Tag: Ukraine

GOP rejects effort to compel documents on delayed Ukraine aid

The Hill logoSenate Republicans on Tuesday rejected an opening effort by Democrats to compel the Trump administration to hand over documents related to the delayed Ukraine aid.

Democrats offered four amendments over roughly nine hours to the rules resolution that would have required the administration to turn over documents. All four were tabled, effectively blocking the requests, in 53-47 votes.

The documents, according to Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), would relate to conversations and documents between President Trump, top administration officials and Ukraine on the delayed funding, which was eventually released in September.  Continue reading.

Rudy GIuliani’s Bagman Lev Parnas Blows Up Trump’s Ukraine Defense

Stephanie Grisham, the White House press secretary, was up bright and early on Thursday morning to try to spin the remarkable interview that MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow did on Wednesday night with Lev Parnas, one of Rudy Giuliani’s bagmen in the effort to extort the government of Ukraine into digging up dirt on Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Parnas claimed that Donald Trump “knew exactly what was going on,” and he also implicated Vice-President Mike Pence. “This is a man who is under indictment and who’s actually out on bail,” Grisham said on Fox & Friends, Donald Trump’s favorite morning show. “This is a man who owns a company called Fraud Inc. . . . We’re not too concerned about it. We know that everything in the Senate is going to be fair.”

The first part of what Grisham said was correct. After being arrested in October as he prepared to board a flight to Vienna, Parnas, a forty-seven-year-old Soviet émigré who grew up in Brooklyn, was charged with four counts of violating campaign-finance laws by trying to hide the source of political donations that originated in Russia. Campaign-finance records show that he listed his employer as Fraud Guarantee, a Florida company that, according to its Web site, helps people “reduce the risk of fraud as well as mitigate the damage caused by fraudulent acts.”

This was just one of many business ventures with which Parnas, who has lived in Florida for many years, has been associated. Others involved stockbroking, bullion dealing, and film production. After Parnas was arrested, the Miami Herald described him as a “former stock broker who has left a long trail of debts in Florida and beyond.” The wife of one of his debtors, who is pursuing a legal judgement of five hundred thousand dollars against him, told the Herald, “He financially ruined us.”  Continue reading.

Rick Santorum flattened by CNN’s Berman after calling Parnas bombshell revelations ‘extraneous’ to impeachment

AlterNet logoRick Santorum and CNN’s John Berman got into a frantic back-and-forth on Friday morning after the former Republican senator attempted to dismiss the revelations by former Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas as something that should not be submitted as evidence in the impeachment trial of Donald Trump.

Discussing the Senate trial expected to start next week, Santorum said the only testimony and witnesses that should be allowed are ones that came up in the earlier House hearings.

“The House’s responsibility to bring to us a case,” Santorum stated. “They’re the one who is said these are offenses that are worthy of the president being removed from office; here is the record, here are the charges. The Senate didn’t impeach, the House did, so we are going to look at the record the House presented us. We’re going to look at the witnesses and say are there are questions that we have for the people that brought this case forward and relied on these witnesses and look at their testimony.” Continue reading.

GOP Senators Swear To Do ‘Impartial Justice’

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts officially swore in senators on Thursday for the impeachment trial of Donald Trump, asking all senators to take an oath of impartiality.

“Do you solemnly swear that in all things appertaining to the trial of the impeachment of Donald John Trump, president of the United States, now pending, you will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws, so help you God?” reads the oath 99 senators swore, signing their name in a book to make their oath official. One senator was missing from the swearing in: Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe, who was in his home state tending to a sick family member.

By taking that oath, however, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham committed perjury, as both previously said aloud that they do not plan to be impartial at all. Continue reading.

Trump trial poses toughest test yet for Roberts

The Hill logoChief Justice John Roberts will soon discover firsthand that while the Supreme Court and the Senate sit on adjacent Washington city blocks, the two institutions occupy separate worlds.

Roberts on Thursday appeared in the Senate in his black robes to preside over President Trump‘s impeachment trial, leaving the collegiality of the court for a chamber marked in recent years by partisan fighting.

The chief justice was led by a procession of Judiciary Committee and Rules Committee members to the well of the chamber. There, he raised his right hand and swore to do “impartial justice” — the kind of oath he is more accustomed to hearing from advocates before the Supreme Court. Continue reading.

