Page:Impeachment of Donald J. Trump, President of the United States — Report of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives.pdf/314

 A. I mean, honestly, I don't know. I mean, I think they're cut from the same cloth.



Q. There was never as much of a clamor to remove Lutsenko as there was Shokin. Is that fair to say?

A. Yeah, I think that's fair.

Q. And what do you account for that?

A. I would say that there was, I think, still a hope that one could work with Mr. Lutsenko. There was also that prospect of Presidential elections coming up, and as seemed likely by, you know, December, January, February, whatever the time was, that there would be a change of government. And I think we certainly hoped that Mr. Lutsenko would be replaced in the natural order of things, which is, in fact, what happened. We also had more leverage before. I mean, this was not easy. President Poroshenko and Mr. Shokin go way back. In fact, I think that they are godfathers to each other's children. So this was, you know, this was a big deal. But we had assistance, as did the IMF, that we could condition.

Evidence suggests that Lutsenko's misconduct was not trivial. Deputy Assistant Secretary Kent explained that the U.S. government became disillusioned with Lutsenko in 2017 when he exposed an undercover investigator working to catch Ukrainian government officials selling fraudulent biometric passports. Kent said that Lutsenko's actions could have resulted in terrorists obtaining fraudulent biometric passports. Whereas Shokin only served for little over a year, Lutsenko served for years until President Zelensky removed him. Although both prosecutors were regarded as ineffective and corrupt, the U.S. government only took an official position with respect to Shokin's removal and never as to Lutsenko's.

3. There are legitimate questions about the extent to which Ukrainian government officials worked to oppose President Trump's candidacy in the 2016 election.

Democrats reflexively oppose any discussion about whether senior Ukrainian government officials worked to oppose President Trump's candidacy and support former Secretary Clinton during the 2016 election. Calling these allegations "debunked" and "conspiracy theories," Democrats ignore irrefutable evidence that is inconvenient for their 85