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myeclecticcollectorblazeus · 5 years ago

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(Bloomberg) -- The full House is expected to vote Wednesday on whether to adopt the two articles approved by the Judiciary Committee and make President Donald Trump only the third president in U.S. history to be impeached.Here are the latest developments:Schiff, Nadler Likely to Be Trial Managers (4:45 p.m.)House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff and Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler are likely to be named by Speaker Nancy Pelosi to lead the House managers who will present evidence against Trump during an impeachment trial, according to people familiar with the matter.The rest of the House managers will mostly be Democrats on the Judiciary and Intelligence panels, the people said. It isn’t yet certain how many impeachment managers there will be, the people said.One lawmaker who is not expected to be chosen is independent Justin Amash of Michigan, who left the Republican Party earlier this year and supports impeachment, one person said. Moderate Democrats Backing Trump Articles (3:37 p.m.)The remaining uncommitted moderate Democrats are starting to announce how they will vote on Wednesday, and most so far are saying they’ll back impeaching the president.Utah’s Ben McAdams said in a statement he will vote to impeach because “the president abused the power of his office by demanding a foreign government perform a personal favor” and obstructed Congress’s investigation.Joe Cunningham of South Carolina also released a statement saying he will back impeachment, as did New Hampshire’s Chris Pappas and Abigail Spanberger of Virginia.Freshman Elissa Slotkin of Michigan announced in an opinion piece in the Detroit Free Press that she will vote to impeach, even though she said she’s been told many times that the vote “will mark the end of my short political career.”Two Democrats said they’ll oppose impeaching the president, and both voted against opening the House inquiry. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey said Friday he’s a “no” on impeachment. Five members of his staff resigned over the weekend amid reports that he’ll switch his party registration to Republican.Democrat Collin Peterson of Minnesota said he’ll oppose impeachment “unless they come up with something between now and Wednesday,” according to the Pioneer Press.Schumer Seeks Bolton, Mulvaney Testimony (2:36 p.m.)Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said the White House should let acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, former National Security Advisor John Bolton and two other White House officials testify at an impeachment trial “unless the president has something to hide.“The four witnesses “have direct knowledge of why the aid to Ukraine was delayed,” Schumer told reporters Monday. “These people are crucial and haven’t been heard from.“The other two officials are Robert Blair, senior adviser to Mulvaney, and Michael Duffey, the White House budget office’s associate director for national security.Schumer said he’s “very eager and willing” to talk with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell about trial procedures, but instead McConnell has spoken publicly and said he would be taking his cues from the White House. That would be “very unfair,” Schumer said.The minority leader also has asked that the White House produce documents on Ukraine aid that it has thus far withheld.“I haven’t seen a single good argument about why these witnesses shouldn’t testify or these documents shouldn’t be produced,” Schumer said.Some Republicans have said that Trump should be able to call the witnesses he wants, including Joe Biden or his son. Hunter Biden served on the board of Ukraine energy company Burisma Holdings, and Trump had asked Ukraine’s president to investigate that matter.The House is expected to vote on the two proposed articles of impeachment on Wednesday. -- Laura LitvanDemocrats Offer Jobs to Rebel Member’s Aides (11:39 a.m.)The chairwoman of the House Democrats‘ campaign committee offered jobs to aides of Representative Jeff Van Drew who left his office following news reports that the freshman New Jersey lawmaker plans to quit his party and become a Republican.“It’s right before the holidays and these staffers just quit their jobs to stand up for their Democratic values. We’ll bring them and others who leave on with the @dccc until they land new jobs that align with their values,” Chairwoman Cheri Bustos of Illinois wrote on Twitter. She also asked for donations to keep Van Drew’s district in Democratic hands.Van Drew is one of just two House Democrats who voted against opening the impeachment inquiry in October. He won a vacant seat in 2018, though election analyst David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report said his southern New Jersey district is “trending towards” Trump and Republicans. He said Van Drew “was just about the only Democrat capable of winning” there.Five Van Drew staffers announced their resignations in a letter dated Sunday. They said they “are deeply saddened and disappointed” by his reported decision to join the GOP — which he has not publicly announced — and “can no longer in good conscience continue” to work for him. The aides are Javier Gamboa, Edward Kaczmarski, Justin O’Leary, Mackenzie Lucas and Caroline Wood. -- Sahil KapurJudiciary Panel Releases Report (9:21 a.m.)The House Judiciary Committee released a 169-page report spelling out Democrats’ grounds for two articles of impeachment, arguing that Trump poses “a threat to the Constitution if allowed to remain in office.”The two articles allege the president abused the power of his office by soliciting Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 election and then obstructing Congress during its investigation.The report is meant to support an impeachment resolution the House Rules Committee will consider Tuesday in what’s expected to be a marathon hearing setting the terms for floor debate ahead of a full House vote on Wednesday.The Judiciary Committee “does not lightly conclude that President Trump acted with corrupt motives,” the report states, calling that conclusion “inescapable.”The report accuses Trump of using his official powers “to solicit and pressure” Ukraine to launch investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden, a 2020 rival.It also criticizes the White House’s resistance to cooperating with the probe.“No president before this one has declared himself and his entire branch of government exempt from subpoenas issued by the House under its ‘sole power of Impeachment’,” the panel’s Democrats wrote.Committee Republicans filed a separate dissenting report that said “the paltry record on which the majority relies is an affront to the constitutional process of impeachment and will have grave consequences for future presidents.”The Republicans described as “hyperbolic and untrue” Democratic claims that the 2020 election is at risk and the national interest is in jeopardy unless action is taken against Trump.“The quicker the majority report and the majority’s actions are forgotten, the better,” they stated. -- Billy HouseCatch Up on Impeachment CoverageKey EventsThe House Judiciary Committee on Friday approved the two articles of impeachment on 23-17 party-line votes.The House impeachment resolution is H.Res. 755. The Intelligence Committee Democrats’ impeachment report is here.Gordon Sondland’s transcript is here and here; Kurt Volker’s transcript is here and here. Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch’s transcript is here and here; the transcript of Michael McKinley, former senior adviser to the secretary of State, is here. The transcript of Holmes, a Foreign Service officer in Kyiv, is here.The transcript of William Taylor, the top U.S. envoy to Ukraine, is here and here. State Department official George Kent’s testimony is here and here. Testimony by Alexander Vindman can be found here, and the Fiona Hill transcript is here. Laura Cooper’s transcript is here; Christopher Anderson’s is here and Catherine Croft’s is here. Jennifer Williams’ transcript is here and Timothy Morrison’s is here. The Philip Reeker transcript is here. Mark Sandy’s is here.\--With assistance from Sahil Kapur and Laura Litvan.To contact the reporter on this story: Billy House in Washington at [email protected] contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at [email protected], Laurie AsséoFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

