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.

Two more senior Heritage Foundation fellows resign as exodus continues

Bill Maher Eviscerates Pro-Palestinian Leftists Who Ignore Islamist Violence: ‘You’re a Joke’

Nick Fuentes says he’ll campaign against Vivek Ramaswamy in Ohio in slur-laced rant

San Francisco Woman Gives Birth in the Back of Self-Driving Taxi – It Wasn’t the First Time

Top 5 takeaways from latest Jeffrey Epstein files dump

Share of Canadians Taking Their Own Lives with Assisted Suicide Gets Disturbingly High

Convicted killer Scott Peterson keeps swinging in court — but expert says he’s not going anywhere but his cell

How Charlie Kirk Inspired ‘The Five’ Panelists to Start a Morning Bible Study

Woman in Florida Barnes & Noble stabbed to death, police seek motive

Five sleeper races that could upend 2026 – from Pennsylvania’s Alleghenies to New Mexico

Marijuana companies spent millions on lobbying ahead of Trump rescheduling order

Judge gives ‘green light’ to controversial New York driver’s license law in blow to Trump admin

New Trump admin envoy says US won’t ‘conquer’ Greenland, emphasizes talks with locals as Denmark balks at move

FBI violent crime arrests double in Trump’s first year compared to Biden record: ‘Massive strides’

Trump admin sues Illinois Gov. Pritzker over laws shielding migrants from courthouse arrests

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.”