Tag: Ukraine

Mulvaney ties withheld Ukraine aid to political probe sought by Trump

The Hill logoActing White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney indicated Thursday that the Trump administration held up military aid to Ukraine in part because officials wanted Kiev to investigate unproven election interference allegations linking the country to a Democratic National Committee (DNC) server.

“The look back to what happened in 2016 certainly was part of the things that he was worried about in corruption with that nation. And that is absolutely appropriate,” Mulvaney told reporters at the White House Thursday.

Mulvaney was referring to unsubstantiated allegations that Ukraine, and not Russia, was involved in the 2016 hack of the DNC server.

View the complete October 17 article by Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

Gordon Sondland, Trump envoy and key figure in impeachment probe, faces criticism over $1 million taxpayer-funded home renovation

Washington Post logoBRUSSELS — Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union and a central figure in the House impeachment inquiry of President Trump, is overseeing a nearly $1 million renovation of his government-provided residence, paid for with taxpayer money, that current and former officials have criticized as extravagant and unnecessary.

The work on the ambassador’s home on the outskirts of Brussels includes more than $400,000 in kitchen renovations, nearly $30,000 for a new sound system and $95,000 for an outdoor “living pod” with a pergola and electric heating, LED lighting strips and a remote-control system, government procurement records show.

The State Department also has allocated more than $100,000 for an “alternate” residence for Sondland for September and October, while work is performed.

View the complete October 16 article by Michael Birnbaum, Shane Harris and John Hudson on The Washington Post website here.

Ex-Watergate special prosecutor explains why officials are defying Trump and testifying before Congress: ‘These people aren’t beholden to’ him

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump and some of the loyalists in his administration — including White House Counsel Pat Cipollone — have been encouraging associates to defy subpoenas and not cooperate with House Democrats in their impeachment inquiry. But some Trump associates have testified nonetheless, including Marie Yovanovitch (former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine) and Fiona Hill (formerly Trump’s top adviser on Russia-related matters). And journalist Andrew Feinberg, a Washington, D.C. correspondent for The Independent, discussed these testimonies with former Watergate special prosecutor Nick Akerman.

During the Watergate scandal of the 1970s, Akerman was a major thorn in the side of President Richard Nixon. And Feinberg asked Akerman to weigh in on the fact that Yovanovitch, Hill and others have been willing to testify despite people in the Trump Administration asking them not to.

“The fact is, these people aren’t beholden to Donald Trump,” Akerman told Feinberg. “They’ve been subpoenaed, and that overrides Trump’s counsel’s statement. They have to obey the subpoena.”

View the complete October 16 article by Alex Anderson on the AlterNet website here.

Mulvaney emerges as a key facilitator of the campaign to pressure Ukraine

Washington Post logoIn late May, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney organized a meeting that stripped control of the country’s relationship with Ukraine from those who had the most expertise at the National Security Council and the State Department.

Instead, Mulvaney put an unlikely trio in charge of managing the U.S.-Ukraine account amid worrisome signs of a new priority, congressional officials said Tuesday: pressuring the fledgling government in Kiev to deliver material that would be politically valuable to President Trump.

The work of those “three amigos,” as they came to call themselves — diplomats Gordon Sondland and Kurt Volker, plus Energy Secretary Rick Perry — has come to light in recent days through newly disclosed text messages and the testimony of government witnesses appearing before an impeachment inquiry in Congress.

View the complete October 15 article by Greg Miller, Josh Dawsey and Greg Jaffe on The Washington Post website here.

Senior State Dept. Ukraine Expert Says White House Sidelined Him

New York Times logoGeorge Kent told investigators he was cut out of Ukraine policymaking and told to “lay low” on it, after a May meeting orchestrated by Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff.

WASHINGTON — A senior State Department official in charge of Ukraine policy told impeachment investigators on Tuesday that he was all but cut out of decisions regarding the country after a May meeting organized by Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, describing his sidelining by President Trump’s inner circle as “wrong,” according to a lawmaker who heard the testimony.

The revelation from George P. Kent, the deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, emerged as he submitted to hours of closed-door testimony to the House committees investigating how President Trump pressured Ukraine to investigate his political rivals.

Despite an edict by the White House not to cooperate with what it has called an illegitimate inquiry, Mr. Kent was one of a procession of top officials who have made the trip to the secure rooms of the House Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill, unspooling a remarkably consistent tale. They have detailed how Mr. Trump sought to manipulate American policy in Ukraine to meet his goals, circumventing career diplomats and policy experts and inserting his personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani into the process, raising alarms in the West Wing and throughout the government.

