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.”
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