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worldnews-blog · 5 years ago

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paulbenedictblog · 5 years ago

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News Diplomat who tried to quash smear campaign against colleague to testify in Trump impeachment inquiry - The Washington Post

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Philip Reeker, the diplomat to blame of U.S. protection for Europe, suggested House impeachment investigators Saturday that he appealed to high Express Division leaders to publicly beef up the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, who used to be the aim of a conspiracy-fueled smear marketing campaign, an particular person acquainted alongside with his testimony stated.

Reeker expressed his concerns over the falsehoods about Marie Yovanovitch to David Hale, the third-absolute best-ranking decent in the Express Division, and T. Ulrich Brechbuhl, the closest adviser to Secretary of Express Mike Pompeo, whose friendship began after they attended the U.S. Militia Academy together, the person stated. He never mentioned Yovanovitch with Pompeo, and he in the break heard from staffers for Hale that there would perchance presumably be no public statement in her defense, the person stated.

It remains unclear how great info they conveyed to Pompeo and what position Pompeo played in recalling Yovanovitch shortly after she used to be suggested she used to be doing such an proper job that her posting used to be being extended.

Reeker “used to be seeking to rep the Express Division to relate a solid statement in beef up of Ambassador Yovanovitch,” the person stated. “Indirectly it did no longer rep released. His determining is [that decision] came from on high.”

The person spoke on the condition of anonymity so that they'd perchance discuss Reeker’s testimony, which used to be delivered in a closed-door listening to to House committees investigating President Trump’s actions appealing Ukraine.

Reeker’s testimony essentially centered on his efforts to protect Yovanovitch from falsehoods being unfold questioning her integrity, which had begun acting in conservative media.

His deposition lasted for bigger than eight hours, in phase thanks to his “meticulous” solutions and recollection of component. Reeker brought with him a three-hasten binder filled with printouts of his emails and texts from the length in inquire, which he kept relating to, Get. Label Meadows (R-N.C.) stated.

Meadows stated that the testimony used to be “an proper day for the president,” announcing that Reeker used to be “one other high-ranking dispute division decent that didn’t provide any beef up for that allegation” that there had been a quid pro quo, and no proof Trump dedicated an impeachable offense.

As constantly, nonetheless, Democrats and Republicans differed over the importance of the testimony. Kurt Volker, the extinct special envoy for Ukraine, equipped the panel with textual dispute material messages in which acting ambassador William B. Taylor Jr. raised concerns that $391 million of congressionally popular military again to Ukraine used to be being withheld to compel that country’s president to make a decision to conducting investigations that also can presumably be politically advantageous to Trump.

