Tag: Trump abuse of power

Republican Senators Struggling To Defend Trump From Impeachment

The House’s impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump’s alleged plot to withhold critical security aid to Ukraine in order to force them into investigating his political adversaries is now entering its second month — yet Senate Republicans are still struggling with how to handle it.

And, according to the Washington Post, Republicans are reluctant to defend Trump’s behavior both because there is no good defense, and because there’s worry they’ll have egg on their face if and when more troubling Trump conduct surfaces.

“It feels like a horror movie,” an unnamed “veteran” Republican senator told the Washington Post.

View the complete October 28 article by Emily Singer on the National Memo website here.

How the OMB used its powers to delay Ukraine aid

Order to withhold the funds came directly from the president

An obscure agency with outsized sway over federal spending is at the center of the House’s impeachment inquiry into an alleged “quid pro quo” orchestrated by President Donald Trump trading domestic political aid for security assistance against a common foe.

The White House Office of Management and Budget gave the order to withhold aid to Ukraine intended to combat Russian aggression for almost two months. The decision came directly from the top, catching some administration officials as well as bipartisan majorities on Capitol Hill by surprise.

The episode highlights the intricacies of how federal spending is ultimately parceled out, as well as the circumstances surrounding the Ukraine aid in particular that appear to have little precedent — including an unusually high level of involvement by political appointees rather than career civil servants.

View the complete October 29 article by Paul M. Krawzak on The Roll Call website here.

Here’s why the White House counsel’s anti-impeachment letter hasn’t discouraged witnesses from testifying before Congress

AlterNet logoWhite House Counsel Pat Cipollone has drawn widespread criticism from Democrats, as well as some Never Trump conservatives, for the October 8 letterhe sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic heads of three House committees: Rep. Adam Schiff (chairman of the House Intelligence Committee), Rep. Eliot Engel (chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee) and the late Elijah E. Cummings (who chaired the House Oversight Committee before his death nine days later on October 17). In the letter, Cipollone denounced the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump as illegitimate and stressed that the Trump Administration had no intention of cooperating. Regardless, plenty of witnesses have testified in connection with the inquiry, and journalist Michael Stern sheds some light on their decisions to testify in an October 28 article for Just Security.

Those who have testified so far range from Fiona Hill (formerly of the National Security Council) to Gordon Sondland (U.S. ambassador to the European Union) to diplomat William Taylor (former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine). Trump, Cipollone and Attorney General William Barr were hoping they wouldn’t testify, but they didn’t anyway.

“These are presumably not the results Cipollone expected when he sent his letter, but in retrospect, they seem fairly predictable,” Stern explains. “To begin with, the Administration has little leverage over many of the witnesses in question; this is most obvious with respect to former employees. As a practical matter, it is not clear what the Administration could do to these individuals even if there were a plausible basis for believing they had a legal duty not to cooperate with Congress. Moreover, it does not appear that the Administration is even claiming that such a general duty exists.”

View the complete October 28 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.

NSC official testifies Trump undermined national security with Ukraine pressure

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who oversees Ukraine policy at the White House, is appearing before impeachment investigators Tuesday.

A senior White House official told House impeachment investigators on Tuesday that he believes President Donald Trump undermined national security when he appealed to Ukraine’s president to investigate his political rivals, according to a copy of his opening statement obtained by POLITICO.

“I did not think it was proper to demand that a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen, and I was worried about the implications for the U.S. government’s support of Ukraine,” Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a National Security Council official overseeing Ukraine policy, told investigators, referring to Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to announce probes into Joe Biden and his son.

Vindman, who became the first White House official to testify as part of the impeachment inquiry, also wrote that he reported Trump’s July 25 phone call with Zelensky to the NSC’s top lawyer after listening in on the conversation from the White House Situation Room alongside other national security officials.

It’s Trump against the Constitution — and only one can win

AlterNet logoThe day after Trump’s own top diplomat in Ukraine gave smoking gun bombshell testimony that should be the end of his tenure in the Oval Office, a gang of Republican congressmen tried to create a distraction by staging a hissy fit that violated national security protocols. The depth of their fraudulent attack on the impeachment process was readily apparent, as more than a quarter of the Republican congressmen who stormed the secure impeachment hearing are themselves members of relevant committees authorized to have attended. They could have complied with protocols, protected national security, and just walked in without any drama at all.

