WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump's top envoy to Ukraine, William Taylor, revealed new details Wednesday about a phone call that happened a day after the president spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, which led to House Democrats' impeachment inquiry. The July 26 discussion between Trump and Gordon Sondland, U.S. ambassador the European Union, was focused on the president's demand that Ukraine investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, his potential rival in the 2020 presidential election, Taylor said in congressional testimony during the first public impeachment hearing.

The conversation, which was not previously reported, raises new questions about Sondland's conversations with Trump during the time the president was freezing nearly $400 million in congressionally appropriated aid to Ukraine. "Last Friday, a member of my staff told me of events that occurred on July 26," Taylor testified on Day 1 of the public hearings on impeachment. During that part of July, Taylor said he had been visiting the front lines of fighting between Ukrainian soldiers and Russian backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. "While Ambassador Volker and I visited the front, this member of my staff accompanied Ambassador Sondland" to a meeting with a top Ukrainian official in Kyiv, Taylor said. "Following that meeting, in the presence of my staff at a restaurant, Ambassador Sondland called President Trump and told him of his meetings in Kyiv. The member of my staff could hear President Trump on the phone, asking Ambassador Sondland about 'the investigations.' Ambassador Sondland told President Trump that the Ukrainians were ready to move forward," Taylor recounted. "Following the call with President Trump, the member of my staff asked Ambassador Sondland what President Trump thought about Ukraine. Ambassador Sondland responded that President Trump cares more about the investigations of Biden, which Giuliani was pressing for," Taylor added, referring to Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.

In this Tuesday, July 10, 2018, file photo, President Donald Trump is joined by Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union. Pablo Martinez Monsivais | AP