80 Time December 23–30, 2019
compromise themselves while in the service
of the Trump Administration. She feared that
in his eagerness to be effective in Ukraine, Tay-
lor might also be pressured to cross a moral
line that would embarrass and anger the people
who loved him. Taylor accepted the job over
Deborah’s objections.
He learned through media reports in May
that Giuliani was asking to meet with the new
Ukrainian administration and was urging Zel-
ensky to launch investigations into Trump’s ri-
vals. He became more alarmed after a June 28
conference call with Zelensky. Also on the call
was Gordon Sondland, a hotelier and Trump
donor the President had named U.S. ambas-
sador to the European Union, who before the
call told everyone on the line he “wanted to
make sure no one was transcribing or monitor-
ing” the conversation. Taylor testified that he
“sensed something odd” when Sondland did
not include the career officials back in Wash-
ington who would typically have been on such
a call. Before Zelensky joined the line, Taylor
also heard other political appointees discuss-
ing the need to relay that Trump wanted “co-
operation on investigations to get to the bot-
tom of things,” he told lawmakers.
Taylor repeatedly phoned the Pompeo aide
who had urged him to get in touch if he had
any questions for the Secretary, but did not
get clarity from Washington. “I was starting
to get suspicious,” Taylor later testified, so at
the end of June he reached out to a colleague
in Washington, George Kent, who urged him to
write everything down. Taylor already was. His
father, a former official at NASA, had taught
his son the habit of taking meticulous notes.
After every meeting or phone call, the diplo-
mat would scrawl the details in tiny script in-
side his 3-by-5 in. notebooks, which he kept
with him in a brown leather wallet.Back In washIngton, suspicions were also
spreading. At the NSC, one of the first to raise
alarms was Fiona Hill, Trump’s top expert on
Russia and Europe. With a staff of overworked
experts, Hill had been scrambling for two
years to manage the chaos of Trump’s diplo-
macy. Random, high-profile people would call
her at her ornate, high-ceilinged office acrossTHE
WITNESSES
Hill and Holmes testified
to House lawmakers
about Trump’s pressure
campaign in Kyiv(^2019) GUARDIANS OF THE YEAR