This is where we are. This is how corrupt and dangerous Republicans have become. In congressional testimony, acting ambassador William Taylor confirmed that Trump tried to strong-arm Ukraine into smearing a potential Trump political opponent in exchange for security assistance that had been authorized by Congress, and a personal meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The attempted extortion had been going on for months. Asking, much less demanding, a foreign nation to damage the political standing of a domestic political rival is illegal in itself. It is an impeachable offense at face value. Continue reading “It’s Trump against the Constitution — and only one can win”

House to vote for first time on impeachment procedures

The Hill logoHouse Democrats will for the first time vote on impeachment procedures on Thursday, a shift in their strategy seemingly meant to cut off GOP arguments about an unfair process.

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), the chairman of the House Rules Committee, said Monday that he will introduce a resolution this week to “ensure transparency” and “provide a clear path forward” in the impeachment inquiry.

The text of the resolution has yet to be released, but McGovern plans to introduce it Tuesday ahead of a markup in his committee Wednesday. A senior Democratic aide said that the resolution is expected to hit the House floor on Thursday.

View the complete October 28 article by Cristina Marcos on The Hill website here.

‘It feels like a horror movie’: Republicans feel anxious and adrift defending Trump

Washington Post logoRepublican senators are lost and adrift as the impeachment inquiry enters its second month, navigating the grave threat to President Trump largely in the dark, frustrated by the absence of a credible case to defend his conduct and anxious about the historic reckoning that probably awaits them.

Recent days have delivered the most damaging testimony yet about Trump and his advisers commandeering Ukraine policy for the president’s personal political goals, which his allies on Capitol Hill sought to undermine by storming the deposition room and condemning the inquiry as secretive and corrupt.

Those theatrics belie the deepening unease many Republicans now say they feel — particularly those in the Senate who are dreading having to weigh their conscience against their political calculations in deciding whether to convict or acquit Trump should the Democratic-controlled House impeach the president.

View the complete October 28 article by Robert Costa and Philip Rucker on The Washington Post website here.

White House restores trade benefits for Ukraine after more than two months of delay

Washington Post logoThe White House trade representative restored some of Ukraine’s trade privileges Friday evening, reinstating benefits that were initially prepared for approval in late August.

The paperwork was expected to be routine at the time, but then-national security adviser John Bolton had warned U.S. Trade Representative Robert E. Lighthizer that President Trump would oppose any action that benefited Kyiv, said people briefed on the matter.

Following Bolton’s warning, the White House pulled the paperwork back. Bolton resigned in September but the paperwork continued to languish. It was finally approved Friday.

View the complete October 25 article by Reis Thebault, David J. Lynch and Josh Dawsey on The Washignton Post website here.

Trump’s Impeachable Conduct Strikes at the Heart of the Rule of Law: Part 2

Find more about Trump’s Constitutional Crisis as it develops here.

This is part two in a series documenting the ways in which President Trump’s actions related to Ukraine violate basic tenets of American law. Read the first installment, which focuses on bribery and extortion, here.

Center for American Progress logoThere is substantial evidence to show that President Donald Trump committed impeachable offenses. Pressuring a foreign government to interfere in U.S. elections by, among other things, withholding military aid undermines America’s democracy and national security. In fact, concern over foreign interference is one of the reasons the founders provided for the constitutional power of impeachment in the first place.

President Trump continues to claim that his actions in the Ukraine-related scandal have been “perfect.” This couldn’t be further from the truth. While a president need not break any specific laws in order to be impeached and removed from office, the type of behavior exhibited by President Trump is prohibited by a range of federal laws.

Trump’s impeachable conduct

Here are some of the major events that have occurred so far in the Ukraine-related scandal:

View the complete October 18 article by Maggie Jo Buchanan, William Roberts and Michael Sozan on the Center for American Progress website here.

Trump hotel lease is subject of latest House subpoena

Panel demands legal records, communications, profit statements for business

Another House committee on Thursday issued a subpoena for an investigation of the Trump administration — this time demanding documents related to the federal government’s lease of the historic Old Post Office building in Washington to the president’s hotel business.

The subpoena from the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and signed by its chairman, Peter A. DeFazio, D-Ore., demands that the General Services Administration produce documents including legal records, communications between it and Trump and his children, as well as profit statements for the business, the Trump International Hotel.

The committee is investigating whether Trump’s investment in the hotel, located blocks from the White House, violates the emoluments clause of the Constitution. Trump has refused to divest from his financial interests in the building, which one of his companies began leasing in August 2013. Trump is the sole beneficiary of a trust with the controlling interest in Trump Old Post Office LLC, according to the committee.

View the complete October 24 article by Jessica Wehrman on The Roll Call website here.