Tag: Trump abuse of power

Speaker Pelosi Publicly Rebuts Republicans On Impeachment

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi addressed three of the popular arguments against the impeachment of President Donald Trump in a letter on Monday to her Democratic colleagues.

First, she addressed the claim, made frequently despite the damning evidence coming out of the impeachment hearings, that it’s pointless or somehow a subversion of the popular will to impeach a president within a year of an election.

“The weak response to these hearings has been, ‘Let the election decide,’” she said. “That dangerous position only adds to the urgency of our action, because the President is jeopardizing the integrity of the 2020 elections.”

View the complete November 19 article by Cody Fenwick from AlterNet on the National Memo website here.

In run-up to crucial impeachment hearings, president hits a rough patch

Despite Trump’s troubles, has impeachment ‘moved the needle?’ One Dem strategist says no

An embattled Donald Trump enters one of the most consequential weeks of his presidency on defense, reeling from self-inflicted wounds, political setbacks and a surprise hospital visit the White House is struggling to explain.

This week will keep the focus on the president as nine administration witnesses head to Capitol Hill to testify in the House impeachment inquiry. Several told lawmakers behind closed doors they understood Trump ordered military aid to Ukraine frozen until its new president agreed to publicly state he would investigate U.S. Democrats.

They will testify in televised hearings after a new ABC News/Ipsos poll found 70 percent of Americans believe Trump’s actions were wrong. The same survey also found a razor-thin majority, 51 percent, want the president impeached and removed from office.

View the complete November 19 article by John T. Bennett on The Roll Call website here.

Impeachment witness says Ukraine ‘gradually came to understand’ Trump’s desired investigation was tied to aid, meeting

Washington Post logoA counselor in the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine told lawmakers last week that he was shocked to overhear a phone call in which a top diplomat assured President Trump that Ukrainian officials would pursue an investigation of interest to the U.S. commander in chief — a probe that the diplomat later suggested was of former vice president Joe Biden, Trump’s political rival.

The counselor, David Holmes, also testified that the Ukrainians “gradually came to understand that they were being asked to do something in exchange” for a White House meeting or military aid, which was held back as the president and his allies pressed for the Biden investigation, according to a transcript of his testimony released Monday.

Democrats released the transcript of Holmes’s testimony — along with that of another diplomatic official, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale — as they kicked off what will be perhaps the most intense week yet of their impeachment inquiry into whether Trump sought to engage the Ukrainians in a corrupt bargain to help him get reelected.

View the complete November 18 article by Matt Zapotosky, Karoun Demirjian, Ellen Nakashima and Elise Viebeck on The Washington Post website here.

Russia could have monitored Trump’s call with Sondland, State Dept. official testified

David Holmes was in a restaurant in Kyiv with Gordon Sondland when the U.S. ambassador to the EU called Trump.

President Donald Trump’s call to the cell phone of a U.S. ambassador — a call that included a discussion of “investigations” Trump was asking Ukraine to launch into his Democratic rivals — was at risk of being monitored by Russia, a State Department official told House impeachment investigators.

David Holmes was in a restaurant in Kyiv with U.S. Ambassador Gordon Sondland on July 26, when Sondland called Trump to discuss the probes. Holmes told members of the House Intelligence Committee that he “vividly” recalled the conversation because Trump’s voice was so loud and discernible, and the two spoke so openly about the investigations.

Holmes, the political counselor at the U.S. embassy in Kyiv, said it immediately made him nervous because two of the three mobile networks in Ukraine are Russian-owned.

View the complete November 18 article by Kyle Cheney and Rishika Dugyala on the Politico website here.

Impeachment witness: Ukraine ‘gradually came to understand that they were being asked to do something’

The Hill logoA State Department staffer told House lawmakers last week that he believed officials in Ukraine “gradually came to understand that they were being asked to do something” in order for a hold on security assistance from the U.S. to be lifted, according to a transcript released by House Democrats on Monday evening.

David Holmes, a career State Department official now based in Kyiv who is slated to testify publicly later this week, also told lawmakers that he had “never seen anything like” the phone call he overheard between President Trump and U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland in July. 

“This was an extremely distinctive experience in my Foreign Service career. I’ve never seen anything like this, someone calling the President from a mobile phone at a restaurant, and then having a conversation of this level of candor, colorful language. There’s just so much about the call that was so remarkable that I remember it vividly,” Holmes told investigators, according to the transcript.

View the complete November 18 article by Morgan Chalfant, Brett Samuels and Olivia Beavers on The Hill website here.

Top Diplomat Testified Pompeo Called Hannity About Yovanovitch Smears

“It did come up at some point with the secretary,” David Hale said. “I understood that he did call Sean Hannity.”

David Hale, the under secretary of state for political affairs, said in his closed-door impeachment testimony that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called Fox News host Sean Hannity last spring to ask about the smear campaign launched against former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, according to a transcript that was made public Monday night.

Discussing efforts by Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and pro-Trump media to besmirch the reputation of Yovanovitch ahead of her ouster as ambassador, Hale noted that Pompeo spoke to Giuliani twice in late March regarding the allegations.

At the time, conservative columnist John Solomon had reported that former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko said Yovanovitch had given him a “do not prosecute list.” (Lutsenko would later walk back that claim.)

View the complete November 18 article by Justin Baragona on the Daily Beast website here.

IRS whistleblower case advances as Senate staff looks at whether political appointee meddled with audit of Trump or Pence

Washington Post logoSenate aides spoke to the whistleblower, and follow-up interviews are expected.

Two senators are looking into a whistleblower’s allegations that at least one political appointee at the Treasury Department may have tried to interfere with an audit of President Trump or Vice President Pence, according to two people with knowledge of the matter, a sign that lawmakers are moving to investigate the complaint lodged by a senior staffer at the Internal Revenue Service.

Staff members for Sens. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Wyden (Ore.), the chairman and ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, met with the IRS whistleblower earlier this month, those people said. Follow-up interviews are expected to further explore the whistleblower’s allegations.

It could not be learned to what extent the senators consider the whistleblower a credible source. Trump administration officials have previously played down the complaint’s significance and suggested that it is politically motivated.

View the complete November 18 article by Jeff Stein and Tom Hamburger on The Washington Post website here.

Trump blames Mike Pompeo for State Department officials’ devastating testimony in impeachment inquiry: ‘Rein your people in!’

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump unloaded recently on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, whom he blames for devastating testimony against him the House impeachment inquiry.

The president confronted Pompeo, who has been his closest ally, during an Oct. 29 lunch at the White House, according to four current former senior administration officials who spoke to NBC News.

“(Trump) just felt like, ‘rein your people in,’” said one senior administration official.

View the complete November 18 article by Travis Gettys from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

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.