Tag: Trump abuse of power

Every Republican for himself: Mitch McConnell told senators in closed-door meeting to come up with their own Trump defense

AlterNet logoAccording to a report at HuffPost, Republican lawmakers, left without guidance by the White House on how to push back at the House impeachment hearings being conducted by the Democratic-led House, are being forced to come up with their own defense of embattled President Donald Trump.

With reports that the White House is the scene of a pitched battle over a which plan to use to fight the Democrats, Senate Republicans are floundering when confronted by the press on how they feel about impeachment hearings that could lead to them to have to vote on whether to force Trump from office.

According to the report, “Republicans have no unified argument in the impeachment inquiry of Donald Trump, in large part because they can’t agree on how best to defend the president — or for some, if they should.”

View the complete the complete November 10 article by Tom Boggioni from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

GOP senators plan to tune out impeachment week

The Hill logoAs Washington gears up this week for the public phase of the impeachment inquiry, one group is largely tuning it out: Senate Republicans.

Several GOP senators say they either won’t watch the highly anticipated public hearings or haven’t been reading the steady release of transcripts from the House’s closed-door depositions with current and former administration officials.

The reasons vary — some say they don’t have enough time, while others say they distrust the House process. But the decision to disengage underscores the divide between the two sides of the Capitol: on one, impeachment appears all but inevitable; on the other, the potential jury is hanging back, for now.

View the complete November 10 article by Jordain Carney on The Hill website here.

How the State Dept.’s Dissenters Incited a Revolt, Then a Rallying Cry

New York Times logoShock, anger and sadness are giving way to pride among career diplomats that they are defending American ideals and holding the Trump administration accountable.

WASHINGTON — State Department Foreign Service officers usually express their views in formal diplomatic cables, but these days they are using closed Facebook groups and encrypted apps to convey their pride in Marie L. Yovanovitch, the ousted ambassador to Ukraine, whose House testimony opened the floodgates on the impeachment inquiry into President Trump.

#GoMasha is their rallying cry.

In private conversations, they trade admiring notes about career State Department officials like William B. Taylor Jr. and George P. Kent, who delivered damning testimony about a shadow Ukraine policy infected by partisan politics and presidential conspiracy theories, and William V. Roebuck, a senior diplomat in Syria who wrote a searing memo on how Mr. Trump abandoned the Kurds and upended American influence.

View the complete November 9 article by Michael Crowley, Lara Jakes and David E Sanger on The New York Times website here.

Key impeachment witnesses to know as public hearings begin

The Hill logoHouse Democrats are setting the stage for the public phase of their impeachment inquiry into President Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, with three key witnesses slated to appear starting Wednesday.

The impeachment inquiry so far has played out through closed-door hearings, press leaks and several published deposition transcripts. But with televised hearings ahead, Democrats hope to make their case to the public that Trump improperly used U.S. aid as leverage to pressure Ukraine into opening politically motivated investigations.

During their closed-door phase, Democrats had a mixed level of success bringing in witnesses to testify, despite White House orders not to comply. Here is a list of the key witnesses Democrats received depositions from and those they sought testimony from.

View the complete November 9 article by John Kruzel and Olivia Beavers on The Hill website here.

‘The noose is tightening’ around Trump — and Rudy Giuliani may flip on him: CNN panel

AlterNet logoA CNN panel Friday night outlined the strange pattern that always emerges in Trumpworld when it comes down to someone taking the fall for President Donald Trump. Former White House counsel John Dean warned that something is different in the case of Rudy Giuliani: he has no intention of being thrown under the bus.

In a panel discussion, former Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA) started the conversation off saying that trying to make others the fall-guy for Trump’s actions likely “won’t fly.”

“Nobody’s going to believe for a second that Mick Mulvaney or Rudy Giuliani was acting on their own without any consultation with the president,” the Republican said. “I think, just like Michael Cohen paid off Stormy Daniels, didn’t he? He just did that on his own, under the direction of the president? They may try to throw these guys under the bus and they’ll do it in this order and they’ll throw [Ambassador Gordon] Sondland under the bus and Mulvaney and Giuliani in that order. But I don’t think it’s going to be effective. I think it’s laughable, the facts are simply not on the president’s side. The noose is tightening. The quid pro quo has been established and all of these people who have spoken up did so out of concern for national security and also because of interference in our elections. So, these are more distractions and they’re not going to be effective.”

