Nominations for a State Department Wall of Fame
To the Editor,
Thank you, Hunter Biden.
Sure, the optics are terrible. The son of a U.S. Vice President accepts a lucrative position on the board of a Ukrainian gas company being investigated for corruption at a time when his father is leading Ukraine policy. Still, look at it this way: Thanks to the obsessive need to destroy a potential rival, the mind-boggling breadth of Donald Trump’s corruption and venality have been laid bare for all to see — at least those not blinded by abject fealty to Mr. Trump.
The hearings that ensued have shone a bright light on a group of heretofore nameless and faceless career public servants who defied Trump’s demand that they not comply with congressional subpoenas to testify in the House’s impeachment inquiry. As a result of their willingness to come forward, these courageous individuals have endured harassment, attacks on their personal character, and even death threats. I would like to propose a Wall of Fame at the U.S. Department of State and nominate the following individuals:
William Taylor, acting ambassador to Ukraine; George Kent, deputy assistant secretary of state; and Marie Yovanovitch, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, all testified to how Trump and his henchmen leveraged security assistance for Ukraine to get a public commitment from President Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden, a political rival.
Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a Ukraine specialist on the National Security Council, who was on the July 25 phone call in which Trump extorted President Zelensky and was so alarmed that he immediately reported it to the lawyer for the National Security Council.
David Hale, a State Department official, who testified that he learned of the hold on aid to Ukraine on July 21, and that the directive to withhold the money came directly from the president, through Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney.
David Holmes, a State Department official in Kyiv, who gave firsthand account of a conversation on July 26 between Gordon Sondland, U.S. ambassador to the European Union, and Mr. Trump, in which Trump asked Sondland if President Zelensky was going to do the investigations into the Bidens.
Fiona Hill, a Russian specialist at the National Security Council, testified to an “irregular channel” pushing investigations into the Bidens by the President’s personal lawyer, which was at odds with official American foreign policy. And, like a school principal chastising a bunch of unruly schoolboys, she warned the assembled legislators that the idea that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 election was a “fictional narrative” propagated by Russian security services.
Finally, the Wall of Fame must include the anonymous CIA agent who first revealed the unlawful and unpatriotic acts perpetrated by a sitting President of the United States that set in motion investigations into the President’s dealings with a vulnerable ally.
With the trial of the President of the United States in the Senate, hopefully our Republican senators will remember the testimony of these conscientious and selfless public servants.
Vivian Corbin
Swarthmore