Though Reeker used to be attentive to the in finding on U.S. security again to Ukraine, he did no longer know the explanations at the serve of it, in step with the person acquainted alongside with his testimony. He used to be no longer concerned with any conversations about efforts to stress the Ukrainian president and did no longer again interagency meetings held to talk referring to the in finding on military assistance, the person stated.

But following Reeker’s testimony, Democrats hinted that his deposition had furthermore helped spherical out their case.

Get. Denny Heck (D-Wash.) suggested reporters it used to be “nearly startling how great in alignment the total witnesses to this level in finding been when it involves their affirmation of a truth pattern” that Democrats factor in kinds the premise for impeaching Trump.

The committees proceed to add witnesses to their roster of depositions, alongside side Express Division Ukraine consultants Catherine Croft and Christopher Anderson for closed-door classes on Wednesday.

“We’re seeking to work expeditiously, but we’re furthermore seeking to be methodical in our work,” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) suggested reporters leaving the Capitol after Reeker’s testimony. “We’re making shortly development.”

Though Reeker’s testimony did petite to clarify the again freeze, his narrative equipped a striking describe of the level to which professional diplomats in finding been frozen out of policymaking in some areas of the area and subordinated to choices it sounds as if made for political reasons.

Reeker used to be named acting assistant secretary of dispute for European and Eurasian Affairs in mid-March. From his first day, he used to be confronted with rumors and conspiracy theories about Yovanovitch, which in finding been spreading by conservative U.S. media. Express Division officers opinion to be them baseless and a “basic disinformation marketing campaign.”

Reeker furthermore testified that Ukrainian protection used to be being driven by Volker, the special envoy for the country who reported straight to Pompeo, and Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union and a discontinuance Trump ally.

“In that universe, he wasn’t taking the lead,” the person stated of Reeker.

Reeker furthermore testified that he used to be attentive to the involvement of Rudolph W. Giuliani, Trump’s deepest attorney, in spreading baseless accusations about Yovanovitch, but he did no longer tune Giuliani’s actions in Ukraine past that.

Devour other diplomats who in finding testified, Reeker is a profession Foreign Service officer with a recognition for being apolitical, exhausting-working and professional. Colleagues declare he is the kind of leader whom junior Foreign Service officers turn to for profession steering.

“He’s a workhorse, no longer a showboat,” stated Daniel Fried, a extinct diplomat who resigned at the onset of the Trump administration. “He comes from the Masha Yovanovitch college of professionalism. He’s a succesful, nice, relaxed guy, beneath no circumstances stiff. And he’s completely nonpartisan.”

Reeker joined the Express Division in 1992. He signed up for the Foreign Service exam “on a lark” when he noticed a flier for the take a look at while attending the Thunderbird College of Global Management at Arizona Express College after graduating from Yale College.

He has done excursions in Hungary and Macedonia, and he used to be the U.S. consul customary in Milan. He won extensive reward for his public diplomacy, serving as the deputy to spokesman Richard Boucher beneath secretaries of dispute Madeleine Albright, in the Clinton administration, and Colin Powell, beneath President George W. Bush. His work has been known with the Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Public Diplomacy and with several Express Division awards.

Boucher stated Reeker used to be unflappable, even when Reeker used to be the sole person in town who also can talk for the division when a crisis broke out someplace on this planet.

“He made the transition from a Democratic administration to a Republican one with none relate,” he stated. “That’s on narrative of he’s essentially nonpartisan.”

Boucher stated it used to be in preserving alongside with his independence that Reeker would jump to alert the top officers on the seventh flooring of the Truman Building that lies in finding been being unfold about Yovanovitch .

“Masha is any individual all of us know, and all of us mediate she is one among the one real managers of of us and protection we in finding in the Express Division,” he stated, using Yovanovitch’s nickname. “To hear her talked about in every other terms, the gorgeous thing to in finding is to face up and declare it’s imperfect.”

The Express Division ethos, critically amongst officers tasked with explaining protection in public, is to face up and talk the truth internal the constructing, in dispute of taking it public where it might change into politicized. Reeker epitomized that ethos, in step with chums and colleagues.

But as a profession diplomat whose dispute used to be preceded by the adjective “acting,” Reeker also can no longer in finding as great clout as the political appointee who preceded him.

“He’s done an proper job,” Fried stated. “But in this administration, if you’re no longer political, you don’t in finding loads of juice. Now, all the Ukraine group is beneath the knife.”

The investigative committee is due to resume Monday. But the plans in finding been thrown into inquire by a lawsuit filed Friday by Charles Kupperman. The extinct nationwide security aide has requested a federal advance to a decision to rep to the bottom of contradictory orders from the White House and Congress about whether he has to testify.

