President Richard Nixon was undone by his secret White House tapes. Could President Trump be unraveled by Bill Taylor’s notebooks?
On Wednesday, House Democrats announced that their leadoff witness at the start of public impeachment hearings next week will be one William Brockenbrough Taylor Jr., the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine. At the same time, the House Intelligence Committee revealed why Democrats believe Taylor will be a formidable witness: He has a nearly hour-by-hour account of developments in the Ukraine scandal.
In the transcript, released Wednesday, of his 10-hour, closed-door deposition, Taylor explained how he kept meticulous notes of his every interaction since the Trump administration brought him back from retirement earlier this year to serve in Ukraine.
“I keep a little notebook where I take notes on conversations, in particular when I’m not in the office, so, in meetings with Ukrainian officials or when I’m out and I get a phone call I can keep notes,” he testified, according to the now-public transcript. He also kept “handwritten notes that I take on a small, little spiral notebook in my office of phone calls that take place in my office.”