Bill Taylor: Staff Was Told Trump Wanted Biden Probe

The New York Times reports:



William B. Taylor Jr., the top United States diplomat in Ukraine, offered dramatic new testimony Wednesday about how President Trump’s preoccupation with investigating former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was affecting his actions toward Ukraine.

Mr. Taylor said that a member of his staff overheard a telephone conversation in which the president mentioned “the investigations” to Gordon D. Sondland, the United States ambassador to the European Union. After the call, the aide asked Mr. Sondland what the president thought of Ukraine. The ambassador “responded that President Trump cares more about the investigations of Biden, which Giuliani was pressing for.”

He was referring to Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, who Mr. Taylor described as the leader of a “highly irregular” policymaking channel on Ukraine that ran counter to goals of longstanding American policy. The episode was not included in Mr. Taylor’s interview with impeachment investigators last month, because, he said, he was not aware of it at the time.