Tag: Fiona Hill

Fiona Hill recalls horrific experiences of Trump’s meeting with Putin — and how she expects Biden’s will go

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Fiona Hill, the former official at the U.S. National Security Council, specializing in Russian and European affairs, spoke to CNN’s Don Lemon, remembering what it was like during the meeting between former President Donald Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

President Joe Biden will meet with Putin in the early hours of Wednesday morning in the United States, and there will be a significant difference between the Biden and Trump meetings. 

Hill is the former expert who shredded Republican lies about the Russia investigation. She also revealed as part of the investigation into Trump’s bribery of Ukraine that Rudy Giuliani was circumventing the National Security Council with his own shadow efforts. Giuliani has now become part of an investigation by the FBI into his international dealings.  Continue reading.

Former CIA officer: Trump and his allies have a long history of bullying intelligence experts who probe Russian election interference

AlterNet logoWhen Fiona Hill, a former National Security Council (NSC) senior director specializing in Russian and European affairs, testified before the House Intelligence Committee on November 21, she stressed that there was zero evidence to support the claim that Ukraine rather than Russia interfered in the United States’ 2016 presidential election. Nonetheless, the CrowdStrike conspiracy theory persists on the far right. And journalist Alex Finley, in a report for Just Security, discusses the extremes that President Donald Trump’s allies have been willing to go to in the hope of discrediting intelligence on Russian election interference in 2016.

The CrowdStrike conspiracy theory claims that in 2016, the cyber-security firm CrowdStrike conspired with Democrats and the Ukrainian government to frame the Russian government for interfering in the presidential election. According to the false claim that the Ukrainian government — not Russian President Vladimir Putin — was the real villain in 2016, Finley notes, “Trump never could have colluded with Russia, because Russia never did anything wrong.” And Finley notes that Attorney General William Barr has been investigating people in the U.S. intelligence community who have been part of the Russia investigation — and appointed federal prosecutor John Dunham to head that investigation.

Finley explains, “Last month, media outlets reported that Barr’s investigation had become a criminal one. Whether true or not, the claim — much like the public attacks from Trump, Republicans and the conservative media ecosystem —  seemed like a clear signal to civil servants — whether in the FBI, the CIA or the NSA — to tread very carefully if they planned to take any actions that came anywhere near the Russia-Trump nexus again.”

View the complete November 26 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.

What does female authority sound like? Marie Yovanovitch and Fiona Hill just showed us.

Washington Post logoPublic impeachment hearings began last week, if you’ll recall, with “Walter Cronkite” trending on Twitter. Why? One of the first witnesses, acting Ukraine ambassador William B. Taylor Jr., sounded somewhat like the legendary newscaster — a bourbon barrel of a baritone, mellow and oaky with age.

If a bureaucrat is going to testify before the House Intelligence Committee and be streamed into households around the country, it doesn’t hurt for him to remind Americans of the most trusted man in news. That kind of tone-based credibility goes a long way. Rightly or not, you felt like you could trust a man like this; you’d heard and trusted his voice before.

The next day, Marie Yovanovitch took her turn at the witness table. Impressively credentialed and equally poised, the former Ukraine ambassador’s testimony prompted a standing ovation in the hearing room, but it didn’t prompt adoring comparisons to any deceased icons. Her voice did not, after all, sound like Walter Cronkite’s. Hers was the precise, measured tone of a polite 61-year-old woman. And we simply don’t have as many reference points for 61-year-old women who’ve been elevated to the status of most trusted voice in anything.

View the complete November 22 column by Monica Hesse on The Washington Post website here.

Fiona Hill Testifies ‘Fictions’ on Ukraine Pushed by Trump Help Russia

New York Times logoThe former top White House aide denounced a theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election, as she tied the president’s pressure campaign to Russian efforts to sow political divisions in America.

WASHINGTON — A former White House Russia expert on Thursday sharply denounced a “fictional narrative” embraced by President Trump and his Republican allies that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 election, testifying that the claim was a fabrication by Moscow that had harmed the United States.

The expert, Fiona Hill, tied a pressure campaign on Ukraine by Mr. Trump and some of his top aides to an effort by Russia to sow political divisions in the United States and undercut American diplomacy. She warned Republicans that legitimizing an unsubstantiated theory that Kyiv undertook a concerted campaign to interfere in the election — a claim the president pushed repeatedly for Ukraine to investigate — played into Russia’s hands.

“In the course of this investigation,” Dr. Hill testified before the House Intelligence Committee’s impeachment hearings, “I would ask that you please not promote politically driven falsehoods that so clearly advance Russian interests.”

View the complete November 21 article by Nicholas Fandos and Michael D. Shear on The New York Times website here.

Hill, Holmes offer damaging impeachment testimony: Five takeaways

The Hill logoIn what could be the last round of public hearings in the Democrats’ high-speed impeachment inquiry, two senior national security experts testified Thursday that President Trump had pressed for investigations in Ukraine that were designed to help him politically.

