Tag: Ukraine

Trump suggests he mentioned Biden in phone call with Ukrainian president

Washington Post logoPresident Trump appeared to confirm Sunday that he mentioned former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter in a phone call with the leader of Ukraine, as some senior Democrats revived talk of impeachment hearings over revelations that Trump had asked a foreign government to investigate one of his potential 2020 opponents.

The president and his close allies also escalated their attacks on Biden on Sunday, demanding probes into the former vice president and his son’s work in Ukraine, though no evidence has surfaced that Biden acted inappropriately and Trump’s allies did not provide any.

Across several networks Sunday, top administration officials, outside advisers and lawmakers close to Trump repeatedly raised the specter of impropriety on the part of Biden, whose younger son, Hunter, was on the board of a Ukrainian gas company that Trump pushed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate, according to people familiar with the matter.

View the complete September 22 article by Seung Min Kim and Felicia Sonmez on The Washington Post website here.

How Trump and Giuliani pressured Ukraine to investigate the president’s rivals

Washington Post logoWhen President Trump spoke on the telephone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in late July, the Ukrainians had a lot at stake. They were waiting on millions in stalled military aid from the United States, and Zelensky was seeking a high-priority White House meeting with Trump.

Trump told his Ukrainian counterpart that his country could improve its image if it completed corruption cases that have “inhibited the interaction between Ukraine and the USA,” according to a readout of the call released by Kiev.

What neither government said publicly at the time was that Trump went even further — specifically pressing Ukraine’s president to reopen a corruption investigation involving former vice president Joe Biden’s son, according to two people familiar with the call, which is now the subject of an explosive whistleblower complaint.

View the complete September 20 article by Josh Dawsey, Paul Sonne, Michael Kranish and David L. Stern on The Washington Post website here.

9 questions about the Trump whistleblower complaint, answered

Washington Post logoWashington has been engulfed in recent days by a fast-evolving story about a whistleblower complaint regarding alleged misdeeds by President Trump.

Given the complexity of it and all the angles involved, here’s an explainer that covers the major points.

1. What did Trump allegedly ‘promise,’ and what’s the big deal?

The big, unanswered questions here are essentially: Did Trump make some kind of promise to a foreign government (apparently Ukraine) that would involve using official government resources for personal gain? And if he didn’t make a promise, how persistent were his efforts to gain foreign assistance?

View the complete September 20 article by Aaron Blake on The Washington Post website here.

Ukraine, if you’re listening . . .: How Trump tries to quell controversies by saying the quiet part out loud

Washington Post logoThe Debrief: An occasional series offering a reporter’s insights

Ukraine, if you’re listening . . .

Much as he did three years ago — when he asked Russia to hack the emails of his Democratic rival — President Trump on Friday seemed to make a similar request of Ukraine, all but urging the Eastern European nation to investigate Joe Biden, his potential Democratic opponent.

“It doesn’t matter what I discussed, but I will say this — somebody ought to look into Joe Biden,” Trump said Friday in the Oval Office, swatting away questions about whether he had improperly attempted to pressure Ukraine to dig up dirt on the former vice president.

View the complete September 20 article by Ashley Parker on The Washington Post website here.

Mike Pence gave a dodgy answer when asked if Trump used Ukraine aid to force a Biden investigation

AlterNet logoOn his trip to Poland earlier this month, Vice President Mike Pence was asked directly about whether the hold-up in about $250 million in military aid to Ukraine had any relation to Rudy Giuliani trying to dig up dirt on the Biden family. Pence had just met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky the day before, and he dodged the implication of the question entirely.

Without offering a yes or no, Pence said, “We discussed America’s support for Ukraine and the upcoming decision the President will make on the latest tranche of financial support in great detail.”

What makes Pence’s response even more interesting is that the reporter asked a two-part question: “Did you discuss Joe Biden at all during that meeting yesterday with the Ukrainian President? And number two, can you assure Ukraine that the hold-up of that money has absolutely nothing to do with efforts, including by Rudy Giuliani, to try to dig up dirt on the Biden family?”

View the complete September 20 article by Kerry Eleveld from Daily Kos on the AlterNet website here.

Trump has done plenty to warrant impeachment. But the Ukraine allegations are over the top.

George T. Conway III is a lawyer in New York. Neal Katyal, a law professor at Georgetown University, previously served as the acting solicitor general of the United States.

