Editor's Note: The following are excerpts from a Dec. 13 briefing at the U.S. State Department in which journalists asked department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland about the Ukrainian government-commissioned report from a U.S. law firm on the fairness of the trial of imprisoned ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. The full briefing transcript can be read here. The Kyiv Post's story on the report can be read here.
QUESTION: Can we go to Ukraine?
MS. NULAND: Yes.
QUESTION: You are familiar with the Skadden report? I’m wondering if the – this report, as you will know, says that there is no evidence that there was any political motivation in the prosecution of Former Prime Minister Tymoshenko. I’m wondering if you agree with that since it seems to differ with the Administration’s opinion over this, including Secretary Clinton’s. I’m wondering whether you agree with the report or if you think that the Ukrainian Government got what it paid for here.
MS. NULAND: I would tend to side towards toward the latter there. By confining themselves to simply looking at the paper trial records and ignoring the larger political context in which the trial took place, our concern is that Skadden Arps lawyers were obviously not going to find political motivation if they weren’t looking for it. The report also fails to consider the selective nature of the trials, those who were chosen for trials against Tymoshenko and her – and former members of her government.
QUESTION: So your – the Administration’s concerns about this prosecution remain that it —
MS. NULAND: Correct.
QUESTION: And do you think that basically the Ukrainians succeeded in buying a former White House counsel?
MS. NULAND: I can’t speak to the relationship that the Ukrainian Government has with a private law firm in the United States. You can talk to the Ukrainians about that.
QUESTION: Well, no, I’m just wondering if you – but you – when you said at the very beginning that you tended to lean toward the latter, the latter meaning that the Ukrainian Government bought —
MS. NULAND: Frankly I —
QUESTION: — a positive review from a team of lawyers headed by someone who at least was a very respected member of a previous administration. So I’m just wondering if there’s more you might be able to say about foreign governments purchasing positive reviews from —
MS. NULAND: I haven’t seen the invoices on this. Whomever – whoever commissioned this study, whatever the mandate for the study was, it was incomplete and doesn’t give an accurate picture.
