They’re going to need a bigger bus. On Wednesday, The Washington Post reported that it wasn’t just Rudy Giuliani and his merry band of international criminals who were running U.S. policy in Ukraine. Instead, that role was also shared by Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, Special Envoy Kurt Volker, and—as earlier head-scratching statements had suggested—Energy Secretary Rick Perry. And all of them were apparently assigned their roles not via direct contact with Donald Trump, but by acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney.
And with half a dozen layers of isolation now established, Trump is more than ready to start feeding associates to the wood chipper.
The news that Trump and Mulvaney moved control of Ukraine policy out of traditional channels was apparently provided through the testimony of one of those traditional channels, in the form of Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs George Kent, who would normally have been at the center of policy planning regarding Ukraine. Instead, Kent reportedly testified on Tuesday that he was instructed to “lay low,” check out what was happening elsewhere, and just leave Ukraine to the “three amigos”—Sondland, Volker, and Perry.
When Kent—who has worked as a foreign service officer since 1992, was previously the deputy chief of the U.S. embassy in Kyiv, and is regarded as one of the top experts on Ukraine—tried to inject some reality into the situation and push back against the conspiracy-theory-based policy being imposed, he was told he was not welcome and should stay away.
All of this happened weeks before Trump was on the phone to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and it all plays into a still unfolding narrative showing that what Trump did on that phone call wasn’t an isolated incident, but part of a play that began months earlier and continued right up until the release of the whistleblower complaint and the beginning of the impeachment inquiry.
The move to unofficial channels appears to have happened in June, a month before a string of now-released text messages among Sondland, Volker, and other officials. Perry is notably missing from any participation or mention in these messages. He also makes no appearance in other narratives about Giuliani and the pressure he was placing on Ukrainian officials to create a false investigation story since the spring. However, Trump has cited Perry has one of the instigators of the Ukraine situation.
How Perry was involved remains unclear. If he was one of the “three amigos” who took control of Ukraine, he seems to have been sidelined by the time Trump made his phone call.
But whatever Perry’s involvement, it’s increasingly clear that the Ukraine scandal wasn’t a momentary decision by Trump, or even something simply cobbled up between Trump and his personal attorney. A dedicate effort was made to sideline longtime State Department officials, remove the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, stall aid moneys for Ukraine that had already been approved by Congress, and bring in an entire team of experience-free figures appointed by Trump. All of it for the purpose of turning Ukraine into a propaganda source.
Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo were willing to destroy top officials at the State Department, blow away decades of work in upholding the rule of law, and sabotage the relationship between the United States and an ally. And even if they had been successful, the payoff would have been only another stab at a claim that has long been debunked. The lack of judgment demonstrated in the whole affair seems nothing short of monstrous.
Volker has already spoken with the impeachment inquiry, as have Kent and ousted Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. Michael McKinley, a former senior adviser to Pompeo who resigned over the treatment of Yovanovitch and others, is testifying on Wednesday. Sondland is scheduled to appear before the inquiry on Thursday.