Tag: Trump bribery

GOP senators balk at lengthy impeachment trial

The Hill logoSenators are pushing for a speedy impeachment trial as the proceedings appear poised to spill into 2020. 

With House Democrats aiming to vote on articles of impeachment by Christmas, Republicans view a trial as all but guaranteed but are warning they don’t want to drag it out. 

How long a trial could last is a rolling point of debate. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) raised eyebrows by suggesting it could last six to eight weeks, longer than the proceedings against former President Clinton, which lasted just over a month.

View the complete November 14 article by Jordain Carney on The Hill website here.

Ousted ambassador gives deeply personal account of firing by Trump

Yovanovitch describes feeling ‘shocked and devastated’ reading transcript of Trump call with Ukrainian president

Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine who was removed from her post by President Donald Trump, spent much of her Friday morning before the House Intelligence Committee disputing allegations that she worked against the president while in her post in Kyiv.

Yovanovitch told the committee that she never told U.S. embassy employees to ignore Washington’s orders because Trump would soon be impeached, that she did not work on behalf of the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016, and that she has never spoken with Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President Joe Biden, whom Trump wanted Kyiv to investigate for his lucrative role at a Ukrainian gas company.

“Partisanship of this type is not compatible with the role of a career Foreign Service Officer,” Yovanovitch said during the second day of public impeachment hearings focusing on Trump’s dealings with Ukraine.

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

Here’s why Republican impeachment theatrics — as buffoonish as they are — serve a purpose for the GOP

The Hill logoLiberal and progressive pundits — and some Never Trump conservatives as well — have been highly critical of the silly, buffoonish theatrics that Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, Rep. Devin Nunes of California and other far-right House Republicans brought to the first public testimony in the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump. But then, Jordan and Nunes weren’t trying to win over liberals, progressives or anti-Trump conservatives on Wednesday, November 13, when they aggressively attacked the testimony of two diplomats: Ambassador William B. Taylor (top U.S. ambassador to Ukraine) and the U.S. State Department’s George P. Kent (deputy assistant secretary for European and Eurasian affairs). They were playing to Trump’s hardcore MAGA base, pushing emotional buttons rather than relying on substance.

For that matter, Jordan and Nunes weren’t trying to win over independents either. They were preaching to the converted, determined to show pro-Trump voters that they still have their backs.

Rep. Adam Schiff, Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, knew what he was doing with Taylor and Kent’s testimony — and that testimony made a strong case for impeaching Trump. Schiff and other House Democrats showed exactly why Trump deserves impeachment: during a phone conversation on July 25, Trump tried to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into investigating a political rival — former Vice President Joe Biden — as well as his son, Hunter Biden. The testimony demonstrated that Trump withheld military aid to Ukraine and made an investigation of the Bidens a condition of that aid.

View the complete November 15 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.

Democrats say Trump tweet is ‘witness intimidation,’ fuels impeachment push

The Hill logoHouse Democrats wasted no time Friday saying President Trump’s real-time Twitter attack on a top U.S. diplomat — as she was testifying on Trump’s dealings with Ukraine — was more evidence of presidential misconduct as they charge ahead with their impeachment probe. 

“The president in real time is engaging in witness intimidation and witness tampering,” an exasperated Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), a member of the Intelligence Committee, told reporters during a break in the hearing with Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine who was removed abruptly in May.

“I don’t know how much more egregious it has to get before the American people are going to recognize we have someone in the White House who conducts himself in a criminal manner on a day-to-day basis.”

View the complete November 15 article by Mike Lillis and Scott Wong on The Hill website here.

Yovanovitch responds to Trump tweets at hearing, says he’s trying to intimidate

The Hill logoFormer U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch responded in real time to tweets from President Trump denigrating her as she testified in a House impeachment hearing, stating that they were meant to intimidate her.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) offered Yovanovitch the chance to respond to Trump after he paused her dramatic testimony to read Trump’s tweet.

“It’s very intimidating,” Yovanovitch said. “I can’t speak to what the president is trying to do, but I think the effect is to be intimidating.”

