Tag: Trump abuse of power

New Evidence Shows Trump Team Offered Ukraine More Than One Quid Pro Quo for Biden Dirt

Documents made public Tuesday provide new insight into the breadth of President Donald Trump’s effort to extract dirt from Ukraine on the Bidens and show Rudy Giuliani was actively soliciting information on Burisma and Joe Biden’s son Hunter even before the interactions with newly elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that led to Trump’s impeachment. The new material released by House Democrats shows Trump’s team offering up what appears to be another quid pro quo to the previous regime in Ukraine, as well as admitting to surveilling the U.S. ambassador in Ukraine.

The Trump administration, and Republicans generally, has for months been disingenuously condemning the impeachment inquiry as incomplete because of a lack of witnesses and documentation, while simultaneously refusing to allow administration witnesses to testify and stonewalling document requests. The latest release shows how little we actually know as a result and how bad it all is already, as the messages appear to show Trump’s team, led by Giuliani and his associate Lev Parnas, attempting to procure damaging information on Burisma from Ukraine’s top prosecutor, Yuriy Lutsenko, as early as March. In return, Lutsenko was demanding the removal of the American ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, who had been critical of the regime’s anemic anti-corruption efforts. Continue reading “New Evidence Shows Trump Team Offered Ukraine More Than One Quid Pro Quo for Biden Dirt”

House votes to send impeachment articles to Senate

The Hill logoHouse Democrats voted Wednesday to send a pair of articles of impeachment to the Senate, a move that launches a trial in the upper chamber and ends the weeks-long wait for phase two in the Democrats’ effort to remove President Trump from office.

The vote, scheduled by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) after a month of speculation over timing, cut virtually across party lines, with 227 Democrats supporting the resolution and 192 Republicans opposing it. 

The final vote tally, however, was 228-193 with Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), who voted against the impeachment articles, being the only Democrat to buck the party line and vote against the resolution. Rep. Justin Amash (I-Mich.), who switched from Republican to Independent last year, voted in favor of the resolution. Continue reading.

How Giuliani’s outreach to Ukrainian gas tycoon wanted in U.S. shows lengths he took in his hunt for material to bolster Trump

Washington Post logoThe four men are gathered around a table cluttered with glasses inside an exclusive Parisian cigar bar, beaming as they each offer an ebullient thumbs-up for the camera.

>Rudolph W. Giuliani, President Trump’s personal attorney, is flanked by Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, two Soviet-born emigres who were helping him hunt for damaging information about Democrats in Ukraine and who now face federal campaign finance charges. At the center of the photo is a new character in the Trump-Ukraine drama: an executive at a company owned by Dmytro Firtash, a Ukrainian gas tycoon who has been allied with pro-Russia interests and is currently fighting extradition to the United States to face bribery charges.

Photos of the May cigar bar huddle provided to The Washington Post capture a new moment in Giuliani’s operation to procure information from Ukrainian sources to bolster his presidential client. That effort, which played out in various European cities last spring and summer, led Giuliani to seek information from Firtash’s network and other controversial figures with much to gain from helping Trump’s private lawyer. Continue reading.

GAO finds Trump administration broke law by withholding Ukraine aid

The Hill logoThe Trump administration’s decision to freeze the release of security assistance to Ukraine violated the law, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a new report.

The independent watchdog said in an opinion issued Thursday that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) withheld the appropriated funds last summer not as a programmatic delay but in order to advance the president’s own agenda.

By doing so, the watchdog concluded, the White House violated what’s known as the Impoundment Control Act (ICA). Continue reading.

House delivers impeachment articles to Senate

The Hill logoHouse Democrats on Wednesday formally shifted the impeachment of President Trump to the Senate, delivering a pair of impeachment articles to the upper chamber and effectively launching the trial to determine whether the president will remain in office.

In a ceremonial procession, seven designated Democrats, known as impeachment managers, silently marched the two articles across the Capitol — a short promenade through the old House chamber, beneath the soaring Rotunda, past the legendary Ohio Clock and on to the Senate.

Accompanying the lawmakers were Paul Irving, the House sergeant at arms, and Cheryl Johnson, the House clerk. Lining the way were an army of reporters and photographers grappling for a glimpse of history behind red velvet-covered stanchions. Continue reading.