In a letter to Kupperman’s attorneys the chairs of the three committees leading the impeachment investigation known as the lawsuit “an glaring and desperate tactic by the President to prolong and obstruct the appropriate constitutional functions of Congress and mask evidence about his conduct from the impeachment inquiry.” They stated Kupperman remains legally obligated to conform with a subpoena and seem for a deposition on Monday.

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metalshockfinland · 2 years ago

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Prog Rocker EDWARD REEKERS Releases New Track 'The Present Day' from Upcoming Solo Album

Dutch progressive-rock artist EDWARD REEKERS will be releasing his first solo album in 15 Years! The Liberty Project will be released on 4 August via Music Theories Recordings/Mascot Label Group and features contributions from Steve Hackett (Genesis), Arjen Lucassen (Ayreon), Damian Wilson (Threshold), John’ Jaycee’ Cuijpers (Praying Mantis), Koen Herfst (Vandenberg), Cindy Oudshoorn (Kayak) and…

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bountyofbeads · 5 years ago

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Pompeo Faces Political Peril and Diplomats’ Revolt in Impeachment Inquiry https://nyti.ms/33gjO7z

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Pompeo Faces Political Peril and Diplomats’ Revolt in Impeachment Inquiry

The secretary of state has been drawn deeply into the Ukraine scandal, with a parade of his diplomats testifying. He is sticking by the president.

By Edward Wong and David E. Sanger | Published Nov. 4, 2019 Updated 7:38 PM ET | New York Times | Posted November 4, 2019 |

WASHINGTON — As President Trump’s first C.I.A. director, Mike Pompeo was briefed by agency officials on the extensive evidence — including American intercepts of conversations between participants — showing that Russian hackers working for the government of Vladimir V. Putin had interfered in the 2016 American presidential campaign. In May 2017, Mr. Pompeo testified in a Senate hearing that he stood by that conclusion.

Two and a half years later, Mr. Pompeo seems to have changed his mind. As Mr. Trump’s second secretary of state, he now supports an investigation into a discredited, partisan theory that Ukraine, not Russia, attacked the Democratic National Committee, which Mr. Trump wants to use to make the case that he was elected without Moscow’s help. “Inquiries with respect to that are completely important,” Mr. Pompeo said last month. “I think everyone recognizes that governments have an obligation — indeed, a duty — to ensure that elections happen with integrity, without interference from any government, whether that’s the Ukrainian government or any other.”

Mr. Pompeo’s spreading of a false narrative at the heart of the Ukraine scandal is the most striking example of how he has fallen off the tightrope he has traversed for the past 18 months: demonstrating loyalty to the president while insisting to others he was pursuing a traditional, conservative foreign policy. Mr. Pompeo, 55, now finds himself at the most perilous moment of his political life as veteran diplomats testify to Congress that Mr. Trump and his allies hijacked Ukraine policy for political gain — and as congressional investigators look into what Mr. Pompeo knew of the machinations of Mr. Trump and Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer.

It was Mr. Pompeo who helped Mr. Trump and Mr. Giuliani oust the respected American ambassador to Ukraine, Marie L. Yovanovitch, in April. Both Michael McKinley, a senior adviser to Mr. Pompeo and a four-time ambassador, and Philip T. Reeker, the acting assistant secretary for Europe, testified that they asked State Department leadership to defend Ms. Yovanovitch from false accusations, only to be rejected. Mr. McKinley said he personally urged Mr. Pompeo three times to issue a defense; the revelation of that detail in a transcript released on Monday undercut a declaration Mr. Pompeo made in an interview last month that he “never heard” Mr. McKinley “say a single thing” about Ms. Yovanovitch’s ouster.

Two weeks ago, Mr. Pompeo did not speak out on behalf of the war veteran he asked to fill Ms. Yovanovitch’s job, William B. Taylor Jr., after Mr. Trump attacked the diplomat over his blistering testimony on the president’s quid pro quo demands. In fact, Mr. Pompeo has tried to block officials under him from testifying.

At the same time, Mr. Pompeo is facing a revolt in the State Department. Confidence in his leadership has plummeted among career officials, who accuse him of abandoning veteran diplomats criticized by Mr. Trump and letting the president’s personal political agenda infect foreign policy.

Many diplomats now contend that Mr. Pompeo has done more damage to the 75,000-person agency than even his predecessor Rex Tillerson, an aloof oil executive reviled by department employees.

