Tag: Donald Trump

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Audio Of Trump Ordering Ukraine Ambassador To Be ‘Taken Out’ Given To Investigators

L-R Lev Parnas, Donald Trump
ABC News reports it has reviewed an audio recording of what appears to be Donald Trump having a conversation with former Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas regarding then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. In the recording, a voice said to be Trump’s can be heard saying, “Get rid of her! Get her out tomorrow. I don’t care. Get her out tomorrow. Take her out. OK? Do it.” Parnas’ lawyer  Joseph Bondy told the press the recording has been furnished to the House Intelligence Committee: “We do believe that contents of the conversation as portrayed by ABC News are of critical importance in the impeachment trial of the President. And would urge that it be produced to Congress.” Bondy also gave the full recording to the press for full transparency:

Trump has repeatedly announced he “doesn’t know” Parnas and “hasn’t ever spoken” to Parnas. If you listen to the full recording, it’s clear this was a lengthy dinner meeting that Trump had with Parnas and others. And he tells the public he “hasn’t ever spoken” to Parnas??? The White House has not defended the tape other than Vice President Mike Pence saying the recording “confirms what people already know.” Check out ABC News’ report below.

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Trump’s Twitter Meltdown As His Legal Team Begins Impeachment Defense

Donald Trump

As Donald Trump’s legal team began to present their defense case in the ongoing impeachment trial today, the Donald took to Twitter to encourage his followers to watch the proceedings – but on his favorite state network, Fox News. While there, he also threw out some elementary school insults at House impeachment lead manager Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) for good measure. Remember when some members of the media assured us he would, at some point, grow into a more ‘presidential’ bearing? I think we got the answer to that a long time ago.

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Trump Unveils New Space Force Logo (Something Seems Familiar Though)

Donald Trump proudly announced the new logo for the Space Force, the newest branch of the U.S. military. Clearly, the graphic designer boldly went where someone else had gone before:

Folks immediately noticed something familiar about the design.

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ABC News: Recording Captures Trump Ordering Ukraine Ambassador Fired ‘Take Her Out’

Donald Trump (via White House/public domain)
ABC News reports it has reviewed a recording that appears to capture Donald Trump telling associates he wanted the then-U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch fired. According to reports, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman – former associates of Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani – were also heard taking part in the conversation. From ABC News:

The recording appears to contradict statements by President Trump and support the narrative that has been offered by Parnas during broadcast interviews in recent days. Sources familiar with the recording said the recording was made during an intimate April 30, 2018, dinner at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Trump has said repeatedly he does not know Parnas, a Soviet-born American who has emerged as a wild card in Trump’s impeachment trial, especially in the days since Trump was impeached.

“Get rid of her!” is what the voice that appears to be President Trump’s is heard saying. “Get her out tomorrow. I don’t care. Get her out tomorrow. Take her out. Okay? Do it.”

Trump supporters have maintained until now that no evidence exists that directly ties Trump to the current allegations that led to his impeachment. Parnas and Fruman are currently under federal indictment in New York in a campaign finance case, but Parnas has been cooperating with authorities by releasing text messages and communications between himself and Trump’s team.

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Washington Post Sums Up Adam Schiff’s Breakdown Of Trump’s Abuse Of Power

Rep. Adam Schiff (screen capture)
Washington Post opinion writer Jennifer Rubin sums up impeachment manager and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff’s (D-Calif.) breakdown of the ways Donald Trump and his team abused his power:

  • Trump mentioned the Bidens and Burisma but not “corruption” during the July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
  • Trump followed up with a call to Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, on whether the investigations he demanded would happen.
  • A text by a Trump appointee to Zelensky’s top aide sent 30 minutes before the July 25 call stressed that Trump was looking for an announcement of an investigation into the Bidens.
  • When Trump, standing on the White House driveway, told the media that he wanted both Ukraine and China to investigate Joe Biden, he was not pursuing corruption in Ukraine, but rather looking for foreign countries to smear the former vice president.
  • The draft statement announcing that Ukraine would undertake corruption investigations was rewritten by Sondland and Trump lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani to specifically include Burisma and the 2016 election (i.e., Crowdstrike).
  • Giuliani openly bragged about interfering in an investigation in Ukraine.
  • Ukrainian officials threw Trump’s corrupt scheme back in our faces when asked not to investigate their political opponents.
  • Ukraine was confronted with a cut-off of vital aid in the middle of a hot war.
  • The aid was only released when Trump was caught (and acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney confirmed it publicly).

