The Evidence Against Trump (So Far)

After a week of public testimony in the impeachment inquiry, there are now mountains of transcripts regarding President Trump’s handling of relations with Ukraine. The argument for impeachment boils down to a comparatively few nuggets of information, however, and there is much chaff mixed with the grains of wheat. To that end, I thought it would be useful to identify some of the main pieces of evidence against the president.

So far, it is Gordon Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union, who has emerged as the key witness against the president. Sondland, a Seattle millionaire who made his money in the hotel industry, was a Trump supporter in 2016 but canceled a fundraiser for the Republican nominee after Trump attacked the Khan family, Muslim-American parents of a fallen US soldier. Sondland later donated $1 million to the Trump inaugural committee and was subsequently appointed ambassador to the EU in March 2018.

In his public testimony, Sondland, who said that he did not have “access to all of my phone records, State Department e-mails and many, many other State Department documents” and was “told I could not work with my E.U. staff to pull together the relevant files and information,” said that Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker “worked with Mr. Rudy Giuliani on Ukraine matters at the expressed direction of the president of the United States.” Together, Perry, Volker, and Sondland are referred to as “the Three Amigos.”

“We did not want to work with Mr. Giuliani,” Sondland said, but “We all understood that if we refused to work with Mr. Giuliani, we would lose a very important opportunity to cement relations between the United States and Ukraine. So, we followed the president's orders.”

“Mr. Giuliani's requests were a quid pro quo for arranging a White House visit for President Zelensky,” according to Sondland. “Mr. Giuliani demanded that Ukraine make a public statement announcing the investigations of the 2016 election/DNC server and Burisma. Mr. Giuliani was expressing the desires of the president of the United States, and we knew these investigations were important to the president.”

“In July and August of 2019, we learned that the White House had also suspended security aid to Ukraine. I was adamantly opposed to any suspension of aid,” Sondland continued. “I tried diligently to ask why the aid was suspended, but I never received a clear answer; still haven't to this day.”

After President Trump told the Three Amigos to “talk with Rudy,” Sondland says that the group kept other members of the Cabinet and White House staff in the loop, stressing that they believed that they were pursuing legitimate policy goals and were not a rogue operation. Specifically, Sondland named Secretary of State Pompeo, his Counselor Ulrich Brechbuhl, his Executive Secretary Lisa Kenna, Ambassador John Bolton, Dr. Fiona Hill, Tim Morrison, Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, and Mr. Mulvaney's Senior Advisor Rob Blair. Sondland also said that he raised his concerns about the delayed aid in a meeting with Vice President Pence that included several other people. So far, all of the people named by Sondland have refused to testify with the exceptions of Hill and Morrison.

“Everyone was in the loop,” Sondland said.

As it turns out, Rudy Giuliani had been working on the Ukrainians for a while already. The New York Times reported last May that Giuliani was headed to Ukraine in hopes of pushing the Ukrainians into investigating two matters that could benefit Trump in his quest for reelection. “One is the origin of the special counsel’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election,” The Times said. “The other is the involvement of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s son in a gas company owned by a Ukrainian oligarch.”

Sondland said he remembered the July 10 meeting with Ukrainians and recalled “mentioning the prerequisite of investigations before any White House call or meeting.” However, he disputed the accounts of NSC staffer Fiona Hill and Lt. Col. Vindman that John Bolton abruptly terminated the meeting at that point.

Over the course of the negotiations, the prerequisite for an investigation evolved into the mere announcement of an investigation. “He had to announce the investigations,” Sondland testified. “He didn't actually have to do them, as I understood it.”

In an answer to Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas), Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs George Kent made clear the nature of the statement that Zelensky was being asked to present. “That was not an anti-corruption statement, sir,” Kent said. The Three Amigos “shared a draft with Rudy Giuliani and Rudy Giuliani said it would not be acceptable if it didn't mention Biden, Burisma, and 2016.”

Sondland did not dispute David Holmes’ account of a phone call between Sondland and the president on July 26. He also said that he had no reason to believe that investigations were not discussed as Holmes testified. He said that the subject of the Burisma investigation likely came up because “because we had been hearing about it from Rudy and we presumed Rudy was getting it from the president.”

Sondland said that he first learned about the hold on the Ukrainian aid package on July 18. It was in this conference call that Ambassador Taylor testified that a White House Office of Management and Budget employee had said “her boss had instructed her not to approve any additional spending of security assistance for Ukraine until further notice.” The direct “boss” of the OMB is Mick Mulvaney, who also serves as chief of staff and reports directly to the president, but the term also could have referred to President Trump himself.