With an impeachment trial looming, new evidence that Trump sought personal benefit in Ukraine

Washington Post logoIf one were simply to read the transcript, as President Trump has insisted we do, the point made obvious in new documents released by the House Intelligence Committee would be apparent.

In that transcript — the rough transcript of the July 25 call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — Trump cajoles his counterpart to start investigations focused on former vice president Joe Biden and an unfounded theory about Ukrainian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Zelensky agrees to the probes with alacrity, in part, no doubt, because it had already been made clear to his team that agreement was a necessary criterion for a much-sought meeting with Trump at the White House. To move the probes forward, Trump then suggests that Zelensky work with two people: Attorney General William P. Barr, head of the Justice Department — and Rudolph W. Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney.

The inclusion of Giuliani in the conversation has long made it hard for Trump to argue that he was seeking Zelensky’s aid only insofar as it would benefit the United States generally. When he asked Zelensky to “do us a favor,” he has argued, he meant “us” as in the United States. That he then suggested Zelensky work with Giuliani, who is not an employee of the United States, and that his request in that specific case focused on his efforts to undermine the investigation into Russian interference that he saw as a cloud over his presidency make it particularly hard to take Trump’s claims at face value. Continue reading.

Ukraine prosecutor offered information related to Biden in exchange for ambassador’s ouster, newly released materials show

Washington Post logoNew materials released by House Democrats appear to show Ukraine’s top prosecutor offering an associate of President Trump’s personal attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani, damaging information related to former vice president Joe Biden if the Trump administration recalled the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.

The text messages and documents provided to Congress by former Giuliani associate Lev Parnas also show that before the ambassador, Marie Yovanovitch, was removed from her post, a Parnas associate now running for Congress sent menacing text messages suggesting that he had Yovanovitch under surveillance in Ukraine. A lawyer for Yovanovitch said Tuesday that the episode should be investigated.

The cache of materials released by House investigators late Tuesday exposed a number of previously unknown details about efforts by Giuliani and his associates to obtain material in Ukraine that would undermine Trump’s Democratic opponents. Continue reading.

Impeachment trial security crackdown will limit Capitol press access

Press pens and ‘no walking and talking’ draw criticism from press corps advocates

The Senate sergeant-at-arms and Capitol Police are launching an unprecedented crackdown on the Capitol press corps for the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, following a standoff between the Capitol’s chief security officials, Senate Rules Chairman Roy Blunt and the standing committees of correspondents.

Capitol Police Chief Steven A. Sund and Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Michael C. Stenger will enact a plan that intends to protect senators and the chamber, but it also suggests that credentialed reporters and photographers whom senators interact with on a daily basis are considered a threat.

Additional security screening and limited movement within the Capitol for reporters are two issues that are drawing criticism from Capitol Hill media. Continue reading.

House Dems release new impeachment evidence related to indicted Giuliani associate

It also includes a previously undisclosed May 2019 letter from Giuliani to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The House Intelligence Committee released new evidence on Tuesday related to the impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump, including information turned over by Lev Parnas, an indicted former associate of Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani.

The release, which reflects the unfinished nature of the House’s impeachment inquiry, comes ahead of an expected House vote on Wednesday to formally send the impeachment articles to the Senate for a trial.

“Despite unprecedented obstruction by the president, the committee continues to receive and review potentially relevant evidence and will make supplemental transmittals,” Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) wroteTuesday to Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), whose panel is responsible for compiling the complete record of the investigation ahead of the Senate’s trial. Continue reading. Continue reading.

‘Documents don’t lie’ — the other fight over evidence at Trump impeachment trial

With trial to begin next week, it’s unclear Democrats have the votes to issue subpoenas

The high-profile fight over potentially dramatic witness testimony at an impeachment trial of President Donald Trump has overshadowed the Senate’s possible demand for a different type of revealing cache of new evidence — withheld documents.

Senate Democrats have pushed to include in the trial documents that the Trump administration refused to turn over during the House investigation. But they need at least four Republicans to vote with all Democrats and independents for the Senate to subpoena witnesses or documents, and it’s not clear they have those votes.

The trial is expected to begin next week, after Wednesday’s House vote to transmit the articles of impeachment. Continue reading.