Tag: Ukraine

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CNN Host Explains Ukraine President’s Planned, Then Cancelled, Interview

Apparently, the announcement of an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, by the Ukraine government that Donald Trump sought in exchange for previously promised military aid was to have taken place on Fareed Zakaria’s CNN show, although at the time CNN didn’t know the full backstory. Zakaria told his viewers today he felt he owed them an understanding of what he and his team did and didn’t know as they sought the interview with President Zelensky. It makes sense that Trump’s White House would WANT the announcement on CNN because Democrats watch CNN. Trump wanted as many possible Dem voters to see/hear the allegations to taint support of Biden. It’s worth noting, again, that journalists from across the political spectrum – even Fox News – have repeatedly said there is no evidence of any wrongdoing by Joe or Hunter Biden. Trump just wanted his 2020 version of ‘her emails’ to discourage Democratic voters. Watch below.

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Former Ukraine Ambassador Testifies In Impeachment Inquiry

Marie Yovanovitch (screen capture)
Via Time Magazine:

The former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine who was abruptly removed by President Donald Trump earlier this year took center stage on Friday morning to testify in the second public hearing in his impeachment inquiry.

Ambassador Marie “Masha” Yovanovitch, 61, was ousted in May after what her former colleagues describe as a “smear campaign” by Trump’s allies, led by his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani. In a July 25th call with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, which sparked the initial whistleblower complaint, Trump described her as “bad news” and someone who was “going through some stuff.”

“I didn’t know what it meant,” Yovanovitch told lawmakers in a closed-door hearing last month in regards to those comments. “I was very concerned. I still am.”

Other diplomats have testified that Yovanovitch, who was known as an outspoken critic of corruption in Ukraine, was unfairly removed after a sustained lobbying campaign from Giuliani and others.

Here is the live feed from the hearing via C-SPAN2:

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Transcript: Former Ambassador Told To ‘Praise’ Trump To Save Her Job

Donald Trump
The House impeachment investigators have released the transcripts of two witnesses who have testified in the ongoing impeachment inquiry. One of the transcripts involving testimony from former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch indicates she was told to ‘praise’ Donald Trump publicly in order to save her job. From NBC News:

Marie Yovanovitch, the ousted U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, told House impeachment investigators last month that U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland told her she should tweet out support or praise for President Donald Trump if she wanted to save her job, according to a transcript of her testimony made public Monday.

The three House committees leading the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump released two transcripts of the behind-closed-doors interviews they have so far conducted as part of their investigation, as the probe moves to a more public phase.

Yovanovitch was interviewed by House investigators in October for more than nine hours and has emerged as a key figure in the investigation into Trump’s efforts to persuade Ukraine’s new government to commit publicly to investigate corruption and the president’s political opponents.

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First Witness To Ukraine Call To Testify In Impeachment Inquiry Today

Donald Trump (image via Flickr/WhiteHouse – public domain)
From the New York Times:

A White House national security official who is a decorated Iraq war veteran plans to tell House impeachment investigators on Tuesday that he heard President Trump appeal to Ukraine’s president to investigate one of his leading political rivals, a request the aide considered so damaging to American interests that he reported it to a superior.

Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman of the Army, the top Ukraine expert on the National Security Council, twice registered internal objections about how Mr. Trump and his inner circle were treating Ukraine, out of what he called a “sense of duty,” he plans to tell the inquiry, according to a draft of his opening statement obtained by The New York Times.

He will be the first White House official to testify who listened in on the July 25 telephone call between Mr. Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine that is at the center of the impeachment inquiry, in which Mr. Trump asked Mr. Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

In another article, the Times notes that Colonel Vindman has a master’s degree from Harvard in Russian, Eastern Europe, and Central Asian Studies. He has served in the United States’ embassies in Kyiv, Ukraine, and in Moscow, and was the officer specializing in Russia for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff before joining the National Security Council in 2018. He earned a Purple Heart in Iraq, had a master’s degree from Harvard, and now works at the White House across the hall from his equally accomplished twin brother. However, since he was brought to the United States as a 3-year-old child from Ukraine, right-leaning news outlets and social media have already begun a smear campaign against him calling Vindman some kind of Ukraine double agent/spy. Trump himself tweeted that Vindman is a ‘Never Trumper,’ for which there is no evidence or proof.

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Acting Ukraine Ambassador: Trump Pressured Ukraine Into Investigating Biden In Exchange For Aid

President Zelensky of Ukraine and Donald Trump (image: public domain)
Acting U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, William B. Taylor Jr., told impeachment investigators behind closed doors on Tuesday that Donald Trump withheld vital military aid for Ukraine and refused a White House meeting with Ukraine’s leader until he agreed to make a public pronouncement pledging to investigate Mr. Trump’s political opponents. From the New York Times:

In testimony that Democrats in attendance called the most damaging account yet for the president, Mr. Taylor provided an “excruciatingly detailed” opening statement that described in blunt and unsparing terms the quid-pro-quo pressure campaign that Mr. Trump and his allies have long denied.

When he objected to that effort, Mr. Taylor said in his opening statement obtained by The New York Times, Gordon D. Sondland, the United States ambassador to the European Union and a Trump campaign donor, sought to explain Mr. Trump’s actions by noting that he was a businessman.

Mr. Taylor recounted Mr. Sondland saying that “when a businessman is about to sign a check to someone who owes him something, he said, the businessman asks that person to pay up before signing the check.”

Taylor testified today that Trump had made his position clear: Ukrainian President Zelensky would not be invited to the White House or secure much-needed security aid unless the Ukrainian leader made a public announcement that his country would launch the investigations sought by Trump. Before Trump supporters begin their expected attacks, it’s worth noting that Taylor is a West Point graduate who served in Vietnam with the 101st Airborne.

