Tag: Ukraine

Fiona Hill recalls horrific experiences of Trump’s meeting with Putin — and how she expects Biden’s will go

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Fiona Hill, the former official at the U.S. National Security Council, specializing in Russian and European affairs, spoke to CNN’s Don Lemon, remembering what it was like during the meeting between former President Donald Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

President Joe Biden will meet with Putin in the early hours of Wednesday morning in the United States, and there will be a significant difference between the Biden and Trump meetings. 

Hill is the former expert who shredded Republican lies about the Russia investigation. She also revealed as part of the investigation into Trump’s bribery of Ukraine that Rudy Giuliani was circumventing the National Security Council with his own shadow efforts. Giuliani has now become part of an investigation by the FBI into his international dealings.  Continue reading.

A timeline of Giuliani’s dubious interactions with the Trump administration

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It’s unusual for one of the most scandal-adjacent members of a presidential team to be someone who doesn’t actually serve in government, but former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani has always exceeded expectations. From his initial advocacy of Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy in 2016 through the present, he’s been one of Trump’s most fervent allies and defenders — and has been entangled in most of the more serious allegations the former president has faced.

On Wednesday, federal agents advanced a long-standing investigation into how Giuliani might have leveraged his access to Trump for his personal benefit by executing search warrants on his home and office. Given that development, we decided to go back and review the various points at which Giuliani’s questionable behavior intersected with either with his private interests or Trump’s public, political ones.

Even given our familiarity with the subject matter, the scale is remarkable. Key individuals are identified in yellow. Continue reading.

‘No pushback’: Expert explains why Rudy Giuliani is in such grave legal danger

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On CNN Wednesday, former federal prosecutor Laura Coates broke down the significance of former President Donald Trump’s legal adviser Rudy Giuliani being raided.

“Remember what it reminds the American people of. Remember this investigation,” said Coates. “It was the essence of the first impeachment trial, the first impeachment trial of President Trump, so it has a clear demarcation between these two different administrations. And it also talks about transparency because remember, Giuliani is being investigated in part, we’re understanding, based on his failure to register as a foreign agent on behalf of another nation. The ideas of loyalty. The ideas of to whom you serve and whether or not you’re going to be transparent and about serving these two sort of masters, is very part and parcel to everything we’re talking about.”

“Make no mistake about it, you don’t get a warrant against Rudy Giuliani without Merrick Garland being aware and running up the chain in anticipation of the political optics, and yet, and still, you didn’t have any pushback in the form of shutting it down,” added Coates. Continue reading.

Biden proposes summit, raises Ukraine escalation in call with Putin

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President Biden spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday and proposed that they meet for a summit “in a third country in the coming months,” according to the White House.

Why it matters: The call comes amid a Russian build-up on Ukraine’s borders, and after Putin reacted furiously to an interview in which Biden agreed that the Russian president was a “killer.”

  • Biden expressed U.S. support for Ukraine, raised “concerns over the sudden Russian military build-up,” and called on Russia to reduce tensions, per a White House readout. Continue reading.

Ukraine stayed quiet during Trump-era pressures. Now it’s sharing some Giuliani tales.

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KYIV — There was a consistent message from Ukraine’s leadership over everything from the Trump campaign’s dirt digging to the country’s central role in the first impeachment proceedings: No comment.

But now, as the Biden administration settles in, some close allies of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky are opening up about one of the longest-running dramas from the Trump era — the blitz of meetings, messages and public statements in Ukraine by former president Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani.

Among the accounts emerging from Ukrainian officials is a July 2019 phone call between Giuliani and Andriy Yermak, formerly one of Zelensky’s top aides and now his chief of staff. Yermak said the conversation was the first direct contact between Giuliani and the Zelensky administration and, until now, was only discussed in general terms. Continue reading.

Defense secretary says Pentagon official who questioned legality of withholding Ukraine aid to resign

The Pentagon official who raised concerns about the Ukraine aid being held in 2019 has submitted her resignation to Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, the Pentagon announced Tuesday

Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) Elaine McCusker will resign effective June 26, Esper said in a statement.

