Tag: House Intelligence committee

Never Trumper’: President unleashes on Pence aide after she testifies about ‘inappropriate’ Ukraine pressure

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump on Sunday lashed out at an adviser to Vice President Mike Pence after she testified that the president put “inappropriate” pressure on Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden.

“Tell Jennifer Williams, whoever that is, to read BOTH transcripts of the presidential calls,” Trump ranted on Twitter. “[S]ee the just released ststement from Ukraine. Then she should meet with the other Never Trumpers, who I don’t know & mostly never even heard of, & work out a better presidential attack!”

In a transcript released over the weekend, Williams told House investigators that Trump appeared to be trying to serve a “personal political agenda, as opposed to a broader … foreign policy objective of the United States.”

View the complete November 17 article by David Edwards from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

Sondland testimony looms over impeachment hearings this week

The Hill logoDramatic testimony from U.S. diplomats working in Ukraine have significantly raised the stakes for this week’s impeachment inquiry appearance from Gordon Sondland, the mega-donor to President Trump who is now the U.S. ambassador to the European Union.

Sondland is expected to come under tough questioning from Democrats and Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday after shifting his initial statement in the inquiry to acknowledge it was his belief that Trump linked Ukrainian security assistance to that country announcing investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

Testimony last week from William Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, has also put a new spotlight on Sondland. Taylor testified that one of his staffers overheard Sondland speaking with Trump about the desired investigations into Biden and 2016 election interference.

View the complete November 18 article by Cristina Marcos on The Hill website here.

House Intel releases transcript of interview with ousted Ukraine ambassador

Axios logoThe House Intelligence Committee on Monday released the transcripts of its interview with former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, a key witness in the impeachment inquiry.

Why it matters: Yovanovitch, who was removed from her post in May, testified that President Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani led a campaign to oust her as ambassador over unsubstantiated allegations that she badmouthed the president and was seeking to stop Ukraine from opening an investigation into Joe Biden and his son.

Key excerpts:

  • Yovanovitch testified that she learned about Giuliani’s plan to target her from Ukrainian officials in late 2018. She said she learned that Giuliani had met with Ukraine prosecutor general Yuriy Lutsenko, who wanted to “hurt” her “in the U.S.”

View the complete November 4 article by Zachary Basu on the Axios website here.

White House official corroborates diplomat’s account that Trump appeared to seek quid pro quo

Washington Post logoA White House adviser on Thursday corroborated key impeachment testimony from a senior U.S. diplomat who said last week he was alarmed by efforts to pressure the Ukrainian government to investigate President Trump’s political rivals in exchange for nearly $400 million in military aid.

Tim Morrison, the top Russia and Europe adviser on President Trump’s National Security Council, told House investigators over eight hours of closed-door testimony that the “substance” of his conversations recalled by William B. Taylor Jr., the acting ambassador to Ukraine, was “accurate,” according to his prepared remarks and people familiar with Morrison’s testimony.

In particular, Morrison verified that Trump’s envoy to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, conveyed to a Ukrainian official that the military aid would be released if the country investigated an energy firm linked to the son of former vice president Joe Biden. Morrison, who announced his resignation the night before his testimony, said he did not necessarily view the president’s demands as improper or illegal, but rather problematic for U.S. policy in supporting an ally in the region.

View the complete October 31 article by Carol D. Leonnig, John Hudson, Karoun Demirjian and Rachael Bade on The Washington Post website here.

Top intel Dem accuses official of illegally withholding ‘credible’ and ‘urgent’ whistleblower complaint

AlterNet logoHouse Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff has issued a press release and a subpoena to the acting Director of National Intelligence over a subject that looks deeply concerning. A month ago, someone inside the U.S. intelligence community filed a whistleblower complaint alleging a “flagrant problem” or “violation of the law.” That complaint appears to have been aimed directly at actions by acting DNI Joseph Maguire. Since that filing, the Inspector General for the intelligence community has looked into the matter and found that it’s not only “credible,” but an “urgent concern.”

A month later, this urgent concern about a flagrant violation is still being hidden by Maguire. The clock ran out for Maguire to release this whistleblower report on Sept. 3. But he did not release it. In fact, he didn’t even let Congress know that there was such a report.

As Schiff notes, even if the original report didn’t allege a violation of the law, the failure to release the report absolutely is a violation of the law. This instance is both extremely serious and utterly unprecedented.

View the complete September 15 article by Mark Sumner from Daily Kos on the AlterNet website here.

Fact-checking lawmakers’ claims during the Mueller hearings

Washington Post logoOver the course of nearly six hours, former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III testified before two House committees. Here’s a guide to some of the claims made by lawmakers that were factually shaky or misleading.