Negotiations had been in process with Ukraine since May regarding the phone call between Presidents Trump and Zelensky. Sondland said that the White House requests began as “very generic for an investigation of corruption in a very vanilla sense” but “as time went on, more specific items got added to the menu, including the Burisma and 2016 election meddling, specifically -- the DNC server, specifically.”

While Sondland says that he was not specifically told that the aid package was subject to the same conditions as the White House meeting, he says that was the implication. Indeed, Sondland said that he relayed that belief to Andriy Yernak, a top advisor to Zelensky, just after a meeting that included Pence during the vice president’s trip to Warsaw for the Sept. 1 anniversary of the beginning of World War II. Sondland also expressed his belief that release of the aid was connected to the announcement of investigations to Taylor and Lt. Col. Vindman.

Sondland also said around Sept. 9 that he finally asked the president “an open-ended question… what do you want from Ukraine?”

He said that Trump answered, “I want nothing. I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo. Tell Zelensky to do the right thing.” However, it should be noted that Trump’s denial came as the scheme was falling apart and the White House was gearing up for damage control.

The witnesses provide important background to the summary of the July 25 phone call between Trump and Zelensky. Several of the witnesses were present for the call and reported that they concerned enough to talk to legal counsel. The summary itself backs up the claims of the witnesses and is itself important evidence against President Trump.

On the call, Trump first laments that the relationship between Ukraine and the US is not “reciprocal.” Zelensky then says that Ukraine would like to buy more Javelin missiles from the US. Trump immediately responds by asking for a “favor.” Trump then specifically cites Crowdstrike, the company that investigated the DNC hack in 2016 and cites a discredited conspiracy theory that the DNC server was sent to Ukraine. Zelensky then responds that his administration has already been in contact with Rudy Giuliani on the matter. Trump next asks that Zelensky “look into” Burisma but specifically mentions “Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution… and Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution.” Zelensky promises that the new Ukrainian prosecutor “will look into the situation, specifically to the company that you mentioned….”

Ambassador Sondland was not on the July 25 call and said that he only read the transcript when it was publicly released. “Looking back, I find it very odd -- very odd that neither I, nor Ambassador Taylor, nor Ambassador Volker ever received a detailed read-out of that call with the Biden references,” he mused.

If any doubt as to the motives of Trump and Giuliani remained, Giuliani admitted in a CNN interview on Sept. 20 that he asked Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and on Oct. 17 Mick Mulvaney told reporters at a press conference that “corruption related to the DNC server” was “why we held up the money.” Back in June, as negotiations were underway on the “anti-corruption statement,” President Trump told George Stephanopoulos of ABC News, “ I think I'd take it” if a foreign country offered him dirt on a political opponent.

While it is true that no one has yet testified that President Trump directly ordered that the aid be exchanged for the Ukrainian announcement, there seems to have been no doubt among White House staff as to the president’s intent. There is an abundance of circumstantial evidence as well as the words of President Trump, Rudy Giuliani, and Mick Mulvaney that supports the understanding of the witnesses. There are also problems with the Republican denials.

First, only the president had the authority to delay the aid package. This is not a decision that could have been made by low-level staffers. Testimony indicates that the State, Defense, and NSC were unanimous in their disapproval of the delay even if they had the power to enact it. Even Mulvaney would not have made a call of this sort without presidential approval.

Second, the Trump Administration claimed that the aid was delayed due to concerns about corruption. In reality, the Defense Department had certified that Ukraine had met the congressional standards placed on the aid not once but twice. The first certification was in May, not long after the Times reported on Rudy Giuliani’s trip to Ukraine. The second was in July just prior to the conference call in which Sondler and Vindman learned of the hold placed by “the boss.”

Even though Ukraine had been certified as meeting the standards to receive the aid, the money was not released until more than two months later. The hold was finally removed from the aid package on Sept. 11, two days after the inspector general of the intelligence community notified Democrats and Republicans of the House intelligence committee that he had received the whistleblower complaint and found the information credible.

Finally, the Republican stonewalling lends credence to the claims of the witnesses against the Administration. So far, senior Trump Administration officials have denied the witness allegations, but have declined to do so under oath. The Administration has also refused congressional requests for documents and information. Failure to answer a congressional subpoena is itself grounds for impeachment per Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and it is fair to assume that if the Administration possessed exculpatory evidence that it would make it public.

