Tag: Trump abuse of power

‘Smoking gun so hot it’s still on fire’: Former US attorney astonished by text shown in Vindman testimony

AlterNet logoA former U.S. Attorney says Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman has delivered “smoking gun” evidence of a quid pro quo arrangement between President Donald Trump and Ukraine.

The National Security Council staffer told a House impeachment inquiry that he was aware of — and alarmed by — efforts as early as March to pressure Ukraine to announce an investigation of Joe Biden and his son, which he believed were conducted to deliver a political benefit the president.

The counsel for House Democrats then showed a text sent 30 minutes before Trump’s July 25 call to Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky, which shows the special envoy Kurt Volker dangling a White House visit to a Zelensky aide in exchange for an investigation.

View the complete November 19 article by Travis Gettys from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

Trump said his Ukraine call was ‘perfect.’ Impeachment witnesses testified otherwise.

Washington Post logoThree current and former Trump administration officials described Tuesday how they harbored a variety of concerns surrounding a July phone call in which President Trump pressed his Ukrainian counterpart to investigate former vice president Joe Biden — boosting Democrats’ inquiry into whether Trump should be impeached and substantially undercutting the president’s assertion that the conversation was “perfect.”

Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been at the heart of Democrats’ impeachment investigation, and on Tuesday, they solicited public testimony from the trio of firsthand witnesses, who had been tasked with listening in.

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the National Security Council’s European affairs director, said he considered the president’s demand of the Ukrainian leader “inappropriate,” because it could have “significant national security implications” for the United States.

View the complete November 19 article by Karoun Demirjian, Mike DeBonis and Matt Zapotosky on The Washington Post website here.

In the House impeachment drama, Russia still plays big role

WASHINGTON (AP) — For all the talk about Ukraine in the House impeachment inquiry, there’s a character standing just off-stage with a dominant role in this tale of international intrigue: Russia.

As has so often been the case since President Donald Trump took office, Moscow provides the mood music for the unfolding political drama.

“With you, Mr. President, all roads lead to Putin,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared last week, and not for the first time.

View the complete November 18 article by Aamer Madhani and Andrew Taylor on the Associated Press website here.

Indicted Giuliani associate Lev Parnas claims Trump ordered a ‘secret mission’

AlterNet logoLev Parnas, the indicted associate of Rudy Giuliani who helped the former New York mayor hunt for dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden in Ukraine, allegedly claimed that President Donald Trump personally tasked him with a “secret mission” to pressure Ukraine to investigate Biden at a White House party.

Parnas and Igor Fruman, who were indicted last month on charges alleging that they funneled foreign cash into U.S. elections, including a $325,000 contribution to a pro-Trump super PAC, appeared in a photo taken alongside Giuliani, Trump and Vice President Mike Pence at the White House Hanukkah party last year.

During the party, Parnas and Fruman slipped out for a private meeting with Trump and Giuliani, two acquaintances who Parnas confided in told CNN. Parnas allegedly told his confidants after the meeting that the “big guy,” which is how he purportedly referred to the president, had assigned him and Fruman a “secret mission” to pressure Ukraine into investigating Biden and his son Hunter.

View the complete November 19 article by Igor Derysh from Salon on the National Memo website here.

Using grab bag of arguments, Republicans stick together against impeachment

Washington Post logoThey’ve called the testimony “secondhand information” and “hearsay.” They’ve defended the president’s right to investigate corruption abroad. They’ve raised questions about the anonymous whistleblower who started the probe. They’ve argued that nothing ultimately happened. And, over and over, they’ve attacked the process.

Republicans battling the potential impeachment of President Trump have flitted among a multitude of shifting — and, at times, contradictory — defenses and deflections as they seek to cast doubt on a narrative supported by mounting evidence: that Trump subverted U.S. foreign policy to further his personal aims by pressuring Ukraine to launch politically motivated investigations, using hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid as leverage.

While those attacks — at least 22, according to a Washington Post tally — have done little to undermine the core allegations under investigation in the House, they have been remarkably successful in one respect: keeping congressional Republicans united against impeachment as the GOP casts the probe as partisan.