“The special counsel’s job — nowhere does it say that you were to conclusively determine Donald Trump’s innocence, or that the special counsel report should determine whether or not to exonerate him. It’s not in any of the documents. It’s not in your appointment order. It’s not in the special counsel regulations. It’s not in the OLC opinions. It’s not in the Justice Manual. And it’s not in the Principles of Federal Prosecution. Nowhere do those words appear together because, respectfully, respectfully, director, it was not the special counsel’s job to conclusively determine Donald Trump’s innocence or to exonerate him. Because the bedrock principle of our justice system is a presumption of innocence.”

— Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Tex.)

Ratcliffe essentially accused Mueller of overstepping his bounds. For various reasons, Mueller did not file charges against Trump. Yet the report lays out substantial evidence of potential obstruction of justice by the president.

View the complete July 25 article by Salvador Rizzo and Glenn Kessler on The Washington Post website here.

Justice Dept. Tells Mueller Deputies Not to Testify, Scrambling an Agreement

New York Times logoWASHINGTON — The Justice Department is seeking to discourage Robert S. Mueller III’s deputies from testifying before Congress, potentially jeopardizing an agreement for two of the former prosecutors to answer lawmakers’ questions in private next week, according to two government officials familiar with the matter.

The department told the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees last week that it was opposed to the testimony and had communicated its view to the two former members of Mr. Mueller’s team, Aaron Zebley and James L. Quarles III, according to a senior congressional official familiar with the discussions. A Justice Department official confirmed that account and said that the department had instructed both men not to appear.

It is unclear what effect the Justice Department’s intervention will have on the men’s eventual appearances, but it raises the prospect that a deal lawmakers thought they had struck last month for testimony from Mr. Mueller, the former special counsel, and the two prosecutors could still unravel.

View the complete July 9 article by Nicholas Fandos and Katie Benner on The New York Times website here.

Trump plans rally in Greenville, NC, on day Mueller is set to testify

President Donald Trump will hold a rally in Greenville, NC, on July 17, according to his campaign website.

The rally at Williams Arena is the same day former special counsel Robert Mueller is set to testify before Congress on his investigation into the Trump campaign, The Hill reported. Mueller will “publicly testify before the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees,” according to the Associated Press.

The Keep America Great rally is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. Only two tickets per person are available for those registering to attend the Greenville rally, according to the website.

View the complete July 2 article by Noah Feit on The Charlotte Observer here.

Weeks of Talks Led a Reluctant Mueller to Testify

New York Times logoWASHINGTON — The agreement for Robert S. Mueller III to testify on Capitol Hill materialized after weeks of phone calls and meetings between House Democratic staff and associates of Mr. Mueller, who made clear his reluctance to enter the political war surrounding his investigation.

His intermediaries repeatedly delivered a message that Mr. Mueller, then the special counsel, conveyed last month in a rare public appearance: A prosecutor speaks through his indictments and the written word rather than the public spectacle of a congressional hearing. Mr. Mueller was so averse to being pulled into the political arena that he never spoke directly with lawmakers or their aides, according to a senior congressional official involved in the talks and others briefed on them.

His reticence mattered little in the end. Democrats were insistent that he had a responsibility to testify, though they agreed to combine questioning from two panels on one day. The protracted negotiations came to an abrupt stop late on Tuesday night when representatives for Mr. Mueller agreed that he would show up if the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees issued subpoenas for an appearance on July 17.

View the complete June 26 article by Nicholas Fandos and Eileen Sullivan on The Washington Post website here.

Here are 4 ways the Republicans’ star witness actually just undermined Trump’s bogus talking points about the Russia investigation

Andrew McCarthy has been an aggressive defender of President Donald Trump against the charges brought up by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation on Fox News and elsewhere. In fact, the former federal prosecutor has been such a fierce advocate for Trump and a purveyor of the right wing’s talking points that Republicans called him before the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday to testify.

But before the committee and under penalty of perjury, McCarthy actually contradicted several of the GOP’s favorite talking points about the FBI investigation of the Trump campaign, as both John Amato and Kyle Cheney pointed out.

1. He said no one who approved the Carter Page FISA application — which has been the source of outrage on the right — was acting bad faith.

One of the biggest sources of trumped-up outrage in right-wing media about the Russia investigation has been the surveillance of one-time Trump aide Carter Page, who was actually only surveilled after he left the campaign. (The Mueller report indicates Page has been targeted as a Russian intelligence asset in the past, though he wasn’t charged with any wrongdoing.) This one choice by investigators has been used to suggest that the FBI was on a politically motivated crusade targeting the Trump campaign — possibly in a conspiracy that went up to President Barack Obama.

View the complete June 13 article by Cody Fenwick on the AlterNet website here.