He would have completed the process earlier but john wanted to wait until after the ig report was finished. Next, conversation with former u. S. Ambassador to ukraine, william taylor. He testified during the inquiry last fall. Speaking at George Washington university. Good morning, all. Thank you so much for joining us this morning. I direct the Leadership Practice initiative. The International Affairs. On behalf of dean who joined us this morning, its my pleasure to introduce and welcome before us today, Ambassador William Taylor junior. Ambassador taylor, within the world of Foreign Policy and National Security, is very well known in his reputation long proceed temp, ive had the pleasure of working and knowing ambassador taylor, my friend phil for a good 30 years. One of the benefits of the very difficult situation, bill tayl taylor, given his subpoena and testimony, but to the fact that the nation at large got to see magnificent public servant. Thats why we are bringing him here today. He has served the country superbly across his career. He graduated from west point. He was the company commander. He served in vietnam. He stayed an extra six months for 18 months. He served in a rightful company and served in the platoon and commanded a company. He received a bronze star and a metal. When he returned to the United States, he worked for a while in the department of energy and served senator bill bradley and his staff for five years. After that, he went to the department of defense and worked in the think tank and again as advisor to the nato. William taft. Then bill began a long service at the department of state. As the coordinator to the former superior union. The collapse of the soviet union at the beginning of the justice program. He worked in congressional relations, thats where he and i met and we had many vigorous discussions, though not always in agreement at all about the nature of iran and but then and now, they developed that. He spent the go to guy for heart problems across the u. S. Government. He served and afghanistan as coordinator of assistance program. Once again, he did the same in iraq. He worked for the middle east quartet and former World Bank President james wolf on programs on behalf of what all parties hoped would be middle east peace. His called to service as ambassador to ukraine in the bush administration, in 2006 and therefore three years. Then he most recently in his career, served as executive Vice President in the institute of peace were built and i worked together. And he was asked to serve yet again is acting ambassador in ukraine. The point of asking him to come here today is to reflect on this marvelous career of Public Service exemplary leadership throughout and to provide for all of us gathered here today an example of what constitutes good leadership and a role model for Public Service. Without further ado, please join me in welcoming ambassador bill taylor. [applause] now you can hear me. Thank you very much. Thats a very kind introduction. In terms of being known, we all get our 15 minutes of fame and im on about minute 14, i will be glad when the 15 are done but its an opportunity for me to get a couple of messages out that if i did not have the 15 minutes, people would not listen to me. I will take advantage of you and take advantage of this opportunity to take a couple things about our u. S. Policy toward ukraine and that leads into the topics that we can further discuss when chris and i talked about this. I have a couple of messages about ukraine, we should support ukraine because it is on the front line of our freedom, its on the front line of the attack the russians. Again taken advantage of this, many people in ukraine. [inaudible] on each of the battlefields of this work. The obvious one is military, but crimea and the occupation continues six years after they invaded. Election interference. So the russians interviewed in the election part of ukraine figuring out what works and then interfering in the european election, you know the interfered in 2016 and the Government Agencies have given us all that we can ask for on that. And we know in the last few weeks russians have already begun to interfere. Its a kind of thing that some of you have read professor tim snyders book on the road to unfreedom. If you havent you should take a look at this. Its an important book, the road starts where they are not free in the elections are clearly not free and then they move in a goes through ukraine, europe, the United States. Selection interference is another example. Another battlefield where ukraine is on the frontline is on energy as a weapon. The russians have designed, built, almost completed but not quite a pipeline that comes from russia into germany that would bypass ukraine and the dependence of russian gas. Russians have hijacked and hacked into ukrainian infrastructure. But not just ukrainian infrastructure, they tried in ukraine, figured out what worked in europe and then did in the United States for lesser degrees. Yes indeed. Talking to this, the other one seems to work but you dont think this is working. So im not starting over, fighting not get any of that its a russians. [laughter] thats exactly what it is. So i was making this case for a robust defense against the russian aggression in the hybrid work, focusing on ukraine and others i was making these arguments as chris indicated of the United States institute of peace from the comfort, i was kind of able to observe and make these points from the sidelines. And then not quite a year ago but last may i got a phone call, i got two phone calls, the first one was from the state department a friend of mine said bill, hypothetically would you be willing to go back out to ukraine, you know that i did this, and they said hypothetically sure, however, the next day, the same guy calls up, its not hypothetical anymore, he says would you be willing to go out and i said then i need to do some consulting and checking to see if people that i know would have advice. One person i know is my wife and