Tag: Ukraine

Profit, not politics: Trump allies sought Ukraine gas deal

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — As Rudy Giuliani was pushing Ukrainian officials last spring to investigate one of Donald Trump’s main political rivals, a group of individuals with ties to the president and his personal lawyer were also active in the former Soviet republic.

Their aims were profit, not politics. This circle of businessmen and Republican donors touted connections to Giuliani and Trump while trying to install new management at the top of Ukraine’s massive state gas company. Their plan was to then steer lucrative contracts to companies controlled by Trump allies, according to two people with knowledge of their plans.

Their plan hit a snag after Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko lost his reelection bid to Volodymyr Zelenskiy, whose conversation with Trump about former Vice President Joe Biden is now at the center of the House impeachment inquiry of Trump.

View the complete October 7 article by Desmond Butler, Michael Biesecker and Richard Lardner on the Associated Press website here.

Trump’s Ukraine Call Was ‘Crazy’ and ‘Frightening,’ Official Told Whistle-Blower

New York Times logoThe whistle-blower wrote a memo describing an official who heard the call as “visibly shaken” by it.

WASHINGTON — A White House official who listened to President Trump’s July phone call with Ukraine’s leader described it as “crazy,” “frightening” and “completely lacking in substance related to national security,” according to a memo written by the whistle-blower at the center of the Ukraine scandal, a C.I.A. officer who spoke to the White House official.

The official was “visibly shaken by what had transpired,” the C.I.A. officer wrote in his memo, one day after Mr. Trump pressured President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in a July 25 phone call to open investigations that would benefit him politically.

A palpable sense of concern had already taken hold among at least some in the White House that the call had veered well outside the bounds of traditional diplomacy, the officer wrote.

View the compelte October 8 article by Nicholas Fandos on The New York Times website here.

 

Fact Checker: The GOP theory that Ukraine ‘set up’ Trump

Washington Post logo“That’s the piece of the puzzle I’m here to report today, that unlike the narrative of the press, that President Trump wants to dig up dirt on his 2020 opponent, what he wants is he wants an accounting of what happened in 2016. Who set him up? Did things spring from Ukraine? There’s a good piece we got an Oversight [Committee] letter on from Politico in 2017. Let me quote the article. It says: ‘Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump.’ They did so by disseminating documents ‘implicating a top Trump aide in corruption,’ suggesting they were investigating the matter. Ukrainian officials also reportedly ‘helped Clinton allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers.’ There is potential interference in the 2016 election. That’s what Trump wants to get to the bottom of, but the press doesn’t want to.”

— Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Oct. 6, 2019

Never mind that the rough transcript released by the White House of the July 25 call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky shows that Trump said, “There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great.”

Johnson says that what Trump really wanted to find out from Ukrainian officials is what happened in 2016. “Who set him up?” he asked. “Did things spring from Ukraine?”

View the complete October 8 article by Glenn Kessler on The Washington Post website here.

Donald Trump’s own former national security officials sign open letter applauding the Ukraine whistleblower — who they say deserves protection

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump has been angrily railing against the whistleblower in the U.S. federal government who set off the Ukraine scandal and paved the way for an impeachment inquiry, even going so far as to imply during a recent United Nations (UN) event that the whistleblower and that person’s sources should be executed for treason. But a long list of former national security officials — including former CIA Director John O’ Brennan — are rallying behind the whistleblower. And Brennan is among the 90 former security officials who signed an open letter asserting that the whistleblower did nothing wrong.

The letter explains, “While the identity of the whistleblower is not publicly known, we do know that he or she is an employee of the U.S. government. As such, he or she has, by law, the right — and indeed the responsibility — to make known, through appropriate channels, indications of serious wrongdoing. That is precisely what this whistleblower did, and we applaud the whistleblower not only for living up to that responsibility, but also, for using precisely the channels made available by federal law for raising such concerns.”

The letter, which was also signed by former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, goes on to state that “a responsible whistleblower makes all Americans safer by ensuring that serious wrongdoing can be investigated and addressed, thus advancing the cause of national security to which we have devoted our careers.”

View the complete October 7 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.

‘Nothing To Defend’ As Republicans Avoid Ukraine Questions

CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday revealed that in the middle of one of the defining scandals of Donald Trump’s administration, no one from the president’s administration or Republican leadership was willing to answer questions on “State of the Union.” And, according to former Republican congressman Joe Walsh, the reason is because “there is nothing to defend” of Trump’s actions.

“Confronted with the president’s own words prominent Republicans struggle to come up with ways to dismiss them,” Tapper explained. “After the president attacked one GOP critic will the bulk of his party toe the line?”

Detailing the president’s growing Ukraine scandal, Tapper told his audience “the lawyer for the first whistle-blower now tells me he is also representing a second whistle-blower who has spoken to the intelligence community inspector general,” noting the development “could play into the impeachment inquiry into President Trump” and “is the latest in a stream of new evidence this week backing up the original whistle-blower complaint against President Trump — including, notably, the president’s own public call for not only Ukraine, but for China, to investigate his potential 2020 rival.”

