Kurt Volker Lied to Congress: His Aide's Testimony is Damning

 

The whole question of military aid was central to the Ukraine scandal.  After all, a president has absolute discretion on who to invite to the White House.  Making investigation of political rivals a condition of a White House visit may be scandalous, but it is not in any way illegal. By contrast, withholding military aid duly appropriated by Congress is a violation of the Impoundment Control Act (though not a crime).

One of the main defenses offered by Republicans was that President Trump could not possibly have used military aid to pressure the Ukrainians on the phone call because he never so much as mentioned the subject, and because Ukrainians did not even know of the subject.  This runs into the rather obvious flaw that Trump does appear to have directed Sondland to use military aid as a form of pressure in September.  If withholding military aid in order to pressure a vulnerable country into investigating a political rival is an impeachable offense, it does not stop being impeachable simply because it took place some other time than during one disputed phone call.*

Catherine Croft

But in fact, there was evidence early on that the Ukrainians knew of the hold before it became public knowledge.  And the primary source of information, surprisingly, is Volker's some-time aide Catherine Croft. Croft is a State Department employee who was working in Washington before her assignment with Volker.  While she was in Washington, Croft had two separate conversations with people at the Ukrainian embassy asking about the hold on military aid. She told them she was confident that it would be resolved. (pp. 86-88).  The Ukrainians did not want the matter to become public for fear of its effect on morale at home (pp. 97-99).  

Croft's testimony was confirmed by Laura Cooper, a Pentagon employee, at the impeachment hearings. Cooper said that members of her staff received two e-mails on July 25, 2019 (the date of the Trump-Zelensky phone call) asking about security assistance. It is not clear whether this information filtered up to the upper echelons of government in Ukraine.  Certainly none of the diplomats in Ukraine heard any Ukrainians mention aid being withheld until the hold was publicly disclosed by Politico.  

The phone call transcript is also quite interesting.  It is immediately after Zelensky expresses in interest in buying Javelin missiles that Trump says, "I would like you to do us a favor though."**  Certainly in the light of hindsight this could be taken to tie the purchase of Javelins to the "favor," but it is not clear from the conversation whether that was intended.

Also significant in Croft's testimony, and damaging to Volker, are her notes from July 26, 2019.  Zelensky had told Taylor and Volker that the call went well.  The American diplomats then went to tour the front and also saw the official readout, which did not mention the scandalous elements of the call.  Croft was sitting in a car on  between Taylor and Volker on the way to the airport, taking notes, and got carsick. Her notes said there were "three questions" and "no mention of B."  She believed that the "three questions" meant that Trump raised the question of investigations three times, and that "no mention of B" could mean either Burisma, Biden, or Barr.  Attorney General Barr was going to visit Ukraine.  (pp. 118-120).  Croft was well aware that Burisma and the Bidens referred to the same thing.  She also mentioned that she specifically asked Volker to keep her out of any conversations with Giuliani, which she clearly regarded as a dirty business.

Once again, it is clear that if Volker was unaware that Giuliani was up to no good, and that "Burisma" stood for the Bidens, he was alone in his ignorance.  Even his aide knew what was going on, and what to expect would be coming down in the Trump/Zelensky phone call.

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*A major part of the Republicans' defense strategy was to narrowly focus on the phone call as if the scandal were limited to one call, rather than a general course of conduct over several months.

**The "favor" was about the 2016 election.  All talk about Biden came later.