i checked with her and her advice was do not go. I heard recently that there is a and its for wives whose husbands dont listen to them in the is we are all mrs. Taylor. [laughter] i did not realize this was the thing but apparently it is. As i was told. So i got her advice. I also went to a mentor and well talk maybe about mentorship later on. Well respected, i certainly respect him a lot and he said look, if your country asked you to do something, you do it if you can be effective. Thats an important caveat, its important these days because if you cannot be effective then you should not do it. However, he said you should find out if you can be effective. And he said the only way that you will no if youre going to have the support of the u. S. Government for you out in ukraine is to talk to the secretary of state. I did and i talked to secretary pompeo before i went out there and we had a very frank conversation and he assured me that the strong support for ukraine would continue because i was concerned about that and people in this room understand why someone might be concerned about the support for ukraine coming from this menstruation pretty is very clear and convincing. So with that assurance i agreed to go out there. So i got to ukraine, i went out there in june, last june, the embassy was, turmoil is too strong but unsettled was concerned, upset, their ambassador, maria mann o had put of ukraine. The ambassador leading the country in the full Embassy Mission all of a sudden was not there. And without much convincing indication of why, what the problem or issue was. So when i got there i had a little bit of information but not much. But what i could do was sit, stand, talk in a meeting like this, a little bit bigger the embassy is very big, 900 people in the embassy of ukraine, 300 americans and 600 ukrainians. I had a meeting with them as soon got there to try to get a sense from them in a conversation and give them a sense that what they are doing is important. I had three messages for them. The first was, what we, the u. S. Embassy in ukraine are doing, is it a very important time in the history of ukraine. You will remember there was an election in ukraine were comedians was elected flawed real zelensky was best known, very well known as the star of a tv series where he played the president of ukraine. And he was very well known by ukrainians. It turns out he is very well known by russians because this tv show is called servant of the people and widely viewed and in the show the president and the show over president zelensky played a president going after corruption and going after oligarchs in defending ukrainian uptown money from corruption but places like that i am afraid or the world bank. In the oligarchs corruption, even imf are the institutions that ukrainians love to hate. So president was going after them and he appealed to ukrainian sense of justice, respect for the rule of law, it was a very smart tv show and turned out it got him elected. And he was just taking office when i arrived and so it was an important time for the u. S. Government to be working with the new administration. The month after i got there was a parliamentary and president zelensky and his partys name the same thing as this tv show. His party is servant of the people. They won 60 of the seats in the parliament. So he could do things with the parliament and the Prime Minister and the government and with the cabinet. He was able to move some things along in particular in the fight against corruption but also in the attempt to end the war that i talk about a minute ago. Those were his two top priorities. In the war on honorable ukrainian terms but also fight the corrupt oligarchs that were threatening ukraines future and his presidency. So i made the point to the embassy that that mission is really important. Second point i made to them, there were strong support for what we are doing, what we the u. S. Embassy is doing right now and forwarding and pushing forward on a strong u. S. Ukrainian relationship. It turns out we have a great opportunity with the new government and so its an important time for the u. S. Government to be working with Ukrainian Government and i was able to say based on my conversation with secretary pompeo that we have strong support. I point out that the congress, republicans and democrats, house and senate, strong support, bilateral support, chris mentioned when we Work Together in the 90s on support for all 15 of the former soviet states strong support, but in particular in ukraine, krista will remember on the other side the senate side the chairman of the Senate Appropriation committee senator mcconnell would put an earmark every year for 250 million for ukraine. And people on the house side, administration would push back on senator mcconnell for this earmark. But it turns out in retrospect that that was a good investment. We invested in a long time and that but my point is bipartisan, that support continues. To this day. You see sanction bills being passed in the senate, 98 2, you see increase support on Security Assistance in the National Defense acquisition act from 250 million to 300 million. This year passing 86 8. The bipartisan support is there, we know about the rancor, we know about the partisan fighting on impeachment and whistleblow whistleblower, thats a different story. What i was able to say that story had yet to be told what i got there but i was able to tell the embassy that we have bipartisanship support, strong support, housesenate the Defense Department, state department, Treasury Department, usaid, we could do our job out there and be confident that we had support of washington. The third thing i said, keep your eye, lets focus on what were trying to do. I talked about the mission in support, lets focus on that and not let politics or any of this world of other issues, political issues and domestic get in the way. Keep our focus that helped. So we all move forward. That is certainly what i was interested in doing and were able to do that. So we began and