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The Impeachment of President Donald J. Trump

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#1206

House Democrats Release Transcripts of Yovanovitch, McKinley Impeachment Testimony

The former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine testified to impeachment investigators last month that she was shocked when she learned that President Trump had described her as “bad news” in a July 25 call with his Ukrainian counterpart, according to a transcript of her deposition released by House committees.

Marie Yovanovitch, whom Mr. Trump ordered removed from her ambassador post this spring, told investigators: “I was very surprised that President Trump would—first of all, that I would feature repeatedly in a presidential phone call, but secondly, that the President would speak about me or any ambassador in that way to a foreign counterpart.”

The transcript of Ms. Yovanovitch’s testimony was one of two released Monday by House committees running the impeachment inquiry. The committees also released a transcript of testimony by Michael McKinley, a former senior adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who resigned from his post last month.

[…]

Ms. Yovanovitch also testified that she felt threatened by Mr. Trump’s assertion in that call that she would “go through some things.” She said: “I didn’t know what it meant. I was very concerned. I still am.”

The former ambassador also testified that there was a “concerted campaign” against her by Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. Mr. Trump ordered her removal this spring after hearing from Mr. Giuliani and others that Ms. Yovanovitch was allegedly undermining him abroad, including obstructing investigations Mr. Giuliani was pursuing into Democrat Joe Biden and election interference.

Ms. Yovanovitch said she learned in late 2018 from Ukrainian officials that Mr. Giuliani was planning to target her. One official told her he was “very concerned” about Mr. Giuliani and “told me I really needed to watch my back.”

Bad news, watch your back, she’s going to go through some things?

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#1207

Ousted Ukraine ambassador Yovanovitch says she was told to tweet praise of Trump to save her job

Marie Yovanovitch, the ousted U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, told House impeachment investigators last month that U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland told her she should tweet out support or praise for President Donald Trump if she wanted to save her job, according to a transcript of her testimony made public Monday.

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#1208

Trump signals alarm as Democrats’ public impeachment push accelerates

https://www-m.cnn.com/2019/11/04/politics/donald-trump-impeachment-democrats-witnesses-republicans-hearings/index.html?r=https%3A%2F%2Fcurrentstatus.io%2F

Democrats have launched a critical new phase of their impeachment investigation by releasing first transcripts of witness depositions as they seek to build a public case that President Donald Trump abused his power in a rogue foreign policy operation in Ukraine.

Three committees investigating the scandal released transcripts and summaries of closed-door interviews with the former US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch and Michael McKinley, a former senior adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

The move signals the start of a shift from closed-doors investigation of Trump’s covert Ukraine policy into an attempt to convince Americans that he should be removed from office in dramatic televised hearings.

Signs that the release of testimony was imminent prompted Trump to issue a torrent of personal abuse against House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff, that was extraordinarily personal even by his own standards.

I love this paragraph.

“Signs that the release of testimony was imminent prompted Trump to issue a torrent of personal abuse against House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff, that was extraordinarily personal even by his own standards”

Perfect.

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#1209

Amid impeachment drive, the pro-Trump search for dirt on Ukraine and the Bidens goes on

Those working in common cause with the president’s and Giuliani’s campaign to get Ukraine to investigate Trump’s political opponents are moving ahead.

While Congress heard closed-door testimony last week about President Donald Trump pushing Ukraine to investigate his opponents, Rudy Giuliani was holding his own private Ukraine meeting in his Manhattan office.

Giuliani, the Trump personal lawyer at the center of the firestorm as Trump faces likely impeachment, met with former Ukrainian diplomat Andriy Telizhenko, who alleges that Ukraine’s government conspired with the Democratic National Committee to hurt Trump in 2016.

"We discussed what’s happening in Ukraine, political updates, what the new (Ukrainian presidential) team is up to, what are the reforms going to be," Telizhenko said in an interview with NBC News. Giuliani has interviewed him for hours about his Ukraine allegations, although Telizhenko said their most recent meeting wasn’t focused on investigations. "We’re friends now. He respects our country."

