Tag: Trump impeachment

Independents souring on impeachment underscores risk for Democrats

The Hill logoNew public opinion polls are moving against Democrats on impeachment as independents sour on the House inquiry and increasingly express opposition to the hearings that have consumed Washington in recent weeks.

The new data comes as a surprise to Democrats, many of whom believe witnesses have offered damning testimony about President Trump’s dealings with Ukraine.

Witnesses have testified that Trump pressed Ukraine’s leaders to conduct investigations of the energy company Burisma Holdings — which was seen as code for probes of former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, given the younger Biden’s work for the company as a board member.

There has also been testimony that security aid for Ukraine was delayed to put more pressure on that country’s government. Other witnesses have castigated Trump for pursuing conspiracy theories that Ukraine and not Russia was a major player in electoral interference in 2016.

View the complete November 24 article by Jonathan Easley on The Hill website here.

The Evidence That Trump Concealed

Accumulating evidence of impeachable offenses by President Donald J. Trump, based on available documents and witness testimony, is overwhelming. It began with the July 25 “transcript” he urged us all to read in which he responds to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky’s entreaty for more military assistance by asking for those two “favors.” Officials described under oath how, under orders from Trump, they were required to pressure the Ukraine government into announcing “investigations” of former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, and the Democratic National Committee, which did not have to be genuine. And it may yet extend beyond the damning revelations delivered during the past several days before the House Intelligence Committee. Continue reading “The Evidence That Trump Concealed”

White House keeps Democrats from critical witnesses

The Hill logoWitnesses pointed their fingers at a number of figures close to President Trump who could help untangle the web around the administration’s dealings with Ukraine during the public impeachment hearings. But Democrats won’t be hearing from them.

The White House has prevented the president’s chief of staff, his former national security adviser, budget officials and two individuals named as part of the alleged rogue channel behind a push for investigations by Kyiv — his personal attorney and outgoing energy secretary — from testifying before Congress.

Democrats could go to court to try to force the officials to testify, but they don’t want to further delay their inquiry and so have decided to move forward without the additional testimony.

View the complete November 23 article by Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

Impeachment news roundup: Nov. 22

Trump explains why he wanted Giuliani to lead Ukraine effort, and where does the inquiry go next?

The House left town for its Thanksgiving recess on Thursday with little clarity on where the impeachment investigation into President Donald Trump goes from here.

After two weeks of public hearings with 12 witnesses, Democratic Intelligence Committee members have not said whether they will call more to testify after the Thanksgiving break.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that the course impeachment takes is “up to the committees of jurisdiction.” But she also suggested that her party will not wait for the courts to decide whether Trump administration officials who have refused to provide documents and testimony to the panel conducting the impeachment probe must comply. That court process could take months, and Democrats have said they want to wrap up the impeachment process by as early as Christmas.

View the complete November 22 article on The Roll Call website here.

Republicans Seek to Muddy Impeachment Evidence as Their Defense of Trump

New York Times logoThey put forward a shifting array of arguments to defend the president against impeachment — some of which conflict.

WASHINGTON — Republicans mounted an array of defenses of President Trump at this week’s impeachment hearings — making arguments that at times seemed to conflict with one another logically, but that dovetailed in a key way: All served to undermine Democrats’ allegations that Mr. Trump abused his power.

In angry statements from the hearing dais, lines of questioning to witnesses and comments during breaks to reporters, Republicans sought to poke holes in the strength of evidence that Mr. Trump personally put a condition on the government committing official acts — namely, that Ukraine publicize investigations that could benefit him.

But at other times, Republicans suggested that Mr. Trump’s pursuit of those investigations was justified — reading into the record related facts and allegations about Ukrainian actions in 2016 and about the Ukrainian gas company Burisma and its decision to give Hunter Biden, the son of Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., a lucrative board seat.

View the complete November 21 article by Charlie Savage on The New York Times website here.