as they went through the summer, last summer it came clear to me that there were two channels of policymaking and policy execution. Ill call the first one a regular channel and its institutional channel. Ill talk a little bit about institutions and the importance of institutions. But the regular channel of policy making and policy implementation for ukraine was the embassy, ukraine desk at the state department and the secretary of state, people like alex vindman and the National Security council, fiona hill, famous names, they may not say so but that is a regular channel. This is important most of the policy and the implementation of the policy goes through the regular channel even now. So the Security Assistance i mentioned, regular channel, the political assistance were we try to support the ukrainians as they negotiate with russians was some support from the german and french and we have been there, weve been supporting that, we should do more. But that is part of the regular channel. Usaid has a regular program, the state department has a very big program on the rule of law. Those kinds of assistant programs, support for technical assistance, thats of regular channel. And is supported by the congressman, and as i mentioned earlier overwhelming the congress has been passing. That is the regular channel, i figured out however, slowly and it shouldve probably figured this out more quickly but it became clear to me there was a small part of the u. S. Policy toward ukraine that was Going Forward in a regular channel. The irregular channel was led by a private lawyer and probably everybody in this room knows who im talking about. And he was able to get the assistance excuse me, of wellmeaning diplomats. So the irregular channel tried to have an effect on one small part of the u. S. Policy toward ukraine and you all know the story, i dont have to tell it. If anybody does not know it i can refer to congressional testimony. Where i laid out in great detail. But the punchline here, in the end the regular channel prevailed. In the end the regular channel reasserted itself, it was uncomfortable and unusual thats why you call it a regular the pressure reasserted itself, the assistance went forward, the two president s got together, zelensky and President Trump got together in new york, the bipartisan support for you ukraine continues and thats still on track. What i wanted to do, this is my punchline, the bottom line on this institutional thing. The regular channel is the institutional conscience of the u. S. Government, this regular channel is institution that forms policy and in this case for ukraine and includes professionals includes people who have been in the government for a long time and some people have not been in the government for a long time, probably some people have worked in this professional institution that forms you. There are probably people who will go into the institution, the regular channel. Its a very important component of our government. It provides the norms and keeps us on track, sometimes its burdensome and cumbersome. But nonetheless its designed with all the support from the congress or input from the congress, not always support as chris indicated. Sometimes there are disagreements. But that support from the congress is important input into the Foreign Policy institutional arrangement, plus what the Treasury Department thinks in the Defense Department and the state and how gets integrated into the National Security council. That institution is important. Theres a lot of institutions that are important. Jim steiners earlier book the road to unfreedom, he also has a book on. He. One thing he points out is important of institutions and strengthening institutions. What may they be, they may be George Washington university as an institution. Higher education more broadly. The u. S. Foreignpolicy structure is an institution. The private sector, these are all pieces that provide guidelines and provide direction and provided conscience for what were all trying to do. Let me stop there and hope that something i said was prompted some disagreement or other arguments, i would love to have the opportunity to talk with chris and you about this. Thank you all very much. [applause] i will turn this back on, thank you very much bill. Institutions are so very important. In our system of government, institutions of the vehicle by which the voices of all get her. As someone, who like the work to government often with very great frustration we would complain about the interagency process. Where all the agencies have to seek agreement. In the joke i like to talk, there is only one thing worse than working in the interagency process and thats a country that does not have one. So its cumbersome but serves us well over the longterm. I will take the liberty of asking the first question of bill taylor today and that would be, from the standpoint of his crew today, from the standpoint of your career today and very many different post that youve held, if you look back, what advice would you give to your former self into the young people in this room . With respect to leadership and ethics. Chris, thank you. This is working out. What would i tell my old herself, one thing looking back, chris mentioned that i started off at the military academy thinking that i would make a career in the military, that is where you go there. And thats what i started out, i did serve as chris indicated, had opportunity to think about that experience. As i did i thought about where i could make the best contribution. And i concluded, maybe right, may be wrong that outside of the military, i might be able to have more effect than inside. I had Great Respect and still do for the job the military is doing. I also Great Respect for the direction the military takes being guided by the institution that he just talked about. The institution of Foreign Policy and National Security policy, that institution guided the military into doing what it did and i thought that institution is important Pay Attention to institutions, i