Far from keeping their heads down, those working in common cause with the president’s and Giuliani’s campaign to get Ukraine to investigate Trump’s political opponents are moving ahead unabated, interviews in Kyiv and Washington with several of those involved reveal.

Their efforts come despite intense scrutiny from Congress, law enforcement and the media. Under oath, a parade of current and former U.S. officials have testified that Trump and his envoys leveraged a coveted White House meeting and military aid to Ukraine to pressure new President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to commit publicly to investigations into both the 2016 election and the Biden family.

In Ukraine, a group of parliamentarians are even working to stand up a new investigative commission — the Ukrainian analogue to a congressional select committee — to probe what they say was a Ukrainian government campaign to smear former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort in a bid to take down Trump in 2016. They also want to investigate the Bidens.

"Ukraine was involved in like the biggest scandal in recent U.S. political history, let alone Ukrainian. Definitely most of my colleagues here pretend it doesn’t exist," said Oleg Voloshin, a lawmaker and Manafort associate, in an interview just outside the Rada, Ukraine’s Parliament. "It started here, and it should finish here."

:flushed: So Trump and Giuliani never stopped trying to get Ukraine to investigate VP Joe Biden? Democrats need to move even faster. This is a clear threat to our national security! Fuck!

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#1210

Remember what Trump said about Kim Jong Un. KIM’s people stand at attention. Trump wished his would do the same.

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#1211

Very helter skelter approach…very bad.

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#1212

The tweet she references there is wild also. Seriously, we told our own ambassador to run for the hills or else!

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#1213

Exclusive: Giuliani associate now willing to comply with Trump impeachment inquiry - lawyer

https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN1XE297

Lev Parnas, an indicted Ukrainian-American businessman who has ties to President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, is now prepared to comply with requests for records and testimony from congressional impeachment investigators, his lawyer told Reuters on Monday.

Parnas, who helped Giuliani look for dirt on Trump’s political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, is a key figure in the impeachment inquiry that is examining whether Trump abused his office for personal political gain.

His apparent decision to now work with the congressional committees represents a change of heart. Parnas rebuffed a request from three House of Representatives committees last month to provide documents and testimony.

“We will honor and not avoid the committee’s requests to the extent they are legally proper, while scrupulously protecting Mr Parnas’ privileges including that of the Fifth Amendment,” said the lawyer, Joseph Bondy, referring to his client’s constitutional right to avoid self-incrimination.

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#1214

TRUMP%20PARNAS%20GIULIANI

And a little twitter humor to add to the story…:rofl:

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#1215

I’ve just been told the Volker and Sondland transcripts will be released tomorrow. This should be fun.

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#1216

And Rep Jordan’s snitty tweet…when in fact it was determined Volker’s testimony would be released.

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#1217

These RNCers are something else…

The Republican National Committee paid to generate thousands of calls to the congressional offices of nearly three dozen House Democrats in recent weeks, an effort that was aimed at both shaping opinion around the impeachment inquiry and tying up the phone lines of the elected officials, according to two people briefed on the effort.

The calls were part of a broader effort by Republicans to influence public opinion around the investigation into President Trump. The Trump campaign and the Republican committee have taken the lead on political messaging defending Mr. Trump at a moment of political vulnerability, using television and digital ads, as well as the phone calls.

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#1218

Our :boom: Lawfare guy…gets the one page of reading on Yovonovich’s testimony that gets right to the crux of who did what to whom…

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#1219

Wait, WHAT?

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#1220

Cross-posting :pray:

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#1221

Who the fuck has testified?

Working on an update, took me hours to put this like together and I’m still not finished… help me out, who am I missing?

Closed Door Hearing:

  • 10/04/19 Appeared - Michael Atkinson, the inspector general of the intelligence community

Closed Door Depositions:

Note: All depositions for Oct. 24 and 25 have been postponed due to services for the late former House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.

  • 10/24/19 Postponed - Alexander Vindman, the National Security Council director for European Affairs and an expert on Ukraine
  • 10/24/19 Postponed - Kathryn Wheelbarger, the acting assistant secretary for international security affairs
  • 10/25/19 Postponed - Suriya Jayanti, a foreign service officer stationed in Kyiv who specialized in energy issues
  • 10/25/19 Refused - Russell Vought, White House Office of Management and Budget acting director
  • 10/26/19 Appeared - Philip Reeker, the acting assistant secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs
  • 10/28/19 Refused/filed a lawsuit - Charles Kupperman, former Deputy National Security Adviser to John Bolton
  • 10/29/19 Appeared - Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman, European affairs director at the National Security Council
  • 10/30/19 Appeared - Catherine Croft, State Department Ukraine expert
  • 10/30/19 Appeared - Christopher Anderson, State Department Ukraine expert
  • 10/30/19 - Refused - Kathryn Wheelbarger, the acting assistant secretary for international security affairs
  • 10/31/19 Appeared - Timothy Morrison, the former senior director for Russian affairs at the National Security Council
  • 10/04/19 Refused - Robert Blair, a senior adviser to acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney
  • 10/04/19 Refused - Brian McCormack, director of natural resources, energy and science at the White House Office of Management and Budget
  • 10/04/19 Blocked - John Eisenberg, National Security Council lawyer
  • 10/04/19 Refused - Michael Ellis, National Security Council lawyer
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Day 1019
#1222

Watch Trump’s Secretary of State lie through his teeth to cover up Trump’s extortion scheme

Mike Pompeo lies with relaxed confidence as he tells CNN’s George Stephanopoulos that his senior adviser, Michael McKinley, never once spoke to him about his dissatisfaction with how ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was being treated. When in fact, McKinley did so on three separate occasions, as he testified under oath.

https://youtu.be/QcMtRj_l2NY?t=877
(This link will drop you at 14:37, then watch for 1 min.)

Here’s what really happened (from WaPo live feed):

5:30 p.m.: McKinley said he pushed three times for a statement supporting Yovanovitch, contrary to Pompeo’s claim to ABC News

McKinley testified that he asked Pompeo on three separate occasions to issue a public statement of support for Yovanovitch. But in an interview on ABC News’s “This Week” last month, Pompeo claimed that he had “never heard” McKinley say anything about his concerns.

“You know, from the time that Ambassador Yovanovitch departed Ukraine until the time that [McKinley] came to tell me that he was departing, I never heard him say a single thing about his concerns with respect to the decision that was made,” Pompeo told host George Stephanopoulos during the Oct. 20 appearance. “Not once, George, did Ambassador McKinley say something to me during that entire time period.”

Asked whether he had ever been urged to issue a statement in support of Yovanovitch, Pompeo declined to say.

“I’m not going to talk about private conversations that I had with my most trusted advisers,” he said.

In his testimony, McKinley said he called Pompeo at one point and suggested that the State Department release a short statement of support for Yovanovitch, to praise her “professionalism and courage.” Pompeo, he said, listened without response.

McKinley also told Pompeo on Sept. 30 that he was resigning in part due to the “lack of public support for Department employees.” Pompeo again did not respond, he said.

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Humor, memes, funny internet stuff etc
#1223

These clowns taunt…and tamper because it represents their #BullySpirit

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#1224


The GOP and its propaganda outlets are playing a dangerous game of chicken with how they’re treating the whistleblower.

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#1225

Republicans consider moving Jim Jordan to House Intelligence Committee

As the impeachment inquiryenters its public phase, top Republicans in the House are weighing whether to temporarily assign Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the panel that will conduct the initial public hearings. Discussions about adding Jordan to the committee are “active and serious,” a senior Republican involved in the process told CBS News.

Jordan, currently the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee and an outspoken defender of President Trump, has essentially led Republican efforts in the closed-door impeachment proceedings thus far, where three committees have been able to participate. His top investigator, Steve Castor, has conducted the bulk of witness questioning.

If Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy were to temporarily assign Jordan to the Intelligence Committee, he would have to make room for him by removing a current member. The move would also undermine Devin Nunes, the committee’s top Republican. McCarthy has sole discretion over Intelligence Committee assignments.

"Democrats have turned the Intelligence Committee into an impeachment committee," said the senior Republican aide, who was granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. "We are interested in putting together the best team."

Imagine thinking Jim Jordan is the best. :joy:

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