Tag: Trump sleaze

Trump confirms he withheld military aid from Ukraine, says he wants other countries to help pay

Washington Post logoNEW YORK — President Trump confirmed Tuesday that he withheld military aid from Ukraine, saying he did so over his concerns that the United States was contributing more to Ukraine than European countries were.

“My complaint has always been, and I’d withhold again and I’ll continue to withhold until such time as Europe and other nations contribute to Ukraine because they’re not doing it,” Trump told reporters at the United Nations General Assembly.

Trump was responding to reporting by The Washington Post that he told his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to hold back almost $400 million in military aid for at least a week before Trump spoke to the Ukrainian president.

View the complete September 24 article by Seung Min Kim and Colby

Trump administration again pushes limits of authority in shielding whistleblower complaint from Congress

Washington Post logoPresident Trump and his Justice Department are once again on a collision course with Congress over the extent of the commander in chief’s authority, this time stemming from the administration’s refusal to give lawmakers a whistleblower complaint about Trump’s interaction with his counterpart in Ukraine.

Trump, legal analysts say, has the right to withhold such communications with foreign leaders from lawmakers and the public as classified or otherwise privileged. But in this case — when Trump is said to have pressed the Ukrainian president about investigating the son of former vice president Joe Biden, one of his political rivals — he could be misusing his authority to cover up personal wrongdoing, analysts say.

“We cannot say that executive privilege and control over classified information is going to be used to shield the president from his duties to comply with federal law,” said Claire Finkelstein, the faculty director of the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law at the University of Pennsylvania law school. “That’s just a sort of complete abuse of office.”

View the complete September 23 article by Matt Zapotosky and Devlin Barrett on The Washington Post website here.

Republican lawmakers scramble to contain Ukraine whistleblower fallout

The Hill logoSenate Republicans are scrambling to contain the political fallout from reports that President Trump pressured a foreign leader to investigate his leading Democratic rival, former Vice President Joe Biden.

Several Republican lawmakers have called on Trump to reveal more details from his conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in which the president on Sunday acknowledged discussing Biden and his possible links to corruption in Ukraine. This effort comes as some Democrats in the House are ramping up their calls for a vote on an impeachment inquiry.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced on the Senate floor Monday afternoon that Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) is trying to bring the Trump-appointed intelligence community’s inspector general who received a complaint from a whistleblower before his panel to investigate the matter.

View the complete September 24 article by Alexander Bolton on The Hill website here.

Senate Republicans dodge questions on Trump-Ukraine whistleblower complaint

Washington Post logoSenate Republicans on Monday were largely mum on whether Congress should investigate whistleblower allegations that President Trump pressured the leader of Ukraine for help in his 2020 reelection bid, with some ignoring questions on the matter while others disparaged the individual who raised the alarm.

Trump suggested on Sunday that he mentioned former vice president Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, on a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in July. But Trump has denied that he pressured Zelensky to investigate Biden, who is leading in polls for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, in exchange for military aid.

The revelations have mobilized Democrats in the House, which their party controls, with many members escalating their calls for impeachment proceedings against Trump. A trio of House committee chairs on Monday threatened to subpoena Trump for documents related to his alleged efforts to pressure Zelensky.

View the complete September 23 article by Felicia Sonmez, Mike DeBonis and Erica Werner on The Washington Post website here.

Instead of ‘No Collusion!’ Trump Now Seems to Be Saying, So What

New York Times logoWASHINGTON — The last time he was accused of collaborating with a foreign power to influence an election, he denied it and traveled the country practically chanting, “No collusion!” This time, he is saying, in effect, so what if I did?

Even for a leader who has audaciously disregarded many of the boundaries that restrained his predecessors, President Trump’s appeal to a foreign power for dirt on former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. is an astonishing breach of the norms governing the American presidency.