would also tell myself it will stay in this career and writes up to the ranks, that is one way that people can structure a career, look to see where you want to be after five year, tenure, 15 years hitting up a company, do you want to be congressman or senator. People do that and people kind of thinker what they need to do in what they need to learn, what schools they need to go to, what classes they need to take, what jobs they should try for an order to go up there. I would tell myself, now if i had the opportunity, think about it a little differently. Think about where you can make the biggest contribution and it may not be in the career path you started thinking about. And chris went through a little bit of my bouncing around and different jobs and for organizations. I took an opportunity a couple of times to change directions from the military interNational Security policy, from the legislature into the executive, from the Energy Department into interNational Security again. In different countries. Take advantage of opportunities and dont be afraid to switch. Because times change, you will change, and opportunities arise. The institutions, let me come back to that. They are really a boring subject. To think about institutions, im amazed that here we are talking a large group of people about institutions. But this is really important. Think of it as a conscience, the institution of National Security is a conscience of the u. S. Government in developing National Security. That is an important concept for us to know. Thank you bill, one question for you and them will definitely open up to the audience. Who stands out for you as a role model in your career . And why . Impersonal mentor if thats appropriate. Mentor, i mentioned earlier that before to going to this administration i wanted some advice so i went to a man who had senior position in previous Republican Administration and asked for this advice. By the way you said if your country asked you to do something, you do it. He is very well respected across the spectrum, hes very well respected but the republican and democrats and house of the senate within the broad range of the Republican Party at this point they all still consult with him, so that respect coming from a moderation, and his respect for the institutions when he was in office as a National Security advisor, he was able to pull ideas, information from option sitting around the interagency table that chris talked about in ways of conversing possible. So he was inclusive, engage, detail, he understood but also able to see the big picture. That was a person that i would go to for the advice. Thank you bill. Lets open it up. Im sure there are questions. I will call the questions. All look the other two to the side and then the other side. The young woman over here. Hi im a graduate student at George Washington university and i have a question, what do you think the effects on the backlash on Marie Yovanovitch in lieutenant vindman towards institutional conscience like you mentioned just now. I have known Marie Yovanovitch for a long time. Great respect for her. As does the entire International Affairs community. Even more so now, she has demonstrated the kind of toughness, the honesty, the bravery and what she owe has do. Especially in ukraine. She is attacked and stood up for our strong support of anticorruption networks in ukraine. Whenever you go against corrupt officials, you get pushback and lashed back into even get threats which she has gotten. Great respect for her, colone cl vindman, heres Lieutenant Colonel in the army doing his job, doing his important job in the National Security council, not getting out of his lane, focusing on what he supposed to be doing and doing it well. I had not known him before i was after this last time, i interacted with him a whole lot during the time i was out there and hes always professional and supportive fiona hill, another hero and was able to provide her with information that she needed. So those two people that you asked about are going to do fine. I think they will be fine Marie Yovanovitch is now retired, she gave a speech at georgetown a couple of weeks ago and it was great to see. So here she had been on the receiving end of some really tough things, not just from ukraine but as you indicated from here. And she had just retired and to see her up there on the stage making this a very good set of remarks and then the reception from all of the people in the crowds. Students i this room bought a lot of her colleagues and iconic diplomats. So bill burns, were all there in three standing ovations. She soaked it in and shes clearly reaffirmed and what she will be fine, colonel vindman is not the Security Council anymore, hes back in the army. I think he will be fine as well. I think they will be fine for doing the right thing. Yes please. I am a junior at the Elliott School and also an intern with the American Academy of diplomacy. Lots of thanks for your work on their part. My question is, how can we as americans into student best support of diplomats and Foreign Service . Thank you. So there are probably some diplomats and probably perspective diplomats, people who are thinking of going into the Armed Service which i encourage. Its an honorable profession, weve seen how its an important profession. So Marie Yovanovitch who we just described came up through the ranks in the Foreign Service. So one thing to into question, think about that is accrued path as a profession. The other thing is to support them in this institutional arrangement where they are, one component of the National SecurityDevelopment Institution that we talked about. That kind of support to understand what they do, diplomats i say having military background, a lot of time diplomats see that the military because they get shot at our heroes, theres no doubt about that. But the diplomats are right there and they are often not visible and often do not get the credit for being right there and often there there to reduce the shooting and to resolve the conflict. We