“Since joining the Department of Defense Elaine has worked tirelessly to ensure that our budgeting and audit processes give full value to the taxpayer while meeting the enormous security needs of our nation as well as the men and women who serve it,” Esper said. “I am grateful for her dedication to public service and the contributions that she has made to the Department and wish her the very best in her future endeavors.” Continue reading.

New report reveals Ukrainian charges against Paul Manafort were abruptly halted last year

AlterNet logoMuch has been written about Paul Manafort’s legal problems in the United States, where President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager was sentenced to seven and one-half years in federal prison after being convicted of crimes ranging from witness tampering to tax and bank fraud. But BuzzFeed reporters Tanya Kozyreva and Christopher Miller revealed on Friday that Manafort was also targeted by prosecutors in Ukraine.

“BuzzFeed News can now reveal that in May 2019, as Manafort settled into his U.S. prison cell, a special investigations unit inside the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office was preparing to wrap up a four-year-long investigation — drafting an indictment for him as well as for Greg Craig, a former Obama White House counsel and partner at the big-shot law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom,” report Kozyreva and Miller, both of whom are based in Kyiv, Ukraine.

The alleged crime in question, according to the BuzzFeed journalists, was embezzling government funds. BuzzFeed has obtained a copy of the Ukrainian indictment, which alleges, “The managing partner of Skadden Law Firm, Gregory B. Craig, and Paul Manafort intentionally participated in the misappropriation of the funds from the State Budget of Ukraine totaling $1,075,381.41 —  8,595,523.61 Ukrainian hryvnias and more than 600 times the tax-free minimum of citizens’ salaries — causing damage to the state.” Continue reading.

Ukrainian Giuliani ally hires ex-lawmaker to lobby Trump administration

The ex-lawmaker is a business partner of Erik Prince.

A Ukrainian associate of Rudy Giuliani has hired a business partner of Erik Prince to lobby Washington on his behalf regarding “corruption,” according to public records and interviews. The move became public on the Justice Department’s lobbying registry the same day that Joe Biden became the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee.

The business partner, former Ukrainian parliamentarian Andrii Artemenko, is registered to lobby using a different name. He’s also in the transportation and logistics business with Prince, and the two have been very busy because the coronavirus pandemic has snarled air travel around the world, Artemenko told POLITICO.

The Giuliani associate who hired Artemenko is Andriy Derkach, a member of Ukraine’s Rada who drew attention in U.S. media during President Donald Trump’s impeachment saga, and who was once a member of the Ukrainian political party that Paul Manafort worked for. Continue reading.

Senate Republicans Suddenly Call For New Biden Probe

A top GOP senator on Sunday announced new actions in a Republican-led investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter — less than 24 hours after the elder Biden’s primary victory in South Carolina.

According to CBS News, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) sent a letter to his colleagues on Sunday, saying he wanted to subpoena witnesses related to Hunter Biden’s role at the Ukrainian energy company Burisma.

Johnson, chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, and Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-IA) initially launched the investigation in November to back up Donald Trump at the height of his impeachment inquiry. Continue reading.

White House pulls nomination of Pentagon official who raised Ukraine aid concerns

Washington Post logoThe White House on Monday pulled the nomination of a Pentagon official who gained prominence because of concerns she raised about withholding military aid for Ukraine.

In a statement, the White House said it had withdrawn the nomination of Elaine McCusker as Pentagon comptroller, a position she has held on an acting basis. It provided no reason why McCusker, a career civil servant who was nominated to be confirmed in the job in November, would no longer be considered.

The decision is likely to deepen concerns about whether the Trump administration is singling out officials seen as playing a role unfavorable to the president in matters related to his impeachment. It follows the departure last month of John Rood, a top policy official who likewise was a leading figure in the Pentagon’s response to the delay of security aid to Ukraine, an issue that became central to the impeachment proceedings against President Trump. Continue reading.