Here’s what the Parnas revelations mean for Trump

What’s Lev Parnas up to? How strong is his new evidence? Are there more bombshells coming?

Lev Parnas, the indicted Rudy Giuliani associate at the center of the Ukraine controversy, has disrupted the days leading up to President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial.

With a slate of newly released documents from House investigators and round of TV interviews, Parnas and his attorney have offered remarkable — if true — details about just how far Trump and his allies were willing to go to dig up dirt on the president’s potential 2020 rival, Joe Biden.

Text exchanges show potential surveillance of the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch. Digital chats reveal Ukraine’s former prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko, dangling dirt on Biden in exchange for Yovanovitch’s firing. And Parnas has alleged he was acting at the behest of the president. Continue reading.

With stakes beyond task at hand, John Roberts takes central role in Trump’s impeachment trial

Washington Post logoWith an oath of impartiality, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. on Thursday became only the third American sworn to preside over a presidential impeachment trial.

How he fulfills that pledge will have obvious consequences for President Trump. But it also will shape the public image of the nation’s 17th chief justice, and it holds ramifications for the Supreme Court and federal judiciary he leads. He portrays both as places where partisan politics have no purchase.

“And now he crosses First Street, where it’s all about partisan politics,” said Harvard law professor Richard Lazarus, referring to the roadway in Washington that separates the Supreme Court from Congress. Continue reading.

Ukraine to probe possible surveillance of U.S. envoy as FBI approaches man who claimed to have tracked her

Washington Post logoKYIV — Ukrainian authorities announced a probe Thursday into the possible surveillance of U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch that a critic claimed to have orchestrated from the United States before President Trump dismissed her from the post, and the FBI visited the critic’s home and business apparently seeking more information.

The statement by Ukraine’s Interior Ministry and subsequent FBI action followed the disclosure of new documents related to the impeachment case against Trump. The material included exchanges between Lev Parnas, a then-associate of Trump’s personal attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani, and others about the need to oust Yovanovitch.

The documents — provided to the House Intelligence Committee by Parnas — include messages with Robert F. Hyde, a Connecticut Republican who is running for a seat in Congress. In those exchanges, Parnas was informed about Yovanovitch’s physical location.  Continue reading.

Lev Parnas Steps Back From Texts Alleging Surveillance Of U.S. Ambassador In Ukraine

A lawyer for former U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch is calling for an investigation after materials released Tuesday night as part of the impeachment inquiry suggested she was under surveillance by individuals linked to President Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani.

That detail was among a trove of documents provided by Giuliani associate Lev Parnas that were made public by the House Intelligence Committee late Tuesday. The House impeached Trump last month for abuse of office and obstruction of Congress, and lawmakers delivered articles to the Senate Wednesday, where a trial is likely to open next week.

The records provided by Parnas, who has been indicted in New York for alleged campaign finance violations, add to the evidence already released documenting Giuliani’s efforts to get the new Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to publicly announce an investigation related to former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, who had ties to a Ukrainian energy company.  Continue reading.

New Evidence Shows Trump Team Offered Ukraine More Than One Quid Pro Quo for Biden Dirt

Documents made public Tuesday provide new insight into the breadth of President Donald Trump’s effort to extract dirt from Ukraine on the Bidens and show Rudy Giuliani was actively soliciting information on Burisma and Joe Biden’s son Hunter even before the interactions with newly elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that led to Trump’s impeachment. The new material released by House Democrats shows Trump’s team offering up what appears to be another quid pro quo to the previous regime in Ukraine, as well as admitting to surveilling the U.S. ambassador in Ukraine.

The Trump administration, and Republicans generally, has for months been disingenuously condemning the impeachment inquiry as incomplete because of a lack of witnesses and documentation, while simultaneously refusing to allow administration witnesses to testify and stonewalling document requests. The latest release shows how little we actually know as a result and how bad it all is already, as the messages appear to show Trump’s team, led by Giuliani and his associate Lev Parnas, attempting to procure damaging information on Burisma from Ukraine’s top prosecutor, Yuriy Lutsenko, as early as March. In return, Lutsenko was demanding the removal of the American ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, who had been critical of the regime’s anemic anti-corruption efforts. Continue reading “New Evidence Shows Trump Team Offered Ukraine More Than One Quid Pro Quo for Biden Dirt”