Tag: Trump abuse of power

Trump’s former business associates have no doubt believing president’s guilt in the Ukraine scandal: report

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump has been accused by multiple witnesses of withholding military aid from Ukraine to pressure its government to announce an investigation of Joe Biden, and none of his associates are surprised.

The president’s former employees and White House officials agreed the scheme sketched out by impeachment inquiry witnesses sounds like the guy they worked with in both real estate and government, reported Politico.

“He does nothing without a quid pro quo,” said one former White House official. “Nothing. Whatever deal has got to be to his advantage.”

View the complete November 15 article by Travis Gettys from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

No, Everybody Doesn’t Abuse The Presidency

The testimony of State Department official George Kent and acting U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor confirmed the elements of the Ukraine scandal that have led to impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump, specifically that the president and his associates, especially Rudy Giuliani and Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, sought to instigate and publicize a phony “investigation” of Joe Biden by withholding military aid from Ukraine.

None of the chaff thrown up by the Republicans during those hearings effectively contradicted the narrative outlining this abuse of power. Sooner or later, as the hearings continue, the majority of Americans will understand fully what Trump did and why his misconduct was so dangerous.

The Republicans will continue to object that the testimony given by Taylor and Kent, and the witnesses who follow, is only “hearsay.” Trump himself whines that the whistleblower’s complaint, approved by his own inspector general, is “second- and third-hand.”

View the complete November 14 article by Joe Conason on the National Memo website here.

Trump’s Choice: National Security or Political Obsession

New York Times logoThe impeachment inquiry is the first to involve an issue of geopolitical gravity: Whether the president was undercutting American national interests — containing Russia — to bolster his campaign.

The last two impeachment investigations of the past half-century began with a third-rate burglary and an extramarital affair. They quickly expanded to question the credibility and ethics of the president, but never touched on America’s national interests in the weightiest geopolitical confrontations of their eras.

The sober, just-the-facts testimony of two previously little-known diplomats on Wednesday left no doubt that the investigation into President Trump’s actions is fundamentally different. Mr. Trump had a choice between executing his administration’s own strategy for containing Russia or pursuing a political obsession at home.

He chose the obsession.

View the complete November 14 article by David E. Sanger on The New York Times website here.

White House budget official is prepared to testify on frozen Ukraine aid

Mark Sandy’s lawyer indicates he intends to testify Saturday if he receives a subpoena from lawmakers.

Mark Sandy, a senior White House budget official, is prepared to testify Saturday to House impeachment investigators about his knowledge of President Donald Trump’s decision to halt nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine, his lawyer indicated Thursday.

Sandy’s lawyer, Barbara Van Gelder — who is also representing former National Security Council aide Tim Morrison — said Sandy intends to testify if he receives a subpoena from lawmakers, a step Democrats have repeatedly taken with other cooperative witnesses to sidestep orders from the White House to refuse to testify.

A series of witnesses have indicated Trump ordered a freeze on military aid in early July, just as he and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani were leaning on senior Ukrainian officials to announce investigations of Trump’s political rivals. The aid, which Ukraine depends upon to help fend off Russian military aggression in Crimea, was held until Sept. 11, despite unanimous approval from the State Department, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Pentagon, CIA and National Security Council that it should be distributed.

View the complete November 14 article by Kyle Cheney on the Politico website here.

Trump files to dismiss lawsuit from Bolton aide on impeachment testimony

The Hill logoPresident Trump on Thursday moved to dismiss a lawsuit filed by an aide to former national security adviser John Bolton who was seeking a ruling on whether he must comply with a congressional subpoena to testify in the House impeachment inquiry.

The filing to the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., cited Trump’s official capacity as president. In it, he sought to have a judge dismiss White House official Dr. Charles Kupperman’s lawsuit seeking guidance on whether he should comply with the subpoena or the president’s directive not to cooperate.

A representative for Trump argued that the president’s direction should supersede any prospective court ruling.

