November 19, 2019

Kurt Volker Says He Tried to “Thread the Needle” on Ukraine Investigations

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Former US special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker entered Tuesday’s afternoon impeachment hearing as one of the few witnesses with testimony that could potentially be favorable to President Donald Trump. Unlike other government officials who described a strategy of pressuring the Ukrainian leader to investigate Trump’s political rival, Volker told House investigators in a private deposition last month that “at no time” was he “aware of or took part in an effort to urge Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Biden.”

In his opening statement on Tuesday, Volker changed his tune. “I have learned many things that I did not know at the time of the events in question,” he said. Specifically, Volker said he was not aware of the implicit link between Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company, and the vice president’s son Hunter. “I now understand that others saw the idea of investigating possible corruption involving the Ukrainian company, Burisma, as equivalent to investigating former Vice President Biden,” Volker said. “I saw them as very different—the former being appropriate and unremarkable, the latter being unacceptable. In retrospect, I should have seen that connection differently, and had I done so, I would have raised my own objections.”

In response to questioning from House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Volker drove a finer distinction between what he saw as a request for one legitimate investigation, into Burisma, and one illegitimate one, into Biden. “Those things I saw as completely distinct,” Volker said. “What I was trying to do in working with the Ukrainians was to thread a needle.” Volker seemed to think he could convince Trump that Ukraine was fighting corruption without dragging Biden into it, not realizing that the two were linked. His updated testimony reflects that conclusion. “I now understand that most of the other people didn’t see or didn’t consider this distinction—that for them it was synonymous.” 

To be clear: Volker knew of Hunter Biden’s role on Burisma’s board and understood that the former Ukrainian top prosecutor, Yuri Lutsenko, had pushed a narrative in the United States that Burisma paid Hunter Biden to influence his father. These allegations “were themselves self-serving, intended to make [Lutsenko] appear valuable to the United States, so that the United States might weigh in against his being removed from office by the new government,” Volker said last month, adding that the allegation of wrongdoing by Joe Biden “simply has no credibility to me.”

Knowing this fact, Volker seemed to ignore Hunter Biden’s relevance to Burisma and assume Trump’s interest in it was a good-faith attempt to root out corruption in Ukraine. That explanation struck some commentators on Twitter as a cover for Volker’s failure to oppose Trump’s Ukraine policy, which most other impeachment witnesses have characterized as an abuse of power designed to enlist Ukraine’s help in damaging a political opponent. 

Volker’s appearance before the intelligence panel, requested by Republicans, is yet another sign of the way career government officials—and their reputations—have become collateral in a scandal advanced by Trump and his allies. 

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

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