Tag: Trump State Department

Officials’ texts reveal belief that Trump wanted probes as condition of Ukraine meeting

Washington Post logoHouse investigators released numerous text messages late Thursday night illustrating how senior State Department officials coordinated with the Ukrainian president’s top aide and President Trump’s personal lawyer to leverage a potential summit between the heads of state on a promise from the Ukrainians to investigate the 2016 U.S. election and an energy company that employed the son of 2020 Democratic candidate Joe Biden.

[Read the documents: House Democrats’ letter on State Department texts]

The texts, which former special U.S. envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker provided investigators during a nearly 10-hour deposition Thursday, reveal that officials felt Trump would not agree to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky unless Zelensky promised to launch the investigations — and did so publicly. Although the texts do not mention Biden by name, congressional Democrats leading an impeachment inquiry are pointing to them as clear evidence that Trump conditioned normal bilateral relations with Ukraine on that country first agreeing “to launch politically motivated investigations,” top Democrats said in statement Thursday night.

View the complete October 4 article by Karoun Demirjian, Rachel Bade, Josh Dawsey and John Hudson on The Washington Post website here.

Trump Envoys Pushed Ukraine to Commit to Investigating Biden

New York Times logoWASHINGTON — Two of President Trump’s top envoys to Ukraine worked on a statement for the country’s new president in August that would have committed Ukraine to pursuing investigations sought by Mr. Trump into his political rivals, according to three people briefed on the effort and documents released Thursday night.

Their work on the statement is new evidence of how Mr. Trump’s fixation with conspiracy theories linked to Ukraine began driving senior diplomats to bend American foreign policy to the president’s political agenda in the weeks after a July 25 call between the two leaders.

The statement was worked on by Gordon D. Sondland, the United States ambassador to the European Union, and Kurt D. Volker, then the State Department’s special envoy to Ukraine, according to the documents and the three people who have been briefed on the statement. Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer and the de facto leader of a shadow campaign to push the Ukrainians to press ahead with investigations, provided the critical element of the language, Mr. Volker told House Democratic investigators on Thursday, a person familiar with his testimony said.

View the complete October 3 article by Kenneth P. Vogel and Michael S. Schmidt on The Washington Post website here.

Giuliani says State Dept vowed to investigate after he gave Ukraine docs to Pompeo

Democrats who saw the documents dismissed them as “propaganda and disinformation spreading conspiracy theories.”

WASHINGTON — Rudy Giuliani, the personal attorney for President Donald Trump, said Wednesday that he personally gave Secretary of State Mike Pompeo a file of documents with unproven allegations against former Vice President Joe Biden and was told that the State Department would take up an investigation of those claims.

Some of those documents are contained in the 79-page packet that the State Department’s inspector general handed over to Congress Wednesday, which were obtained by NBC News. The documents, combined with Giuliani’s version of events, raise new questions about what was done with the files after they were delivered to the State Department and whether an investigation into the allegations contained in them was ever launched.

Also included in the packet are nearly 20 pages of communications between State Department employees working to push back against the “fake narrative” that Giuliani was pushing.

View the complete October 4 article by Leigh Ann Caldwell, Kristen Welker, Heidi Przybyla, Josh Lederman and Abigail Williams on the NBC News website here.

Giuliani Says State Department Helped Him Dig Dirt On Biden

If Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani is to be believed, the U.S. State Department aided his efforts to pressure a foreign government to dig up dirt on Trump’s political enemies, according to a report from ABC News on Thursday.

Giuliani claimed the State Department put Ukrainian official Andriy Yermak “in contact with me.” Giuliani insisted it was the State Department that helped him reach out to Yermak, “Not the other way around.”

Giuliani alleges that he told Yermak, a close ally of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, that the Ukrainian government “should not be cowered [out of] fully investigating serious possible crimes like bribery, extortion, fraud, money laundering and illegal interference in 2016 election.”

View the complete August 22 article by Dan Desai Martin on the National Memo website here.

State Department aides won’t rule out existing authorizations allowing for attack on Iran

Officials would not commit on seeking congressional approval for military action, either

Senior State Department officials wouldn’t commit to a Senate panel Wednesday that the Trump administration will seek congressional authorization for a potential military conflict with Iran, nor would they promise that existing military authorizations would not be reinterpreted to allow attacks on Iran.

