#trump fired Marie Yovanovitch

[dragoni]

Lev Parnas released the damning audio #LevSpeaks

This is exactly why #MidnightMitch McConnell and Republicans refused to allow any new witnesses or evidence. #RiggedTrial  #RepublicanCoverUp

It was Trump who told his officials including Parnas not to testify, to DISOBEY their subpoenas from the U.S. House of Representatives. 

After being thrown under the bus, Parnas wants to testify. CALL YOUR SENATORS: (202) 224-3121. Demand Witnesses & Documents  #LetLevSpeak

A recording reviewed by ABC News appears to capture President Donald Trump telling associates he wanted the then-U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch fired while speaking at a small gathering that included Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman -- two former business associates of Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani who have since been indicted in New York.

The recording appears to contradict statements by President Trump and support the narrative that has been offered by Parnas during broadcast interviews in recent days. Sources familiar with the recording said the recording was made during an intimate April 30, 2018, dinner at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.

At another point, the recording appears to capture Trump praising his new choice of secretary of state, saying emphatically: “[Mike] Pompeo is the best.” 

But the most striking moment comes when Parnas and the president discuss the dismissal of his ambassador to Ukraine.

Parnas appears to say: "The biggest problem there, I think where we need to start is we gotta get rid of the ambassador. She's still left over from the Clinton administration," 

Parnas can be heard telling Trump. "She's basically walking around telling everybody 'Wait, he's gonna get impeached, just wait." 

"Get rid of her!" is what the voice that appears to be President Trump’s is heard saying. "Get her out tomorrow. I don't care. Get her out tomorrow. Take her out. Okay? Do it."

In a recent interview with MSNBC, Parnas publicly recounted his memories of the scene at the dinner and said that Trump turned to John [DeStefano], who was his deputy chief of staff at the time, and said "Fire her,"

“We all, there was a silence in the room. He responded to him, said Mr. President, we can't do that right now because [Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo hasn't been confirmed yet, that Pompeo is not confirmed yet and we don't have -- this is when [former Secretary of State Rex] Tillerson was gone, but Pompeo was confirmed, so they go, wait until -- so several conversations he mentioned it again.“

"Boy I'm so powerful I can intimidate the entire Ukrainian government. Please don't tell anyone I can't get the crooked Ambassador fired or I did three times and she's still there.” Rudy Giuliani messaged Parnas in May 2019.

[gettothestabbing]

The indictment alleges that Parnas was operating on behalf of “one or more” Ukrainian officials to force Yovanovitch’s removal. Days after the dinner with Trump, Parnas met with then-Rep. Pete Sessions. After the meeting, Sessions wrote a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urging him to recall Yovanovitch.

Parnas contributed a maximum donation to Sessions’s campaign in June 2018. Prosecutors allege that Parnas pledged to raise another $20,000 for the Republican.

Trump eventually removed Yovanovitch from her post in Kyiv, but not until April 24, 2019. In the months leading up to the decision, Parnas and Fruman worked closely with Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani to collect and disseminate derogatory information about Yovanovitch, much of it unverified. The also alleged that Joe Biden intervened to shut down investigation in Ukraine of Burisma Holdings, an energy company that had Hunter Biden as a director.

How and exactly when Parnas and Fruman began working with Giuliani on Ukraine-related matters is not entirely clear. But Bondy, the lawyer, for Parnas, said in an interview Saturday with CNN’s Anderson Cooper that they were not working with Giuliani at the time the dinner took place.

[exyzuk]

Donald Trump DEFENDS his order to fire Ukraine ambassador Marie Yovanovitch

Donald Trump DEFENDS his order to fire Ukraine ambassador Marie Yovanovitch

[ad_1]

President Donald Trump has defended himself after audio leaked Friday of him ordering the firing of then-Ambassador to the Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. 

