Ex-U.S. Ambassador Taylor Testifies in Trump Probe

Former U.S. Ambassador William Taylor, who’s emerging as an unlikely central player in the events at the heart of the impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump, arrived on Capitol Hill on Tuesday to testify.

The retired career civil servant’s testimony will be among the most anticipated in the string of diplomats and foreign policy officials who are being interviewed by House investigators in the impeachment probe.

Taylor was tapped to run the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine after the administration abruptly ousted the ambassador. He was then drawn into a Trump administration effort to leverage U.S. military aid for Ukraine.

And then he apparently grew alarmed.

“I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign,” he wrote in excerpts of text messages released by impeachment investigators in Congress.

The former Army officer testified in an inquiry trying to determine if Trump committed impeachable offenses by pressing the president of Ukraine to pursue information that could help his campaign as Trump withheld military aid to the Eastern European country.

Taylor had been serving as executive vice president at the U.S. Institute of Peace, a nonpartisan think tank founded by Congress, when he was appointed to run the embassy in Kiev after Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was removed before the end of her term following a campaign against her led by Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.

He was chosen for the post because he was among only a handful of former officials with experience in Ukraine who would be perceived as neutral by local officials and wouldn’t raise objections at the White House, according to a colleague.

“It was a very short list, but Bill was at the top of it,” said the colleague, who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. “We were very grateful he agreed to do it.”

Taylor, who had served as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from 2006 to 2009, was welcomed back to Kiev as a steady hand.

“He’s the epitome of a seasoned statesman,” said John Shmorhun, an American who heads the agricultural company AgroGeneration.

He said Taylor’s experience has shown in his handling of the Trump administration’s efforts to pressure Ukraine. “He seems to know the difference between right and wrong,” Shmorhun said.

“We need guys like Bill Taylor working in Ukraine, helping to deal with the politics in Ukraine, having a strong arm.”