“In my view, and I say this with a great deal of reluctance as Secretary Pompeo tried at the start of his tenure to lift up the career service, he has failed the men and women of the department in his most important responsibility — to support them in the deepest crisis the service has faced in memory,” said Nicholas Burns, the State Department’s top career official under President George W. Bush and now a Harvard professor who advises Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s presidential campaign.

Some State Department officials have resorted to back channels to voice their complaints, congressional aides said. Over the summer, as confidence in Mr. Pompeo eroded, a stream of career officials spoke quietly with congressional offices about their concerns over administration policy — on the hold on Ukraine military aid, a move to cut $4 billion of foreign aid, and arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

On Oct. 23, the three congressional impeachment committees said Mr. Pompeo had overseen a “culture of harassment and impunity.” That echoed what Ms. Yovanovitch had told investigators: The State Department was being “attacked and hollowed out from within,” she said.

In interviews on Oct. 30 with Fox News and The New York Post, two of Mr. Trump’s favorite media organizations, Mr. Pompeo pushed a new conspiracy theory involving Mr. Biden’s son and President Barack Obama’s policy of military aid to Ukraine — a theory that career officials under him find outlandish.

“Pompeo has consistently demonstrated that the only safe place on Trump’s foreign policy team is to be more Trumpian than the president himself,” said Andrew Weiss, a former official with the White House National Security Council, the State Department and the Pentagon in Democratic and Republican administrations. “Whether that means trafficking in over-the-top partisan attacks on Trump’s opponents or conspiracy-mongering about the 2016 election and the Ukraine scandal, he’s always willing to go there.”

“It seems that the only thing Pompeo is consistently prioritizing is his own personal political ambitions as opposed to what’s actually good for the country’s long-term national interests or the institutional well-being of the State Department,” added Mr. Weiss, now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The recent wave of criticism has made Mr. Pompeo, known for a short fuse, even more testy in public. When a reporter asked Mr. Pompeo whether Mr. Trump’s abandonment of Kurdish partners in Syria had undercut American credibility, he lashed out, saying, “The whole predicate of your question is insane.”

A battered diplomatic corps is finding some solace in the nomination by Mr. Trump and Mr. Pompeo last Thursday of their North Korea envoy, Stephen E. Biegun, as the deputy secretary of state. Mr. Biegun is a longtime national security professional who worked for Condoleezza Rice in the Bush administration.

Still, Mr. Pompeo’s problems are growing as his frequent trips to Kansas, his adopted home state, come under greater scrutiny.

Last Tuesday, Senator Robert Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, asked the United States Office of Special Counsel to look into whether Mr. Pompeo was violating the Hatch Act by traveling to Kansas four times this year, three on taxpayer-funded official trips. Many people speculate that Mr. Pompeo, a former Republican Tea Party congressman backed by the Koch family, plans to run for the Senate next year, and that the trips amount to a shadow campaign.

On Oct. 25, as Mr. Pompeo was on his most recent visit, made with Ivanka Trump, The Kansas City Star ran an editorial with the headline “Mike Pompeo, Either Quit and Run for U.S. Senate in Kansas or Focus on Your Day Job.”

“He should by all means focus on U.S. diplomacy — remember diplomacy? — and stop hanging out here every chance he gets,” it said.

But it is Mr. Pompeo’s murky role in the shadow Ukraine policy that is keeping him in the cross hairs. Congressional investigators have subpoenaed his old friend and former business partner, Ulrich T. Brechbuhl, the State Department’s counselor.

The State Department did not answer detailed questions submitted for this article. In a combative interview with ABC News on Oct. 20, Mr. Pompeo declined to discuss Ukraine. He addressed the issue of low morale in his department by saying, “I see motivated officers.”

The revelations on Ukraine have shown Mr. Pompeo had direct knowledge of Mr. Trump’s shadow policy, and seems to have enabled it.

In October, after the publication of news reports, Mr. Pompeo admitted he took part in the pivotal July telephone call between Mr. Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. That was the same call that prompted a C.I.A. employee to file the whistle-blower complaint that ignited the impeachment inquiry.

And in August, Mr. Pompeo received an urgent cable from Mr. Taylor, the chief of mission in Ukraine, saying it was “folly” to withhold American military aid to Ukraine.

Though Mr. Taylor said that he heard Mr. Pompeo brought that Aug. 29 cable to the White House, Mr. Pompeo has refused to say what he advised. Some people familiar with the issue say he urged the president to resume military aid in September, fearful that the pressure on Ukrainian leaders for political favors would come back to bite the administration.

In April, Mr. Pompeo complied when Mr. Trump ordered Ms. Yovanovitch removed from her ambassador post, the result of a right-wing media campaign by Mr. Giuliani and his associates that asserted, without evidence, that the ambassador had disparaged Mr. Trump.