The recording, now in the hands of Congress and federal prosecutors, was made during a fundraiser dinner on April 30, 2018 at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. that included Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman – the two indicted…

[msternberg]

OPINION | CAMPAIGN

March 26, 2019 - 06:00 PM EDT

US Embassy pressed Ukraine to drop probe of George Soros group during 2016 election

BY JOHN SOLOMON, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR

The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill

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Editor's note: John Solomon's columns regarding Ukraine became a subject of the House Intelligence Committee's impeachment inquiry against President Trump. Any updated information can be found at the end of the column.

While the 2016 presidential race was raging in America, Ukrainian prosecutors ran into some unexpectedly strong headwinds as they pursued an investigation into the activities of a nonprofit in their homeland known as the Anti-Corruption Action Centre (AntAC).

The focus on AntAC - whose youthful street activists famously wore "Ukraine F*&k Corruption" T-shirts - was part of a larger probe by Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office into whether $4.4 million in U.S. funds to fight corruption inside the former Soviet republic had been improperly diverted.

The prosecutors soon would learn the resistance they faced was blowing directly from the U.S. Embassy in Kiev, where the Obama administration took the rare step of trying to press the Ukrainian government to back off its investigation of both the U.S. aid and the group.

"The investigation into the Anti-Corruption Action Center (sic), based on the assistance they have received from us, is similarly misplaced," then-embassy Charge d' Affaires George Kent wrote the prosecutor's office in April 2016 in a letter that also argued U.S. officials had no concerns about how the U.S. aid had been spent.

At the time, the nation's prosecutor general had just been fired, under pressure from the United States, and a permanent replacement had not been named.

A few months later, Yuri Lutsenko, widely regarded as a hero in the West for spending two years in prison after fighting Russian aggression in his country, was named prosecutor general and invited to meet new U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.

Lutsenko told me he was stunned when the ambassador "gave me a list of people whom we should not prosecute." The list included a founder of the AntAC group and two members of Parliament who vocally supported the group's anti-corruption reform agenda, according to a source directly familiar with the meeting.

It turns out the group that Ukrainian law enforcement was probing was co-funded by the Obama administration and liberal mega-donor George Soros. And it was collaborating with the FBI agents investigating then-Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort's business activities with pro-Russian figures in Ukraine.

The implied message to Ukraine's prosecutors was clear: Don't target AntAC in the middle of an America presidential election in which Soros was backing Hillary Clinton to succeed another Soros favorite, Barack Obama, Ukrainian officials said.

"We ran right into a buzzsaw and we got bloodied," a senior Ukrainian official told me.

Lutsenko suggested the embassy applied pressure because it did not want Americans to see who was being funded with its tax dollars. "At the time, Ms. Ambassador thought our interviews of the Ukrainian citizens, of the Ukrainian civil servants who were frequent visitors in the U.S. Embassy, could cast a shadow on that anti-corruption policy," he said.

State officials told me privately they wanted Ukraine prosecutors to back off AntAC because they feared the investigation was simply retribution for the group's high-profile efforts to force anti-corruption reforms inside Ukraine, some of which took authorities and prestige from the Prosecutor General's Office.

But it was an unusual intervention, the officials acknowledged. "We're not normally in the business of telling a country's police force who they can and can't pursue, unless it involves an American citizen we think is wrongly accused," one official said.

In the end, no action was taken against AntAC and it remains thriving today. Nonetheless, the anecdote is taking on new significance.

First, it conflicts with the State Department's official statement last week after Lutsenko first mentioned the do-not-prosecute list. The embassy responded that the claim was a fabrication and a sign that corruption is alive and well inside Ukraine.

But Kent's letter unequivocally shows the embassy did press Ukrainian prosecutors to back off what normally would be considered an internal law enforcement matter inside a sovereign country. And more than a half-dozen U.S. and Ukrainian sources confirmed to me the AntAC case wasn't the only one in which American officials exerted pressure on Ukrainian investigators in 2016.

