George Kent, a senior State Department official, arrives for his impeachment inquiry deposition on Oct. 15. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
He just can’t get over Hillary Clinton.
Before giving U.S. military aid to Ukraine, President Trump wanted “nothing less” than for the European country to announce an investigation targeting Clinton in addition to one targeting Joe Biden and his son, according to a senior State Department official.
George Kent, a deputy assistant secretary of state for European affairs, made the bombshell revelation during his closed-door deposition on Oct. 15, testifying he was told that Trump used Clinton’s name as “shorthand” for the investigation he wanted President Volodymyr Zelensky to launch into a debunked right-wing conspiracy theory claiming anti-Trump Ukrainians interfered in the 2016 election.
Kent’s deposition, a transcript of which was released Thursday, marks the first time Clinton’s name has come up in the context of Trump’s desired Ukrainian investigation of the 2016 U.S. election. The mention suggests Trump wanted the probe to target the former Democratic presidential candidate one way or another.
Kent said Gordon Sondland, Trump’s handpicked ambassador to the European Union, had conveyed the Clinton message to him and other diplomats after speaking to the president on Sept. 7.