That his phone call with Ukraine’s leader took place literally the day after the special counsel Robert S. Mueller III testified to Congress about Russian interference in the 2016 election demonstrated that Mr. Trump took no lessons from that episode about the perils and propriety of mixing his own political interests with international relations.

View the complete September 23 article by Peter Baker on The New York Times website here.

Trump ordered hold on military aid days before calling Ukrainian president, officials say

Washington Post logoPresident Trump told his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to hold back almost $400 million in military aid for Ukraine at least a week before a phone call in which Trump is said to have pressured the Ukrainian president to investigate the son of former vice president Joe Biden, according to three senior administration officials.

Officials at the Office of Management and Budget relayed Trump’s order to the State Department and the Pentagon during an interagency meeting in mid-July, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. They explained that the president had “concerns” and wanted to analyze whether the money needed to be spent.

Administration officials were instructed to tell lawmakers that the delays were part of an “interagency process” but to give them no additional information — a pattern that continued for nearly two months, until the White House released the funds on the night of Sept. 11.

View the complete September 23 article by Karoun Demirjian, Josh Dawsey, Ellen Nakasima and Carol D. Leonnig on The Washington Post website here.

Five things to know about the whistleblower complaint

The Hill logoPresident Trump is facing an escalating controversy surrounding a whistleblower complaint said to be centered on his communications with Ukraine’s leader.

Congress has not seen the complaint, even though Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson determined that the allegations were credible and of “urgent concern.”

Here are five things to know about the complaint and the whistleblower process:

View the complete September 23 article by Olivia Beavers on The Hill website here.

Key House committees threaten subpoenas over Trump-Ukraine allegations

Axios logoThe Democratic chairs of the House Intelligence, Oversight and Foreign Affairs committees on Monday sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo demanding that the State Department produce documents related to allegations that President Trump and his attorney Rudy Giuliani have pressured the Ukrainian government to investigate Joe Biden.

“Seeking to enlist a foreign actor to interfere with an American election undermines our sovereignty, democracy, and the Constitution, which the President is sworn to preserve, protect, and defend.  Yet the President and his personal attorney now appear to be openly engaging in precisely this type of abuse of power involving the Ukrainian government ahead of the 2020 election.”

— Chairs Adam Schiff, Elijah Cummings and Eliot Engel

Why it matters: With a majority in the House, Democrats have the power to subpoena Trump administration officials to cooperate in their investigations. The allegations over Trump and Ukraine have erupted into a source of massive controversy over the past week, with Democratic leaders such as House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) suggesting that they could pave a new path to impeachment.

View the complete September 23 article by Zachary Basu on the Axios website here.

Trump defends raising corruption on call with Ukraine leader

The Hill logoPresident Trump on Monday defended the idea of raising corruption issues with foreign leaders as he faces mounting scrutiny over whether he pressured the president of Ukraine to investigate his political rival.

Trump told reporters at the United Nations headquarters in New York City that it was fair to ask about corruption when determining whether to provide aid to a foreign country, even as Democrats have raised concerns that the president threatened to withhold aid to Ukraine if it didn’t investigate former vice president Joe Biden and his son.

“We’re supporting a country. We want to make sure that country’s honest,” Trump said when asked about his call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. “It’s very important to talk about corruption. If you don’t talk about corruption — why would you give money to a country you think is corrupt?”

View the complete September 23 article by Brett Samuels on The Hill website here.

Ukraine controversy follows Trump to UN assembly

The Hill logoPresident Trump will arrive in New York City on Monday under a cloud of controversy over his conversations with Ukraine’s leaders, creating a new distraction as he kicks off three days of speeches and meetings at the United Nations General Assembly.

The annual gathering of world leaders is always a frenetic event for a U.S. president, but this one promises to be even more of a pressure cooker given the questions about Trump’s contacts with Ukraine over an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden.

Trump must also deal with a host of foreign policy crises, most notably the question of how to respond to attacks on Saudi oil fields that the U.S. suspects were done with the hand of Iran.

View the complete September 23 article by Brett Samuels and Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.