David Holmes, a State Department veteran now based in Kyiv, and Fiona Hill, Trump’s former leading adviser on Russian affairs, testified for almost six hours on Capitol Hill, where they painted a damaging portrait of Trump and his allies clamoring for the launch of foreign-born probes that appeared to lack a national security objective.

Holmes described an episode in Kyiv in July when he overheard a phone conversation between Trump and Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, in which the president sought updates on the investigations into the 2016 elections and the son of former Vice President Joe Biden. “I’ve never seen anything like this in my foreign service career,” he said. 

View the complete November 21 article by Scott Wong and Mike Lillis on The Hill website here.

5 takeaways from Fiona Hill’s and David Holmes’s testimony

Washington Post logoThe final scheduled hearing in the House’s impeachment inquiry was Thursday, with former National Security Council Russia expert Fiona Hill and Ukraine diplomat David Holmes testifying.

1. Holmes’s succinct explanation of two quid pro quos

The explanation by Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, of how the Ukraine quid pro quos worked got lots of attention Wednesday — remember “2 plus 2 equals 4?” Sondland’s point was basically that everyone understood why a White House meeting and military aid were being withheld, even if President Trump never explicitly told him to convey a quid pro quo. Continue reading “5 takeaways from Fiona Hill’s and David Holmes’s testimony”

Fiona Hill says Sondland was engaged in politics, not foreign policy

Hill also aide chides Republicans for peddling ‘fictions’ on Ukraine, Russia

Fiona Hill, a Russia expert who worked on President Donald Trump’s National Security Council, on Thursday said she came to understand that Trump’s ambassador to the European Union was on a “domestic political errand” and was not engaged in furthering the foreign policy of the United States.

In detailed testimony during the fifth day of public impeachment hearings into Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, Hill connected dots between current and former administration witnesses over the last eight days, delivering perhaps the most forceful testimony countering the Republican defense of Trump and his dealings in Ukraine.

Hill told the committee that her misunderstanding of Sondland’s responsibilities led to tension between the two.

View the complete November 21 article by Patrick Kelley on The Roll Call website here.

Impeachment hearings live updates: Hill said she told Sondland that his efforts in Ukraine would ‘blow up’

Washington Post logoFormer White House adviser Fiona Hill testified Thursday that she had warned Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, that his efforts in Ukraine on behalf of President Trump would “blow up.”

Hill, a Russia expert who reported directly to John Bolton when he was national security adviser, was testifying alongside David Holmes, a top staffer at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, before the House Intelligence Committee as part of the impeachment inquiry.

Democrats are seeking information to bolster the case that Trump sought to leverage U.S. military aid to Ukraine and a White House visit by President Volodymyr Zelensky in exchange for investigations of former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, among others.

View the complete November 21 article by John Wagner and Felicia Sonmez on The Washington Post website here.

Fiona Hill Viewed Serving Trump as Risky. Now She’s an Impeachment Witness.

New York Times logoDr. Hill’s decision to be the president’s top adviser on Russia and Europe strained friendships, made her a target of conspiracy theories — and landed her in the center of the tumult over Ukraine.

WASHINGTON — Fiona Hill knew she was taking a risk in going to work for President Trump.

A British-born coal-miner’s daughter with a Ph.D. from Harvard, Dr. Hill is a respected Russia expert, former intelligence analyst and co-author of a 500-page book analyzing the psyche of its president, Vladimir V. Putin. So the prospect of working for a president who speaks admiringly of Mr. Putin and has expressed doubts that Russia interfered in the 2016 election gave her pause.

Her decision to join the National Security Council in April 2017 — and to stay for more than two years after Mr. Trump cozied up to Mr. Putin and publicly disparaged the nation’s intelligence agencies — strained friendships and made her a target of right-wing conspiracy theorists who spread rumors that she was a Democratic mole.

View the complete November 21 article by Sheryl Gay Stolberg on The New York Times website here.

Trump’s former Russia aide met with White House lawyer over Giuliani

Fiona Hill departed the administration days before Trump’s July 25 call to Ukraine.

President Donald Trump’s former top Russia aide Fiona Hill told House impeachment investigators on Monday that she had at least two meetings with a National Security Council lawyer about Rudy Giuliani’s efforts to convince Ukrainian officials to investigate the president’s political rivals, according to a person who was in the room for the testimony.

Hill told lawmakers and aides that then-national security adviser John Bolton, after learning of Giuliani’s efforts, told her to speak with lawyer John Eisenberg, the person said. Hill testified that she met with Eisenberg briefly on July 10, the same day she attended a meeting with Ukrainian officials at the White House. Hill said she had a longer meeting with Eisenberg on July 11, the person added.

Hill also told House impeachment investigators that Bolton told her, “I am not part of whatever drug deal Rudy and Mulvaney are cooking up,” referring to the acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, whom Hill believed was involved in the discussions about Ukraine. Hill also said Bolton described Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney, as “a hand grenade who’s going to blow everybody up.”

View the complete October 14 article by Andrew Desiderio and Kyle Cheney on the Politico website here.