The evidence that Donald Trump abused his office as president and bartered aid approved by Congress for an announcement of an investigation into Joe Biden that would benefit him personally is strong. The case is made stronger by the fact that Republicans who have direct knowledge of the President’s actions refuse to testify and provide exculpatory evidence. However, the president cannot escape the consequences of his actions by ordering his subordinates not to cooperate with Congress.

The Trump Administration should provide any information that could prove the president’s innocence to congressional investigators. At a minimum, Bolton, Mulvaney, and Pompeo should testify under oath so that the country can learn the truth.

To justify the president’s actions, the Trump Administration must explain why the aid to Ukraine was delayed for months and why it was not released until after the scandal broke.

If not, it’s time to impeach.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Impeachment Drives Wedge Between Trump And Pompeo

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has emerged as an official staunchly loyal to President Trump. Pompeo has worked to stonewall House Democrats in their impeachment investigation and refused to testify in the inquiry, but that may not be enough to keep him out of trouble with the president. Reports from current and recent administration officials indicate that Mr. Trump is not happy that many of Pompeo’s subordinates are speaking to Congress despite the Secretary’s instructions not to do so.

NBC News reports that “four current and former senior administration officials” have said that the president blames Secretary of State Pompeo for his appointments of several State Department officials who have recently testified about the Trump Administration’s mishandling of the foreign aid package to Ukraine. In particular, Mr. Trump is reportedly upset about the appointment of Bill Taylor, the Chargé d’Affaires Ad Interim For U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine whose testimony to House investigators established a quid pro quo in which the Trump Administration demanded favors from Ukraine to release the congressionally appropriated aid. Taylor was appointed temporary head of the Ukraine embassy last June after Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was recalled.

A senior official said that the opinion inside the White House “just felt like [Pompeo should] ‘rein your people in.’”

The impeachment inquiry has put Pompeo in a difficult position as the head of a federal department that now questions his leadership and as an advisor to a president who demands unflinching loyalty. With State Department officials alleging wrongdoing that Pompeo must have been aware of, the secretary is walking a tightrope.

“He feels like he's getting a bunch of blame from the president and the White House for having hired all these people who are turning against Trump,” an unnamed official said of Pompeo, “and that it's the State Department that is going to bring him down, so it's all Pompeo's fault.”

Back in October, Trump told reporters that Pompeo had made a mistake hiring Taylor, who he called a “Never Trumper.” Two days later, Pompeo was conspicuously absent from the national security team that was present when a US military force launched a raid that killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Pompeo was home in Kansas for a friend’s wedding.

Pompeo reportedly defended himself to the president by saying that the State Department is a large agency where he cannot be expected to know and control every employee. Nevertheless, sources say that “Pompeo feels under siege” and continues to be “iced out.” He is still present for meetings, but Trump listens to him less.

From the other side, Pompeo has lost credibility with State Department employees for not standing up to the unethical behavior of President Trump and his shadow diplomatic team. National Security Advisor Michael Bolton reportedly pushed back on the quid pro quo scheme, but there have been no reports that Pompeo tried to advise the president against the plan. He also stood by while Rudy Giuliani and his cohorts allegedly conducted a disinformation and character assassination campaign against Marie Yovanovitch. Ambassador Mike McKinley resigned over Pompeo’s refusal to defend Yovanovitch.

At its core, the friction between Trump and Pompeo is based on the fact that good people were appointed to positions in the State Department. These good people objected to the unethical conduct of the president, Rudy Giuliani, and others such as Gordon Sondland. If there had been no wrongdoing in Trump’s diplomacy, there would have been no reason for officials in the State Department to blow the whistle, but now Pompeo gets the blame for State Department employees showing disloyalty by blowing the whistle on the president’s scheme.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Bill Taylor Transcript Links Trump Directly To Quid Pro Quo For Aid

Another day brings another transcript of testimony that eviscerates the Trump Administration’s claim that there was no quid pro quo involving foreign aid for Ukraine. The House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, and Oversight committees released the transcript of Ambassador William Taylor, Chargé d’Affaires Ad Interim For U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine this afternoon, which filled in details from Taylor’s opening statement, which was released previously.

In a statement accompanying the transcripts, the chairs of the three committees said, “The testimony of Ambassador Taylor—a West Point graduate, Vietnam veteran, and nonpartisan diplomat—shows how President Trump withheld military aid to Ukraine and conditioned its release, as well as a vital White House meeting, on the President of Ukraine publicly announcing investigations into debunked conspiracy theories involving the Bidens and the 2016 election.”

