Tag: Trump bribery

Trump’s central argument against impeachment crumbled under the weight of Marie Yovanovitch’s testimony

AlterNet logoIn the morass of conflicting and often incomprehensible Republican defenses of Donald Trump, there is just one that seemed like it might have legs — especially after Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, spoke during Wednesday’s impeachment hearing. That would be the claim that Trump withheld military aid from Ukraine not to strong-arm that nation’s leaders into boosting his re-election campaign, but because of a generalized opposition to “corruption” in that nation. This was laughable on its face, since Trump’s clear and public stance throughout his political career has been pro-corruption. But sure, it might be enough to bamboozle some Americans who don’t follow politics closely and somehow missed hearing that their president is a grifter.

Friday’s hearing, which featured Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, should be enough to kill the last remaining tendrils of any good-faith claim that Trump was motivated by some — don’t laugh now — deeply felt objection to corruption in Ukraine.

“In her time in Kyiv, Ambassador Yovanovitch was tough on corruption, too tough on corruption for some, and her principled stance made her enemies,” House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff, D.-Calif., said in his opening statement. “And Ambassador Yovanovitch did not just ‘piss off’ corrupt Ukrainians, like the corrupt former prosecutor general Yuri Lutsenko, but also certain Americans like Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump’s personal attorney, and two individuals, now indicted, who worked with him, Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas.”

View the complete November 15 article by Amanda Marcotte from Salon on the AlterNet website here.

Fox Judge Shreds Trump Defenders’ Arguments

“Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” — Richard M. Nixon (1913-1994)

As public hearings on impeachment begin this week, we will see the case for and the case against impeaching President Donald Trump. The facts are largely undisputed, but each side has its version of them.

The Democrats will argue that in his July 25, 2019 telephone call with his Ukrainian counterpart, seen in the context of months of negotiations between American and Ukrainian diplomats, Trump made it known that if the Ukrainian government wanted the $391 million in military and financial aid that Congress authorized and ordered, it first must offer, or announce that it was seeking, dirt on his likely 2020 political opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden or his son Hunter. That implicates a presidential violation of two federal statutes: One is the prohibition of solicitation of campaign help from a foreign government, and the other is the prohibition of bribery.

View the complete November 16 article by Andrew Napolitano on the National Memo website here.

4 takeaways from Marie Yovanovitch’s testimony

Washington Post logoMarie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine who was ousted from that job in April amid a smear campaign, testified Friday in the second public impeachment hearing into President Trump.

Below are some takeaways from what happened in the hearing.

1. Trump’s alleged ‘witness intimidation’ — and GOP blowback

Perhaps the most colorful moment in the hearing came in the 10 o’clock hour. President Trump — whom the White House had said would not be watching the hearing beyond Republican Devin Nunes’s (Calif.) opening statement — tweeted about Yovanovitch.

View the complete November 15 article by Aaron Blake on The Washington Post website here.

Trump opens new line of impeachment attack for Democrats

The Hill logoPresident Trump opened himself up to a new line of attack from Democrats by vigorously criticizing the record of a former ambassador to Ukraine who he ousted earlier this year after she faced a smear campaign from his personal lawyer.

Trump took to Twitter on Friday morning to claim that “everywhere” U.S. ambassador Marie Yovanovitch went “turned bad” and suggested she was to blame for the situation in Somalia, where she did her first tour. Yovanovitch was asked to react to the tweets during the hearing on Friday which was being carried live on air, and described them as “intimidating.” 

The president’s tweet ran counter to a desire by Republicans to avoid attacking the character of career public servants like Yovanovitch, who boasts decades of service in the diplomatic corps in both Republican and Democratic administrations.

View the complete November 16 article by Morgan Chalfant and Brett Samuels on The Hill website here.

Trump denies witness tampering; State official says president asked about ‘investigation’ into Bidens

Washington Post logoPresident Trump dismissed criticism Friday that he had tried to intimidate a witness in the impeachment inquiry, saying a disparaging tweet about former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch as she testified before a House panel was “free speech.”

“I have the right to speak,” Trump said at an afternoon event in the Oval Office.

Trump’s tweet — in which he said everything “turned bad” in various places Yovanovitch was posted as a diplomat — came as she testified that she was the target of a “campaign of disinformation” that involved Trump’s personal attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani.

