Tag: Trump Ukraine scandal

Democrats threaten contempt after White House official refuses to testify

The Hill logoHouse Democrats are threatening to charge a key witness in their impeachment investigation with contempt after he defied a subpoena and failed to show up at the Capitol Monday morning.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said the lawsuit filed by Charles Kupperman, a deputy to former national security adviser John Bolton, questioning his obligation to appear before Congress “has no basis in law” since Kupperman is now a private citizen. 

Schiff said Democrats will forge ahead with their impeachment investigation, vowing not to let the White House bog their investigation down in the courts.

View the complete October 28 article by Mike Lillis and Olivia Beaver on The Hill website here.

Trump confronts limits of his impeachment defense strategy

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is confronting the limits of his main impeachment defense.

As the probe hits the one-month mark, Trump and his aides have largely ignored the details of the Ukraine allegations against him. Instead, they’re loudly objecting to the House Democrats’ investigation process, using that as justification for ordering administration officials not to cooperate and complaining about what they deem prejudicial, even unconstitutional, secrecy.

But as a near-daily drip of derogatory evidence emerges from closed-door testimony on Capitol Hill, the White House assertion that the proceedings are unfair is proving to be a less-than-compelling counter to the mounting threat to Trump’s presidency. Some senior officials have complied with congressional subpoenas to assist House Democratic investigators, defying White House orders.

View the complete October 25 article by Zeke Miller, Jill Colvin and Jonathan Lemire on the Associated Press website here.

How a Devin Nunes aide was deeply involved in the push for Trump to exploit Ukraine: report

AlterNet logoWith President Donald Trump now facing an impeachment inquiry in the U.S. House of Representatives because of the Ukraine scandal, Rep. Devin Nunes of California continues to be an aggressive defender of the president — insisting that Trump did nothing wrong during his now-famous July 25 phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. And according to a report by journalist Natasha Bertrand for Politico, one of Nunes’ top staffers did a lot to promote Trump’s belief that “Ukraine was brimming with corruption and interfered in the 2016 election on behalf of Democrats.”

The staffer is Kashyap Patel, who joined the National Security Council’s International Organizations and Alliances directorate in February. Bertrand reports that according to recent testimony by Fiona Hill (formerly a senior director of European and Russian affairs under Trump), Patel was so involved in Ukraine-related activities earlier this year that Trump thought he was in charge of Ukraine policy for the NSC. An anonymous source described by Bertrand as someone with “direct knowledge of (Hill’s) recent deposition” described her Patel-related testimony to Politico.

Previously, Bertrand reports, Democrats on Capitol Hill were aware of Patel because of his efforts to discredit former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. And because of Patel’s efforts to influence Trump on Ukraine, according to Bertrand, House Democrats involved in the impeachment inquiry now have “yet another name to add to their witness list.”

View the complete October 23 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.

Trump’s envoy to testify that ‘no quid pro quo’ came from Trump

Washington Post logoThe U.S. ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, intends to tell Congress this week that the content of a text message he wrote denying a quid pro quo with Ukraine was relayed to him directly by President Trump in a phone call, according to a person familiar with his testimony.

Sondland plans to tell lawmakers he has no knowledge of whether the president was telling him the truth at that moment. “It’s only true that the president said it, not that it was the truth,” said the person familiar with Sondland’s planned testimony, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic matters.

The Sept. 9 exchange between Sondland and the top U.S. diplomat to Ukraine has become central to the House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry into whether the president abused his office in pressuring Ukraine to open an investigation into his political rival Joe Biden and his son, who sat on the board of a Ukrainian energy company. The White House and its defenders have held up Sondland’s text, which included “no quid pro quo’s of any kind,” as proof that none was ever considered.

View the complete October 12 article by Aaron C. Davis and John Hudson on The Washington Post website here.

Former Rep. Pete Sessions met with indicted Giuliani associates, accepted donations

Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman were arrested on campaign finance violations

Former Texas Rep. Pete Sessions, who just last week announced a new bid for the House, appears to play a role in the indictment Thursday of two Soviet-born businessmen who are also subjects of the House impeachment inquiry.

While the indictment does not mention Sessions by name or charge him of any crime, he told a Texas radio show on Sunday that he met with them and Federal Election Commission documents show he accepted campaign donations from them last cycle.