see that right now in afghanistan. We might be on the cusp of indian that were in a negotiated way which we had to do and i spent a little bit of time on afghanistan in my own view, were close to being able to solve that income to an agreement and stop the war our military in the International Military that we are fighting, finally two years ago came to the conclusion we will not win it momentarily. We will not kill all the tall band. But up until a few years ago, they would hit them a little harder and our military came around to where the diplomats have been trying. We will make a negotiated settlement and hopefully we will see, support for that function is something we can all do. Thank you. Okay, the gentleman here. Hello i am alex, im from ukraine, i study here at George Washington university, a group in the soviet union and russia and then i came back to ukraine where i subsided and then i worked over one and a half year in human hearing response. So supporting genderbased violence supporters so that i worked at the red cross and nine here. So i have an insider knowledge about whats going on. First of all i would like to think ambassador taylor for all of the support that he and his team is providing to ukraine. Even though there are different opinions of how that support should be provided within the United States. I think your approach is the best and thank you very much for your continued support. And my question would be on the other side, and ukraine it is very connected to russia in many ways, good and bad. They will be in those institutions, 90 will be working with International Affairs, so how to maintain the balance with honest straightforward work like having your line in working with corrupt people in a very tough position, sometimes much harder, speaking of the russian government which is extremely corrupt and also the background, how can you maintain your balance. Thank you. Thank you for your work in your country. Ukrainians are fighting these battles that all the bottles i mentioned it ukrainians on the frontline and people like alex are the soldiers in the frontline. So thank you for that. Dealing with corrupt people, this is a challenge. Its also a challenge to see where people are in their project tree, for example, when i was in ukraine the first time, 2006 2009, i dealt with think oh at the time, he was a minister of interior. My information, not corrupt at the time. May be some rough edges but when i came back this time, a different person, he was being named as a prosecutor general. Criminals killed ukrainians and criminals who ripped off and stolen money out of banks. He was not doing that and for corrupt reasons and a corrupt background. There are other people in your country in the country know and respect in ukraine who have turned the page other way. I am prepared to believe that she may have earned her money early on. I believe she is now i think she turned the page and was able to make contribution as a Prime Minister and she ran for office. Others who have turned the page, i think as i mentioned, not all are corrupt and not all corrupt or old guards, but theres a intersection and there are people i am trying to become part of ukraine. The interview question, you have to keep in over mine as to who these people are, sometimes you have to deal with them. , i would say ambassadors and political directors and deputy chief, we will deal with the range of ukrainians but also the range argued or done. Our jobs are to present u. S. Policy recommendations to ukraine and how we would think that they would like and to also listeand not crab. You do not have to come in the present or the United States does not have to deal with corrupt other president s, he does not have to do that. You can have the lower level, the people in the field do that and i think that balance is hard to strike but its a tricky question that you ask. Okay, question here the young lady here. Thank you for being here today, i am a first semester student here at the mia program in my question for you, you mentioned your mentor your country asked you to do it only if youre effective, in your opinion what are some ways you develop defectiveness . His guidance, his quote if your country asked you to do it if you could be effective, thats exactly your question. So there were a couple things, i needed to be sure that i was going to be supported in pushing a strong support for ukraine policy, i was frankly a little worried that other considerations might present themselves and to deal could be struck which we would reduce our support for ukraine. In which case it told the secretary which i could not support. And i would have to come home and resign. , so i undertaking a question, i made it clear that i could support a policy that i believed in and i believe was important for the u. S. Foreign policy interest and it was part of, this policy had been developed by this institution we are talking about, the content of the u. S. Government on developing a strong support for ukraine, bipartisan, two decades worth and i was convinced that was the right policy to pursue and if that was going to change then i had to indicate to the secretary that i would have to resign and come back if that ever change prehearing herd me we will keep that strong policy. The second thing in order to be effective is to have a conversation, have information, the flow of understanding between washington because if we are out there doing our work on the assistance program, and trying to help them, i went to the front frequently to see how their military was doing and how our military support and security was, you cannot just do it after, it has to flow back, the information in the considerations and recommendations have to flow back to washington. So having that channel is a regular channel, its whats supposed to happen, this is the way we are all trained. The flow goes both ways, you get direction and policy direction from washington and you send back policy recommendation and how to implement. Both setting the condition in