Washington Post logoAmong the most delicate choices the framers made in drafting the Constitution was how to deal with a president who puts himself above the law. To address that problem, they chose the mechanism of impeachment and removal from office. And they provided that this remedy could be used when a president commits “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

That last phrase — “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” — was a historical term of art, derived from impeachments in the British Parliament. When the framers put it into the Constitution, they didn’t discuss it much, because no doubt they knew what it meant. It meant, as Alexander Hamilton later phrased it, “the abuse or violation of some public trust.”

Simply put, the framers viewed the president as a fiduciary, the government of the United States as a sacred trust and the people of the United States as the beneficiaries of that trust. Through the Constitution, the framers imposed upon the president the duty and obligation to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” and made him swear an oath that he would fulfill that duty of faithful execution. They believed that a president would break his oath if he engaged in self-dealing — if he used his powers to put his own interests above the nation’s. That would be the paradigmatic case for impeachment.

View the complete commentary by George T. Conway III and Neal Katyal on The Washington Post website here.

Phillips Statement on Ukraine Allegations

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Rep. Dean Phillips (MN-03), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, released the following statement:

“I came to Congress on a mission to clean up corruption and restore America’s trust in our government. It appears that our President encouraged the leader of Ukraine to investigate his political opponent, thereby inviting foreign interference in our democracy. This continues a pattern of behavior that is corrupt at best, treasonous at worst, and puts our rule of law at risk. Our Constitution transcends any person, politician, or political party, and I call on the House Foreign Affairs, Intelligence, and Judiciary Committees to use every legal mechanism possible to obtain all relevant evidence. If the reports are corroborated, we must pursue articles of impeachment and report them to the full House of Representatives for immediate consideration.”

Behind the Whistle-Blower Case, a Long-Held Trump Grudge Toward Ukraine

New York Times logoWASHINGTON — For months this spring and summer, Ukraine’s newly elected president, Volodymyr Zelensky, tried to deflect pressure from President Trump and his allies to pursue investigations into former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Mr. Biden’s son and other Trump rivals.

The pressure was so relentless that Mr. Zelensky dispatched one of his closest aides to open a line of communication with Rudolph W. Giuliani, one of Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers. Mr. Giuliani was the loudest voice among those demanding that Ukraine look at Mr. Biden’s dealings with the country when he was vice president at the same time his younger son, Hunter Biden, was doing business there, and also the release by Ukrainians in 2016 of damaging information about a top Trump campaign aide.

Over breakfast in early July at the Trump International Hotel, Mr. Zelensky’s aide asked the State Department’s envoy to Ukraine for help connecting to Mr. Giuliani. Several days later, the aide discussed with Mr. Giuliani by phone the prospective investigations as well as something the Ukrainians wanted: a White House meeting between Mr. Zelensky and Mr. Trump.

View the complete September 20 article by Kenneth P. Vogel on The New York Times website here.

Whistleblower complaint based on multiple incidents; watchdog won’t disclose info

The Hill logoThe whistleblower complaint reportedly involving a discussion between President Trump and a foreign leader was based on more than one incident, said a Democratic lawmaker who attended the House Intelligence Committee’s closed-door meeting Thursday with the intelligence community’s inspector general.

Lawmakers said the inspector general, Michael Atkinson, declined to share incidents during the meeting.

“He didn’t talk about anything about the allegations, where he was very protective,” said Intelligence Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.). “But he did mention that this complaint was based on a series of events, ‘more than one’ to get the exact wordage right.”

Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) also told The Hill that Atkinson did not talk about the contents of the whistleblower complaint during the private session with lawmakers. 

View the complete September 19 article by Chris Mills Rodrigo, Olivia Beavers and Mike Lillis on The Hill website here.

Trump Cuts “Muscle” from European Defense to Fund Border Wall

The list of military construction projects the Trump administration is defunding to pay for its controversial border wall includes more than $770 million from an initiative started by the Obama administration to shore up European defense after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014.

The cuts, which include upgrades to airfields in Slovakia, ammunition storage in Poland and Special Operations Forces facilities in Estonia, come at a time when the Trump administration is also withholding $250 million in military assistance to Ukraine as it reviews whether to continue the funding program at current levels.

After reviewing the Pentagon’s list of projects being targeted, Jim Townsend, who spent eight years as deputy assistant secretary of defense for European and NATO Policy, said the European military construction projects slated to lose funding include serious “military muscle.”

View the complete September 6 article by Kate Brennen on the JustSecurity.org website here.