Amb. William B. Taylor: Opening Statement to US House Impeachment Investigators

Chris Riback's Conversations

This is a special episode of Chris Riback's Conversations.

For this podcast, I read the opening statement of Amb. William B. Taylor, the senior U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, who testified behind closed doors before the U.S. House Impeachment Investigators on Oct. 22. His extraordinary testimony has been called “the smoking gun” of President Trump’s attempt to hold up Ukraine financial aid in exchange for political help from a foreign country.

That’s it. No conversation; no interview. Just the document itself: Amb. Taylor’s 15-page opening statement – a kind of “DocuPod.”

Why am I doing this? My gut is: There’s a need for this type of service – audio reads of important public documents.

First, with our democracy under stress – and with continuing testimony and the House Impeachment Inquiry picking up speed – these documents are interesting and essential; second, with all of the spin, it helps to know the exact words ourselves; and third, those exact words are powerful — much more powerful than that third-party spin. Perhaps most important: It’s really hard to find time to read them.

As I said, this is an experiment. Is it a good idea? I don’t know. So now the favor.

I’d be grateful for your feedback – an answer to one question that you can send via email. My question: Is this service useful to you? Please let me know – along with any addition thoughts. Thank you.

For show notes & my newsletter, go to chrisriback.com.