Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent — one of the first two witnesses expected to testify publicly in the House impeachment inquiry Wednesday — previously told lawmakers that he raised concerns that President Donald Trump’s personal attorney was poisoning U.S. policy toward Ukraine with “a campaign of lies.”
Kent kept notes about what Democrats have described as “a shadow policy” in Ukraine being run in part by Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani in order to force the Ukrainian government to announce investigations into the 2016 U.S. election and Trump’s potential 2020 opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden.
“I had concerns that there was an effort to initiate politically motivated prosecutions that were injurious to the rule of law, both in Ukraine and the U.S.,” Kent told the committees handling the impeachment inquiry Oct. 15, according to a transcript of the interview.
“Here’s why George Kent matters,” Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff tweeted last week. “He and his colleagues recognized the impropriety of Trump’s Ukraine pressure campaign to undertake politically-motivated investigations. He corroborates testimony from numerous other officials, and he documented it.”