The link to the complete testimony can be found here while another link containing select excerpts of the testimony is here.

Among the revelations from Taylor’s testimony, Ambassador Taylor said that there was an official diplomatic channel to Ukraine that included then-Special Envoy Kurt Volker, Ambassador Sondland, Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, and Rudy Giuliani as well as Taylor himself. The “irregular” policy channel eventually began to diverge from official US policy toward Ukraine.

This became obvious to Taylor on July 18 when, on a conference call, he heard “a staff person from the Office of Management and Budget say that there was a hold on security assistance to Ukraine but could not say why. Toward the end of this otherwise normal meeting, a voice on the call, the person who was off-screen, said that she was from OMB and her boss had instructed her not to approve any additional spending of security assistance for Ukraine until further notice.”

Taylor and the other participants in the call were astonished. “The Ukrainians were fighting the Russians and counted on not only the training and weapons but also the assurance of U.S. support,” he explained.

The origin of the order was said by the OMB staffer to come from President Trump. In Taylor’s words, “All that the OMB staff person said was that the directive had come from the President to the Chief of Staff to OMB.”

“In an instant, I realized that one of the key pillars of our strong support for Ukraine was threatened,” Taylor added. “The irregular policy channel was running contrary to the goals of longstanding U.S. policy,” policy that was approved by Congress. That longstanding aid included “weapons, it was training, it was the communications equipment, it was sustainables… [that] allowed Ukrainian soldiers to actually defend themselves.” The aid had been given under both the Obama and Trump Administrations.

Taylor also discussed the text message exchange with Gordon Sondland regarding the delayed aid in which Sondland asked Taylor to call him.

“During that phone call,” Taylor related, “Ambassador Sondland told me that President Trump had told him that he wants President Zelensky to state publicly that Ukraine will investigate Burisma and alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. Ambassador Sondland also told me that he now recognized that he had made a mistake by earlier telling Ukrainian officials to whom he spoke that a White House meeting with President Zelensky was dependent on a public announcement of investigations. In fact, Ambassador Sondland said everything was dependent on such an announcement, including security assistance. He said that President Trump wanted President Zelensky in a box by making public statement [sic] about ordering such investigations. In that same September 1st call, I told Ambassador Sondland that President Trump should have more respect for another head of state and that what he described was not in the interest of either President Trump or President Zelensky. At that point, I asked Ambassador Sondland to push back on President Trump’s demand. Ambassador Sondland pledged to try.”

The testimony undercuts Republican claims that there could be no quid pro quo because the Ukrainians were not aware of the hold on the aid by hinting at a prior conversation between Sondland and the Ukrainians that linked “everything” to Zelensky’s public announcement of investigations. The Ukrainians may have been aware of Trump’s demands as early as June 28 when the president held a phone call with Zelensky that cut out the regular diplomatic chain-of-command. This phone call was not monitored or transcribed outside of Trump and the irregulars.

President Trump continued to insist on Ukrainian action before he would release the aid. Taylor describes a conversation with Sondland in which he was told, “When a businessman is about to sign a check to someone who owes him something, the businessman asks that person to pay up before signing the check.” Taylor says that both Sondland and Volker used the term “signing the check” in conjunction with discussions about releasing the aid.

And because it always comes back to the Russians, Taylor described why the delay in aid and the pressure on Zelensky was detrimental to national security, telling the committee, “The Russians [are] loving it. The Russians are paying attention. The Russians are paying attention to how much support the Americans are going to provide the Ukrainians.”

“The Russians want to know how much support the Ukrainians are going to get in general, but also what kind of support from the Americans,” Taylor continued. “So the Russians are loving, would love, the humiliation of Zelensky at the hand of the Americans, and would give the Russians a freer hand, and I would quit.”

Ambassador Taylor’s testimony should be devastating to Donald Trump and his defenders. Not only does Taylor link the president directly to a quid pro quo that tied Ukrainian military aid and White House access to investigating a political opponent, he also undercuts claims that the Ukrainians did not know about the delay in aid until much later. The dishonesty of the White House claims about Trump’s phone call with Zelensky are troubling but totally expected but Taylor’s testimony, which has been corroborated by other witnesses, goes further. The ambassador paints a picture of a president who does not listen to advisors and who is willing to stab allies in the back for a momentary political gain, even as the lives of their soldiers are on the line.