View the complete October 15 article by Nicholas Fandos, Kenneth P. Vogel and Michael D. Shear on The New York Times website here.

Former Aide Hill: Trump Ran Ukraine Policy To ‘Personally Benefit’ Himself

Fiona Hill, a former top White House adviser on Russia, revealed to congressional investigators on Monday that President Donald Trump conducted policy toward Ukraine for his personal benefit, according to a new report from the Washington Post.

She reportedly said that the president used his attorney Rudy Giuliani to a “run shadow foreign policy in Ukraine that circumvented U.S. officials and career diplomats in order to personally benefit” himself.

Hill testified for about ten hours on Monday as the impeachment inquiry continued apace. More former and current officials are scheduled to testify in the weeks to come.

View the complete October 14 article by Cody Fenwick from AlterNet on the National Memo website here.

Freedom Caucus steps into the GOP messaging gap

Conservative hard-liners fill vacuum to counterpunch for Trump

Mark Meadows’ gaze was scrupulously trained on Adam B. Schiff.

On Oct. 3, after deposing a former Trump official for hours, Schiff, the House Intelligence chairman, emerged from a secure room in the Capitol’s basement and addressed a waiting television camera.

“Encouraging a foreign nation to interfere again, to help his campaign,” the California Democrat said of President Donald Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. That conversation has become the focus of House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry, and Schiff and party leaders argue it represents a “fundamental breach of the president’s oath of office.”

View the complete October 15 article by Patrick Kelley on The Roll Call website here.

Trump’s former Russia aide met with White House lawyer over Giuliani

Fiona Hill departed the administration days before Trump’s July 25 call to Ukraine.

President Donald Trump’s former top Russia aide Fiona Hill told House impeachment investigators on Monday that she had at least two meetings with a National Security Council lawyer about Rudy Giuliani’s efforts to convince Ukrainian officials to investigate the president’s political rivals, according to a person who was in the room for the testimony.

Hill told lawmakers and aides that then-national security adviser John Bolton, after learning of Giuliani’s efforts, told her to speak with lawyer John Eisenberg, the person said. Hill testified that she met with Eisenberg briefly on July 10, the same day she attended a meeting with Ukrainian officials at the White House. Hill said she had a longer meeting with Eisenberg on July 11, the person added.

Hill also told House impeachment investigators that Bolton told her, “I am not part of whatever drug deal Rudy and Mulvaney are cooking up,” referring to the acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, whom Hill believed was involved in the discussions about Ukraine. Hill also said Bolton described Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney, as “a hand grenade who’s going to blow everybody up.”

View the complete October 14 article by Andrew Desiderio and Kyle Cheney on the Politico website here.

McKinley to testify Wednesday; Democrats mull whether to question Bolton

Washington Post logoMichael McKinley, the former senior adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, is expected to testify behind closed doors on Wednesday, according to two officials working on the impeachment inquiry.

The testimony of McKinley, who resigned his position last week, could shed light on Pompeo’s actions and how they have affected the State Department. Democrats are also mulling whether to question John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser.

President Trump’s reelection campaign manager Brad Parscale, meanwhile, branded the impeachment inquiry a “seditious conspiracy” on Monday and called for the resignation of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) as another witness testified behind closed doors.

View the complete October 14 article by Felicia Steinmez, John Wagner and Brittany Shammas on The Washington Post website here.

Amid Show of Support, Trump Meets With Giuliani Over Lunch

New York Times logoThe president’s multiple shows of support for his personal lawyer on Saturday seemed meant to tamp down questions about Mr. Giuliani’s standing.

WASHINGTON — President Trump had lunch on Saturday with Rudolph W. Giuliani amid revelations that prosecutors were investigating Mr. Giuliani for possible lobbying violations, and speculation that his position as the president’s personal lawyer was in jeopardy.

The lunch, at Mr. Trump’s golf course in Sterling, Va., was among several shows of the president’s support for Mr. Giuliani on Saturday. They seemed meant to tamp down questions about Mr. Giuliani’s status with a client famous for distancing himself from advisers when they encounter legal problems of their own.

Mr. Trump, during a Saturday night appearance on Fox News, called Mr. Giuliani “a great gentleman” and said he is still his lawyer. “I know nothing about him being under investigation. I can’t imagine it,” he told the host Jeanine Pirro.

View the complete October 12 article by Kenneth P. Vogel and Maggie Haberman on The New York Times website here.