When I asked State to explain the letter and inclusion of the Soros-connected names during the meeting, it demurred. "As a general rule, we don't read out private diplomatic meetings," it responded. "Ambassador Yovanovitch represents the President of the United States in Ukraine, and America stands behind her and her statements."

Second, the AntAC anecdote highlights a little-known fact that the pursuit of foreign corruption has resulted in an unusual alliance between the U.S. government and a political mega-donor.

After the Obama Justice Department launched its Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative a decade ago to prosecute corruption in other countries, the State Department, Justice Department and FBI outsourced some of its work in Ukraine to groups funded by Soros.

The Hungarian-American businessman is one of the largest donors to American liberal causes, a champion of the U.S. kleptocracy crackdown and a man with extensive business interests in Ukraine.

One key U.S. partner was AntAC, which received 59 percent (or $1 million) of its nearly $1.7 million budget since 2012 from U.S. budgets tied to State and Justice, and nearly $290,000 from Soros's International Renaissance Foundation, according to the group's donor disclosure records.

The U.S.-Soros collaboration was visible in Kiev. Several senior Department of Justice (DOJ) officials and FBI agents appeared in pictures as participants or attendees at Soros-sponsored events and conferences.

One attendee was Karen Greenaway, then the FBI supervisor in charge of international fraud cases and one of the lead agents in the Manafort investigation in Ukraine. She attended multiple such events and won glowing praise in a social media post from AntAC's executive director.

In one event during 2016, Greenaway and Ambassador Yovanovitch participated alongside AntAC's executive director, Daria Kaleniuk, and Lutsenko was present. The message was clear: The embassy supported AntAC.

The FBI confirmed Greenaway's contacts with the Soros group, saying they were part of her investigative work: "In furtherance of the FBI's mission and in the course of their duties, FBI employees routinely travel and participated in public forums in an official capacity. At a minimum, all such travel and speaking engagements are authorized by the employee's direct supervisor and can receive further authorization all the way up to the relevant division head, along with an ethics official determination."

Greenaway recently retired, and Soros's AntAC soon after announced she was joining its supervisory board.

Internal memos from Soros's umbrella charity organization, Open Society Foundations, describe a concerted strategy of creating friendships inside key government agencies such as State, DOJ and the FBI that can be leveraged inside the countries Soros was targeting for anti-corruption activism.

"We have broadly recognized the importance of developing supportive constituencies in order to make headway in tightening the global web of anti-corruption accountability," a Feb. 21, 2014, memo states. "We first conceived of this in terms of fostering and helping to build a political environment favorable to high-level anti-corruption cases."

That same memo shows Soros's organization wanted to make Ukraine a top priority, starting in 2014, and planned to use the Anti-Corruption Action Centre as its lead.

"Ukraine: Behind the scenes advice and support to Ukrainian partner Anti-Corruption Action Centre's efforts to generate corruption litigation in Europe and the U.S. respecting state assets stolen by senior Ukrainian leaders," the memo states.

The memo included a chart of Ukrainians the Soros team wanted to have pursued, including some with ties to Manafort.

Senior U.S. law enforcement officials confirmed to me that the early kleptocracy collaborations inside Ukraine led to highly visible U.S. actions against the oligarch Dmitri Firtash, a major target of the Soros group, and Manafort. Firtash is now represented by former Hillary Clinton lawyer Lanny Davis and former U.S. Attorney Dan Webb.

Documents posted online by Open Society Foundations show that after U.S. officials scored some early successes in corruption cases in Ukraine, such as asset forfeitures, AntAC requested to receive some of the seized money.

"Ukrainian NGO Anticorruption Action Centre (AntAC) petitioned the United States Justice Department on behalf of Ukrainian civil society to dedicate the nearly $3 million in forfeited and seized assets allegedly laundered by former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko, to creating an anti-corruption training facility," a 2015 foundation document stated.

Spokespersons for AntAC and Open Society Foundations did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Michael Vachon, a spokesman for Soros, deferred any comment about AntAC to the group. But he did he confirm his boss supported the continued investigation of Russia collusion allegations against Trump well past 2016.

