Tag: Trump White House

House calls for Bolton deposition as part of impeachment inquiry

The Hill logoHouse investigators on Wednesday invited former national security adviser John Bolton to give a voluntary deposition next week as part of Democrats’ impeachment inquiry, in what could be key testimony on President Trump‘s contacts with Ukraine.

Democrats are seeking Bolton’s closed-door testimony on Nov. 7, according to a source familiar with the impeachment proceedings, a move that comes following reports that his lawyers are negotiating with three House committees about possibly testifying.

Bolton’s attorney Chuck Cooper told The Hill Wednesday that his client would not appear voluntarily and would need to be subpoenaed.

View the complete October 30 article by Olivia Beavers on The Hill website here.

Trump faces serious crunch in search for new Homeland Security leader

The Hill logoPresident Trump is facing a time and personnel crunch in his search for a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary who is both qualified to be appointed to the role and willing to carry out the president’s hard-line immigration agenda.

The president has cycled through four permanent or acting secretaries in less than three years and must now pick a fourth after announcing earlier this month that acting Secretary Kevin McAleenan will resign.

Officials inside the Trump administration and allies outside of it have expressed frustration with the president’s inability to make a choice and worry that time is running out to get the right person installed.

View the complete October 30 article by Brett Samuels and Rafael Bernal on The Hill website here.

White House Ukraine Expert Sought to Correct Transcript of Trump Call

New York Times logoLt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman, who heard President Trump’s July phone call with Ukraine’s president and was alarmed, testified that he tried and failed to add key details to the rough transcript.

WASHINGTON — Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman, the top Ukraine expert on the National Security Council, told House impeachment investigators on Tuesday that the White House transcript of a July call between President Trump and Ukraine’s president omitted crucial words and phrases, and that his attempts to include them failed, according to three people familiar with the testimony.

The omissions, Colonel Vindman said, included Mr. Trump’s assertion that there were recordings of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. discussing Ukraine corruption, and an explicit mention by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, of Burisma Holdings, the energy company whose board employed Mr. Biden’s son Hunter.

Colonel Vindman, who appeared on Capitol Hill wearing his dark blue Army dress uniform and military medals, told House impeachment investigators that he tried to change the reconstructed transcript made by the White House staff to reflect the omissions. But while some of his edits appeared to have been successful, he said, those two corrections were not made.

View the complete October 29 article by Julian E. Barnes, Nicholas Fandos and Danny Hakim on The New York Times website here.

Trump rails against impeachment inquiry as key White House witness testifies

The Hill logoPresident Trump on Tuesday railed against the impeachment inquiry into his alleged abuse of power ahead of key testimony from a White House official that threatens to deepen the president’s problems.

Trump tweeted or retweeted dozens of messages denying wrongdoing, chastising Democrats for their handling of the impeachment proceedings thus far and questioning the credibility of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a National Security Council official who will meet behind closed doors with lawmakers on Tuesday.

“Supposedly, according to the Corrupt Media, the Ukraine call ‘concerned’ today’s Never Trumper witness,” Trump tweeted. “Was he on the same call that I was? Can’t be possible! Please ask him to read the Transcript of the call. Witch Hunt!”

View the complete October 29 article by Brett Samuels on The Hill website here.

The White House touts Trump’s deregulation. It’s actually been a bust.

Washington Post logoLast week, amid damning new testimony in the impeachment inquiry, the White House tried to change the subject by touting one of its supposed wins: President Trump’s “historic deregulation.”

“We are now reducing the size, scope, and cost of Federal regulations for the first time in decades, and we are already seeing the incredible results,” Trump said. In a Cabinet meeting, senior officials likewise offered inflated economic numbers about Trump’s “gangbusters” deregulatory achievements.

In reality, Trump’s regulatory rollback has largely been a bust. In some cases, in fact, it’s been an outright fraud: The Trump administration has added bureaucracy and uncertainty for businesses that it either willfully misunderstands or overtly dislikes.

View the complete commentary by Catherine Rampell on The Washington Post website here.

Internal White House debate stifles release of Pence-Zelenskiy call

Nearly three weeks after the vice president said he had “no objection” to releasing a transcript, administration is divided on whether it could help or hurt Trump’s cause.

WASHINGTON — It’s been almost three weeks since Vice President Mike Pence said he had “no objection” to releasing a reconstructed transcript of his phone call with the leader of Ukraine. But as House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry continues moving swiftly into its second month, the White House still has not made a decision on whether to make those details of Pence’s call public.