Originally published on The Resurgent

A Trump Ukraine Appointee Just Testified To Quid Pro Quo For Military Aid

The White House and Republicans in Congress have spent weeks denying a quid pro quo. Those denials were undercut by text messages between State Department officials and again by last week’s Mick Mulvaney press conference. Those revelations pale in comparison to yesterday’s testimony by President Trump’s second-highest ranking diplomat in Ukraine.

The testimony of the second-in-command of the US embassy in the Ukraine was not open to the public, but Taylor’s opening statement has been released and it appears to be damning. Among the revelations that we know about from Taylor’s testimony, which was under oath, are that:

·        President Trump withheld aid to Ukraine even though there was reportedly no change in Ukraine policy

·        Rudy Giuliani’s “irregular policy channel was running contrary to goals of longstanding U.S. policy"

·        “Everything,” including military aid, was contingent upon Ukrainian President Zelensky making a public statement that “he is opening investigations of Biden and 2016 election interference”

·        Ambassador to Europe Gordon Sondland allegedly told Taylor, “When a businessman is about to sign a check to someone who owes him something, he said, the businessman asks that person to pay up before signing the check.”

As Erick Erickson pointed out, Taylor had pushed for a phone call between Trump and Zelensky, but his testimony indicates that he did not find out about the July 25 phone call until a month after it occurred. The transcript of the call was apparently quickly locked away with even a high-level diplomat such as Taylor not being deemed to have a need to know. This backs up the whistleblower’s claim that the record of the call was secured because the contents were incriminating.

As Erickson also pointed on Twitter, Taylor’s testimony is damning, especially if it can be backed up by both more supporting documents and additional witness testimony. The only real option for the White House is to attack the diplomat’s credibility. But that may be easier said than done.

https://twitter.com/EWErickson/status/1186752927794454529?s=20

While he is a career diplomat, Bill Taylor is not someone who can be easily dismissed as a liberal member of the Deep State. A graduate of West Point, Taylor served with the 82^nd Airborne and 101^st Airborne during his six years in the army. He served under both Democrats and Republicans in a variety of military and diplomatic roles before being appointed ambassador to Ukraine by George W. Bush in 2006. He served there until 2009 when he was replaced by an Obama appointee. He was subsequently appointed as Special Coordinator for Middle East Transitions and vice president of the US Institute of Peace by Obama. Taylor was appointed by President Trump to be the chargé d'affaires, the diplomat who runs the embassy in the ambassador’s absence, in the Ukraine in June 2019.

Bill Taylor’s testimony and the revelations yet to come put Republican senators in a bind. In words that he may quickly live to regret, Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has already said that he would consider impeachment if a quid pro quo could be established. Graham has not commented publicly on Taylor’s testimony.

Others, such as the Senate majority leader, seem to be distancing themselves from the president. When asked about Trump’s call with Zelensky, McConnell denied everything, saying, “We've not had any conversations on that subject.” When pressed, McConnell deflected, “You have to ask him. I don't recall any conversations with the President about that phone call.”

Other Republicans may take up the strategy of former Acting Attorney General Mathew Whitaker, who was reduced to telling Fox News that “Abuse of power is not a crime.” That actually depends on how power has been abused.

https://twitter.com/alexsalvinews/status/1186952018755108864?s=20

Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) seems to be taking a similar hear-no-evil tack, telling reporters, “I don't see anything that has advanced, the quid pro quo or the promise of anything with foreign aid. There's no one who can be intellectually honest and come out of that deposition and suggest otherwise."

While the Constitution does not require a criminal act for impeachment, Whitaker’s reasoning may give Republicans enough cover to acquit President Trump in the eventual impeachment trial in the Senate. An acquittal would not get the Republicans out of trouble with voters, however.

Polling has shown a sharp increase in the number of Americans who believe that impeaching President Trump and removing him from office is justified and that number is likely to continue to rise as more revelations about the president’s activities are brought to light. If Trump is acquitted by the Senate, then, given his persistent popularity within the Republican Party, he will be the GOP candidate in 2020.

If Trump is not removed from office, the Republicans will be saddled with an unpopular nominee who they will be forced to admit abused his presidential powers but, according to them, stopped short of criminal behavior, a candidate who half the country believed should have been impeached. Running a candidate who is widely known to be corrupt would be akin to running a candidate who was actively under FBI investigation. It would be setting Republicans up for an electoral disaster.

Originally published on The Resurgent