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Mulvaney Denies Saying What He Said But Chris Wallace Has The Receipts

Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney told the press Donald Trump used military aid to Ukraine as leverage to get the Ukrainian government to investigate Trump’s political opponents. When asked if the aid was conditioned on investigating Democratic National Committee server, Mulvaney said, “We do it all the time.” He denied it to Chris Wallace, but Wallace brought the receipts. #oops “You were asked specifically by Jonathan Karl was investigating Democrats one of the conditions for holding up the aid, was part of the quid pro quo, and you said ‘it happens all the time,’” Wallace said. Mulvaney claims since he himself never uttered the words ‘quid pro quo’ it can’t be pinned on him.

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WH Chief Of Staff Admits Trump Withheld Ukraine Aid As Pressure For ‘Favor’

Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney
Wow. So, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney told the press today that military aid to Ukraine was withheld at one point conditioned on the ‘favor’ asked by Donald Trump that the Ukrainian government investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son. From the New York Times:

It was the first time a White House official has publicly acknowledged what a parade of current and former administration officials have told impeachment investigators on Capitol Hill.

“The look-back to what happened in 2016 certainly was part of the thing that he was worried about in corruption with that nation,” Mr. Mulvaney told reporters, referring to Mr. Trump. “And that is absolutely appropriate.”

He said that the aid was initially withheld because, “Everybody knows this is a corrupt place,” and the president was demanding Ukraine clean up its own government. But Mr. Trump also told Mr. Mulvaney that he was concerned about what he thought was Ukraine’s role in the 2016 campaign.

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Giuliani Paid $500k To Work For Ukrainian Businessmen Arrested Last Week

L-R Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani (screen captures)
It appears Rudy Giuliani worked for Donald Trump for free but received $500k of unknown funds from foreign actors, who are under arrest. And, was exempt from conflict of interest laws because he wasn’t made a special govt employee despite involvement in coordinating Trump’s meeting with Zelensky? From Reuters:

President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, was paid $500,000 for work he did for a company co-founded by the Ukrainian-American businessman arrested last week on campaign finance charges, Giuliani told Reuters on Monday.

The businessman, Lev Parnas, is a close associate of Giuliani and was involved in his effort to investigate Trump’s political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, who is a leading contender for the 2020 Democratic Party nomination.

Giuliani said Parnas’ company, Boca Raton-based Fraud Guarantee, whose website says it aims to help clients “reduce and mitigate fraud”, engaged Giuliani Partners, a management and security consulting firm, around August 2018. Giuliani said he was hired to consult on Fraud Guarantee’s technologies and provide legal advice on regulatory issues.

Federal prosecutors are “examining Giuliani’s interactions” with Parnas and another Giuliani associate, Igor Fruman, who was also indicted on campaign finance charges, a law enforcement source told Reuters on Sunday.

The New York Times reported last week that Parnas had told associates he paid Giuliani hundreds of thousands of dollars for what Giuliani said was business and legal advice. Giuliani said for the first time on Monday that the total amount was $500,000.

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National Security Officials Raised Concerns Before & After Trump Call With Ukraine President

President Zelensky of Ukraine with Donald Trump
President Zelensky of Ukraine with Donald Trump (image via Flickr/WhiteHouse – public domain)

The Washington Post is reporting at least four national security officials found the Trump administration’s attempts to pressure Ukraine for political purposes so disconcerting that they raised concerns with a White House lawyer both before and immediately after Donald Trump’s July 25 call with Ukraine President Zelensky.

The nature and timing of the previously undisclosed discussions with National Security Council legal adviser John Eisenberg indicate that officials were delivering warnings through official White House channels earlier than previously understood — including before the call that precipitated a whistleblower complaint and the impeachment inquiry of the president.

At the time, the officials were unnerved by the removal in May of the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine; subsequent efforts by Trump’s lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani to promote Ukraine-related conspiracies; as well as signals in meetings at the White House that Trump wanted the new government in Kiev to deliver material that might be politically damaging to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.

Those concerns soared in the call’s aftermath, officials said. Within minutes, senior officials including national security adviser John Bolton were being pinged by subordinates about problems with what the president had said to his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky. Bolton and others scrambled to obtain a rough transcript that was already being “locked down” on a highly classified computer network.

So, basically, the ‘transcript’ of the call released by the White House is the PG-13 rated version.

And the Justice Department refused to pursue the whistleblower complaint even though security officials had already sounded urgent alarms…?

In related news, NBC News reports that Fiona Hill, Trump’s former top aide on Russia and Europe, plans to tell Congress that Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland circumvented the National Security Council and the normal White House process to pursue a shadow policy on Ukraine.

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White House Advised Diplomats To ‘Play Down’ Release Of Ukraine Funds

Donald Trump (photo via Flickr/WhiteHouse – public domain)
New reporting shows the White House advised diplomats to “play down” the release of security funding to Ukraine once the money was finally approved. Newly-released emails show the officials knew the funds were being held for corrupt purposes but chose to look the other way. From the New York Times:

“Keep moving, people, nothing to see here …” Brad Freden, the State Department’s acting deputy assistant secretary overseeing issues in Europe and Eurasia, wrote in a Sept. 12 email obtained by The New York Times.

He said the National Security Council would not publicly announce that $141 million in State Department assistance was being restored after being held up in what the White House described as a normal review.

The money is now at the heart of an impeachment inquiry by House Democrats into whether President Trump withheld a total of $391 million in funding as he sought damaging information on his political opponents from Ukraine’s newly elected leader.

Much more at the link.