John J. Sullivan, Mr. Pompeo’s deputy and Mr. Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Russia, conceded at a Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday that he knew Mr. Giuliani was among those trying to “smear” Ms. Yovanovitch, but said he was told by Mr. Pompeo only that the president “had lost confidence in her.”

Ms. Yovanovitch testified that Mr. Sullivan had told her that department leaders feared that if they did not remove her immediately from her post, Mr. Trump would humiliate her with a tweet.

For career officials, Ms. Yovanovitch, a three-time ambassador, is a rallying point. Multiple op-eds and open letters with scores of signatures from former officials have called on Mr. Pompeo to defend Ms. Yovanovitch and the other officials who are shedding light on policies.

The latest letter, with more than 400 signatures from mostly former employees of the United States Agency for International Development, said State Department colleagues were “under siege.” “We are angered at the treatment of dedicated, experienced and wise public servants like Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch,” it said.

Mr. McKinley told lawmakers on Oct. 16 that he resigned five days earlier because department leaders had failed to support diplomats caught up in the impeachment inquiry, and because of “the engagement of our missions to procure negative political information for domestic purposes,” according to a transcript of the testimony.

He said he believed the State Department was being used to dig up dirt on a political opponent of the president. “In 37 years in the Foreign Service and different parts of the globe and working on many controversial issues, working 10 years back in Washington, I had never seen that,” he said.

Mr. McKinley also spoke of low morale arising from the leadership’s inaction after the department’s inspector general released a report in August that detailed how two political appointees in the Bureau of International Organization Affairs — the assistant secretary Kevin Moley and his senior adviser Marie Stull — had harassed career employees. The inspector general is finalizing a similar investigation into another appointee, Brian H. Hook, the special representative on Iran.

“Morale at the State Department is rock bottom, but spirits have been lifted by the courage of these patriots,” Wendy Sherman, the department’s third-ranking official under President Barack Obama, said of Mr. McKinley and others testifying.

While failing to back his veteran diplomats, Mr. Pompeo has taken to the airwaves to defend Mr. Giuliani.

Mr. Pompeo told CBS News on Sept. 22 that Mr. Giuliani’s request of Ukraine to investigate Mr. Biden was appropriate. “I think the American people deserve to know,” he said.

Mr. Giuliani said Mr. Pompeo had told him that he “was aware of” Mr. Giuliani’s efforts, and Mr. Giuliani passed a dossier of questionable documents on Ukraine to Mr. Pompeo. The State Department special representative for Ukraine, Kurt D. Volker, was involved in Mr. Giuliani’s interactions with Ukrainian officials.

Gordon D. Sondland, a Trump campaign donor and ambassador to the European Union who was a main player in the quid pro quo demands on Ukraine, told congressional investigators on Oct. 17 that Mr. Pompeo had endorsed his activities.

“I understand that all my actions involving Ukraine had the blessing of Secretary Pompeo as my work was consistent with longstanding U.S. foreign policy objectives,” he said. “Indeed, very recently, Secretary Pompeo sent me a congratulatory note that I was doing great work, and he encouraged me to keep banging away.”

Lara Jakes, Nicholas Fandos and Sharon LaFraniere contributed reporting.

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On Ukraine, Trump Is a Con Man, but He’s Also a Mark

Corrupt forces find it easy to manipulate this president.

By Michelle Goldberg, Opinion Columnist | Published Nov. 4, 2019 |

Kenneth McCallion is a New York lawyer who once represented former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko of Ukraine. A few years ago, he brought a civil racketeering lawsuit on her behalf against some now familiar figures like Paul Manafort and the Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash. He knows a lot about corruption in Ukraine, and he said that earlier this year F.B.I. counterintelligence investigators approached him for information about Rudy Giuliani’s Ukrainian activities.

By then, McCallion had already been hearing strange things about what Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, whom we now know as Giuliani’s close associates, were doing in Ukraine.

Parnas and Fruman, both American citizens born in the former Soviet Union, aren’t ordinary political operatives. Parnas has long been a low-level grifter. Fruman owns an Odessa beach club called Mafia Rave, and a joint investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and BuzzFeed News found ties between him and an Odessa organized crime figure named Volodymyr Galanternik, known as “Light Bulb.”

The duo first appeared on the American political scene in 2015 as enthusiastic supporters of Donald Trump. They became big-dollar donors to a number of Republicans; their Instagram accounts would soon fill up with photos of party elites. Then, this year, McCallion learned they were poking around Ukrainian politics, where they were spreading conspiracy theories that Ukraine, not Russia, had interfered in America’s election in 2016.