Vachon said Soros wrote a sizable check from his personal funds in fall 2017 to a new group, Democracy Integrity Project, started by a former FBI agent and Senate staffer Daniel Jones to continue "investigation and research into foreign interference in American elections and European elections."

Vachon said the group asked Soros not to divulge the size of his contribution, and Soros later learned the group hired Fusion GPS, the same firm that was paid by Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic Party to create the infamous "Steele dossier" alleging Trump-Russia collusion.

The he said-she said battle playing out between Ukraine's chief prosecutor and the American ambassador doesn't benefit either side, but an honest, complete and transparent account of what the embassy communicated to Ukraine's law enforcement does.

And the tale of AntAC raises some cogent questions:

Why would the U.S. Embassy intervene on a Ukrainian internal investigation and later deny it exerted such pressure?

Did Soros's role as a major political funder have any impact?

Do Americans want U.S. tax dollars commingled with activists' private funds when it comes to anti-corruption probes?

Someone in State and Congress should try to get the answers.

John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work over the years has exposed U.S. and FBI intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal scientists' misuse of foster children and veterans in drug experiments, and numerous cases of political corruption. He serves as an investigative columnist and executive vice president for video at The Hill.

Editor's note: Daria Kaleniuk, co-founder and executive director of the Anti-Corruption Action Center (AntAC) cited in this column, wrote an April 2, 2019, column refuting the claims against her organization, against U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, and the description of AntAC's funding.

____________

The column cites a letter by then-U.S. embassy Charge d'Affaires George Kent objecting to Ukrainian investigations of AntAC, and prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko's claim that he was given a do-not-prosecute list by Yovanovitch.

Testifying to the House impeachment inquiry in the fall of 2019, Yovanovitch said Lutsenko's statement was "completely false" and that U.S. embassy and State Department officials worried that the investigations of AntAC were politically motivated.

Kent, promoted to deputy assistant secretary of State for European and Eurasian affairs in September 2018, testified during the House inquiry that he shared those concerns and, in a House deposition, described the accusations leveled against Yovanovitch as "unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives."

____________

Lutsenko subsequently revised his account of the do-not-prosecute list several times. In April 2019, he told a Ukrainian newspaper that he reached for pen and paper and asked the ambassador for the list, and he described the earlier account in a Hill.TV interview as a translation error; according to Polygraph.info, a translation project of Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, such an error did occur because Lutsenko said Yovanovitch "voiced" (using the Ukrainian word "oholosyla") a list. In an interview with The New Yorker in November, Lutsenko said he wrote the list himself, then ripped it up as Yovanovitch watched.

[foreverlogical]

Rudy Giuliani, former President Donald Trump’s personal attorney. | Rey Del Rio/Getty Images

Federal investigators are looking into Giuliani’s dealings in Ukraine as potential evidence of criminal conduct.

Federal law enforcement is ramping up their investigation into Rudy Giuliani, leaving Trumpworld on high alert.

Giuliani was formerly President Trump’s personal lawyer and became one of his most loyal defenders, becoming a central figure in Trump’s failed efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Now, he may be paying the price for that loyalty. On Wednesday, FBI agents, armed with search warrants, raided his home and office in Manhattan, seizing electronic devices.

Giuliani is currently the focus of an ongoing criminal probe from the US attorney’s office in Manhattan, centering on his business dealings in Ukraine and potential illegal activity involving his efforts to investigate Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden’s son. Wednesday’s raid confirms the seriousness of the investigation, which required Justice Department approval due to Giuliani’s status as a lawyer. The raid clarified the potential for Giuliani, and perhaps other Trump figures, to face federal charges.

The investigation hinges on Giuliani’s dealings in Ukraine

Investigators are looking for evidence related to Giuliani’s role in the firing of Marie Yovanovitch, Trump’s former ambassador to Ukraine and a central figure in his first impeachment trial, according to the New York Times. Yovanovitch was ousted at the behest of Giuliani, who felt she was standing in the way of his attempts to find damaging information on the Biden family.

