President Trump personally intervened to cancel Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s scheduled stop in Kyiv in November at the last minute, just as new evidence about Rudy Giuliani and Trump’s role in the pressure scheme was boiling out into the open, the Daily Beast reported Friday.
According to two U.S. officials and other people familiar with the matter who spoke to the Daily Beast, Trump worked in coordination with the State Department to pull the plug on the trip, partially because he didn’t want the bad optics of administration officials spending time in Ukraine during the investigation. That hasn’t stopped President Trump’s personal attorney from spending nearly a week in Ukraine, as the House was announcing its articles of impeachment against Trump, peddling more fabricated conspiracies about the Biden family.
Most of the details of the trip were already planned when it was cancelled last minute, according to the Daily Beast. Pompeo also reportedly wanted to avoid visiting the embassy in Kyiv, where Bill Taylor is the top diplomat. Taylor testified in the House Intelligence Committee’s impeachment inquiry, revealing that Rudy Giuliani was trying to get Ukraine to “intervene in domestic policy.” Taylor also confirmed there was a quid pro quo tied to the Ukraine military aid.
The timing was dicey for Pompeo. The day that the secretary of state landed in Germany — he was scheduled to visit Germany and then Ukraine on this trip — Taylor’s deposition before the House was released.
Taylor is leaving his post in Kyiv and was reportedly told by State Department officials that he needed to be gone by the time Pompeo is scheduled to visit on January 3, according to the Daily Beast.
Read the full report here.