“All of a sudden they started going around Ukraine telling anybody who would listen, particularly with the government, that they have been advised by a high-level, mysterious unnamed source, that in fact the D.N.C. servers had been hidden in Ukraine, that Russia was not the origin,” he told me. This claim, which echoed Russian propaganda, contradicts the findings of the F.B.I., the C.I.A. and the Republican-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee. Nevertheless, it soon came to shape American foreign policy.

The heart of the Ukraine scandal, for which Trump will almost certainly be impeached, is simple. Trump used congressionally appropriated aid to Ukraine, as well as the promise of a White House visit, to try to extort Ukraine’s president to announce investigations that would benefit Trump politically.

But there’s a broader story that’s still murky, because in this scandal Trump is both the perpetrator and the mark. Trump used the power of his office to try to force Ukraine to substantiate conspiracy theories. But the president was fed those conspiracy theories by people with their own agendas, who surely understood that he is insecure about Russia’s role in his election, and he will believe whatever serves his ego in the moment. The main reason Trump should be removed from office is that he has subverted American foreign policy for corrupt personal ends. But this scandal is the latest reminder of how easy sinister forces find it to pull his strings.

THE ARGUMENT

Listen to our podcast every Thursday morning, with Ross Douthat, Michelle Goldberg and David Leonhardt

On Saturday, BuzzFeed News obtained previously secret documents from Robert Mueller’s investigation via Freedom of Information Act lawsuits. The documents showed that Manafort, convicted felon and Trump’s former campaign chairman, was pushing the story that Ukraine was to blame for hacking the D.N.C. as far back as 2016. Manafort seems to have picked up that narrative from his associate Konstantin Kilimnik, a former Russian intelligence officer who, according to federal prosecutors, “has ties to a Russian intelligence service and had such ties in 2016.”

At first glance it might seem as if Parnas and Fruman were just doing Giuliani’s bidding when, in 2019, they started pushing the same disinformation. But Giuliani wasn’t paying them — they were paying Giuliani. Parnas, in turn, was being paid by Firtash, who is, according to the Justice Department, an “upper echelon” associate of Russian organized crime. Firtash is also close to the Kremlin; a Ukrainian official once described him as “representing Russia’s interests in Ukraine.”

Firtash, who made his fortune as a middleman in Ukraine’s natural gas industry, is stuck in Vienna, fighting extradition to the United States for trial on bribery and racketeering charges. Last month, when Parnas and Fruman were arrested while attempting to leave the United States on one-way tickets, Vienna was their destination.

On Friday, CNN reported that Parnas boasted of the “luxurious lifestyle” Firtash bankrolled. “Beginning in mid-August, this included around-the-clock bodyguards, two luxury S.U.V.s for his entourage, and at least six private charter flights in the past several months,” CNN said. It’s hard to imagine what Firtash would have been paying for besides access to Trump.

It was reportedly Firtash’s lawyers who first obtained an affidavit from the fired Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin claiming, falsely, that Joe Biden had targeted Shokin for investigating Burisma, a Ukrainian natural gas company that had Hunter Biden on its board. Giuliani would later wave this affidavit around on cable television as proof of his claims against Joe Biden.

Firtash’s motives aren’t hard to grasp. As he fights extradition, he has obvious reasons to want to ingratiate himself with Trump. It was in his interest to see the former Ukrainian ambassador Marie Yovanovitch fired, because her work against corruption — particularly her support for the reform-minded chief executive of Naftogaz, Ukraine’s national gas company — threatened his business interests. And by helping to spread damaging conspiracy theories about Ukraine, he aided his allies in the Kremlin. “It serves the interest of Russian intelligence to cause further consternation and confusion by pointing the finger at Ukraine rather than Russia for the 2016 successful disinformation campaign,” said McCallion.

In court last month, a lawyer for Parnas said that some evidence against him could be subject to executive privilege, apparently because his work with Giuliani overlapped with Giuliani’s work for Trump. If that’s true, then Firtash is directly linked to America’s president. The two men may have used each other, but there’s no reason to believe that Trump was the one in control. There was a time when Republicans would be mortified by an American president being manipulated by a figure like Firtash. Lucky for them, they’ve lost the ability to feel shame.

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Lev Parnas, Giuliani Associate, Opens Talks With Impeachment Investigators

Mr. Parnas could offer Congress a vein of information about a political pressure campaign in Ukraine.

By Ben Protess, Michael Rothfeld and William K. Rashbaum | Published Nov. 4, 2019 Updated 7:28 PM ET | New York Times | Posted November 4, 2019 |

An associate of Rudolph W. Giuliani who was involved in a campaign to pressure Ukraine into aiding President Trump’s political prospects has broken ranks, opening a dialogue with congressional impeachment investigators and accusing the president of falsely denying their relationship.

