Ukraine Foreign Minister: U.S. Aid, Investigations Were ‘Never’ Linked

Ukrainian foreign minister Vadym Prystaiko said Thursday that U.S. Ambassador to the E.U. Gordon Sondland had “never” linked U.S. aid to Ukrainian investigations of the 2016 elections or the Biden’s role in stopping a probe of Burisma.

Prystaiko spoke the day after the first public hearings in the House Intelligence Committee as part of the “impeachment inquiry,” where two witnesses said they came to believe there had been such a link — though only some time after Politico reported on August 28 that aid had been held up by the Trump administration.

One of the witnesses, Chargé d’affaires Bill Taylor, introduced new evidence that a staffer told him recently that he overheard Sondland speaking to President Donald Trump the day after his July 25 phone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, discussing “investigations.” The staffer also told Taylor that Sondland said that Trump was more interested in investigations than anything else.

As Breitbart News’ Kristina Wong noted, that new evidence — which is fourth-hand hearsay, plus opinion — added little new information, but was cited by Democrats and journalists as evidence that aid might have been linked to investigations Trump had asked the new Ukrainian government to pursue.

Thune goes all-in on campaign trail as Schumer stays on bench, faces rejection from fellow Dems

DHS investigates massive data breach exposing 40,000 employees, including ICE and Border Patrol agents

Haley Stevens’s Democratic fiance backs Mike Rogers, says el Sayed imperils Jewish community

MAHA heavyweights try to put Lahn over the top in Iowa governor’s race

Mamdani Keeps Taking Over NYPD Training Facility for Personal Use, and Police Union Officials Are Furious

Bill Gates Claims Artifical Intelligence Will Force Some to Choose an ‘Amish’ Lifestyle

Watch: Anti-ICE Protesters Accidentally Infuriate Immigrants While Blocking Brooklyn Bridge

Emergency declared at South Carolina nuclear site after fire erupts at lab

Conservative Journalists James O’Keefe and Cam Higby Indicted in Minnesota After Exposing Election System in Undercover Video

Legendary Sports Announcer Who Used Platform to Honor God Announces Departure

Alaska Dems Spent Months Finding a Duplicate ‘Dan Sullivan’ to Confuse GOP Voters Ahead of Senate Race

Convicted murderer got over 5-hour head start after prison escape before local police were notified: official

Judge Overseeing Maduro Case in New York Dies Before Trial

ALERT: Dominion-Related Lawsuit Dismissed Against Patrick Byrne Over ‘The Deep Rig’ Film – No Legal Basis for Key Claim

Radicals bring life in America’s largest city to screeching halt and vandalize 9/11 Memorial

On Thursday, Prystaiko said that there had been no link in discussions at the time with Sondland, as Reuters reported:

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko said on Thursday that U.S. ambassador Gordon Sondland did not explicitly link military aid to Kiev with opening an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Interfax Ukraine reported.

…

“Ambassador Sondland did not tell us, and certainly did not tell me, about a connection between the assistance and the investigations. You should ask him,” Prystaiko said about Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union.

…

“I have never seen a direct relationship between investigations and security assistance,” Prystaiko was quoted as saying by Interfax. “Yes, the investigations were mentioned, you know, in the conversation of the presidents. But there was no clear connection between these events.”