Impeachment Day 22 - Women's Testimony Turns Up the Heat
We’re in the Twilight Zone now, folks.
Trump’s privatized foreign policy operation was so rank that even mustached John Bolton, the warmonger from central casting, objected.
For those of you who haven’t been following this closely: The president’s personal lawyer was paid by crooked businessmen from a foreign country, and then the president gave him authority over American policy toward that country. You might say this is precisely what the founders meant by “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
As author Amy Siskind noted, “Given that the Trump regime is about 80% men, it’s all the more notable that the two courageous voices to speak out first, with their names being made public are Marie Yovanovitch and Fiona Hill.”
Last Friday Marie Yovanovitch, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine told House impeachment investigators her departure came as a direct result of pressure President Trump placed on the State Department to remove her.
Her removal came after unsubstantiated allegations pushed by the president’s personal attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani and a cast of former Ukrainian officials who viewed her as a threat to their financial and political interests.
She told lawmakers that she was forced to leave Kiev on “the next plane.”
Yesterday’s witness interview with Fiona Hill, the White House’s former top Russia adviser, started with Congressman Matt Gaetz being ejected from the room. What his role was supposed to be was that of a henchmen staring down a witness.
The Florida Republican immediately went to the media to play the victim card. An official working on the impeachment inquiry said Gaetz was booted because he does not sit on any of the committees conducting the impeachment investigation.
Charles P. Pierce at Esquire called out Gaetz:
"It's not like I'm on the Agriculture Committee," Gaetz moped. Good thing, too, since he apparently could be outsmarted by produce.
You may recall that it was Gaetz who Tweeted out what could only be interpreted as a threat toward Michael Cohen before the latter testified to the Judiciary Committee. That episode was referred to the Florida Bar Association in a complaint that charged Gaetz with with witness tampering. The Florida Bar cleared Gaetz because, well, Florida, but it did hurl a handful of uncomplimentary adjectives at him.
It's important to remember that any articles of impeachment that are forthcoming will have to go through the House Judiciary Committee of which Gaetz is a member and, as such, he has to be allowed into the room. Where it happens. And people say vaudeville is dead.
The president’s defenders are now making a big deal over the proceedings being closed. They’ll get their opportunity to grandstand when hearings--as opposed to interviews--take place.
Hill, according to the Washington Post, told impeachment investigators that the president’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani ran a shadow foreign policy in Ukraine bypassing career diplomats in order to personally benefit President Trump.
Hill testified Monday that Bolton was furious over Giuliani’s politically motivated activities in Ukraine, two officials familiar with her testimony said. She recounted how Bolton likened the former New York mayor to a “hand grenade who’s going to blow everybody up,” one of these people said, after Bolton learned about Giuliani’s Ukraine campaign.
Bolton and Sondland met in early July with then-special envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker, Hill and Energy Secretary Rick Perry. During the meeting, Sondland’s agenda for Ukraine began to become clear, when he blurted out to the other officials present that there were “investigations that were dropped that need to be started up again,” according to a U.S. official familiar with the matter. The officials understood him to be referring to Burisma, the energy company, and Biden — something that made Bolton go “ballistic” after the meeting, the official said.
Hill told lawmakers that after the meeting, Bolton instructed her to go raise their concerns about the shadow Ukraine operations with White House lawyers. Bolton said he did not want to be part of any “drug deal” that was being cooked up on Ukraine, one person familiar with Hill’s testimony said.
https://twitter.com/AidenWolfe/status/1183958713134145537?s=20
She also testified that Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, appeared to be coordinating his efforts on Ukraine with acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney.
In another story, based on more than three dozen interviews with associates and confidants of Sondland, the Washington Post disclosed his planned testimony:
In an Oval Office meeting afterward, Sondland intends to say, Trump told him, special U.S. envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker and Energy Secretary Rick Perry that any face-to-face meeting he would entertain with the new Ukrainian president would have to be cleared by Giuliani, the president’s personal attorney.
Sondland plans to say that over the following weeks, he and Volker, along with the acting ambassador to Ukraine, William B. Taylor, learned that as a condition of such a meeting, Giuliani was demanding that Zelensky’s administration publicly announce it would tackle corruption, including singling out as a target Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company linked to Biden’s son.
Rudy Giuliani got paid to play. The president’s personal attorney says he’s working for free. Trump may not be paying him, but somebody is. And when confronted by reporters from Reuters following the money, the former New York Mayor fessed up.
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…
...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...
...Giuliani said he was confident that the money he received was from “a domestic source,” but he would not say where it came from.
Yeah right, nothing says legitimate like half a million dollars from a company called Fraud Guarantee.
Meanwhile, the rats are deserting...Michael McKinley, a senior adviser to Pompeo who just resigned, is scheduled for a transcribed interview with the committees leading the impeachment inquiry on Wednesday morning.
And don’t forget the at least four national security officials who were so unnerved by this ongoing pressure campaign that they raised concerns with White House legal staff both before and just after the call.
After having denied, lied and deflected about the Ukraine deal, the President is down to his usual final offer whenever he’s cornered, according to Greg Sargent at the Washington Post:
Trump’s stance continues to be that this pressure was entirely within his legitimate authority. The White House counsel’s letter, which we now know was largely dictated by Trump, declares that there was “nothing wrong” with the July 25 call as detailed in the rough White House transcript. That transcript shows Trump explicitly naming Joe Biden while demanding investigations.
Thus, Trump’s explicit position is that pressuring Ukraine to help him smear a leading domestic political opponent, not merely to investigate unspecified “corruption,” was absolutely fine. In his own words, Trump has flatly said that Ukraine “should investigate the Bidens.”
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Today’s fun read at GQ-- How Don Jr., Ivanka, and Eric Trump Have Profited Off Their Dad's Presidency
During their father’s tenure as president, Don Jr. and Eric have repeatedly managed to cash in on their newfound positions of political privilege in their business dealings. So, too, have their sister Ivanka and brother-in-law Jared Kushner, both of whom hold senior positions in the administration and whose companies and investment portfolios netted them anywhere between $29 million and $135 million last year, per their financial disclosure forms.
Remember, it’s always about the money:
https://twitter.com/john_sipher/status/1184120851089764352?s=20
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