US diplomat: Trump made aid contingent

William Taylor, stationed at US embassy in Ukraine, says political probes sought from Kiev

The top American diplomat in Ukraine testified on Tuesday that President Donald Trump made the release of US security aid to Ukraine contingent on Kiev publicly declaring it would carry out politically motivated investigations that he demanded, according to a copy of his statement to lawmakers.

William Taylor, a career diplomat and former Army officer who serves as the charge d'affaires in the US embassy in Ukraine, gave closed-door testimony to the three Democratic-led House of Representatives committees leading an impeachment inquiry against the Republican president.

It ran counter to Trump's contention that there was no quid pro quo related to the $391 million in security assistance approved by the Congress to help combat Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine that Trump had withheld.

Taylor testified that he was told by Gordon Sondland, the US envoy to the European Union, that Trump had linked release of the aid to public declarations by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy about investigating domestic political rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden as well as a conspiracy theory about the 2016 election.

Zelenskiy agreed to the request. The aid was later released.

Earlier Tuesday morning, Trump again attacked the inquiry, calling it a "lynching".

"So some day, if a Democrat becomes President and the Republicans win the House, even by a tiny margin, they can impeach the President, without due process or fairness or any legal rights. All Republicans must remember what they are witnessing here — a lynching. But we will WIN!''

The use of the word "lynching'' sparked a torrent of criticism from Democratic lawmakers and some Republicans.

According to the NAACP, there have been at least 4,743 lynchings in the United States. Of those killed, 3,446, or nearly 73 percent, were black.

Representative Bobby Rush, Democrat of Illinois, implored Trump to delete the tweet: "Do you know how many people who look like me have been lynched, since the inception of this country, by people who look like you. Delete this tweet.''

House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, Democrat of South Carolina, told CNN: "I'm a product of the South. I know the history of that word. That is a word that we ought to be very, very careful about using."

Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate leader, called Trump's tweet "an unfortunate choice of words''.

"That's not the language I would use," said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Republican from California. "I don't agree with that language, pretty simple."

A White House spokesman said Trump wasn't comparing his experience to "dark times" in US history. 

"The president is not comparing what's happened to him with one of our darkest moments in American history," White House Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley told reporters outside the White House. "What he's explaining, clearly, is the way he has been treated by the media since he announced for president."

Some Republicans came to Trump's defense, and CNN quoted an unnamed senior official with Trump's re-election campaign as saying "don't remember any Democrats complaining in 1998" when current House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, a New York Democrat, referred to the impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton as "a lynch mob" run by Republicans.

Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only black Republican US senator, said he "wouldn't use" the term but largely supported Trump's frustrations over the inquiry.

"This is the political version of a death row trial. The president is up in arms in anger about it," said Scott. "He's putting his political life on trial. His comments reflect it."

Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said the impeachment inquiry is a "lynching in every sense". He called it "literally a political lynching'' and scolded reporters for asking about racial connotations to Trump's statement.

"It's not just racial, my friend. I'm from South Carolina. I understand it very well. Here's what you don't get. Mob rule is what lynching is all about. You grab somebody because you don't like them," Graham said.

Trump is scheduled on Friday to deliver a keynote address at a bipartisan forum on criminal justice reform at Benedict College, a historically black college in South Carolina.

Trump has been complaining that members of his own party aren't united and fighting hard enough for him as he faces the greatest threat to his presidency.

"They stick together," Trump said about Democrats during a question-and-answer session with reporters at a cabinet meeting on Monday. "You never see them break off."

"Republicans have to get tougher and fight," he said. "We have some that are great fighters, but they have to get tougher and fight because the Democrats are trying to hurt the Republican Party for the election."

On Sunday night, Trump tweeted: "When do the Do Nothing Democrats pay a price for what they are doing to our Country, & when do the Republicans finally fight back?" 

"He'd rather send out late-night tweets and TV clips that he wants in the echo chamber than have some kind of war room," said former Trump campaign adviser Sam Nunberg. "What you're looking at is a TV president having 24-7 TV, new media and social media responses who doesn't see the point of a war room."

"He doesn't need a war room," said Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House and an informal Trump political adviser. "This is not about impeachment. This is just a coup d'etat."

Reuters contributed to this story.