A new wrench in the Dems' impeachment case: Andrei Yermak

Sondland's thrice-altered testimony is going to prove problematic in the impeachment trial.

[Andriy Yermak, a top adviser to the President of Ukraine,] in his first interview about those [impeachment] public hearings, Yermak has questioned the recollections of crucial witnesses.

[...]

The most crucial point at which Yermak’s recollection contradicts the testimony of the inquiry’s witnesses relates to a meeting in Warsaw on Sept. 1, when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence. The meeting was part of an ongoing effort by the Zelensky administration to improve ties with the Trump administration.

One of the American diplomats who attended that meeting, Gordon Sondland, the U.S. Ambassador to the European Union, testified before the inquiry last month that he pulled Yermak aside after the Warsaw meeting and delivered an important message: U.S. aid to Ukraine would probably not resume until Zelensky’s government announced two investigations that could implicate President Trump’s political rivals.

“I told Mr. Yermak that I believed that the resumption of U.S. aid would likely not occur until Ukraine took some kind of action on the public statement that we had been discussing for many weeks,” Sondland testified.

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Based on the testimony from Sondland and other witnesses, the final report from the House Intelligence Committee concluded last week that Sondland made this offer of a quid pro quo clear to Yermak that day in Warsaw. “Following this meeting, Ambassador Sondland pulled aside President Zelensky’s advisor, Mr. Yermak, to explain that the hold on security assistance was conditioned on the public announcement of the Burisma/Biden and the 2016 election interference investigations,” the report states.

Yermak disputes this. “Gordon and I were never alone together,” he said when TIME asked about the Warsaw meeting. “We bumped into each other in the hallway next to the escalator, as I was walking out.” He recalls that several members of the American and Ukrainian delegations were also nearby, as well as bodyguards and hotel staff, though he was not sure whether any of them heard his brief conversation with Sondland. “And I remember – everything is fine with my memory – we talked about how well the meeting went. That’s all we talked about,” Yermak says.

  Time

Was Yermak talking to Giuliani last week?

These comments cast doubt on an important moment in the impeachment inquiry’s reconstruction of events: specifically, the only known point at which an American official directly tells the Ukrainians about the link between U.S. aid and the announcement of specific investigations.

In a statement, Sondland’s lawyer said “Ambassador Sondland stands by his prior testimony and will not comment further.” Yermak said no one from the congressional committees that are overseeing the impeachment inquiry have contacted him to seek his testimony, nor have any other U.S. officials.

Rudy, of course, isn't a US official. But I take the point. Why didn't the Democrats try to contact him?   (And why did he wait until now to speak?) Sondland actually said he spoke "individually" with Yermak, which doesn't necessarily mean alone. So, hopefully, the Dems have other witnesses to the conversation.*

When TIME asked [Yermak] whether he had ever felt there was a connection between the U.S. military aid and the requests for investigations, Yermak was adamant: “We never had that feeling,” he says. “We had a clear understanding that the aid has been frozen. We honestly said, ‘Okay, that’s bad, what’s going on here.’ We were told that they would figure it out. And after a certain amount of time the aid was unfrozen. We did not have the feeling that this aid was connected to any one specific issue.”

That's not good for the Dems. If they lose the first article of impeachment - abuse of power - connected to the Ukraine aid, it will look very bad, even if they prove the second - obstruction of Congress.  And they've narrowed the articles to only the Ukraine affair.  They won't be able to then go back to the Mueller investigation, trying to get McGahn to falisfy records, obstruction of justice, emoluments violations or anything else.

For Yermak, the most unpleasant part of the public impeachment hearings so far has been the publication of his private communications with senior U.S. diplomats. These messages appear to show Yermak discussing the wording of a statement that President Zelensky could make to announce the investigations Trump wanted.

Yeah, that's bad for Yermak.  They have to be extremely careful that Ukrainians don't see them as making under-the-table deals, because they were elected on an anti-corruption promise.

“I am not going to comment on whether that was all we wrote to each other, whether it was incomplete or something else. But I remember very clearly what I said, what I did and whom I wrote to. I can tell you 100%, and I can answer for this, that everything I did was right. Everything I did was within the law, and I never crossed the line, never violated legal norms or moral ones.”

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According to the report issued last week as part of the impeachment inquiry, the closest that Ukraine came to announcing the investigations Trump wanted was during an interview that President Zelensky had planned to give CNN in September.

“After hearing from President Trump, Ambassador Sondland promptly told the Ukrainian leader and Mr. Yermak that ‘if President Zelensky did not clear things up in public, we would be at a stalemate,’” the report states. “President Zelensky responded to the demand relayed by Ambassador Sondland, by agreeing to make an announcement of investigations on CNN.”

Yermak also disputed this series of events. “The interview with CNN did not happen because of a scheduling conflict, and that’s the only reason,” he tells TIME.

[...]

"We never entered into a conspiracy with anyone. We never participated in any conversations under the carpet. It was all public and transparent.”

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One of the top priorities for the Ukrainian government’s foreign policy is to arrange a state visit to the U.S. and a meeting between Trump and Zelensky in the Oval Office. On the morning of our interview, Yermak had met in Kyiv with two senior U.S. diplomats who testified before the inquiry last month, George Kent and Philip Reeker, in part to discuss the Ukrainian hope of visiting the White House soon. “My colleagues supported me,” Yermak said, referring to Kent and Reeker. He added that they did not discuss any specific dates for the visit.

[...]

“Once the President has meetings in the White House, in Congress and in business circles, it will create a final understanding that this is a new team, a new set of leaders in Ukraine, a set of leaders who have come to change the country, to fight corruption, who in the course of three months in parliament, and six months of our tenure, have achieved a whole lot,” Yermak says.

Which is confirmation of the importance of a meeting that is being withheld for reasons that appear to be Trump extorting the Ukrainian president, but the rest of Yermak's interview doesn't help the Dems.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

* I didn't recall, but apparently Tim Morrison testified that he saw Sondland pull Yermak aside, and then Sondland told Morrison about the encounter in real time.

UPDATE: More on Yermak.

UPDATE:  Aaaaand, they're off...