The acting US ambassador to Ukraine testified that he was told that the release of US military aid to the country was dependent on Ukraine publicly vowing to investigate Joe Biden and his son as well as the 2016 election, a new report said Tuesday.

Testimony from William Taylor contradicted President Trump’s denial that there was a quid pro quo and that he used the nearly $400 million as leverage for personal political gain, the Washington Post reported.

Taylor walked lawmakers through conversations he had with other US diplomats who were trying to obtain what one called the “deliverable” of Ukrainian help investigating Trump’s political rivals, according to an opening statement obtained by the paper.

Taylor said he spoke to Ambassador Gordon Sondland, the US envoy to the EU.

“During that phone call, Amb. Sondland told me that President Trump had told him that he wants President [Volodymyr] Zelensky to state publicly that Ukraine will investigate Burisma and alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election,” Taylor said in the statement.

“Amb. Sondland also told me that he now recognized that he had made a mistake by earlier telling the Ukrainian officials to whom he spoke that a White House meeting with President Zelensky was dependent on a public announcement of investigations — in fact, Amb. Sondland said, ‘everything’ was dependent on such an announcement, including security assistance,” Taylor told House investigators.

“He said that President Trump wanted President Zelensky ‘in a public box’ by making a public statement about ordering such investigations.”

Taylor testified behind closed doors in the House impeachment probe after getting a subpoena earlier in the day.

He also said he stood by his characterization that it was “crazy” to make the assistance dependent on political investigations by a foreign country.

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), a frequent Trump critic, said Taylor delivered “incredibly damning” testimony about the president and his effort to pressure Zelensky into investigating the 2016 election as well as Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

Rep. Andy Levin (D-Mich.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called Taylor’s testimony “very troubling.”

“All I have to say is that in my 10 short months in Congress — it’s not even noon, right — and this is my most disturbing day in Congress so far. Very troubling,” Levin said.

A third Democrat, Rep. Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts, said Taylor’s testimony could “speed up the proceedings” without offering specifics.

“This testimony is a sea change. I think it could accelerate matters. This will, I think, answer more questions than it raises. Let’s put it that way,” Lynch said.

Another Democratic lawmaker, Rep. Tom Malinowski of New Jersey, said the testimony was “the most thorough accounting we’ve had of the timeline.”

“I’ll tell you, as a former State Department political appointee, in my experience the difference between career folks and political appointees is the career folks take very good notes,” Malinowski said, apparently referring to Taylor’s notes.

A source told Politico there were “sighs and gasps” as Taylor described “how pervasive the efforts were to tie an investigation of Burisma and 2016 election ‘interference’ to a White House meeting and aid being released” in his 15-page opening statement.

Burisma is a Ukrainian energy giant that put Hunter Biden on its board of directors while his father was veep, paying him up to $50,000 a month, leading Trump to accuse both Bidens of corruption.

There is no known evidence that either did anything wrong.

Taylor, a career diplomat who served in the US Army during the Vietnam War, replaced Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch after Trump recalled her at the urging of his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who was urging the Ukrainians to dig for dirt on the Bidens.

He soon found himself in the middle of the impeachment controversy after the release of a series of text messages he exchanged with Sondland, who gave $1 million for the president’s lavish inaugural.

Zelensky, the new president of Ukraine, wanted to be “taken seriously” and not just serve as “an instrument in Washington domestic, re-election politics,” Taylor told Sondland.

Taylor then texted Sondland on Sept. 1, raising concerns that the White House was withholding hundreds of millions in military aid to Ukraine to pressure Zelensky to probe the Bidens and Ukraine’s role in the 2016 presidential election.

“Are we now saying that security assistance and WH meeting are conditioned on investigations?” Taylor asked, referring to Zelensky’s desire for a sit-down with Trump, which would enhance his prestige and help him counter Russian aggression.

“Call me,” Sondland replied, in what Democrats alleged was an effort to avoid leaving a paper trail.

A week later, Taylor texted Kurt Volker, the special US envoy for Ukraine at the time. “Gordon and I just spoke, I can brief you if you and Gordon don’t connect. The nightmare is they give the interview and don’t get the security assistance. The Russians love it. (And I quit.)”

“The message to the Ukrainians (and Russians) we send with the decision on security assistance is key,” Taylor texted the next day.

“With the hold, we have already shaken their faith in us. Thus my nightmare scenario.”

Sondland replied: “We have identified the best pathway forward,” prompting a terse reply from Taylor.

“As I said on the phone, I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign,” the diplomat wrote.

Sondland later testified that the president had told him in an intervening phone call to deny that there was any quid pro quo.

“Bill, I believe you are incorrect about President Trump’s intentions,” he wrote.

“The President has been crystal clear no quid pro quo’s of any kind. The President is trying to evaluate whether Ukraine is truly going to adopt the transparency and reforms that President Zelensky promised during his campaign.”

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