The two associates of Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, were charged with violating campaign finance laws and arrested Wednesday, according to court documents.

View the complete October 10 article by Katherine Tully-McManus and Bridget Bowman on The Roll Call website here.

Trump Spoke With Ambassador During Five-Hour Gap In Ukraine Texts

Before European Union Ambassador Gordon Sondland could reply to a text message from a colleague about the “crazy” plot to hold military aid to Ukraine hostage for political favors, he consulted with Donald Trump, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.

In early September, Bill Taylor, America’s top diplomat in Ukraine, texted Sondland about concerns related to withholding military aid from Ukraine.

“As I said on the phone, I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign,” Taylor wrote to Sondland, according to texts released by the House of Representatives.

View the complete October 9 article by Dan Desai Martin on the National Memo website here.

House Democrats subpoena EU ambassador blocked from Ukraine testimony

Axios logoThe chairs of the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight committees have subpoenaed U.S. Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland, who was blocked by the Trump administration from testifying in their Ukraine investigation on Tuesday, to turn over documents by Oct. 14 and appear at a deposition on Oct. 16.

The big picture: The chairs said in a statement that the State Department’s decision to stop Sondland from testifying will be considered evidence of obstruction in their impeachment inquiry. They added that the State Department is withholding relevant messages from Sondland’s personal device about the Trump administration’s interactions with the Ukrainian government.

“These actions appear to be part of the White House’s effort to obstruct the impeachment inquiry and to cover up President Trump’s misconduct from Congress and the American people.  Ambassador Sondland’s testimony and documents are vital, and that is precisely why the Administration is now blocking his testimony and withholding his documents.”

— Chairmen Adam Schiff, Eliot Engel and Elijah Cummings

View the complete October 8 article by Zachary Basu on the Axios website here.

Russia’s having a pretty good October, thanks in no small part to Donald Trump

Washington Post logoThere was an enormous amount of subtext to the conversation between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky when the two met in New York last month. Falling on the same day that Trump’s White House had released a rough transcript of a July 25 conversation between the two — a document that articulated Trump’s request for Zelensky to launch probes aiding Trump politically — lesser details of the conversation were pushed to the background.

As when Trump told Zelensky that he should finalize a peace agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“I’ve heard you actually have, over the last fairly short period of time, you’ve really made some progress with Russia,” Trump said to Zelensky. “I hear a lot of progress has been made. And just keep it going. Be nice to end that whole disaster.”

View the complete October 7 article by Philip Bump on The Washington Post website here.

Rudy Giuliani Declares His Mission Is ‘To Disrupt The World’

Trump’s personal attorney is doubling down on his defenses of the president as both are ensnared in an escalating House impeachment probe.

Attorney Rudy Giuliani, who has defended his client, President Donald Trump, in a series of cable news hits and off-the-rails conspiracy-mongering interviews, said Friday that his purpose is “to disrupt the world.”

The former New York City mayor made the remark during a Fox News appearance, where he continued to spread unfounded corruption allegations aimed at former Vice President Joe Biden amid an escalating impeachment inquiry into the president.

“My mission is to defend my client in the best traditions of the legal profession,” Giuliani told host Martha MacCallum, adding that it is in Trump’s “best interest” to “unravel the corruption in the Ukraine.”

View the complete October 5 aritcle by Amy Russo on the Huffington Post website here.

Trump raised Biden with Xi in June call housed in highly secure server

WASHINGTON (CNN) — When President Donald Trump suggested — without prompting — that China should investigate Joe Biden and his son, he thrust another political grudge into what was already the world’s most complicated and consequential relationship.

The move startled Chinese officials, who say they have little interest in becoming embroiled in a US political controversy. And it amounted to the latest extraordinary effort by Trump to openly request political assistance from foreign governments.

Thursday’s comments weren’t the first time Trump has injected Biden into his relationship with China, though he said Thursday he has never pushed Xi to investigate the former vice president. Nor is it the first time he has sought to trade favors with Xi, who this week celebrated the 70th birthday of his communist state with a note of congratulations from Trump.

View the complete October 3 article by Kylie Atwood, Kevin Liptak, Pamela Brown, Jim Sciutto and Gloria Borger on the CNN website here.