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News Round-Up: January 20, 2020

Devon Gibby for DadnDaddies/Instagram
Some news items you might have missed: • InstaHunks: Devon Gibby (above) spent the day at Mystic Hot Springs in Utah. “Not only is it super accessible (no 5-mile hike like others I’ve been to), but it’s the perfect balance of man-made quirkiness mixed with natural beauty. And who wouldn’t love sitting in actual bathtubs where the water doesn’t get colder while you watch the sunset behind snow-capped mountains!?” • RawStory: ‘Emasculated’ Virginia gun nuts mocked for ‘purchasing toys, dressing up in costumes, and playing fantasy games’ as they march on Richmond today. • Washington Post: In a single year, Donald Trump doubled the total number of false or misleading claims he had made in the previous two years combined. Put another way: He averaged six such claims a day in 2017, nearly 16 a day in 2018 and more than 22 a day in 2019. Lies like this one:

• RealClearPolitics: With two weeks to go until the ‘first in the nation’ Iowa caucuses on February 3, the two most recent polls there both show former Vice President Joe Biden leading the pack of Democratic White House hopefuls by 6 points. • Washington Blade: Some LGBTQ folks got riled up when Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign decided to nix a fundraiser planned at a gay club in Providence which the venue says is over a dancing pole the owners refused to remove. The Blade interviewed male pole dancers who were offended and say the decision was ‘unwarranted.’ • CNN: About half of Americans say the Senate should vote to convict President Donald Trump and remove him from office in the upcoming impeachment trial (51%), according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS, while 45% say the Senate should vote against conviction and removal. • CBS This Morning: Over nearly three decades, RuPaul Charles has left his mark on culture in music, movies and reality television including taking home his sixth Emmy Award in September for RuPaul’s Drag Race. Vladimir Duthiers spoke to RuPaul about doing “it all” and how his childhood impacted his career.

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Randy Rainbow Delivers Another Sizzling Satirical Takedown “That Don!”

Randy Rainbow drops his first political parody of 2020 utilizing the boastful “Gaston” from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. “That Don!” is a sizzling satirical take on the third American president ever to be impeached. As usual, Rainbow’s tweak of the lyrics is razor-sharp. Click here for past posts of the fab Randy Rainbow.

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‘A Very Stable Genius’ Reveals Trump Struggled To Read Constitution, Lacks Geographic Knowledge

Donald Trump (screen capture via Washington Post video)

An excerpt released from the new book A Very Stable Genius by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig details an incident when Donald Trump was asked (along with other prominent Americans) to read a portion of the U.S. Constitution.

The new tome draws its title from Trump’s self-declared intellectual brilliance and reveals an endless array of missteps by the Donald since taking office in 2017.

According to the authors, Trump apparently struggled to read the text and blamed aides in the room complaining,  “It’s like a foreign language.”

Additionally, the Trumpster barely knew of Pearl Harbor, incorrectly told Indian president Narendra Modi his country did not border China and asked the State Department to help him change a law banning Americans from bribing foreign officials for business deals.

The authors say the book is based on hundreds of hours of interviews with hundreds of sources and corroborated when possible with documentation.

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Trump Legal Team: ‘Abuse Of Power’ Isn’t A Crime

Donald Trump
From the New York Times:

In a six-page filing formally responding to the House impeachment charges submitted shortly after and filled with partisan barbs against House Democrats, Mr. Trump’s lawyers denounced the case as constitutionally and legally invalid, and driven purely by a desire to hurt Mr. Trump in the 2020 election.

“The articles of impeachment submitted by House Democrats are a dangerous attack on the right of the American people to freely choose their president,” they said in the response, which was Mr. Trump’s first legal submission in the impeachment proceeding, ahead of a fuller brief that is due on Monday. “This is a brazen and unlawful attempt to overturn the results of the 2016 election and interfere with the 2020 election, now just months away.”

The president’s lawyers did not deny any of the core facts underlying Democrats’ charges, conceding what considerable evidence and testimony in the House has shown: that he withheld $391 million in aid and a White House meeting from Ukraine and asked the country’s president to investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son, Hunter Biden.

But they said Mr. Trump broke no laws and was acting entirely appropriately and within his powers when he did so, echoing his repeated protestations of his own innocence. They argued that he was not seeking political advantage, but working to root out corruption in Ukraine.

In an appearance on ABC’s “This Week,” attorney Alan Dershowitz (who is part of Trump’s legal team) argued that “abuse of power” is not a crime and therefore not an impeachable offense.

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Trump On Lev Parnas: ‘I Don’t Believe I’ve Ever Spoken To Him’

From USA Today:

President Donald Trump and aides sought Thursday to distance him from a Soviet-born businessman who said Trump knew all about efforts to pressure Ukraine into investigating U.S. political rival Joe Biden – a pivotal point in the Senate impeachment trial of the president. “I don’t believe I’ve ever spoken to him,” Trump told reporters about Lev Parnas, taking questions after an event announcing new federal guidance he has said will “safeguard” the rights of students to pray in school. Parnas said Trump knows him well and there are pictures of the two of them at various events. In an interview with CNN, Parnas said that every time Trump denies knowing him, “I’ll show him another picture. He’s lying.”

Here’s Trump telling reporters he meets thousands of people and doesn’t remember them, and that’s followed by tweets of photos and video showing the two men together.