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.

Alexei Navalny’s widow demands ‘accountability’ for Putin after European leaders say husband was poisoned

ICE ramps up deportation push by boosting capacity to 92,600 beds with $38.3B expansion

A $10 Walmart gun holster could help identify suspect in Nancy Guthrie case

Casey Wasserman to sell his talent agency after becoming ‘distraction’ due to Epstein files

Fetterman slams Democrats’ ‘Jim Crow 2.0’ voter ID rhetoric as party unity fractures

ICE officers face criminal probe for alleged ‘untruthful statements’ under oath about Minneapolis shooting

Trump trounces Biden energy records in just months as admin celebrates 1 year of ‘historic gains’: data

Heroic 12-Year-Old Tried to Save Classmates from Trans Mass Shooter: She’s in Critical Condition

Collins boosts Republican voter ID effort, but won’t scrap filibuster

Zelensky offers to ‘give a ceasefire to the Russians if they do elections’ in Munich plea

CNN’s Data Guru Reveals How the Far-Left Is Devouring Democratic Party

Microsoft AI Chief Says Artificial Intelligence Will Do Most White-Collar Work by Next Year

Cities Church Defendant Who Likes Terrorizing Christian Children Launches Bizarre Message Outside Courtroom

Convicted Squatter’s Lawyer Freezes, Asks to ‘Cut’ When Pressed to Defend Client

Fact Check: Did a MAGA Dad Murder His Liberal Daughter After an Argument About Trump? Sick Leftists Will Be Disappointed with the Facts

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.”