Tag: Ukraine

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.

2nd Official Is Weighing Whether to Blow the Whistle on Trump’s Ukraine Dealings

New York Times logoThe official, a member of the intelligence community, was interviewed by the inspector general to corroborate the original whistle-blower’s account.

WASHINGTON — A second intelligence official who was alarmed by President Trump’s dealings with Ukraine is weighing whether to file his own formal whistle-blower complaint and testify to Congress, according to two people briefed on the matter.

The official has more direct information about the events than the first whistle-blower, whose complaint that Mr. Trump was using his power to get Ukraine to investigate his political rivals touched off an impeachment inquiry. The second official is among those interviewed by the intelligence community inspector general to corroborate the allegations of the original whistle-blower, one of the people said.

The inspector general, Michael Atkinson, briefed lawmakers privately on Friday about how he substantiated the whistle-blower’s account. It was not clear whether he told lawmakers that the second official was considering filing a complaint.

View the complete October 4 article by Michael Schmidt and Adam Goldman on The New York Times website here.

A second Senate Republican just broke with Trump on the Ukraine whistleblower

AlterNet logoRepublican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa took a stand at odds with President Donald Trump on Thursday, defending protections for whistleblowers as the White House fights back a scandal sparked by alarms raised in the intelligence community.

Trump has engaged in outright attacks on the whistleblower who alerted officials about the president’s efforts to pressure Ukraine into investigating his potential political rival Joe Biden. He has called the intelligence community member partisan, suggested that the person and those that provided the information in the complaint are guilty of treason and could deserve the death penalty, and said that he is trying to uncover the whistleblower’s identity.

As NBC News reported, Ernst joined Sen. Chuck Grassley, the other Iowa Republican in the Senate, who stood up for the whistleblower earlier in the week.

View the complete October 4 article by Cody Fenwick on the AlterNet website here.

Owner of Firm Tied to Hunter Biden Will Be Subject of Ukraine Prosecutor’s Review

New York Times logoKIEV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s top prosecutor said on Friday he would audit several important cases previously handled by his predecessors, including a criminal case involving the owner of a natural gas company that employed a son of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

The development came amid an impeachment inquiry against President Trump connected to a request he made to the Ukrainian president during a July phone call asking him to investigate Mr. Biden, a Democratic presidential candidate, and his son’s work in Ukraine.

The prosecutor’s announcement raised questions about whether Ukraine was bowing to public and private pressure from the president of the United States, on which it has depended on for millions of dollars in aid. But it did not — by design, analysts of Kiev’s tactics in the crisis say — answer those questions.

View the complete October 4 article by Andrew E. Kramer on The New York Times website here.

A Show of Contempt

Trump and his aides ignore subpoenas in an effort to marginalize Congress.

They ignore congressional subpoenas and refuse to testify before Capitol Hill committees. When they do show up, their disdain is obvious, as they berate and belittle elected representatives. President Donald Trump himself lobs insulting nicknames at Democratic lawmakers, and declared outright that he no longer considers House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, second in line to take Trump’s job, to be the speaker.

Never mind contempt of Congress, a sanction being weighed for members of the Trump administration who refuse to cooperate with House inquiries. Now, the White House and its supporters have turned the tables, brazenly displaying a contempt for Congress. It’s an approach that not only frustrates Congress’ efforts to serve as a check and balance to the executive branch, but marginalizes the authority of the legislative branch with the American people, analysts say.

“They’re trying to delegitimize the House of Representatives. They’re trying to delegitimize our most democratic branch,” says law professor Victoria Nourse, who worked on the Senate Iran-Contra Committee and is now executive director Georgetown Law’s Center on Congressional Studies.

View the complete October 4 article by Susan Milligan on The U.S. News and World Report website here.

How a Fringe Theory About Ukraine Took Root in the White House

New York Times logoIn an April 2017 interview with The Associated Press, President Trump suddenly began talking about the hack of the Democratic National Committee a year earlier, complaining that the F.B.I. had not physically examined the compromised server.

“They brought in another company that I hear is Ukrainian-based,” the president said.

“CrowdStrike?” the surprised reporter asked, referring to the California cybersecurity company that investigated how Russian government hackers had stolen and leaked Democratic emails, disrupting Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

View the complete October 3 article by Scott Shane on The New York Times website here.

Giuliani says State Dept vowed to investigate after he gave Ukraine docs to Pompeo

Democrats who saw the documents dismissed them as “propaganda and disinformation spreading conspiracy theories.”

