Tag: Trump put national security at risk for personal gain

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.

Testimony ensnares Pompeo in Ukraine scandal as he mulls political future

Washington Post logoSecretary of State Mike Pompeo became a major focus of the House impeachment inquiry Wednesday, with the recounting of emails and conversations linking him more closely to the effort to pressure Ukraine to investigate President Trump’s political rivals than previously known.

The accounts — provided in sworn testimony by the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland — prompted fresh calls for Pompeo to testify on Capitol Hill and explain his actions concerning a Ukraine policy that he has at times refused to discuss but defended as “wholly appropriate.”

Sondland said several senior U.S. officials knew about a “quid pro quo” linking a White House visit for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigations into Trump’s political rivals. In addition to Pompeo, he said, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and then-national security adviser John Bolton were aware of the effort.

View the complete November 20 article by John Hudson on The Washington Post website here.

7 takeaways from Tuesday’s impeachment hearings

Washington Post logoAfter three witnesses last week painted a broad picture of a U.S. foreign policy hijacked by political interests, this week the impeachment inquiry into President Trump began with testimony Tuesday from four people who serve inside the White House and on the front lines of U.S. foreign policy in Ukraine.

Tuesday’s hearings featured:

Continue reading “7 takeaways from Tuesday’s impeachment hearings”

The 22 defenses Trump’s allies have floated on Ukraine and impeachment

Washington Post logoAs House Democrats have investigated President Trump’s dealings with Ukraine over the past two months, Republican lawmakers and Trump allies have floated no fewer than 22 defenses of the president, according to a Fix analysis.

Let’s run through them:

1. Trump’s July 25 call with Ukraine’s president was appropriate

Who: Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio)

What he said: “I think it’s perfectly appropriate to ask a foreign leader to look into potential corruption,” Wenstrup said Oct. 1.

Context: On Sept. 20, Trump tweeted that his call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was “pitch perfect.” Since then, Trump has called his call “perfect” more than 150 times, according to a Fix review of Factba.se transcripts.

View the complete November 18 article by JM Rieger on The Washington Post website here.

Impeachment witness says Ukraine ‘gradually came to understand’ Trump’s desired investigation was tied to aid, meeting

Washington Post logoA counselor in the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine told lawmakers last week that he was shocked to overhear a phone call in which a top diplomat assured President Trump that Ukrainian officials would pursue an investigation of interest to the U.S. commander in chief — a probe that the diplomat later suggested was of former vice president Joe Biden, Trump’s political rival.

The counselor, David Holmes, also testified that the Ukrainians “gradually came to understand that they were being asked to do something in exchange” for a White House meeting or military aid, which was held back as the president and his allies pressed for the Biden investigation, according to a transcript of his testimony released Monday.

Democrats released the transcript of Holmes’s testimony — along with that of another diplomatic official, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale — as they kicked off what will be perhaps the most intense week yet of their impeachment inquiry into whether Trump sought to engage the Ukrainians in a corrupt bargain to help him get reelected.

View the complete November 18 article by Matt Zapotosky, Karoun Demirjian, Ellen Nakashima and Elise Viebeck on The Washington Post website here.

Bolton willing to defy White House and testify if court clears the way, according to people familiar with his views

Washington Post logoFormer national security adviser John Bolton is willing to defy the White House and testify in the House impeachment inquiry about his alarm at the Ukraine pressure campaign if a federal court clears the way, according to people familiar with his views.

Bolton could be a powerful witness for Democrats: Top State Department and national security officials already have testified that he was deeply concerned about efforts by Trump and his allies to push Ukraine to open investigations into a political rival of the president’s while the Trump administration held up military aid to that country.

The former national security adviser, who abruptly left his post in September, is expected to confirm those witnesses’ statements and describe his conversations with Trump, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing inquiry.

View the complete November 7 article by Carol D. Leonnig and Tom Hamburger on The Washington Post website here.