Rather, the Trump administration officials said they would consult and inform lawmakers of any administration plans to carry out military strikes on Iran, including actions related to the defense of U.S. troops and partner forces.

“We will certainly act in accordance with the law and seek consultations with Congress,” said David Hale, undersecretary of State for political affairs, during an appearance before the Foreign Relations Committee.

View the complete July 25 article by Rachel Oswald on The Roll Call website here.

Trump’s ‘natural law’ human rights panel readies for launch

The State Department initiative is seen as a potential counterweight to an expansive liberal view of human rights.

The Trump administration plans to officially launch a new panel on human rights as early as Monday — one already under scrutiny from Democrats who fear its stated focus on “natural law and natural rights” could undercut protections for women and LGBTQ people around the world.

State Department officials are briefing officials in Washington this week on the unveiling of the “Commission on Unalienable Rights,” a body with as many as 15 appointees who will offer advice on human rights policy to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. At least 10 of the people have been chosen so far, and their names are expected to be revealed at the launch, according to people familiar with the issue, who noted that the launch plans could still change.

The panel was conceived with almost no input from the State Department’s human rights bureau, people familiar with the matter say, effectively sidelining career government experts who have focused on human rights policy and history across numerous administrations.

View the complete July 3 article by Nahal Toosi on the Politico website here.

North Korea: If US wants to talk, put someone ‘more mature’ than Pompeo in charge

(CNN) — North Korea’s Foreign Ministry has issued a stinging rebuke of United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, hours after the country claimed to have tested a new tactical weapon.

In a statement released by the state-run Korean Central News Agency, Foreign Ministry official Kwon Jong Gun said Pompeo had been “letting loose reckless remarks and sophism of all kinds against us every day.”

Kwon said North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had made his “principled stand” on negotiations between Pyongyang and Washington clear in a recent speech to the country’s rubberstamp parliament.

View the complete April 18 article by James Griffiths on the CNN website here.

Trump to pick Fox News contributor for State Dept spokeswoman

Morgan Ortagus will replace Heather Nauert, an ex-Fox News anchor who was Trump’s pick for U.N. ambassador until she withdrew from consideration.

The Trump administration has chosen counterterrorism expert and former Fox News contributor Morgan Ortagus to be the new State Department spokeswoman, three people with knowledge of the decision told NBC News.

Ortagus, a Naval Reserve officer, would bring significant experience in national security and foreign policy to the role. She will replace Heather Nauert, a former Fox News anchor who had been announced as President Donald Trump’s pick for United Nations ambassador but later withdrew herself from consideration.

Ortagus previously served as a public affairs officer for the U.S. Agency for International Development, an independent agency that takes direction from the State Department, according to a biography posted on the website of her consulting firm, GO Advisors. Her tenure included work in Iraq.

View the complete March 28 article by Josh Lederman on the NBC News website here.

‘Inappropriate and irresponsible’: State Department draws criticism by refusing to provide transcript of Pompeo’s call with ‘faith-based media’

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo held a secret conference call on Monday and invited only “faith-based” media outlets. All mainstream media outlets were banned. Even reporters whose “beat” is religion were barred from the call. One reporter from a non-faith-based media outlet was accidentally invited, then disinvited when the error was discovered.

Outrage and concern have been growing since CNN Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Michelle Kosinski, who covers the State Department, first reported the unusual secretive conference call was being held.

Criticism has grown after the State Dept. refused to release a list of media outlets invited and on the call, and refused to release a transcript, all of which are standard operating procedure.

View the complete March 19 article by David Badash with The New Civil Rights Movement on the AlterNet website here.

Here’s what Trump’s own State Department said about U.S. troops in Syria just one week ago

This is awkward.

The Trump administration is planning for a full withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria on Wednesday, defense officials have confirmed. The announcement came just hours after President Donald Trump declared in a tweet that the Islamic State (ISIS) has now been defeated.

“We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency,” Trump tweeted.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders later confirmed in a statement that “we have started returning United States troops home as we transition to the next phase of this campaign.”

View the complete December 19 article by Adrienne Mahsa Varkiani on the ThinkProgress.org website here.