View the complete November 15 article by Maggie Miller on The Hill website here.

Trump criticizes Yovanovitch during her public testimony

The Hill logoPresident Trump harshly criticized the tenure of former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch as she testified at a House impeachment hearing and emphasized he had the right to remove her from the post.

Trump asserted that “everywhere” Yovanovitch served “turned bad,” and noted that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke negatively of her during their July 25 phone call.

“Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad. She started off in Somalia, how did that go? Then fast forward to Ukraine, where the new Ukrainian President spoke unfavorably about her in my second phone call with him. It is a U.S. President’s absolute right to appoint ambassadors,” Trump tweeted.

“They call it ‘serving at the pleasure of the President.’ The U.S. now has a very strong and powerful foreign policy, much different than proceeding administrations. It is called, quite simply, America First!” Trump continued.

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

Live updates: ‘It sounded like a threat,’ ousted U.S. ambassador says of Trump’s comments about her to Ukrainian president

Washington Post logoIn public testimony at the House impeachment hearings, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch said she felt threatened when she read how President Trump talked about her to his Ukrainian counterpart on a July 25 call.

“It sounded like a threat,” she told the House Intelligence Committee during the second open hearing of the impeachment inquiry.

Yovanovitch, who was recalled from her position earlier this year, also testified that she was the target of a “campaign of disinformation” that involved Trump’s personal attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani and included “unofficial back channels.”

View the complete November 15 article by John Wagner and Colby Itkowitz on The Washington Post website here.

Ousted ambassador describes State Department in ‘crisis’ in dramatic impeachment testimony

The Hill logoThe former top U.S. diplomat to Ukraine described a “crisis” at the State Department during her public impeachment testimony on Friday, voicing concern that the agency’s failure to protect foreign service officials who faced attacks for their work overseas put U.S. interests at risk.

Marie Yovanovitch, who privately testified to House investigators last month, described a smear campaign led by Rudy Giuliani, corrupt Ukrainian officials and disreputable media figures who successfully facilitated her removal as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine in May.

“[T]he attacks are leading to a crisis in the State Department as the policy process is visibly unravelling, leadership vacancies going unfilled, and senior and mid-level officers ponder an uncertain future and head for the doors,” Yovanovitch testified.

“This not a time to undercut our diplomats,” she emphasized.

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

New testimony ties Trump more directly to Ukraine pressure campaign

Washington Post logoAfter weeks in which President Trump’s top aides have figured as the major players in the Ukraine narrative, testimony in the first few hours of the public impeachment hearings Wednesday thrust Trump himself back to center stage.

Acting ambassador to Ukraine William B. Taylor Jr. told lawmakers about a previously unknown effort by the president to make sure Ukraine was looking into his political opponents: a phone conversation he said Trump had with a top U.S. diplomat asking about the status of “the investigations.”

The phone conversation described by Taylor gave Democrats a chance to renew questions about Trump’s personal involvement in the effort to push Ukraine to investigate his political opponents while the United States withheld security assistance and a sought-after White House meeting.

View the complete November 13 article by Elise Viebeck on The Washington Post website here.

Rudy Giuliani’s Calls To Trump Are Conveniently Secret

The president, who was outraged about Hillary Clinton’s private email server, talked with Giuliani on a personal cellphone.

One of the key takeaways from the Ukraine scandal has been that Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer and not a government employee, was running a rogue foreign policy operation meant to benefit Donald Trump’s political interests.

Giuliani was the key player pushing for the ouster of Marie Yovanovitch, then the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, who was seen as an impediment to his goals in that country ― which were primarily to get Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. And in the infamous July 25 call, Trump told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that he should talk to Giuliani to move forward on an investigation of the Bidens.

But very little is known about Trump and Giuliani’s own conversations ― when they spoke, how often they spoke and what they said. That’s because, according to officials who spoke to The Washington Post, Giuliani often called Trump on the president’s personal cellphone.

View the complete November 13 article by Amanda Terkel on the Huffington Post website here.