View the complete November 14 article by Brett Samuels on The Hill website here.

State Department inspector general slams smear campaign against employee

Washington Post logoThe State Department’s inspector general rebuked a senior adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday, saying the aide had played a role in reassigning a staffer suspected of being disloyal to the Trump administration.

The inspector general’s report recommended that Pompeo consider disciplining Brian Hook, the point man for Iran policy. The report, however, covers Hook’s previous tenure as head of an in-house think tank known as the Policy Planning Office, located on the department’s storied seventh floor near the secretary’s office.

The report cited a chain of emails among senior officials, including Hook, and prominent conservatives, following an article in the Conservative Review that characterized a staffer in the office as a “trusted Obama aide” who had “burrowed” into the State Department during the Trump administration. She was dismissed from Hook’s staff three months early, a decision the inspector general concluded was based not on merit but on improper, inappropriate and false perceptions of her political opinions, association with the previous administration and her national origin.

View the complete November 14 article by Carol Morello on The Washington Post website here.

Fox & Friends hosts visibly deflate after legal analyst drops the hammer on Trump: ‘The law is not on the president’s side’

AlterNet logoFox News legal analyst Andrew Napolitano on Thursday delivered some sobering news to the hosts of “Fox & Friends,” who did their best to spin Wednesday’s impeachment hearings as a win for President Donald Trump.

During an interview, co-host Ainsley Earhardt argued that much of the testimony given by witnesses Bill Taylor and George Kent revolved around merely their opinions of the president’s actions in withholding aid from Ukraine.

“Everybody does have their own opinion,” he acknowledged. “But… there doesn’t seem to be any dispute that the president wanted dirt on Biden and the president was willing to hold up military aid in order to get it.”

View the complete November 14 article by Brad Reed from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

A second State Department official overheard Trump’s call with E.U. envoy discussing Ukraine and ‘investigations’

Washington Post logoHouse Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday that testimony presented by two career diplomats during Wednesday’s open impeachment hearing “corroborated evidence of bribery” by President Trump in his relations with Ukraine.

Her comments come as Democrats seek to build a case that Trump sought to withhold military assistance and an Oval Office meeting until Ukraine announced investigations into former vice president Joe Biden and his son, as well as an unfounded theory that Ukrainians interfered in the 2016 presidential election to hurt Trump.

Meanwhile, it was learned Thursday that a second official from the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv was present when U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland spoke on a July 26 phone call from Ukraine with Trump that more directly ties the president to his administration’s effort to pressure Ukraine’s new leadership.

View the complete November 14 article by John Wagner, Felicia Sonmez and Colby Itkowitz on The Washington Post website here.

Republicans’ conspiracy theories slam into sworn testimony in collision of divergent worlds

Washington Post logoThe question seemed to surprise William B. Taylor Jr., a Vietnam veteran with decades of diplomatic experience.

Couldn’t he “appreciate that President Trump was very concerned,” asked the Republican counsel, that the Ukrainians were “out to get him?”

The lawyer was referring to a conspiracy theory, popular in parts of the political right, that while Democrats have focused on Russia’s efforts to help Trump win the 2016 election, it was actually Ukraine that interfered during that campaign to help Trump’s Democratic opponent.

View the complete November 13 article by Isaac Stanley-Becker on The Washington Post website here.

Pelosi: Trump bribed Ukraine, makes Nixon’s offenses ‘look almost small’

The Hill logoSpeaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday accused President Trump of “bribery” in his dealings with Ukrainian leaders, linking the president’s actions to the Constitution’s impeachment clause even while emphasizing that Democrats remain undecided on whether they’ll draft impeachment articles.

“That is in the Constitution, attached to the impeachment proceedings,” Pelosi told reporters in the Capitol.

She then explained the basis for the charge, which stems from a whistleblower’s complaint that has since been supported by numerous government officials, that Trump leveraged U.S. military aid to Kyiv to secure political favors from Ukrainian leaders.

View the complete November 14 article by Mike Lillis on The Hill website here.