But in the summer of 2019, he and his colleagues were sending a very different message to Ukraine.
Tag: Trump impeachment inquiry
Trump said he had an ‘obligation to end corruption’ in Ukraine but tried to gut Billions targeted to do just that
President Donald Trump for a few days earlier this month repeatedly insisted he was all about fighting corruption. So dedicated to this new slogan was the American president that one might assume it had been part of his 2016 campaign stump speech (it was not.)
On TV and on Twitter Trump insisted his attempts to extort the president ofUkraine (photo) in a scheme to get dirt on Joe Biden in exchange for $400 million in congressionally-appropriated military aid, were merely about ensuring that nation, bedeviled by corruption in years past, was on a new path.
“To me everything is about corruption,” Trump told reporters in early October. “We want to find out about what happened with 2016,” he insisted, furthering his conspiracy theory that the Obama administration investigated him in an attempt to illegally interfere in the election, and that Ukraine and the Democrats colluded, while Russia did not attack the U.S. election. All of which is false.
Trump told Republicans to fight. They took the brawl underground.
President Trump told them to “take the gloves off.” A day later, House conservatives breached security on Capitol Hill, stormed a secure room and started tweeting.
It began with a call to action from one of Trump’s favorite lawmakers.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), the Fox News regular, led dozens of Republican members to the basement of the Capitol on Wednesday morning to disrupt the impeachment inquiry by temporarily blocking testimony from a Pentagon official summoned to detail her knowledge of the administration’s decision to withhold military aid for Ukraine.
‘Beyond parody’: Matt Gaetz and dozens of his GOP colleagues try to barge into secret hearing in latest anti-impeachment stunt
On Wednesday, a group of right-wing representatives led by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) tried to storm into a secure facility for classified information being used as part of the impeachment proceedings, demanding to be informed of the process.
They are almost certain to be ejected because they are not members of the committees reviewing the evidence.
View the complete October 23 article by Matthew Chapman from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.
Impeachment is happening behind closed doors to keep Trump from corrupting the process: House Dem
President Donald Trump has raged against the closed-door testimonies in his impeachment inquiry, but a Democratic lawmaker explained why that’s necessary to preserve the integrity of an investigation into a possible criminal conspiracy.
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that these hearings must be held in a room beneath the Capitol to protect classified information and quarantine witnesses from one another.
“It’s three floors below the Capitol, no cameras inside, no phones allowed inside,” Swalwell said. “Any classified notes stay inside, classified conversations stay inside. It’s to protect the information, and in this case there was no special counsel, there was no special prosecutor.”
View the complete October 23 article by Travis Gettys from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.
‘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.
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.
Pentagon official testifies about withheld military aid to Ukraine
Laura Cooper’s closed-door testimony could strengthen the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry.
A Pentagon official who sought the release of U.S. military aid to Ukraine — withheld by the White House amid attempts to persuade Ukraine to investigate President Donald Trump’s political rivals — testified Wednesday to House impeachment investigators about her knowledge of the episode amid attempts by the Trump administration to block her appearance.
Laura Cooper — the deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia — appeared despite an effort by the Pentagon to block her cooperation. Her testimony was also delayed for more than five hours Wednesday after dozens of House Republicans stormed the secure facility inside the Capitol where investigators were set to depose her.
An official who works on the impeachment inquiry said Cooper testified for more than three hours behind closed doors under subpoena — a repeat of the tactic lawmakers have used to circumvent other attempts by the Trump administration to block witnesses from complying with interview requests.
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.