Tag: Trump abuse of power

Judge fast-tracks case over former White House official’s refusal to testify in impeachment inquiry

The Hill logoA federal judge on Thursday fast-tracked a case involving a key impeachment witness caught between House Democrats seeking to compel his testimony and a White House order to defy a congressional subpoena.

Judge Richard Leon, a George W. Bush appointee to the Federal District Court in D.C., called the legal dispute over the testimony of Charles Kupperman, a former deputy to former National Security Advisor John Bolton, a “matter of great public interest and a matter of great urgency for the country.”

Kupperman was on the July 25 phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that is at the center of the impeachment inquiry.

View the complete October 31 article by John Kruzel on The HIll website here.

Veteran GOP conservative who called for Nixon’s resignation now champions Trump impeachment inquiry: ‘It was a pure shakedown’

AlterNet logoIn March 1974 — when the Watergate scandal was getting worse and worse for President Richard Nixon — conservative Republican Slade Gorton called for Nixon’s resignation. Five months later, Gorton (who was serving as attorney general for Washington State at the time) got his wish: Nixon resigned in August 1974, and Vice President Gerald R. Ford was sworn in as president of the United States. Gorton is now 91, and he is once again in favor of an impeachment inquiry against a Republican president — only this time, it’s President Donald Trump.

Gorton discussed the House impeachment inquiry against Trump during an interview with the Seattle Times. Many Republicans in Congress are insisting that Trump did nothing wrong on July 25, when he tried to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into investigating former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden. But Gorton (who represented Washington State in the U.S. Senate in the 1980s and 1990s) strongly disagrees, joining House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats in asserting that Trump seriously crossed the line by encouraging a foreign leader to investigate a political rival.

“I reached the conclusion that there are a dozen actions on this president’s part that warrant a vote of impeachment in the House,” Gorton told the Seattle Times’ Jim Brunner.

View the complete October 31 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.

House approves Trump impeachment procedures

The Hill logoThe House on Thursday took its first major step toward making Donald Trumpjust the third president in history to be impeached, approving procedures for an inquiry likely to burst into full public view in weeks.

The measure, which establishes rules for open hearings and the questioning of witnesses by members and staff, passed in a 232-196 party-line vote with just two Democrats voting against it and no Republicans supporting it.

The Democrats who voted no were Reps. Collin Peterson (Minn.) and Jefferson Van Drew (N.J.), who both represent districts won by Trump in the 2016 election.

View the complete October 31 article by Cristina Marcos on The Hill website here.

Nunes to move from supporting to leading role in Trump impeachment defense

Top Republican on Intelligence panel will be in spotlight during public hearings after taking back seat in closed depositions

House Intelligence ranking member Devin Nunes will soon shift from the passenger to the driver’s seat in the Republican defense of President Donald Trump as the House enters the public hearing portion of its impeachment inquiry next month.

Nunes, a nine-term California Republican who’s developed a distaste for the media in recent years as he’s become a staunch defender of the president, has taken a low-key role in the impeachment inquiry compared to House Oversight ranking member Jim Jordan, a Trump ally who is more friendly with the press.

It’s an odd dynamic considering Nunes is the GOP counterpart to Intelligence Chairman Adam B. Schiff, who has been chosen by Speaker Nancy Pelosi to lead the impeachment inquiry.

View the complete October 31 article by Lindsey McPherson on The Roll Call website here.

Giuliani: I never lobbied or represented foreigners

Trump lawyer says scrutiny of his work represents a smear campaign against him

Rudy Giuliani has become a regular feature in President Donald Trump’s capital city, attracting scandal — and scrutiny from law enforcement — for his far-flung international endeavors. But unlike his most prominent White House client, Giuliani, who spent more than a dozen years with two well-known K Street firms, has deep ties to the influence industry.

The former New York mayor and onetime Republican presidential candidate logged a decade with the law and lobbying firm then known as Bracewell & Giuliani and a two-year stint after that with Greenberg Traurig, the professional home of notorious ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff before he went to prison.

Giuliani never registered to lobby and has never disclosed work as a foreign agent, though it’s his international portfolio that has generated attention from federal prosecutors, according to news reports. Recent business associates, U.S. citizens Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman who immigrated from Ukraine, were arrested on campaign finance charges stemming from donations that may have come from prohibited foreign sources.

