Republicans Still Say No Quid Pro Quo After Damning Taylor Testimony

The day after Bill Taylor, the former top U.S. diplomat to Ukraine, told House investigators that the president held up military aid to Ukraine in exchange for political favors, House Republicans were still insisting there’s no quid pro quo.

Here’s the key passage from Taylor’s testimony Tuesday, which VICE News repeatedly read to Republican House members on Wednesday morning:

“Ambassador [to the EU Gordon] Sondland also told me that he now recognized that he had made a mistake by earlier telling the Ukrainian officials to whom he spoke that a White House meeting with President Zelensky was dependent on a public announcement of investigations … He said that President Trump wanted President Zelensky ‘in a public box’ by making a public statement about ordering such investigations.”

VICE News asked a handful of members whether Taylor’s testimony describes a quid pro quo between Trump and Zelensky. And they responded largely by criticizing the impeachment process.

“What's frustrating is all these individual little snippets of his testimony coming out. Who's leaking them? I think that that person should be tried as well. So it's not fair that the whole transcript isn't coming out,” Rep. Roger Marshall (Kansas) said.

Arizona Congresswoman Debbie Lesko, a member of the Judiciary Committee, complained that she wasn’t allowed to go in to watch Taylor’s testimony, calling the process “terrible and unfair.” After VICE News read her the passage about Ukrainian security assistance being contingent upon ordering investigations, she said Taylor’s testimony contradicts what Ambassador Sondland and the president have both said.

“So you have the Ukrainian president himself who said there was no quid pro quo or ask,” she said. “You've got the president of the United States saying there was none. … So what his testimony does is contradict others. So it's kind of like a he-said, she-said.”

When asked if the White House statement calling Taylor a “radical, unelected bureaucrat” was accurate, Lesko declined to answer.

Cover: Arizona Rep. Debbie Lesko