View the complete November 15 article by John Wagner, Colby Itkowitz and Michael Brice-Saddler on The Washington Post  website here.

Yovanovitch impeachment testimony gives burst of momentum to Democrats

The Hill logoDemocrats’ impeachment inquiry received a boost of momentum from the Friday testimony of Marie Yovanovitch, who faced public attacks by President Trump as she detailed in personal terms how a shadowy smear campaign successfully led to her removal as the top U.S. diplomat to Ukraine.

In a moment that would’ve been perfect for television split screens, Yovanovitch was in the midst of describing the “terrible” feeling of learning she was being abruptly recalled from Kyiv when Trump issued a tweet attacking her diplomatic record, describing her as having a reverse-Midas touch when it came to foreign policy.

“Honestly, after 33 years to our country — it was terrible, it was not the way I wanted my career to end,” Yovanovitch testified during the second public impeachment inquiry, shaking her head and closing her eyes as she recalled the moment.

View the complete November 15 article by Olivia Beavers and Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

GOP ‘storm the SCIF’ stunt could jeopardize classified briefings

Bipartisan memo warns lawmakers of consequences for them and the House

The House Ethics Committee responded this week to efforts by House Republicans to access the secure facility in the basement of the Capitol during a closed-door impeachment deposition on Oct. 23, issuing a memo about breaches of security and warning lawmakers of potential consequences.

The memo, dated Thursday, reminds lawmakers that all members and staff who have access to classified information take an oath to not disclose any such information and that access to classified information and secure areas are on a “need to know” basis.

“House personnel should not attempt to gain access to classified information or controlled areas unless they have a need to access the area or information,” Ethics Chairman Ted Deutch, a Florida Democrat, and ranking member Kenny Marchant, a Texas Republican, wrote in the memo.

View the complete November 15 article by Katherine Tully-McManus on The Roll Call website here.

Trump is throwing Sondland under the bus. But the new spin has a fatal defect.

Washington Post logoThe plight of Gordon Sondland is an object lesson in the perils awaiting those who get sucked under by the gravitational pull of Trump’s bottomless corruption and narcissism but fall just short of displaying absolute loyalty and subservience to the Trump cause.

Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, is now getting accused by at least one Trump loyalist of fabricating his latest round of testimony in league with Democrats — even though Sondland is a top Trump donor. And another leading Trump sycophant is questioning Sondland’s credibility, something Trump himself tried to do at a rally on Thursday night.

But the new story that Trump and his loyalists are telling about Sondland is deeply flawed: It elides a mountain of evidence that’s already out there on the public record, as will be explained below.

View the complete November 15 commentary by Greg Sargent on The Washington Post website here.

Trump goes after Adam Schiff at Louisiana rally for GOP governor nominee

President’s ‘brand is winning’ so ‘losing anything, anywhere … hurts that brand,’ Republican strategist says

President Donald Trump on Thursday night used a political rally in Louisiana, billed as a late-race assist to the Republican candidate for governor, to blast the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry and insult House Intelligence Chairman Adam B. Schiff.

“While we are creating jobs and killing terrorists, the radical left — Democrats — are ripping our country apart,” he said to boos from the crowd inside the CenturyLink Center in Bossier City. He later accused Democrats of trying to “sabotage our democracy.”

Trump went after “small-necked” Schiff, trying to paint the California Democrat as physically and intellectually tiny. “What size shirt do you need?” the president said, mimicking a tailor talking to Schiff, whom Trump then said would reply: “Um, size 9.”

View the complete November 14 article by John T. Bennett on The Roll Call website here.

How the impeachment inquiry has revealed a long and murky campaign to oust a veteran U.S. ambassador

Washington Post logoIn February, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine — a 33-year career diplomat who had served presidents of both parties — received a blunt warning.

“Watch your back,” Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch said she was told by Ukraine’s interior minister.

The Ukrainian official relayed that a pair of Florida businessmen and a Kyiv prosecutor with whom Yovanovitch had clashed were working to oust her from the post she had held since 2016, she later told House investigators.

View the complete November 14 article by Rosalind S. Helderman and Tom Hamburger on The Washington Post website here.