The president’s lawyer was asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit to block a subpoena for Trump’s private financial records from New York prosecutors investigating hush-money payments made before the 2016 election. The judges seemed skeptical of the president’s sweeping claims of immunity not just from prosecution, but also from investigation.
Tag: Trump abuse of power
‘Do it in public’: Here are 7 explosive details from Bill Taylor’s impeachment inquiry testimony
Acting U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor testified to the House of Representatives as part of the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump on Tuesday, and a release of his prepared remarks showed that he has blown the case against the president wide open.
While most of the damning evidence of Trump’s wrongdoing has been public for nearly a month now, Taylor’s account provides revealing details and confirms the most damaging inferences a reasonable observer would have had about the Ukraine scandal.
Here are seven key details in his remarks:
View the complete October 22 article by Cody Fenwick on the AlterNet website here.
Here are the next shoes to drop in the Trump-Ukraine scandal
But Taylor’s version won’t be the final word. His testimony both provides important clues about what future witnesses could say and indicates that Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, who testified last week, has a lot of explaining to do.
View the complete October 23 article by Aaron Blake on The Washington Post website here.
Trump’s Impeachment Far More Popular Than Clinton’s Ever Was
Half the country wants Donald Trump impeached and removed from office, far more than ever felt that way about Bill Clinton, according to a Tuesday CNN poll.
This poll marks the first time a CNN poll showed support for impeaching and removing Trump far outpaces its opposition. While Democrats overwhelmingly favor impeachment (87 percent), the poll shows half of independents support it as well. Republicans continue to stick by Trump, with only 6 percent in favor of impeachment and removal from office.
The support for impeachment and removal is a sharp increase from March, when only 36 percent of Americans supported such a move.
View the complete October 22 article by Dan Desai Martin on the National Memo website here.
McConnell to Republicans: Defend Trump on process
NOTE: Lawyers have a saying that if you have no facts to support your case, you attack process. We’re seeing that now with the GOP Senate.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is urging Republicans to focus on Democrats and their tactics in seeking to mount an effective defense of President Trump on impeachment.
One GOP lawmaker, summing up McConnell’s message to Republicans at a private lunch meeting Tuesday, quoted the GOP leader as saying, “This is going to be about process.”
McConnell recognizes that some members of his conference are uncomfortable defending Trump on charges his administration linked aid to Ukraine to that country’s government running politically motivated investigations meant to help the White House.
View the complete October 23 article by Alexander Bolton on The Hill website here.
An Envoy’s Damning Account of Trump’s Ukraine Pressure and Its Consequences
William B. Taylor Jr. laid out in visceral terms the potentially life-or-death stakes of what he saw as an illegitimate scheme to pressure Kiev for political help by suspending American security aid.
WASHINGTON — He stood on one side of a war-damaged bridge in Ukraine staring across at Russian-backed forces and saw the real-world consequences of President Trump’s efforts to advance a personal agenda. “More Ukrainians,” he said, “would undoubtedly die.”
Recalling that moment during explosive testimony on Tuesday, William B. Taylor Jr., the top American diplomat in Ukraine, laid out in visceral terms the stakes of what he saw as an illegitimate scheme to pressure the Kiev government for political help by suspending American security aid.
In by far the most damning account yet to become public in the House impeachment inquiry Mr. Taylor described a president holding up $391 million in assistance for the clear purpose of forcing Ukraine to help incriminate Mr. Trump’s domestic rivals. Mr. Trump’s actions, he testified, undercut American allies desperately fighting off Russia’s attempt to redraw the boundaries of Europe through force.
View the complete October 22 article by Peter Baker on The New York Times here.
Trump and Mulvaney’s claim that corruption concerns held up Ukraine aid
“We have an obligation to investigate corruption. And that’s what it was.”
— President Trump, in an interview on “Hannity” on Fox News, Oct. 21, 2019
“There were two reasons that we held up the aid. We talked about this at some length. The first one was the rampant corruption in Ukraine. Ukraine — by the way, Chris, it’s so bad in Ukraine that in 2014, Congress passed a law making it, making us, requiring us, to make sure that corruption was moving in the right direction. So, corruption is a big deal, everyone knows it. The president was also concerned about whether or not other nations, specifically European nations, were helping with foreign aid to the Ukraine as well.”
— White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, in an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” Oct. 20, 2019
Trump and Mulvaney say they held up $250 million in security assistance for Ukraine this year because of concerns about corruption.
Congress approved the aid in September 2018. A top Defense Department official certified to congressional committees on May 23 that Ukraine had made sufficient progress on anti-corruption efforts to merit the security funds. The Pentagon announced the $250 million aid package June 18.
That’s how it typically works. But, on Trump’s orders, the White House informed the Pentagon on July 18 that Ukraine’s aid was being frozen, and didn’t release the funds until Sept. 11, weeks before the deadline.
Pinocchio Test
View the complete October 23 article by Salvador Rizzo on The Washington Post website here.
Republicans are clearly spooked as the most dangerous witness in Trump’s impeachment speaks to Congress
Ever since texts from the behind-the-scenes State Department efforts to induce Ukraine into investigating President Donald Trump’s political opponents were released, it’s been clear that the House’s impeachment inquiry desperately needed to hear from acting U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor.
While much of what is publicly known about the Trump administration’s machinations with Ukraine is already impeachable, texts sent by Taylor, first provided to the House by U.S. envoy Kurt Volker, showed an even darker scheme at work. And they also suggested that Taylor, of all the people involved in the efforts, was most alarmed about and willing to speak out with regard to Trump’s wrongdoing. In one particularly memorable text, Taylor told another official of Trump’s Ukraine plot: “I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.” This implicated the president directly in criminal, and undoubtedly impeachable, activity.
With Taylor set to appear at a closed session of Congress on Tuesday, expectations for his testimony were high. And while his comments have not yet been made public as of this writing, Democrats were already sending strong indications that his testimony was explosive, with one lawmaker calling it “incredibly damaging to the president.”
View the complete October 22 article by Cody Fenwick on the AlterNet website here.
Democrats say they have game changer on impeachment
A top U.S. diplomat gave explosive testimony Tuesday tying Ukraine aid to politically motivated investigations, a development Democrats called a game changer that could extend the impeachment inquiry into 2020.
William Taylor, the head of the U.S. Embassy in Kiev, informed House lawmakers he was told nearly $400 million in military aid was contingent on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announcing investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden, his son Hunter Biden, the Burisma energy company and 2016 election interference.
Taylor’s testimony, that he understood the Trump administration was pushing for a quid pro quo, added more fuel to the Democrats’ hard-charging
View the complete October 22 article by Scott Wong and Cristina Marcos on The Hill website here.
Trump barked at ‘weak’ Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney in a room full of aides — and insisted he’s ’in charge of the Hatch Act’
The Wall Street Journal has published an exposé about the Trump 2020 re-election campaign and how the president is “banking on base-pleasing campaign events – more meticulously produced this time – to outweigh any need for a fresh message.”
In one disturbing tale WSJ White House reporter Michael Bender relays how Trump has apparently grown frustrated with White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney – his third in under three years – and attacked him during a meeting with other aides present.
The Wall Street Journal has published an exposé about the Trump 2020 re-election campaign and how the president is “banking on base-pleasing campaign events – more meticulously produced this time – to outweigh any need for a fresh message.”