That saga played out as a small part of the larger impeachment probe regarding Trump’s conduct with Ukranian president Volodymyr Zelensky. Yovanovitch testified in 2019 that Giuliani was working with Ukraine’s former prosecutor general Yuriy Lutsenko, asking him to open inquiries into political enemies including Hunter Biden related to his time on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, and initiating a smear campaign against her when she attempted to follow protocol in arranging meetings between Ukrainian and American law enforcement officials.

Now, the Justice Department is investigating whether Giuliani’s conduct in that situation, and others in Ukraine, were a violation of federal lobbying laws, according to the Times. Lobbying the US government at the behest of a foreign official without registering the activity with the Justice Department — which Giuliani never did — is a violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Giuliani went on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show Thursday night to dispute the claims against him.

“I never represented a Ukrainian national or official before the United States government,” he said. “I’ve declined it several times. I’ve had contracts in countries like Ukraine. In the contract is a clause that says I will not engage in lobbying or foreign representation. I don’t do it because I felt it would be too compromising.”

Giuliani also claimed to have hard drives from Hunter Biden’s laptop that the agents were uninterested in despite his pleas, said he could have destroyed the evidence any time over the last two years in which he has known about the probe, and asserted that the Justice Department, under Biden, was making up a case against him. He called on the officials overseeing his investigation to be investigated themselves, likening the situation to “East Berlin before the wall fell.”

Robert Costello, Giuliani’s lawyer, said in a statement that the investigation was “legal thuggery” and evidence of a “double standard” in which the Justice Department will investigate prominent Trump supporters but will not open inquiries into Democrats such as Hunter Biden, whom he accused of “blatant”, though unsubstantiated, crimes.

Agents also obtained a warrant for the phone of Victoria Toensing, a lawyer who collaborated with Giuliani on efforts to investigate the Bidens in Ukraine. Toensing handed over her phone on Wednesday morning, according to The Journal.

The New York Times has reported that in addition to Giuliani’s dealings regarding Yovanovitch, federal investigators are looking into his conversations with Lutsenko regarding a draft retainer for legal consulting services that eventually fell through. The investigation hinges on whether or not Giuliani was solely representing Trump in his dealings with Ukrainians, or if he was also working on behalf of Ukrainian officials and business associates’ interests.

The DOJ’s hard line could have implications beyond Giuliani

The raid is a major escalation of the federal investigation into Giuliani, and represents a serious willingness by the Justice Department to look into the shadowy dealings of Trump figures. Considering Giuliani is a lawyer protected in his dealings with Trump by attorney-client privilege on some level, the fact that investigators obtained a warrant indicates the high-level nature of the investigation and the potential for consequences of the informal relationships between Trump figures. Giuliani’s work for Trump was often done informally — limiting the scope of what attorney-client privilege can protect.

Sources close to the former President told CNN that the raid on Giuliani has left them uneasy about what else the Justice Department might be investigating.

Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who pled guilty to charges of tax fraud, false statements to a bank and campaign finance violations, flipped on his former boss in 2018. On CNN, he said he expected Giuliani to eventually do the same.

“Prior to Donald becoming president, Rudy didn’t like Donald and Donald didn’t like Rudy,” Cohen said on CNN. “He certainly doesn’t want to follow my path down into a 36-month sentence.”

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

April 30, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

In a hearing today before a subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee charged with investigating technology and information warfare, cyber policy and national security expert Dr. Herb Lin of the Hoover Institution told lawmakers that in the modern era we are not formally at war, but we are not at peace either:

“Information warfare threat to the United States is different from past threats, and it has the potential to destroy reason and reality as a basis for societal discourse, replacing them with rage and fantasy. Perpetual civil war, political extremism, waged in the information sphere and egged on by our adversaries is every bit as much of an existential threat to American civilization and democracy as any military threat imaginable.”

