On November 13, acting U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor testified that U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland called President Donald Trump from a cell phone in Kyiv, Ukraine, in what national security experts say was an extraordinary breach of security. The Fox & Friends hosts drastically watered down the significance of this revelation, leaving out key details from Taylor’s testimony.
During Wednesday’s testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, Taylor testified that a “member of my staff could hear President Trump on the phone” asking Sondland about “the investigations,” referring to Trump’s campaign to pressure Ukraine into announcing an investigation into Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company whose board Biden’s son Hunter served on. According to Taylor, Sondland told Trump that “the Ukrainians were ready to move forward” with the investigations.
National security experts have emphasized the remarkable security breach in making a private cell phone call to the president. Larry Pfeiffer, former chief of staff to the CIA director, said that “the security ramifications are insane -- using an open cellphone to communicate with the president of the United States.” He pointed out that Ukraine is a country “that is so wired with Russian intelligence, you can almost take it to the bank that the Russians were listening in on the call.” Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul tweeted that “ambassadors rarely call presidents directly” and stressed that “that usually happens only during a major crisis.”