What did William Taylor tell Congress about Ukraine aid?

What did the acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine tell Congress, and why did it matter in Kyiv? The testimony came on 22 October 2019, and this retrospective looks back at the picture it left by 23 October 2019.

William B. Taylor Jr., Acting U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, testified before Congress in the impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump. He said he had been told that the president would withhold military aid to Ukraine, to help his reelection chances, until Ukraine publicly declared that investigations would be launched. The investigations concerned Burisma Holdings, a company that had hired Hunter Biden, son of former Vice President Joe Biden, and Ukraine's alleged involvement in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

The wider scandal

The testimony formed part of what became known as the 2019 Trump–Ukraine scandal. As later described, the affair arose from attempts to press Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, a rival for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. The background also describes a congressionally mandated military aid package of $400 million that was blocked in an effort to secure cooperation from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Contacts between the White House and the Ukrainian government culminated in a phone call between Trump and Zelenskyy on 25 July 2019. Taylor's account tied the withheld military aid directly to the public declaration of investigations, putting security assistance at the centre of the inquiry.