STATEMENT OF
DAVID A. HOLMES
U.S. EMBASSY KYIV, DEPARTMENT OF STATE
BEFORE THE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE,
COMMITEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS, AND
COMMITEE ON OVERSIGHT & REFORM
CONCERNING
THE IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY
PRESENTED ON
NOVEMBER 15, 2019
My name is David Holmes, and I am a career Foreign Service Officer with the Department of State. Since August 2017, I have been the Political Councelor at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine. While it is an honor to appear before you, I want to make clear that I did not seek this opportunIty to testify today. You have determined that I may have something of vlue to these proceedings, and it is therefore my obligation to appear and tell you what I know. Indeed, Secretary Pompeo stated last week, "I hope everyone who testifies will go do so truthfully, accurately. When they do, the oversight role will have been performed, and I think America will come to see what took place here." That is my goal today: to testify truthfully and accurately to enable you to perform that role. And to that end, I have hurriedly put together this statement over the past couple days to describe as best I can my recollection of events that may be relevant to this matter.
I have spent my entire professional life serving my country as a Foreign Service Officer. Prior to my current post in Kyiv, Ukraine, I served at the Embassy in Moscow, Russia as Deputy and Internal Unit Chief in the Political Section, and before that as Senior Energy Officer in the Economics Section. In Washington, I served on the National Security Council staff as Director for Afghanistan and as Special Assistant to the Under Secretary Of State. My prior overseas assignments include New Delhi, India; Kabul, Afghanistan; Bogotá, Colombia; and Pristina, Kosovo. I am a graduate of Pomona College in Claremont, California, and received graduate degrees in international affairs from the University of St. Andrews (Scotland) and Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
As the Political Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, I lead the Political Section covering Ukraine's domestic politics, foreign policy, and conflict diplomacy, and serve as the senior policy and political adviser to the Ambassador. The job of an embassy political counselor is to gather information about the host country's internal politics, foreign relations, and security policies, report back to Washington, represent U.S. policies to foreign contacts, and advise the Ambassador on policy development and implementation.
In this role, I am a senior member (line cut off in CNN scan) involved in addressing issues as they arise. I am also often [called upon to take] notes in meetings involving the Ambassador or visiting senior U.S. officials with Ukranian counterparts, particularly within the Ukranian Presidential Administration. For this reason, I have been present in many meetings with President Zelenskyy and his administrations, some of which may be germane to this inquiry. Other issues that may be relevant to this inquiry, including energy and the justice sector, did not fall under my specific portfolio and I was not the expert, but I followed these issues inasmuch as they had a political component.
While I am the Political Counselor at the Embassy, it is important to note that I am not a political appointee or engaged in U.S. politics in any way. It is not my job to cover or advise on U.S. politics. On the contrary, I am an apolitical foreign policy professional and my job is to focus on the politics of the country in which I serve so that we can better understand the local landscape and better advance U.S. national interests there. I joined the Foreign Service through an apolitical, merit-based process under the George W. Bush administration and I have proudly served administrations of both parties and worked for their appointees, both political and career.
I arrived in Kviv to take up my assignment as Political Counselor in August 2017, a year after Ambassador Yovanovitch received her appointment. From August 2017 until her removal from Post in May 2019, was Ambassador Yovanovitch's chief policy advisor and developed a deep respect for her dedication, determination, and professionalism. During this time we worked together closely, speaking multiple times per day, and I accompanied Ambassador Yovanovitch to many of her meetings with senior Ukrainian counterparts. I was also the note-taker for senior U.S. visitors With President Poroshenko, whom I met at least a dozen times.
Our work in Ukraine focused on three pillars addressing peace and security, economic growth and reform, and anti-corruption and rule of law. These pillars match the three consistent priorities of the Ukrainian people since 2014 as measured in public opinion polling, namely, an end to the conflict with Russia that restores national unity and territorial integrity, responsible economic policies that deliver European standards of growth and opportunity, and effective and impartial rule of law institutions that deliver justice in cases of high-level official corruption. Our efforts on this third pillar merit special mention because it was during Ambassador Yovanovitch's tenure that we achieved the hard-fought passage of a law establishing an independent anti-corruption court to try corruption cases brought by the National Anti-corruption Bureau (NABU), another independent institution established with U.S. support. These efforts strained Ambassador Yovanovitch's relationship with President Poroshenko and some of his allies, including Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko, who resisted fully empowering truly independent anti-corruption institutions that would help ensure that no Ukrainians, however powerful, were above the law. However, the Ambassador and the Embassy kept pushing anti-corruption and the other pillars of our policy toward Ukraine.
Beginning in March 2019, the situation at the Embassy and in Ukraine changed dramatically. Specifically, our diplomatic policy that had been focused on supporting ukrainian democratic reform and resistance to Russian aggression became overshadowed by a political agenda being promoted by Rudy Giuliani and a cadre of officials operating with a direct channel to the White House.
That change began with the emergence of press reports critical of Ambassador Yovanovitch and machinations by Mr. Lutsenko and others to discredit her. in mid-March 2019, an Embassy colleague learned from a Ukrainian contact that Mr. Lutsenko had complained that Ambassador Yovanovitch had "destroyed him" with her refusal to support him until he followed through with his reform commitments and ceased using his position for personal gain. In retaliation, Mr. Lutsenko made a series of unsupported allegations against Ambassador Yovanovitch, mostly suggesting that Ambassador Yovanovitch improperly used the Embassy to