View the complete October 31 article by Kate Ackley on The Roll Call website here.

After McConnell advice, Trump lays off GOP senators on impeachment

The president’s team is betting that the cult of his personality and the power of his prolific Twitter feed will be enough to keep senators on his side.

Sitting inside the White House, Mitch McConnell gave Donald Trump some straightforward advice: Stop attacking senators — including Mitt Romney — who likely will soon judge your fate in an impeachment trial.

The one-on-one meeting last week between the Senate majority leader and the president covered several weighty issues including Syria, according to two people familiar with the conversation. But like everything these days when it comes to Trump, impeachment was high on the president’s mind.

And in this case, Trump appears to have listened to the man in the Senate who controls the future of his presidency.

View the complete October 30 article by Burgess Everett and Nancy Cook on the Politico website here.

Conservative columnist explains how Sean Duffy’s knee-jerk attack on Alexander Vindman exposed Trumpism’s moral bankruptcy

AlterNet logoA clickbait headline in The Bulwark reads, “In Praise of Sean Duffy.” Because the publication is The Bulwark — which anti-Trump conservatives Bill Kristol and Charles Sykes founded in December 2018 — and former Wisconsin Rep. Sean Duffy is stridently pro-Trump, one naturally assumes that the headline is being used ironically. And sure enough, it is: although the article, written by Sykes, chastises Duffy for shamelessly smearing Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, it also stresses that the far-right Republican and Trump sycophant did the political world a favor by exposing how morally bankrupt Trumpism is.

On Tuesday, Vindman, who served on the National Security Council, testified on Capitol Hill at a closed-door hearing held in connection with House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump. Duffy, a former reality television star and CNN contributor, followed the lead of Fox News’ Laura Ingraham and reflexively smeared Vindman.

This week on CNN, Duffy said of Vindman, “it seems very clear that he is incredibly concerned about Ukrainian defense. I don’t know that he’s concerned about American policy…. We all have an affinity to our homeland where we came from…. He has an affinity for the Ukraine.”

View the complete October 30 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.

The Memo: After Vindman, GOP anxiety deepens

The Hill logoRepublican concerns are mounting about President Trump as damaging information piles up regarding his dealings with Ukraine.

The dam is not yet at the bursting point, but anxiety — fueled by the sense that more revelations could emerge at any moment — is rippling through the GOP.

“It’s fair to say my conversations with members continue to go to a worse place,” said Doug Heye, a former communications director of the Republican National Committee.

Heye added that, for the moment, there was a sizable gap between “private consternation versus public consternation.”

View the complete October 30 article by Niall Stanage on The Hill website here.

Trump insisted that the rough transcript of his Zelensky conversation left nothing out. He might have ‘set the trap for himself’ by doing so

AlterNet logoThe word “rough” has often been used to describe the transcript of President Donald Trump’s now-infamous July 25 phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump, however, has insisted that it was a full transcript of the conversation. And Washington Post reporter Philip Bump, in an October 30 article, explains why Trump might have “set the trap for himself” by doing so.

The bottom of the page of the transcript, Bump notes, states that the missive is “not a verbatim transcript of a discussion.” But on October 11, Trump insisted that it was “an exact transcript of my call, done by very talented people that do this.”

Trump also claimed, “The transcript is a perfect transcript. There shouldn’t be any further questions.”

View the complete October 30 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.

Watch: Former federal prosecutor expertly lays out all the damning evidence against Trump — so far

AlterNet logoFormer federal prosecutor Elie Honig on Wednesday succinctly laid out all the damning evidence that’s been piling up against President Donald Trump during the House impeachment inquiry, and how it all adds up to bad news for the White House.

At the start of the segment, Honig showed how Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in and of itself showed major abuse of power by the president.

“Donald Trump talks about the United States ‘has been very, very good to Ukraine, I wouldn’t say it’s reciprocal necessary,’” Honig began. “What he’s saying is we do a lot for you, you don’t really do a lot for us… then Trump explains what favors he wants. One is an investigation into this Crowdstrike, which is this wacky conspiracy theory about the DNC server. The second thing he wants, he says, ‘The other thing is there is a lot of talk about Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.”

View the complete October 30 article by Brad Reed from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.