my case for going out there to be effective but also then trying to make it effective by improving the information flow. Thank you. A question in the back, the gentleman here. Thank you ambassador tailored to speak with us. I am a graduate student at the Elliott School and will join the Foreign Service in july. Think of her much. I wanted to first thank you for demonstrating how diplomats are supposed to behave by advocating for the Foreign Service during your testimony. My question is about the regular channel you mentioned. As young professionals, when should we speak out when we see this kind of irregular channel that you described in our careers, how should we do it and when to we follow the status quo . This is a very good question. There are ways to express dissent. There are ways to express concern about policy. And you saw alex vindman on the military side, most obviously when he listened into the phone call, the famous phone call on july 25 between the two president s. He was troubled, very much troubled by what he heard. The first thing to do, he went to his boss who had not been on the phone call and he told her what he had heard and expressed his concern, so the chain of command is important. In the first instance, the second thing, he wrote it down, he made a record so was contemporaneously written down both in his mind and on a piece of paper what he heard and what the concern was. He also then and his boss told him to do this, he talked to the lawyers and there are legal channels in every organization, certainly in the Foreign Service where youre headed and take advantage of those. He made it clear that that was a problem to the lawyers and the inspector general. That of course came up in the whistleblower because the whistleblower was in a different part of the organization at the gia and theres a channel for that. So the chain of command and the established methods of dissent. There is something called the dissent channel, you can also as a Foreign Service officer can write a cable with your embassy and your colleagues or with your own concerns and that will go back in a special channel and will be read and people will listen to that so you have to do that but the chain of command is important but its important that you have that and its important that channel exist and that people take advantage of it. Congratulations on going on the Foreign Service. Time for one last quit quick question. She has been very patient appeared. Please. Thank you. I am a graduate student in the International Development studies program ill be joining the Foreign Service in september so im very excited. I just want to thank you for your leadership especially looking to join the Foreign Service its been inspiring to observe how you conducted yourself these past few months encourage herself with integrity. My question is about what happened over the past year and it seems like throughout the occurrence of ukraine, you are one of the few principals who really stood out from the beginning and spoke out when you notice something was off. And other people in washington and other highlevel officials knew about it but did not speak up. Im wondering what does that say about the ethical and moral of our Foreign Policy leaders. Thank you. Standing out i mentioned earlier, when i began to see this irregular channel and when i began to see the implications and the real implication of the irregular channel of when it was looking like for some reason Security Assistance to ukraine was being held up. Out there in ukraine we cannot figure out why. There were no explanations. Even washington there were no explanations. The state department, nsc, 1b, to hold and put the pause on. And going back to the earlier question, i wrote back, i made phone calls in my chain of command and to ask what is going on because i thought and hoped that this pause in Security Assistance was a mistake, misunderstanding and through the summer i got more and more worried that something was going on, it was not just chaos, there was conspiracy to hold up the assistance so i raised a higher and higher and sent a cable to the secretary making the case for the Security Assistance. And in the end, in answer to your question, the system worked. The Foreign Policy experts, leaders, principles recognized the importance of this Security Assistance for ukraine, heres a country at war with russia and were holding up at the we cannot figure it out, the system eventually pushed it forward. And got it resolved with help on the congress and help from the whistleblower for that matter. But in the end the senior levels made the change and pushed them forward. I think it can be selfcorrecting, thats an institution, the institution that has all the checks and balances sometimes true frustration can support the right answer in the end. So youre going into good organization, you both are and others in this room are as well and i congratulate you for doing that. In a moment i will ask ambassador tailored to join me at the podium but before we do that please join me in thanking him. [applause] what i would like to do is to present to ambassador taylor, the first time the school has ever awarded the leadership and ethics award and i will read the citation here. To william b taylor, u. S. Embassy, and previously United States ambassador to ukraine. In recognition of his exemplary actions, demonstrating leadership and a commitment to practice in the field of International Affairs. Thank you. [applause] theres another picture here. Thank you all for being here in this honor. Here we go. Okay thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] cspan your unfiltered view of government. Created by cable in 1979 and brought to you today by your television provider. Kurt poker the u. S. Representative to ukraine, he moderated a Panel Discussion about global immigration and refugee policy. Panelists include secretary of state and richard, former human rights first president and Boston College political, peter who wrote about immigration. For the international and