The associate, Lev Parnas, had previously resisted speaking with investigators for the Democrat-led impeachment proceedings, which are examining the president’s pressure attempts in Ukraine. A former lawyer for Mr. Trump was then representing Mr. Parnas.

But since then, Mr. Parnas has hired new lawyers who contacted the congressional investigators last week to notify them to “direct any future correspondence or communication to us,” according to a copy of the letter.

The lawyers also signaled on Monday that Mr. Parnas, who was arrested last month on campaign finance charges, is prepared to comply with a congressional subpoena for his documents and testimony.

Mr. Parnas, a Ukrainian-born American citizen who was central to Mr. Giuliani’s efforts to dig up dirt on Mr. Trump’s rivals, could offer Congress a vein of information about the efforts in Ukraine.

“We are willing to comply with the subpoena to the extent that it does not violate any appropriate privilege that Mr. Parnas may properly invoke,” said Joseph A. Bondy, who along with Edward B. MacMahon, Jr. now represents Mr. Parnas.

Mr. Bondy said that given the federal criminal charges, his client may invoke his right under the Fifth Amendment not to incriminate himself.

The turnabout occurred after Mr. Trump denied knowing Mr. Parnas when he was arrested.

“Mr. Parnas was very upset by President Trump’s plainly false statement that he did not know him,” said Mr. Bondy, whose client has maintained that he has had extensive dealings with the president.

After federal prosecutors in Manhattan announced charges against Mr. Parnas and three other men, Mr. Trump told reporters that he did not know Mr. Parnas or Igor Fruman, another Giuliani associate who also worked to help Mr. Trump in Ukraine and was among those charged with campaign finance violations. The two men had contributed extensively to political committees supporting Mr. Trump and appeared with the president in pictures posted on social media.

“I don’t know them. I don’t know about them. I don’t know what they do … Maybe they were clients of Rudy. You’d have to ask Rudy,” the president said. Of the numerous photographs of them together, Mr. Trump said, “I have a picture with everybody.”

Mr. Parnas initially remained in Mr. Trump’s camp after House Democrats on Sept. 30 requested documents and testimony from him and Mr. Fruman. The men hired John Dowd, a lawyer who had earlier represented the president at one stage of the investigation by Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Mr. Trump signed off on the hiring of Mr. Dowd, according to an Oct. 2 email reviewed by The New York Times.

“I have discussed the issue of representation with the president. The president consents to allowing your representation of Mr. Parnas and Mr. Furman,” Jay Sekulow, another lawyer for Mr. Trump, wrote to Mr. Dowd, misspelling Mr. Fruman’s surname.

Mr. Dowd said in an interview that Mr. Trump’s approval was sought “simply as a courtesy to the president,” because of the lawyer’s previous work for him. Mr. Dowd said he still represents Mr. Fruman.

A person close to Mr. Trump said that the email did not demonstrate that the president knew Mr. Parnas or Mr. Fruman personally but rather knew of them from media reports.

On Oct. 3, when he still represented both men, Mr. Dowd wrote a letter to the House Intelligence Committee implied that some of the materials the Democrats had asked the men to produce would be protected by attorney-client or executive privilege.

Mr. Dowd told the Democrats that he could not determine how long it would take him to review documents for privilege and accused them of trying to “harass, intimidate and embarrass my clients.”

A spokesman for Representative Adam Schiff, the California Democrat who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, declined to comment on talks with Mr. Parnas.

Not long afterward, in an indictment unsealed on Oct. 10, federal prosecutors accused Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman of illegally routing a $325,000 contribution to a political action committee supporting Mr. Trump through a shell company and funneling campaign contributions from a Russian businessman to other United States politicians to influence them in support of a marijuana venture. They have both pleaded not guilty.

House Democrats also sent Mr. Dowd subpoenas for Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman on the same day the charges against them were unsealed.

Mr. Parnas hired Mr. Giuliani in 2018 to help with a venture called Fraud Guarantee. But as of early this year, their relationship had shifted: Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman began assisting Mr. Giuliani in efforts to unearth negative information in Ukraine about former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, and his son Hunter.

That work lies close to the center of the investigation by House Democrats of whether Mr. Trump oversaw a shadow diplomatic campaign intended to smear a political opponent.

While it is not clear what documents or testimony Mr. Parnas might provide, he was intimately involved with Mr. Giuliani’s efforts. Along with Mr. Fruman, he traveled repeatedly to Ukraine in search of information about corruption involving the Bidens and pushed for the ouster of the United States ambassador to Ukraine, Marie L. Yovanovitch, whom Mr. Trump and Mr. Giuliani saw as hostile to the president.

Nicholas Fandos and Maggie Haberman contributed to this story.

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