WASHINGTON — Rudy Giuliani, the personal attorney for President Donald Trump, said Wednesday that he personally gave Secretary of State Mike Pompeo a file of documents with unproven allegations against former Vice President Joe Biden and was told that the State Department would take up an investigation of those claims.

Some of those documents are contained in the 79-page packet that the State Department’s inspector general handed over to Congress Wednesday, which were obtained by NBC News. The documents, combined with Giuliani’s version of events, raise new questions about what was done with the files after they were delivered to the State Department and whether an investigation into the allegations contained in them was ever launched.

Also included in the packet are nearly 20 pages of communications between State Department employees working to push back against the “fake narrative” that Giuliani was pushing.

View the complete October 4 article by Leigh Ann Caldwell, Kristen Welker, Heidi Przybyla, Josh Lederman and Abigail Williams on the NBC News website here.

Officials’ texts reveal belief that Trump wanted probes as condition of Ukraine meeting

Washington Post logoHouse investigators released numerous text messages late Thursday night illustrating how senior State Department officials coordinated with the Ukrainian president’s top aide and President Trump’s personal lawyer to leverage a potential summit between the heads of state on a promise from the Ukrainians to investigate the 2016 U.S. election and an energy company that employed the son of 2020 Democratic candidate Joe Biden.

The texts, which former special U.S. envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker provided investigators during a nearly 10-hour deposition Thursday, reveal that officials felt Trump would not agree to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky unless Zelensky promised to launch the investigations — and did so publicly. Although the texts do not mention Biden by name, congressional Democrats leading an impeachment inquiry are pointing to them as clear evidence that Trump conditioned normal bilateral relations with Ukraine on that country first agreeing “to launch politically motivated investigations,” top Democrats said in statement Thursday night.

“heard from White House — assuming President Z convinces trump he will investigate / ‘get to the bottom of what happened’ in 2016, we will nail down date for visit to Washington,” Volker texted Zelensky’s aide, Andrey Yermak, on July 25, hours before Trump and the Ukrainian president spoke via phone. The rough transcript of that conversation was released by the White House last week.

View the complete October 4 article by Karoun Demirjian, Rachael Bader, Josh Dawsey and John Hudson on The Washington Post website here.

Officials’ texts reveal belief that Trump wanted probes as condition of Ukraine meeting

Washington Post logoHouse investigators released numerous text messages late Thursday night illustrating how senior State Department officials coordinated with the Ukrainian president’s top aide and President Trump’s personal lawyer to leverage a potential summit between the heads of state on a promise from the Ukrainians to investigate the 2016 U.S. election and an energy company that employed the son of 2020 Democratic candidate Joe Biden.

The texts, which former special U.S. envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker provided investigators during a nearly 10-hour deposition Thursday, reveal that officials felt Trump would not agree to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky unless Zelensky promised to launch the investigations — and did so publicly. Although the texts do not mention Biden by name, congressional Democrats leading an impeachment inquiry are pointing to them as clear evidence that Trump conditioned normal bilateral relations with Ukraine on that country first agreeing “to launch politically motivated investigations,” top Democrats said in statement Thursday night.

“heard from White House — assuming President Z convinces trump he will investigate / ‘get to the bottom of what happened’ in 2016, we will nail down date for visit to Washington,” Volker texted Zelensky’s aide, Andrey Yermak, on July 25, hours before Trump and the Ukrainian president spoke via phone. The rough transcript of that conversation was released by the White House last week.

View the complete October 4 article by Karoun Demirjian, Rachael Bade, Josh Dawsey and John Hudson on The Washington Post website here.

Schiff: Trump requests to China, Ukraine are ‘fundamental breach’ of office

The Hill logoHouse Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) on Thursday blasted President Trump for asking China and Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, calling it a “fundamental breach” of presidential decorum and a threat to national security.

Emerging from a closed-door meeting in the Capitol basement, where lawmakers from three committees are interviewing a key witness as part of the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry, Schiff said the comments are evidence that Trump has ignored the lessons from former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference — and Mueller’s warnings of ongoing foreign influence over critical domestic affairs.

“To have the president of the United States suggesting — urging — a foreign country to interfere in our presidential elections is an illustration that this president, if he learned anything from the two years of the Mueller investigation, it’s that he feels he can do anything with impunity,” Schiff told a crowd of reporters staking out the meeting.

View the complete October 3 article by Mike Lillis on The Hill website here.