Committees Release Ambassador Bill Taylor’s Deposition Transcript as Part of Impeachment Inquiry

November 6, 2019

Washington—Today, Rep. Adam B. Schiff, the Chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Rep. Eliot L. Engel, the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, the Acting Chairwoman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform, released the transcript from the joint deposition of Ambassador William Taylor, Chargé d’Affaires Ad Interim For U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine.

The three Chairs issued the following statement announcing today’s release:

“The testimony of Ambassador Taylor—a West Point graduate, Vietnam veteran, and nonpartisan diplomat—shows how President Trump withheld military aid to Ukraine and conditioned its release, as well as a vital White House meeting, on the President of Ukraine publicly announcing investigations into debunked conspiracy theories involving the Bidens and the 2016 election.  
“Ambassador Taylor’s testimony lays bare how this shadow foreign policy channel pursued by the President’s agent, Rudy Giuliani, with the assistance of Ambassadors Sondland and Volker, placed immense pressure on the Ukrainian government to accomplish the President’s goal. Ambassador Taylor makes clear why this military aid and continued bipartisan support for Ukraine are so critically important—and why these efforts to undermine U.S. foreign policy for domestic political reasons were so damaging. We look forward to his public testimony.”

The testimony of Ambassador Taylor can be found here.

Key excerpts from Ambassador Taylor’s testimony can be found here.

Background:

H. Res. 660, which was passed by the House of Representatives on October 31, 2019, authorizes the Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence “to make publicly available in electronic form the transcripts of depositions” with “appropriate redactions for classified and other sensitive information.”

Pursuant to this resolution, and consistent with the Committee’s rules and longstanding bipartisan practice, the Committee has begun preparing transcripts from the impeachment inquiry for public release, which includes a thorough, nonpartisan security review to protect classified and other sensitive information.

As part of this process, the Committee is redacting (1) personally identifiable information; (2) the names of non-senior Executive Branch personnel and Intelligence Community employees; (3) the names of committee staff who did not ask questions or make on-the-record statements; and (4) classified or potentially classified information or other sensitive information not pertinent to the subject of the impeachment inquiry.

In addition, consistent with the Committee’s rules, each transcript has been made available to the witness for inspection, including to identify technical, grammatical, and typographical corrections.  The Committee has also taken into consideration requested redactions from witnesses, if they fall within the parameters above.

Although the transcripts list Members of the three Committees who were present at the outset of a deposition, they do not necessarily reflect the attendance of all Members who may have joined or departed a deposition at different points.

The Committee will release individual transcripts on a rolling basis as this process is completed.

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Permalink: https://democrats-foreignaffairs.house.gov/2019/11/committees-release-ambassador-bill-taylor-s-deposition-transcript-as-part-of-impeachment-inquiry