Tag: Trump shadow diplomacy

Impeachment witness provides firsthand account of hearing Trump demand ‘investigation’ of Bidens by Ukraine

Washington Post logoPresident Trump specifically inquired about political investigations he wanted carried out by Ukraine during a July phone call with a top U.S. diplomat who then told colleagues that the president was most interested in a probe into former vice president Joe Biden and his son, a State Department aide said Friday in closed-door testimony that could significantly advance House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry.

David Holmes, an embassy staffer in Kyiv, testified that he overheard a July 26 phone call in which Trump pressed U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland about whether Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would “do the investigation,” according to three people who have read his opening statement and spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe its contents.

“Ambassador Sondland replied that ‘he’s gonna do it,’ adding that President Zelensky will do ‘anything you ask him to,’ ” Holmes said, according to these people.

View the complete November 15 article by Karoun Demirjian, Rachael Bade, John Hudson and Toluse Olorunnipa on The Washington Post 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.

State Department inspector general slams smear campaign against employee

Washington Post logoThe State Department’s inspector general rebuked a senior adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday, saying the aide had played a role in reassigning a staffer suspected of being disloyal to the Trump administration.

The inspector general’s report recommended that Pompeo consider disciplining Brian Hook, the point man for Iran policy. The report, however, covers Hook’s previous tenure as head of an in-house think tank known as the Policy Planning Office, located on the department’s storied seventh floor near the secretary’s office.

The report cited a chain of emails among senior officials, including Hook, and prominent conservatives, following an article in the Conservative Review that characterized a staffer in the office as a “trusted Obama aide” who had “burrowed” into the State Department during the Trump administration. She was dismissed from Hook’s staff three months early, a decision the inspector general concluded was based not on merit but on improper, inappropriate and false perceptions of her political opinions, association with the previous administration and her national origin.

View the complete November 14 article by Carol Morello on The Washington Post 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.

At donor dinner, Giuliani associate said he discussed Ukraine with Trump, according to people familiar with his account

Washington Post logoThe April 2018 dinner was designed to be an intimate affair, an opportunity for a handful of big donors to a super PAC allied with President Trump to personally interact with the president and his eldest son.

In an exclusive suite known as the Trump Townhouse at Trump’s Washington hotel, the group — including Jack Nicklaus III, the grandson of the famous golfer, and a New York developer — snapped photos, dined and chatted about their pet issues with the president for about 90 minutes.

Among those in attendance were two Florida business executives who had little history with Republican politics but had snagged a spot at the dinner with the promise of a major contribution to the America First super PAC. They turned the conversation to Ukraine, according to people familiar with the event, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private dinner.

View the complete November 12 article by Rosalind S. Helderman, Matt Zapotosky, Tom Hamburger and Josh Dawsey on The Washington Post website here.