Impeachment Today: All The President’s Thugs
A federal watchdog report has concluded President Trump's actions in the Ukraine affair broke the law.
Ukraine’s authorities have announced investigations into the possible illegal surveillance of former U.S. ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, and the reported hacking of Burisma Holdings, the natural gas company at the center of the Trump impeachment.
And an associate of the President’s personal attorney is alleging a conspiracy implicating Rudy Giuliani, and possibly Trump, in a criminal conspiracy to solicit a bribe from Ukraine.
And that’s just this morning.
The Government Accountability Office has issued an opinion holding that President Donald Trump violated federal budget law when he ordered White House officials to withhold most of a $250 million military aid package for Ukraine last summer.
“OMB violated the [1974 budget law] when it withheld DOD’s USAI funds from obligation for policy reasons,” the opinion said, referring to the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative. “This impoundment of budget authority was not a programmatic delay.”
What does this mean? Probably just a few headlines. The GAO is part of the legislative branch and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is in the executive branch. We’ve already seen plenty of evidence that the current administration has no tolerance for checks and balances.
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1217849390901219328?s=20
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The irony of Ukrainian officials looking into the activities of Trump’s minions is just too rich to ignore.
Records turned over to House impeachment investigators by Lev Parnas' attorneys appear to show that former Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was being closely monitored by a Republican congressional candidate, her physical movements tracked in real time along with her computer and phone use. There is also a text message that could easily be interpreted as an offer to have Yovanovitch killed.
The Republican Congressional candidate doing the monitoring, Robert F. Hyde, has a troubled past, including an arrest leading to an involuntary confinement for bizarre behavior at Mar a Lago.
His Facebook, Instagram, and website pages feature a parade of photos of him posing with Trump and other notable Republicans, including Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, Rep. Jim Jordan, now-convicted felon Roger Stone, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSanti.
From the Daily Beast:
In WhatsApp messages exchanged in March 2019 with Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas, who provided the committee with the files, Hyde and Parnas discussed Yovanovitch’s location. Hyde, a retired Marine, appeared to have associates in Ukraine monitoring her.
“They know she’s a political puppet,” Hyde wrote to Parnas. “They will let me know when she’s on the move… They are willing to help if you/we would like a price.”
“Guess you can do anything in Ukraine with money… what I was told,” Hyde wrote in another message. Parnas responded: “LOL.”
Prior to the most recent revelations William Burns, writing at Foreign Affairs, described what was going on:
Secretary Pompeo apparently worked around the embassy in Kiev to advance the president’s private agenda, allowed specious opposition research about Yovanovitch to circulate around the department, and sat on his hands as Trump slandered Yovanovitch on the infamous call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and warned ominously that “she’s going to go through some things.” The ghost of Roy Cohn was smiling somewhere.
Now we have reason to believe Ukraine is more concerned about a threat to a US Ambassador than our Secretary of State and Attorney General. (Barr was described as being in the loop on all the activities related to the conjuring up of an investigation into the Bidens)
From the Associated Press:
The Ukrainian Interior Ministry said in a statement that Ukrainian police “are not interfering in the internal political affairs of the United States” by conducting the probe.
“The published messages contain facts of possible violations of Ukrainian law and of the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations, which protect the rights of diplomats on the territory of another state,” the ministry’s statement continued.
The Interior Ministry also said it has requested the FBI provide relevant materials. Interior Minister Arsen Avakov “suggested that the U.S. side take part in the investigation,” the statement said.
Marcy Wheeler’s analysis of Lev Parnas comes with a big warning, referring to his history as a conduit for some of the slander popular with Trumpanistas :
In short, for the last 18 months, Parnas has played a key part in creating the right wing echo chamber, one that — particularly because the addled Rudy is a trusted advisor — forms a key part of how Trump understands the world. One way Parnas did that was by recruiting Ukrainians who were, for very crass reasons, willing to tell Trump and the rest of the frothy right what they wanted to hear, even though it was assuredly not true.
Remarkably, we really don’t know why Parnas decided to play a key cog in the right wing echo chamber in the first place. He’s a grifter, but even with a recent cash infusion from Dmitro Firtash, he’s not getting rich. He was in a powerful position, the one sober person at Trump’s hotel bar, spinning up the drunk Trump sycophants. But that “power” got him indicted for the influence peddling that first landed him in this position. Before answering why he’s telling his story now, without immunity and while facing down still more charges, we’d want to understand that primary motivation, and we don’t know it yet.
Last night’s interview continued that grift, only he moved to spin an echo chamber for the left this time. He emphasized — and Maddow predictably responded — some of the key allegations Democrats most want to be true. Mike Pence is closely involved, Parnas revealed, and while nothing he revealed would amount to impeachable conduct, Democrats immediately latched onto the possibility it would be. Everyone was involved, Parnas confirmed, including Devin Nunes and Bill Barr. It was all about Biden, Parnas almost certainly lied.
In short, doing what he appears to be very good at, Parnas is telling us what we want to hear, whether true or not.
https://twitter.com/josephabondy/status/1217681037515468800?s=20
What is true is the evidence of a long line of grifters, opportunists and low brow criminals who populate all these scandals involving the President of the United States.
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Lead photo: Image of Rethugligan Robert F. Hyde posted on his Congressional campaign site.