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.

What? Toronto’s Foreign-Born Mayor Warns ICE to Stay Out of City – Where It Has No Authority

Watch: ICE Agents Working at Airport Give Whining Leftist the Exact Response He Deserves

Gas thief creeps into learning center, drains van serving students with disabilities

Jeffries declines to break with indicted Democrat after ethics panel’s guilty verdict

Southwest pilot aborts Hollywood Burbank landing because runway ‘wasn’t quite clear’: report

Education Department Abandons Headquarters as Agency Heads for Total Extinction

Trans Tide Is Turning: Idaho Criminalizes Trans Use of Incorrect Bathrooms in Private Businesses

JD Vance says he was ‘obsessed’ with UFOs, believes aliens are actually ‘demons’

Not Only Is Radical, Senile Maxine Waters Refusing to Retire at 87, She Could Chair Powerful Committee Come Next January

Netflix Hikes Prices for Second Time in Just Over a Year

NASA races to build moon base as US challenges China in new space race

Soros-backed group among liberal orgs pumping eye-popping cash into Virginia gerrymandering effort

Scouting America moves to shed ‘woke’ label with major recommitment to military, traditional American values

Spanish government’s Jimmy Gracey autopsy claims stump forensic expert: ‘problem for me’

Texas Man Lashes Out in Stabbing Attack After Hearing Bible Conversation

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.”