View the complete November 9 article by Sarah Burris from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

Trump tears into impeachment probe, witnesses in early Twitter spree

The Hill logoPresident Trump tore into the House’s impeachment investigation in an early Saturday morning tweetstorm as the inquiry is set to enter a new, public phase next week.

He retweeted 17 messages in roughly an hour hammering Democrats over the probe, including a handful specifically going after some witnesses who have already testified behind closed doors.

“STU: ‘The #democrats know they can’t remove @realDonaldTrump from office but they’ll go ahead with the #impeachment process anyways because they detest him!’” Fox Business host Stuart Varney said in a post retweeted by Trump.

View the complete November 9 article by Trl Axelrod on The Hill website here.

Trump Says Whistleblower’s Attorney Should Be ’Sued For Treason’

Speaking to reporters Friday morning, Donald Trump suggested that the lawyer representing the whistleblower may have committed treason. Trump did not provide any evidence to back up his claim.

After demanding that the whistleblower be identified, Trump attacked the whistleblower’s lawyer.

“The whistleblower is a disgrace to our country,” Trump said. “And his lawyer, who said the worst thing possible two years ago — he should be sued. And maybe for treason. Maybe for treason. But he should be sued.”

View the complete November 8 article by Dan Desai Martin on the National Memo website here.

Bolton Said to Know of ‘Many Relevant Meetings’ on Ukraine, but Will Not Testify

New York Times logoA lawyer for John R. Bolton said he had information to share with impeachment investigators. But, so far, he will not defy the White House.

WASHINGTON — John R. Bolton, President Trump’s former national security adviser, knows about “many relevant meetings and conversations” connected to a pressure campaign on Ukraine that House impeachment investigators have not yet been informed of, his lawyer told lawmakers on Friday.

The lawyer, Charles J. Cooper, tucked the tantalizing assertion into a letter to the chief House lawyer in response to committee chairmen who have sought Mr. Bolton’s testimony in their impeachment inquiry but expressed unwillingness to go to court to get an order compelling it.

Mr. Cooper did not elaborate on what meetings or conversations he was referring to, leaving it to House Democrats to guess at what he might know.

View the complete November 8 article by Nicholas Fandos, Michael D. Shear and Peter Baker on The New York Times website here.

New transcripts tie Mulvaney to quid pro quo effort

The Hill logoTwo White House witnesses in the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry implicated acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney in an alleged effort to press Ukraine for investigations sought by President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, according to transcripts of their private testimony released Friday.

Former National Security Council (NSC) official Fiona Hill described a meeting with Ukrainian officials on July 10 during which U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland said he had an agreement with Mulvaney that a White House meeting with Ukraine’s president would be contingent on Kiev launching investigations.

“Sondland, in front of the Ukrainians, as I came in, was talking about how he had an agreement with Chief of Staff Mulvaney for a meeting with the Ukrainians if they were going to go forward with investigations. And my director for Ukraine was looking completely alarmed,” Hill told three House committees on Oct. 15, according to the 446-page transcript of her closed-door deposition.

View the complete November 8 article by Morgan Chalfant and Olivia Beavers on The Hill website here.

Rand Paul’s claim that Trump has a constitutional right to confront whistleblowers

Washington Post logo“The Sixth Amendment is pretty clear. It’s part of the Constitution, part of the Bill of Rights, and it says that you get to confront your accusers. And so, I think it’s very clear that the only constitutional mandate here is, is that if someone’s going to accuse you of something that might remove the president from office, for goodness’ sake, shouldn’t they come forward and present their accusations in person?”

— Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), in a Fox Business Network interview, Nov. 5, 2019

“The Sixth Amendment guarantees an individual the right to face their accuser. Yet the House of Representatives has been conducting a secret impeachment inquiry based on secret claims made by a secret whistleblower. My bill would make clear that the Sixth Amendment is not superseded by statutes and that the president should be afforded the same rights that we all should: to understand the nature of the allegations brought against them and to face their accuser. This is in the Sixth Amendment. So for all the caterwauling about whistleblower statutes, there is a high law of the land. It is the Constitution, it is the Bill of Rights, and the Sixth Amendment says if you’re accused of a crime, you get to face your accuser.”

— Paul, in a Senate floor speech, Nov. 6, 2019 Continue reading “Rand Paul’s claim that Trump has a constitutional right to confront whistleblowers”