2020 election.139

  That evening, Mr. Solomon published a new opinion piece in The Hill entitled, “How the Obama White House Engaged Ukraine to Give Russia Collusion Narrative an Early Boost.” Like Mr. Solomon’s previous work, this April 25 piece repeated unsubstantiated conspiracy theories about alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. 140

  Meanwhile, in Kyiv, David Holmes, Counselor for Political Affairs at U.S. Embassy Kyiv, learned on April 25 that Mr. Giuliani had reached out to Mr. Zelensky’s campaign chair, Ivan Bakanov, seeking a channel to the newly-elected leader. Mr. Bakanov told Mr. Holmes “that he had been contacted by, quote, someone named Giuliani, who said he was an advisor to the Vice President, unquote.”141 Mr. Holmes clarified that Mr. Bakanov was “speaking in Russian” and that he did not “know what he [Bakanov] meant” by his reference to the Vice President, “but that’s what he [Bakanov] said.”142 Regardless of Mr. Bakanov’s apparent confusion as to who Mr. Giuliani represented, Mr. Holmes explained that by this point in time, Ukrainian officials seemed to think that Mr. Giuliani “was a significant person in terms of managing their relationship with the United States.”143

  At 7:14 p.m. Eastern Time on April 25, Mr. Giuliani once again received a call from an unknown “-1” number, which lasted four minutes and 40 seconds.144 Minutes later, Mr. Giuliani held a brief 36 second call with Sean Hannity, a Fox News opinion host. 145

  On the night of April 25, President Trump called into Mr. Hannity’s prime time Fox News show. In response to a question about Mr. Solomon’s recent publication, President Trump said:

  It sounds like big stuff. It sounds very interesting with Ukraine. I just spoke to the new president a little while ago, two days ago, and congratulated him on an incredible race. Incredible run. A big surprise victory. That’s 75 percent of the vote. But that sounds like big, big stuff. I’m not surprised.146

  As Mr. Holmes later learned on July 26 from Ambassador Sondland, President Trump did not care about Ukraine, he cared about this “big stuff”—such as the investigation into Vice President Biden.147

  In the same Fox News interview, Mr. Hannity asked President Trump whether America needed to see the purported evidence possessed by the unnamed Ukrainians noted in Mr. Solomon’s piece. The President replied, invoking Attorney General William P. Barr:

  Well, I think we do. And, frankly, we have a great new attorney general who has done an unbelievable job in a very short period of time. And he is very smart and tough and I would certainly defer to him. I would imagine he would want to see this. People have been saying this whole—the concept of Ukraine, they have been talking about it actually for a long time. You know that, and I would certainly defer to the attorney general. And we’ll see what he says about it. He calls them straight. That’s one thing I can tell you.148

  Ukraine’s current Prosecutor General Ruslan Ryaboshapka, who assumed his new position in late August 2019, told The Financial Times in late November 2019 that Attorney General Barr had made no contact regarding a potential investigation into allegations of wrongdoing by former Vice President Biden.149 In an apparent reference to President Trump’s demand for Ukrainian interference in U.S. elections, Mr. Ryaboshapka stated: “It’s critically important for the west not to pull us into some conflicts between their ruling elites, but to continue to support so that we can cross the point of no return.”150

  President Trump Promoted False Information About Former Vice President Joe Biden

  In early May, Mr. Giuliani continued his outreach to President-elect Zelensky and promoted the need for Ukrainian investigations into former Vice President Biden that served President Trump’s political needs.

>   On May 2, at 6:21 a.m. Eastern Time, President Trump retweeted a link to an article in The New York Times, which assessed that Mr. Giuliani’s efforts underscored “the Trump campaign’s concern about the electoral threat from the former vice president’s presidential campaign” and noted that “Mr. Giuliani’s involvement raises questions about whether Mr. Trump is endorsing an effort to push a foreign government to proceed with a case that could hurt a political opponent at home.”151

  Later that evening, in an interview with Fox News at the White House, President Trump referenced the false allegations about the firing of a corrupt former Ukrainian prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, that Mr. Giuliani had been promoting. He was asked, “Should the former vice president explain himself on his feeling in Ukraine and whether there was a conflict…with his son’s business interests?”152 President Trump replied:

  I’m hearing it’s a major scandal, major problem. Very bad things happened, and we’ll see what that is. They even have him on tape, talking about it. They have Joe Biden on tape talking about the prosecutor. And I’ve seen that tape. A lot of people are talking about that tape, but that’s up to them. They have to solve that problem.153

  “The tape” President Trump referenced in his interview was a publicly available video of former Vice President Biden speaking in January 2018 at an event hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), a nonpartisan think-tank focused on foreign policy matters. During an interview with the CFR president, Vice President Biden detailed how the United States—consistent with the policy of its European allies and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)—withheld $1 billion in loan guarantees until the Ukrainian government acceded to uniform American and international demands to fire the corrupt prosecutor.154

  By late 2015, Ukrainians were agitating for Mr. Shokin’s removal, and in March 2016, Ukraine’s parliament voted to dismiss the prosecutor general.155 Multiple witnesses testified that Mr. Shokin’s dismissal in 2016 made it more—not less—likely that Ukrainian authorities might investigate any allegations or wrongdoing at Burisma or other allegedly corrupt companies.156 Nonetheless, President Trump and his supporters sought to perpetuate the false narrative that Mr. Shokin should not have been removed from office and that Vice President Biden had acted corruptly in carrying out U.S. policy.