View the complete November 19 article by Mike DeBonis and Rachael Bade on The Washington Post website here.

Volker says he rejected Biden ‘conspiracy theory’ pushed by Giuliani

The Hill logoFormer U.S. special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker on Tuesday pushed back on an allegation about former Vice President Joe Biden amplified by President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, calling it a “conspiracy theory.”

Volker said specifically that he “rejected” the theory during a meeting with Giuliani on July 19 while insisting he had no knowledge of an effort to investigate Biden within the Trump administration.

“At the one in-person meeting I had with Mayor Giuliani on July 19, Mayor Giuliani raised, and I rejected, the conspiracy theory that Vice President Biden would have been influenced in his duties as vice president by money paid to his son,” Volker said in his opening remarks at a House impeachment hearing on Tuesday.

View the complete November 19 article by Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

Exactly what Alexander Hamilton ‘darkly envisioned’: Constitutional law professor explains how Trump is sabotaging the presidency from within

AlterNet logoCritics of President Donald Trump have often used the word “unpresidential” when describing his over-the-top antics . But legal scholar/author Laurence H. Tribe, in a November 18 article for Newsweek, stresses that with impeachment hearings underway, it is becoming more and more obvious that Trump is way beyond “unpresidential” — he has become the “anti-president” that Founding Father Alexander Hamilton warned about in the 1780s and 1790s.

“More than unpresidential, Trump represents the perfect exemplar of what Alexander Hamilton darkly envisioned when he described the danger that a demagogue might one day assume the presidency and require removal through the awesome power of impeachment,” explains the 78-year-old Tribe, who teaches constitutional law at Harvard University. “Such a demagogue, Hamilton prophesied, would be ‘a man unprincipled in private life, desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper…. despotic in his ordinary demeanor.’”

Hamilton, Tribe adds, feared the emergence of a charlatan who would “take every opportunity” to bring the federal government “under suspicion” and “throw things into confusion” — and Trump, according to Tribe, fits that description perfectly.

View the complete November 19 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.

7 takeaways from Tuesday’s impeachment hearings

Washington Post logoAfter three witnesses last week painted a broad picture of a U.S. foreign policy hijacked by political interests, this week the impeachment inquiry into President Trump began with testimony Tuesday from four people who serve inside the White House and on the front lines of U.S. foreign policy in Ukraine.

Tuesday’s hearings featured:

Continue reading “7 takeaways from Tuesday’s impeachment hearings”

Vindman defends impeachment witnesses, describes concerns about Trump Ukraine call

The Hill logoA top White House expert on Ukraine testifying publicly in the House impeachment inquiry into President Trump on Tuesday described attacks on him and other witnesses as “reprehensible” and “cowardly,” recognizing career officials for their courage in coming forward to raise concerns about the administration’s policies toward Ukraine.

In measured opening remarks, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman said that he believed President Trump’s July 25 call with Ukraine’s president to be “improper” and that he reported concerns about it to a National Security Council (NSC) lawyer out of a “sense of duty.”

“I never thought I would be sitting here testifying in front of this committee and the American public about my actions,” Vindman, who wore his uniform during Tuesday’s hearing, said.

View the complete November 19 article by Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

The 22 defenses Trump’s allies have floated on Ukraine and impeachment

Washington Post logoAs House Democrats have investigated President Trump’s dealings with Ukraine over the past two months, Republican lawmakers and Trump allies have floated no fewer than 22 defenses of the president, according to a Fix analysis.

Let’s run through them:

1. Trump’s July 25 call with Ukraine’s president was appropriate

Who: Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio)

What he said: “I think it’s perfectly appropriate to ask a foreign leader to look into potential corruption,” Wenstrup said Oct. 1.

Context: On Sept. 20, Trump tweeted that his call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was “pitch perfect.” Since then, Trump has called his call “perfect” more than 150 times, according to a Fix review of Factba.se transcripts.

View the complete November 18 article by JM Rieger on The Washington Post website here.