Hill, Holmes offer damaging impeachment testimony: Five takeaways

The Hill logoIn what could be the last round of public hearings in the Democrats’ high-speed impeachment inquiry, two senior national security experts testified Thursday that President Trump had pressed for investigations in Ukraine that were designed to help him politically.

David Holmes, a State Department veteran now based in Kyiv, and Fiona Hill, Trump’s former leading adviser on Russian affairs, testified for almost six hours on Capitol Hill, where they painted a damaging portrait of Trump and his allies clamoring for the launch of foreign-born probes that appeared to lack a national security objective.

Holmes described an episode in Kyiv in July when he overheard a phone conversation between Trump and Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, in which the president sought updates on the investigations into the 2016 elections and the son of former Vice President Joe Biden. “I’ve never seen anything like this in my foreign service career,” he said. 

View the complete November 21 article by Scott Wong and Mike Lillis on The Hill website here.

Fox News legal analyst knocks down Fox & Friends’ anti-impeachment talking points one by one

AlterNet logoFox News legal analyst Andrew Napolitano disappointed the co-hosts of “Fox & Friends” on Thursday by informing them that House Democrats still have a very strong case for impeaching President Donald Trump.

Co-host Brian Kilmeade started off by claiming that the president was vindicated because he told European Union ambassador Gordon Sondland that he wasn’t seeking a quid pro quo from Ukraine.

However, Napolitano said that statement is utterly meaningless given that the president already knew he was being investigated when he made it.

View the complete November 21 article by Brad Reed from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

House GOP wants Senate Republicans to do more on impeachment

The Hill logoHouse Republicans say their counterparts in the Senate need to do more to help President Trump on impeachment.

The House GOP lawmakers note their power is limited on impeachment hearings, but Senate Republicans have the authority to call witnesses and issue subpoenas. Republicans in the lower chamber have expressed frustration that little attention has been paid to allegations that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 presidential election and that former Vice President Joe Biden may have had a serious conflict of interest with regard to Ukraine because of his son Hunter Biden.

Major media outlets, with the exception of Fox News, have given little credibility to these allegations pushed by Trump, his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and their allies.   

View the complete November 21 article by Alexander Bolton on The Hill website here.

The Brutal Impeachment Propaganda Of Fox News

“As a reporter,” Fox News anchor Chris Wallace said of Ambassador Gordon Sondland’s bombshell testimony before the House impeachment inquiry on Wednesday afternoon, “it seems to me, we have to go to what the headline is today.” And that headline, Wallace explained, was that Sondland had directly implicated President Donald Trump in a quid pro quo in which an Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and potentially U.S. military aid to Ukraine were conditioned on Zelensky’s public announcement of investigations intended to benefit Trump politically.

On the websites of many national news outlets, journalists had indeed determined that the headline coming out of the hearing was Sondland’s acknowledgement of the quid pro quo and his declaration that senior officials, including Trump, were engaged in its formulation.

But that sentiment was not universal. Shortly after Wallace’s remark, I checked FoxNews.com, the website associated with his own network. There, the top headline was “President Trump declares ‘it’s all over’ for impeachment inquiry after Sondland testimony.”

View the complete November 20 article by Matt Gertz from Media Matters on the National Memo website here.

Testimony ensnares Pompeo in Ukraine scandal as he mulls political future

Washington Post logoSecretary of State Mike Pompeo became a major focus of the House impeachment inquiry Wednesday, with the recounting of emails and conversations linking him more closely to the effort to pressure Ukraine to investigate President Trump’s political rivals than previously known.

The accounts — provided in sworn testimony by the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland — prompted fresh calls for Pompeo to testify on Capitol Hill and explain his actions concerning a Ukraine policy that he has at times refused to discuss but defended as “wholly appropriate.”

Sondland said several senior U.S. officials knew about a “quid pro quo” linking a White House visit for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigations into Trump’s political rivals. In addition to Pompeo, he said, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and then-national security adviser John Bolton were aware of the effort.

View the complete November 20 article by John Hudson on The Washington Post website here.