The Federalist managed to get their hands on Volker’s testimony from yesterday and says it blows the Democrat impeachment narrative out of the water:
We obtained a copy of Kurt Volker's testimony before the House yesterday. It directly contradicts the Democrat impeachment narrative and completely blows it out of the water. You can read his full testimony here. https://t.co/4dTmZhMjuk
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) October 4, 2019
Here’s the write-up by the Federalist:
FEDERALIST – Congressional testimony from the former top American envoy to Ukraine directly contradicts the impeachment narrative offered by congressional Democrats and their media allies. Ambassador Kurt Volker, who served for two years as the top U.S. diplomatic envoy to Ukraine, testified on Thursday that he was never aware of and never took part in any effort to push the Ukrainian government to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden or his son Hunter. He also stressed that the interactions between Giuliani and Ukrainian officials were facilitated not to find dirt on Biden, but to assuage concerns that the incoming Ukrainian government would not be able to get a handle on corruption within the country.
“As you will see from the extensive text messages I am providing, which convey a sense of real-time dialogue with several different actors, Vice President Biden was never a topic of discussion” during negotiations with Ukraine, Volker testified. Cherry-picked snippets of those texts were released by the office of Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., late Thursday evening.
Rudy Giuliani’s involvement…
Volker told Congress that an advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked Volker to connect the advisor to Rudy Giuliani, a personal attorney for President Donald Trump.
“[I]n May of this year, I became concerned that a negative narrative about Ukraine, fueled by assertions made by Ukraine’s departing Prosecutor General, was reaching the President of the United States, and impeding our ability to support the new Ukrainian government as robustly as I believed we should,” Volker said. “After sharing my concerns with the Ukrainian leadership, an advisor to President Zelensky asked me to connect him to the President’s personal lawyer, Mayor Rudy Giuliani.”
“I did so solely because I understood that the new Ukrainian leadership wanted to convince those, like Mayor Giuliani, who believed such a negative narrative about Ukraine, that times have changed and that, under President Zelensky, Ukraine is worthy of U.S. support,” Volker said. “I also made clear to the Ukrainians, on a number of occasions, that Mayor Giuliani is a private citizen and the President’s personal lawyer, and that he does not represent the United States government.”
Volker vehemently denied that he ever urged the Ukrainian government to dig up dirt on the Biden family.
“As you will see from the extensive text messages I am providing, which convey a sense of real-time dialogue with several different actors, Vice President Biden was never a topic of discussion,” he said.
The delay of US assistance to Ukraine…
Volker testified that he never even mentioned a delay on U.S. military assistance to Ukrainian officials until late August, when news reports indicated that funding had been put on hold. Volker’s statement directly undercuts claims that the funding was part of a deliberate quid pro quo meant to force the Ukrainians to take certain actions in order for the military aids to be released.
“I became aware of a hold on Congressional Notifications about proceeding with that assistance on July 18, 2019, and immediately tried to weigh in to reverse that position,” Volker testified. “I was confident that this position would indeed be reversed in the end, because the provision of such assistance was uniformly supported at State, Defense, NSC, the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the expert community in Washington.”
“As I was confident the position would not stand, I did not discuss the hold with my Ukrainian counterparts until the matter became public in late August,” he said.
Trump’s dim view of Ukraine after 2016 election meddling…
Volker explained in his remarks that Trump had a dim view of the Ukrainian government given its involvement in 2016 efforts to damage Trump’s presidential campaign, and that the president’s view of rampant and widespread corruption in the country was a significant barrier to cooperation between the two nations going forward. According to Volker, the interactions between Giuliani and Ukraine were sought in an effort to persuade Trump that Zelensky’s government could be a trusted U.S. partner.
“It was clear to me that we had a growing problem in the negative narrative about Ukraine, built on these earlier accusations by Mr. Lutsenko, that was impeding the development of our bilateral relationship and the strengthening of our support for Ukraine,” Volker said. “I therefore faced a choice: do nothing, and allow this situation to fester; or try to fix it.”
“I tried to fix it,” he testified.
To me the most compelling part is the explanation of how Trump felt about Ukraine after the 2016. He didn’t trust Ukraine and, rightfully so, wanted to make sure that kind of corruption was over and the new president would keep his promises.
And it was because of that history and Trump’s understandable concerns that the new Ukrainian president sought to convince Trump that he would not stand for that kind of corruption again.
Below is Volker’s testimony obtained by the Federalist: