Way and Means have the IRS one and Intel is handling the Ukraine one.
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And a potential bribery scam for T and Wayne LaPierre…which Rep Lieu and Rice are urging FBI head Wray to look into.
@Pet_Proletariat - More circling of the wagons 
October 3, 2019
Press Release
WASHINGTON – Congressman Ted W. Lieu (D-Los Angeles County) and Congresswoman Kathleen Rice (D-NY) today sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray asking him to investigate whether the Chief Executive of the National Rifle Association, Wayne LaPierre, attempted to bribe President Trump after it was reported that he met with the President and offered him some form of support in exchange for a commitment to oppose new gun control measures.
Dear Director Wray,
We are writing with serious concerns regarding a September 27 meeting between President Trump and Wayne LaPierre, the Chief Executive and Executive Vice President of the National Rifle Association. We respectfully request you investigate whether Mr. LaPierre attempted to bribe the President.
During the meeting, which was first reported by the New York Times, it is alleged that Mr. LaPierre and President Trump discussed gun control legislation and the potential for the N.R.A. to provide support to the President as he faces an impeachment inquiry in the House. The New York Times reported that the Mr. LaPierre offered such support if the President would “stop the games” with gun legislation and cease pursuing new gun control measures.
As former prosecutors, we are deeply troubled that Mr. LaPierre discussed with the President these two subjects in the same conversation. Depending on what exactly was said, it would either be massively inappropriate or an attempt at bribery, which is prohibited under 18 U.S.C. 201 (b). In executing its “top criminal investigative priority” of combatting public corruption, we believe the FBI has a duty to swiftly examine this potentially illegal behavior.
We appreciate your attention to this matter and look forward to hearing from you in a timely manner.
Sincerely,
Ted W. Lieu
Member of Congress
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This a must read! The President and his aids are pushing 4chan conspiracy theories about his election as part of US foreign policy efforts. Wow, I feel like we all knew President Trump believed this stuff but to push it out through official channels to extort our allies for political gain in an election was unthinkable. Who knew the Trump Presidency could get even weirder and more bombastic?! 
An anonymous post from March 2017 on the far-right 4chan message board teased a conspiracy theory that would eventually make its way to the White House.
“Russia could not have been the source of leaked Democrat emails released by Wikileaks,” the post teased, not citing any evidence for the assertion.
The post baselessly insinuated that CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm that worked with the Democratic National Committee and had been contracted to investigate a hack of its servers, fabricated a forensics report to frame Russia for election interference. The 4chan post was published three days before then-FBI Director James Comey testified before Congress about Russian interference in the 2016 election.
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House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) told reporters Thursday that President Trump’s call for China to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden is “repugnant” and “ought to be condemned by every member” of Congress.
"A president of the United States encouraging a foreign nation to interfere again to help his campaign by investigating a rival is a fundamental breach of the presidential oath."
Why it matters: Schiff has been tasked with leading the impeachment investigation into Trump’s alleged efforts to push the government of Ukraine to investigate Biden. As that investigation heats up, Trump on Thursday appeared to again call for a foreign power to interfere in the 2020 election — this time in public.
The big picture: Schiff spoke to reporters outside an ongoing deposition with former special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker, who resigned last week after being named in the whistleblower complaint.
- Volker is expected to testify that he did not know that military aid to Ukraine had been frozen at the time of Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, but that he was aware of Rudy Giuliani’s interest in having Ukraine investigate Biden, per the New York Times.
- Volker reportedly told Giuliani that he believed allegations about the Bidens were baseless and has told colleagues he was not involved in the pressure campaign.
- The whistleblower complaint notes that after the July phone call, Volker and U.S. Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland met with Ukrainian officials and provided them with advice on how to “navigate” Trump’s demands.
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President Trump ordered the removal of the ambassador to Ukraine after months of complaints from allies outside the administration, including his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, that she was undermining him abroad and obstructing efforts to persuade Kyiv to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, according to people familiar with the matter.
The recall of Marie Yovanovitch in the spring has become a key point of interest in the House impeachment inquiry. A whistleblower complaint by a CIA officer alleges the president solicited foreign interference in the 2020 elections by pressing Ukraine’s president in a July 25 call to pursue investigations, including into the activities of Mr. Biden, a Democrat who is running for president.
The complaint cites Ms. Yovanovitch’s ouster as one of a series of events that paved the way for what the whistleblower alleges was an abuse of power by the president. Mr. Trump has described the call with his Ukrainian counterpart as “perfect” and the House inquiry as a “hoax.”
[…]
Presidents have the authority to nominate and remove ambassadors. But senior officials at the White House and State Department say they had been unaware of the president’s displeasure with Ms. Yovanovitch and surprised by her removal.
Mr. Giuliani isn’t the only figure outside the administration to have expressed concerns about the ambassador. As early as the spring of 2018, Pete Sessions, at the time a GOP congressman from Texas, sent a letter to Mr. Pompeo asking for her removal, saying he had been told Ms. Yovanovitch was displaying a bias against the president in private conversations.
Mr. Sessions told the Journal he didn’t follow up on the matter and didn’t hear until months later about Mr. Trump’s interest in replacing her. He declined to say where his information about the ambassador came from but said his letter was in line with a broader concern among members of Congress that the administration wasn’t moving swiftly enough to put new ambassadors in place.
In a March 2019 interview with a columnist at The Hill, Mr. Lutsenko complained that the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv was obstructing corruption investigations, including by providing a “do not prosecute” list and restricting Ukrainian access to the U.S. Mr. Lutsenko’s claim is mentioned in the whistleblower complaint.
The U.S. State Department at the time called the untouchables list claim an “outright fabrication.” Mr. Lutsenko later retracted the allegation about the list and said had no evidence of Biden wrongdoing. He was dismissed in August.
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More from Ex Ambassador Volker and some details are coming out regarding how two American diplomats wanted to fully investigate the Biden angle in Ukraine, and acknowledge that military funds were being withheld. And they were just following what was asked…they are adherents to the T presidency.
Wow…
Two of President Trump’s top envoys to Ukraine drafted a statement for the country’s new president in August that would have committed Ukraine to pursuing investigations sought by Mr. Trump into his political rivals, three people briefed on the effort said.
The drafting of the statement marks new evidence of how Mr. Trump’s fixation with Ukraine began driving senior diplomats to bend American foreign policy to the president’s political agenda in the weeks after the July 25 call between the two leaders.
The statement was drafted by Gordon D. Sondland, the United States ambassador to the European Union, and Kurt D. Volker, then the State Department’s envoy to Ukraine, according to the three people who have been briefed on it.
Mr. Volker spent Thursday on Capitol Hill being questioned by House investigators as Democrats pursued their impeachment inquiry into Mr. Trump’s actions. He disclosed a set of texts in September in which Bill Taylor, the top American diplomat in Ukraine, alluded to Mr. Trump’s decision earlier in the summer to freeze a military aid package to the country. He told Mr. Sondland and Mr. Volker: “I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.”
After speaking with Mr. Trump, Mr. Sondland texted back that there was no quid pro quo, adding, “I suggest we stop the back and forth by text.”
It was not clear if the statement drafted in August by Mr. Sondland and Mr. Volker came up in the closed-door session on Capitol Hill.
The statement was written with the awareness of a top aide to the Ukrainian president, as well as Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer and the de facto leader of a shadow campaign to push the Ukrainians to press ahead with investigations that could be of political benefit to Mr. Trump, according to one of the people briefed on it.
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And yet, T did ask Xi for some help with the Bidens as well as Elizabeth Warren. Details of the phone call on June 18 were stowed in the super secret file.
Thursday’s comments weren’t the first time Trump has injected Biden into his relationship with China, though he said Thursday he has never pushed Xi to investigate the former vice president. Nor is it the first time he has sought to trade favors with Xi, who this week celebrated the 70th birthday of his ruling communist party with a note of congratulations from Trump.
During a phone call with Xi on June 18, Trump raised Biden’s political prospects as well as those of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who by then had started rising in the polls, according to two people familiar with the discussion. In that call, Trump also told Xi he would remain quiet on Hong Kong protests as trade talks progressed.
The White House record of that call was later stored in the highly secured electronic system used to house a now-infamous phone call with Ukraine’s President and which helped spark a whistleblower complaint that’s led Democrats to open an impeachment inquiry into Trump.
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This seems pretty big…‘ample evidence’ of more ‘requirements’ to get Zelensky to do T’s bidding. Rep Swalwell would have been in those Committee meetings today with Volker.
Let’s hope it is an impeachable amount. 
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That text, from our top Ukranian diplomat, says it all! I hope Democrats read this at the start of every press conference for the next week.
And it’s just as enlightening to see who pushed back: Gordon Sondland, the United States Ambassador to the European Union. Sondland texted back to Taylor that he was incorrect. Is it just a coincidence that Sondland is a Republican megadonor who contributed over $1 million AND was then subsequently appointed as the U.S. Ambasssodor to the EU?
Sondland is scheduled to testify next week. Based on his history of enabling Trump’s schemes, I believe we can expect that he will be a hostile witness.
@Pet_Proletariat and @dragonfly9 have already drawn attention to this blockbuster story – I just wanted to highlight some of the ABC reporting that reveals Sondland’s role:
In newly disclosed text messages shared with Congress, the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine writes to a group of other American diplomats that "I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.”
The exchange, provided by another American diplomat, former U.S Special Envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker, as part of his closed-door deposition before multiple House committees Thursday, shows what appears to be encrypted text messages he exchanged with two other American diplomats in September regarding aid money President Donald Trump ordered to be held back from Ukraine.
In the Sept. 9 exchange, obtained by ABC News, the concerns are expressed by Bill Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat to Ukraine. Gordon Sondland, the United States Ambassador to the European Union, responds to Taylor, saying that charge is "incorrect."
“Bill, I believe you are incorrect about President Trump’s intentions. The President has been crystal clear: no quid pro quo’s of any kind. The President is trying to evaluate whether Ukraine is truly going to adopt the transparency and reforms that President Zelenskiy promised during his campaign,” Sondland says.
Sondland then suggests … the group take the conversations off line, typing, “I suggest we stop the back and forth by text.” …
Sonland, a hotelier and Republican megadonor, contributed over $1 million to the president’s inaugural committee before eventually being nominated and confirmed to be the United States representative to the European Union, serving since July 2018. He has assisted the effort by Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to contact Ukrainian officials about an investigation, according to Giuliani, who says he briefed Sondland and Volker after his meetings.
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Yes I wonder this too. 
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25 page letter/recap from Rep Schif (Intelligence) , Rep Engel (Foreign Affairs) and Rep Cummings (Oversight) of where we are as of today on the Impeachment Inquiry. The Dems are making a concerted effort to keep Americans informed with press conferences (Rep Schiff & Pelosi - 10.2.19, and hearings - multiple)
Schiff is getting criticized by some R’s asking him to step down because he was aware of the Whistleblower complaint prior to it’s release.
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This may duplicate some of what has already been posted, but I believe there is some crucial new information here as well.
Text messages released on Thursday between US diplomats and a senior Ukrainian aide show how a potential Ukrainian investigation into the 2016 election was linked to a desired meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and US President Donald Trump.
The text messages, which were released by the House Intelligence Committee, also show how Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, was closely connected with US policy on Ukraine and was involved in setting up the July 25 phone call between Trump and Zelensky in which Trump urged an investigation into Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.
They show how cognizant the Ukrainians were about the importance of the election investigation to Trump and Giuliani’s role.
On the morning of the call, in an exchange with a key adviser to the Ukrainian President, then-US Special Envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker made clear that it was important to the White House that Zelensky convince Trump that an investigation into the 2016 election would happen.
"Heard from the White House – assuming President Z convinces trump he will investigate/‘get to the bottom of what happened’ in 2016, we will nail down date for visit to Washington," Volker said via text to the Ukrainian adviser on the morning of July 25.
It was a message that seemed to register with the Ukrainian administration. A source familiar with the matter tells CNN that the Ukrainian government wrote a statement for public release committing to pursue investigations of corruption.
The New York Times was first to report on the existence of the statement, saying instead that it had been drafted this summer by Volker and US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland. But the source told CNN that Ukrainians’ purpose in drafting the statement was to try to reinforce with Giuliani, who the Ukrainians knew had influence with Trump, that there was a new team in Ukraine with Zelensky that was committed to cleaning up corruption in Ukraine.
According to the Times, the statement would have committed Ukraine to investigate an energy company that employed former Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter. The statement also would have called on the country to investigate what Trump has perceived as Ukrainian interference in the 2016 US election to benefit Hillary Clinton, the paper reported.
The statement was shared with Volker and Sondland, who then shared it with Giuliani, according to the source. It was Giuliani who said to Volker that it did not go far enough and suggested inserting references to pursuing probes of Burisma and the 2016 election. Burisma is the Ukrainian company that hired Hunter Biden to be on its board.
Volker and Sondland then exchanged text messages about the draft, which Volker said he would share with an adviser to Zelensky. The Ukrainians told Volker they were not comfortable with the suggested statement, and the matter was ultimately dropped while a meeting between Zelensky and Trump continued to be pursued, the source said.
The source explained the context of the statement about the investigation after the discussion was included in text messages provided to Congress ahead of Volker’s closed-door testimony on Thursday. …
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Great job everyone!! Did you see @matt, put us in the newsletter! And we have a new url to share for just this thread
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I did not see, where? Also, with how fast stuff is coming out now, I fully expect a lot of these avalanche news days going forward!
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Trump can’t claim ignorance of the law since the FEC chair already reprimanded him back in June on this very issue. Now, minutes after Trump publicly solicited help from two different foreign governments (China and Ukraine) in generating dirt on a political rival, the FEC chair reprimanded him again and she did so using the same letter she had sent in June.
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Cross-posting 
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Two reporters from two different sides of the aisle tell the fundamental truth about the T Impeachment story as they see it. The funny thing is they totally agree…T is grossly misusing his power and dismantling our democratic ideals and laws
Shep Smith Fox
Chuck Todd - NBC
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Buzzfeed got ahold of Volker’s prepared remarks.
Former Special Envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker testified before members of Congress on Thursday. While the meeting was private and a full transcript has not been released, his prepared remarks were obtained by BuzzFeed News.
House Democrats on Thursday night also released text messages that Volker gave to Congress during his testimony that revealed him and other US and Ukrainian officials discussing the quid pro quo at the heart of the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.
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Mr. Volker spent Thursday on Capitol Hill being questioned by House investigators as Democrats pursued their impeachment inquiry into Mr. Trump’s actions.
Late Thursday, House Democrats released a series of texts between Mr. Volker, Mr. Sondland and Andriy Yermak, a top aide to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, that also showed that officials in both countries understood that Mr. Trump would not grant Mr. Zelensky an Oval Office meeting he was seeking until Ukraine agreed to make a public commitment to the investigations being sought by the American side.
The texts also showed the three men discussing language for the proposed statement. On the morning of Aug. 13, Mr. Volker sent Mr. Sondland language they wanted added to an earlier draft sent by the Ukrainians.
“We intend to initiate and complete a transparent and unbiased investigation of all available facts and episodes, including those involving Burisma and the 2016 U.S. elections, which in turn will prevent the recurrence of this problem in the future,” Mr. Volker said in what appears to be the language he was proposing.
Mr. Sondland quickly replied, “Perfect,” adding that they should send it along to an adviser to the Ukrainian president.
Four days later, Mr. Sondland texted Mr. Volker, asking if they still wanted the Ukrainian president “to give us an unequivocal draft” specifically citing the two issues that Mr. Trump has been focused on: Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company that had put Mr. Biden’s younger son, Hunter Biden, on its board, and Mr. Trump’s belief that Ukraine had interfered in the 2016 American elections to benefit Hillary Clinton.
Mr. Volker replied: “That’s the clear message so far …”
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