Tag: Trump impeachment

Fact-checking the opening day of the Trump impeachment hearings

Washington Post logoHere’s a roundup of misleading claims made during the opening day of House impeachment hearings.

“President [Volodymyr] Zelensky didn’t announce he was going to investigate [Ukrainian gas company] Burisma or the Bidens. He didn’t do a press conference and say: ‘I’m going to investigate the Bidens. We’re going to investigate Burisma.’ He didn’t tweet about it … and yet you said you have a clear understanding that those two things were going to happen — the money was going to get released but not until there was an investigation. And that in fact didn’t happen.”

“You have to ask yourself: What did President Zelensky actually do to get the aid? The answer is nothing. He did nothing. He didn’t open any investigations. He didn’t call Attorney General Bill Barr. He didn’t do any of the things that House Democrats say that he was being forced and coerced and threatened to do. He didn’t do anything because he didn’t have to.”

“For the millions of Americans viewing today, the two most important facts are the following. Number one, Ukraine received the aid. Number two, there was in fact no investigation into Biden.”

The “nothing to see here” defense was a recurring theme in the hearing. Republicans argued that Ukrainian officials never opened the investigations President Trump requested into the Bidens or supposed Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, yet Trump released the nearly $400 million aid package for Ukraine anyway.

But this is a selective retelling of events. Missing is any mention of key developments between July 18, when the White House told agencies to freeze Ukraine’s aid package, and Sept. 11, when the White House released the funds.

View the complete November 14 article by Glenn Kessler and Salvador Rizzo on The Washington Post 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.

Diplomat ties Trump closer to Ukraine furor

The Hill logoThe top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine on Wednesday offered a long and intricate account of President Trump’s “highly irregular” foreign policy in Kyiv, providing new details of the episode — ones that appeared to boost Democrats’ case — in the first public hearing of their impeachment inquiry.

House Democrats left the open hearing buzzing about the new developments provided by William Taylor, U.S. chargé d’affaires for Ukraine, during his nearly five-hour appearance on Capitol Hill.

In measured and detailed testimony, Taylor more strongly tied Trump to the push for investigations meant to benefit the president, revealing that a member of his staff overheard a conversation between Trump and U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland the day after the president’s July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

View the complete November 13 article by Olivia Beavers, Morgan Chalfant and Mike Lillis 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.

Republicans discuss a longer Senate impeachment trial to scramble Democratic primaries

Washington Post logoSome Republican senators and their advisers are privately discussing whether to pressure GOP leaders to stage a lengthy impeachment trial beginning in January to scramble the Democratic presidential race — potentially keeping six contenders in Washington until the eve of the Iowa caucuses or longer.

Those conversations about the timing and framework for a trial remain fluid and closely held, according to more than a dozen participants in the discussions. But the deliberations come as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) faces pressure from conservative activists to swat back at Democrats as public impeachment hearings began this week in the House.

The discussions raise a potential hazard for the six Democratic senators running for president, who had previously planned on a final sprint out of Washington before the Feb. 3 Iowa caucuses and the Feb. 11 New Hampshire primary.

View the complete November 13 article by Robert Costa, Michael Scherer and Seung Min Kim on The Washington Post 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.

Trump denies knowledge of call mentioned in impeachment hearing

The Hill logoPresident Trump on Wednesday denied knowledge of a phone call that he allegedly had with U.S. ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland in July about investigations he sought from Ukraine.

“I know nothing about that. First time I’ve heard it,” Trump told reporters in the East Room during a press conference with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan when asked about the call, which was described by a U.S. diplomat in public testimony earlier Wednesday.

“I’ve never heard this. In any event, it’s more secondhand information, but I’ve never heard it,” Trump continued.

View the complete November 13 article by Morgan Chalfant 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.