View the complete October 7 article by Elizabeth Preza from AlterNet on the National Memo website here.

We Absolutely Could Not Do That’: When Seeking Foreign Help Was Out of the Question

New York Times logoWASHINGTON — One day in October 1992, four Republican congressmen showed up in the Oval Office with an audacious recommendation. President George Bush was losing his re-election race, and they told him the only way to win was to hammer his challenger Bill Clinton’s patriotism for protesting the Vietnam War while in London and visiting Moscow as a young man.

Mr. Bush was largely on board with that approach. But what came next crossed the line, as far as he and his team were concerned. “They wanted us to contact the Russians or the British to seek information on Bill Clinton’s trip to Moscow,” James A. Baker III, Mr. Bush’s White House chief of staff, wrote in a memo later that day. “I said we absolutely could not do that.”

President Trump insists he and his attorney general did nothing wrong by seeking damaging information about his domestic opponents from Ukraine, Australia, Italy and Britain or by publicly calling on China to investigate his most prominent Democratic challenger. But for every other White House in the modern era, Republican and Democratic, the idea of enlisting help from foreign powers for political advantage was seen as unwise and politically dangerous, if not unprincipled.

View the complete October 6 article by Peter Baker on The New York Times website here.

Pentagon distances itself from Ukraine controversy

The Hill logoThe Pentagon is working to distance itself from the controversy surrounding President Trump‘s communications with Ukraine that has plunged Washington into an impeachment crisis.

Department officials in the past week have sought to avoid the political fray, downplaying the administration’s holdup of military aid to Ukraine and preemptively ordering employees to turn over for preservation any documents and communications having to do with it.

Questions remain about whether the Pentagon was involved in or even aware of the decision to withhold the money. Officials have declined to answer questions, citing the confidentiality of conversations between the department and the White House. Pentagon officials also have insisted there is a “solid working relationship” between the two.

View the complete October 6 article by Ellen Mitchell on The Hill website here.

Second Ukraine whistleblower has “firsthand knowledge” of Trump allegations

Axios logoThe attorney representing the whistleblower whose anonymous complaint about President Trump and Ukraine has sparked an impeachment inquiry confirmed to ABC News on Sunday that he is now representing a second whistleblower with “firsthand knowledge” of some of the allegations.

Why it matters: One of the attacks Trump and his allies have used to try to undermine the credibility of the first whistleblower is that he relied on secondhand information from other White House officials. There is no requirement in the whistleblower statute for firsthand information, but an official with direct knowledge of the allegations could provide even more explosive evidence in the impeachment investigation.

    • Attorney Mark Zaid confirmed to ABC that the second whistleblower has been interviewed by intelligence community inspector general Michael Atkinson, but said that they have not been in contact with the House committees conducting the inquiry.

View the complete October 6 article by Zachary Basu on the Axios website here.

‘Most implausible alibi I’ve ever heard’: Trump mocked for blaming Rick Perry for Ukraine call

AlterNet logoDuring a conference call with House Republicans on Friday, President Donald Trump reportedly blamed Energy Secretary Rick Perry for the July 25 call with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky that is at the center of Democrats’ impeachment inquiry.

Citing three anonymous sources who were on the conference call, Axios reported Saturday that “Trump rattled off the same things he has been saying publicly—that his call with Zelensky was ‘perfect’ and he did nothing wrong.”

“But he then threw Perry into the mix and said something to the effect of: ‘Not a lot of people know this but, I didn’t even want to make the call. The only reason I made the call was because Rick asked me to. Something about an LNG [liquified natural gas] plant,’” Axios reported, citing one source’s recollection of the president’s remarks.

View the complete October 6 article by Jake Johnson from Common Dreams on the AlterNet website here.

Scoop: Trump pins Ukraine call on Energy Secretary Rick Perry U.S. President Donald Trump stands next to Energy Secretary Rick Perry

Axios logoPresident Trump told House Republicans that he made his now infamous phone call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the urging of Energy Secretary Rick Perry — a call Trump claimed he didn’t even want to make.

Behind the scenes: Trump made these comments during a conference call with House members on Friday, according to 3 sources on the call.

    • Per the sources, Trump rattled off the same things he has been saying publicly — that his call with Zelensky was “perfect”and he did nothing wrong.
    • But he then threw Perry into the mix and said something to the effect of: “Not a lot of people know this but, I didn’t even want to make the call. The only reason I made the call was because Rick asked me to. Something about an LNG [liquefied natural gas] plant,” one source said, recalling the president’s comments. 2 other sources confirmed the first source’s recollection.

Why it matters: The president’s remarks suggest he may be seeking to distance himself from responsibility or recast the pretext for the call. White House officials did not respond to requests for comment.

    • Another source on the call said Trump added that “more of this will be coming out in the next few days” — referring to Perry.

View the complete October 5 article by Alayna Treene and Jonathan Swan on the Axios website here.