The internal debate has divided White House officials over whether releasing the call would help or hurt their flailing efforts to counter accusations that President Donald Trump held up military aid to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate his political rivals, according to two people familiar with the discussions.

One concern raised by some of Trump’s allies is that releasing his call with Zelenskiy was a mistake because it fueled the impeachment inquiry rather than tamp it down, these people said. Another is that a comparison of Pence and Trump’s calls with Zelenskiy could potentially make the president’s self-described “perfect” conversation appear significantly less so.

View the complete October 29 article by Monica Alba and Carol E. Lee on the NBC News website here.

Here’s why the White House counsel’s anti-impeachment letter hasn’t discouraged witnesses from testifying before Congress

AlterNet logoWhite House Counsel Pat Cipollone has drawn widespread criticism from Democrats, as well as some Never Trump conservatives, for the October 8 letterhe sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic heads of three House committees: Rep. Adam Schiff (chairman of the House Intelligence Committee), Rep. Eliot Engel (chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee) and the late Elijah E. Cummings (who chaired the House Oversight Committee before his death nine days later on October 17). In the letter, Cipollone denounced the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump as illegitimate and stressed that the Trump Administration had no intention of cooperating. Regardless, plenty of witnesses have testified in connection with the inquiry, and journalist Michael Stern sheds some light on their decisions to testify in an October 28 article for Just Security.

Those who have testified so far range from Fiona Hill (formerly of the National Security Council) to Gordon Sondland (U.S. ambassador to the European Union) to diplomat William Taylor (former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine). Trump, Cipollone and Attorney General William Barr were hoping they wouldn’t testify, but they didn’t anyway.

“These are presumably not the results Cipollone expected when he sent his letter, but in retrospect, they seem fairly predictable,” Stern explains. “To begin with, the Administration has little leverage over many of the witnesses in question; this is most obvious with respect to former employees. As a practical matter, it is not clear what the Administration could do to these individuals even if there were a plausible basis for believing they had a legal duty not to cooperate with Congress. Moreover, it does not appear that the Administration is even claiming that such a general duty exists.”

View the complete October 28 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.

Pelosi says Trump notified Russians of Baghdadi raid before telling congressional leaders

Washington Post logoHouse Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday called on the White House to brief lawmakers on the raid that targeted Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, noting that President Trump had informed Russia of the military operation before telling congressional leadership.

The statement from Pelosi (D-Calif.) came after Trump told reporters at a lengthy news conference that he did not inform the House speaker of the raid because he “wanted to make sure this kept secret.”

U.S. presidents typically follow the protocol of contacting congressional leaders, regardless of their political party, when a high-level military operation is conducted.

View the complete October 27 article by Felicia Sonmez on The Washington Post website here.

Trump hits out at former chief of staff John Kelly’s warning about impeachment

Kelly’s remarks come as testimony resumes in the impeachment inquiry, which the president has called a ‘scam’

Donald Trump has hit back at his former chief of staff, John Kelly, after Kelly said he had warned the president about impeachment.

Kelly said he “felt bad” for having left Trump’s side, because his advice was not followed and the president therefore faced impeachment.

Speaking at the Sea Island Summit, an event in Georgia organised by the conservative Washington Examiner, Kelly said that on leaving, he had said: “Whatever you do, don’t hire a ‘yes man’ – someone who won’t tell you the truth.”

View the complete October 26 article by Martin Pengelly on The Guardian website here.

Kellyanne Conway Loses It On Reporter Who Mentioned Her Anti-Trump Husband

The White House counselor also threatened to start delving into the personal lives of reporters.

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway mocked, berated and threatened a Washington Examiner reporter who mentioned her husband’s opposition to President Donald Trump in an article about her, as heard in audio the conservative newspaper released Thursday.

In their heated conversation, Conway lashed out at reporter Caitlin Yilek for briefly mentioning George Conway’s feelings about the president ― which he has publicly expressed frequently since Trump took office ― in an article rehashing Bloomberg News’ scoop that Trump was considering making her his new chief of staff (a possibility he has since denied).

Conway was furious that Yilek would bring up this wrinkle in her relationship with Trump. In one of the more jaw-dropping moments from the call, Conway suggests to Yilek that the White House will start digging into the personal lives of reporters who it thinks has crossed that boundary.

View the complete October 24 article by Lydia O’Connor on the Huffington Post website here.