/State Dept. official believed Trump-Ukraine conduct was injurious to the rule of law, transcripts show

State Dept. official believed Trump-Ukraine conduct was injurious to the rule of law, transcripts show

State Department official George Kent, a key witness in the impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump, told House investigators last month he created contemporaneous memos of specific conversations he’d witnessed related to the White House’s attempted quid pro quo that he said were “injurious to the rule of law, both in Ukraine and the U.S,” according to a transcript of his testimony made public Thursday.

“I wrote a note to the file saying that I had concerns that there was an effort to initiate politically motivated prosecutions that were injurious to the rule of law, both in Ukraine and the U.S.,” Kent told the committees about two particular conversations he witnessed.

Lawmakers have focused on Kent and other witnesses to establish that the Trump administration froze aid money as part of an attempt to pressure Ukraine to open politically advantageous probes.

The transcript of the behind-closed-doors testimony by Kent, a deputy assistant secretary of state who worked on Ukraine and five other countries, before the three House committees leading the impeachment inquiry into Trump was just the latest to be made public this week, as the probe moves to a public phase.

NBC News reported last month following Kent’s testimony that he had told investigators that acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney appointed three other Trump administration officials — Energy Secretary Rick Perry, U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland and Kurt Volker, the then-U.S. special envoy to Ukraine — to spearhead the president’s efforts in Ukraine.

The Government Accountability Office has opened a review of the Trump administration’s decision to hold up nearly $400 million in security and military aid to Ukraine at the request of Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., the the nonpartisan congressional watchdog said in a statement. The Wall Street Journal was first to report that the GAO was probing the matter.

Original Source