His warning comes two days after the power of warfare waged with disinformation once again became a top story in the U.S. On Wednesday, federal officials executed a search warrant on the home and office of Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani. To conduct such a search, investigators had to convince a judge that they had good reason to think a crime had been committed.

Investigators appear to be focusing on Giuliani’s successful attempt to get the American ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, recalled on April 24, 2019. Yovanovitch was one of our very top diplomats. She stood firmly against corruption in Ukraine, earning the fury of oligarchs connected to Russia, especially Ukraine president Petro Poroshenko; the country’s prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko; and the country’s former prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin, who was fired for corruption. They wanted her gone.

On the surface, the case is about whether or not Giuliani was working for Ukrainian oligarchs as well as Trump when he undermined Yovanovitch. But it is really a story about disinformation. Giuliani wanted Yovanovitch out of the way because she refused to enable his attempt to manufacture dirt on the son of then-candidate Joe Biden, an effort designed to make it possible for Trump to win reelection.

A quick recap of the Yovanovitch part of the story: In late 2018, Ukraine-born American businessman Lev Parnas introduced Giuliani to Shokin, who was willing to say that he was fired because he was looking into Burisma, a company on whose board Hunter Biden sat (this was false). In December, Parnas and his partner Igor Fruman attended the annual White House Hanukkah party. Parnas later told people they had a private meeting with Trump and Giuliani, who gave them “a secret mission” to pressure the Ukrainian government to announce an investigation into the Bidens.

In January 2019, Giuliani tried to get a visa for Shokin to come to the U.S., but Yovanovitch denied it. So Giuliani, Parnas, and Fruman interviewed Shokin and Lutsenko where they were.

For the next three months, Lutsenko and Giuliani sparred over the announcement of an investigation into the Bidens, apparently in exchange for the removal of Yovanovitch. Meanwhile, in the U.S., journalist John Solomon, who was in contact with Lutsenko, wrote articles for The Hill attacking both the Bidens and Yovanovitch, and claiming that it was Ukraine, not Russia, that interfered in the 2016 election.

And then on April 21, Porosheko lost a presidential election to Volodymyr Zelensky.

On April 23, Giuliani announced on Twitter that Ukraine was investigating Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the DNC for conspiring with “Ukrainians and others to affect 2016 election.” And the next day, Yovanovitch was recalled.

The rest is history (sorry!): in the infamous phone call of July 25, 2019, Trump asked Zelensky to announce an investigation into the Bidens before the U.S. would release congressional appropriations to enable Ukraine to fight Russian incursions, a whistleblower complained, the Department of Justice tried to hide the complaint, and the Trump presidency began to unravel.

As the Ukraine scandal worked its way toward the president’s impeachment, Giuliani did not let up on his insistence that Ukraine, not Russia, had tried to undermine the 2016 election, and he continued to push that lie. By late 2019, the FBI warned Giuliani that Russian intelligence was targeting him to circulate lies about Biden. (It also warned One America News.) According to former FBI Special Agent and lawyer Asha Rangappa, officials likely did so both as a warning and to see if he would break away from the disinformation. He did not.

What is at stake in the recent story of the federal investigation of Giuliani is the role of disinformation in our politics. Crucially, Giuliani and Trump did not want an actual investigation of the Bidens: they just wanted an announcement of an investigation. An announcement would be enough for the media to pick up the story, and the fact it was made up out of whole cloth wouldn’t matter. People would believe there was something fishy with the man whom Trump feared (rightly, as it turned out) as his chief rival for the presidency, and his candidacy would be hobbled.

It doesn’t matter, Dr. Lin pointed out to the subcommittee today, whether foreign actors are working in concert or in parallel with American actors when they spread disinformation: the destabilizing effect is the same.

—-

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[go-redgirl]

News outlets including the Washington Post have retracted or amended reports claiming the FBI warned Giuliani he was the target of a Russian influence operationNews outlets including the Washington Post retracted a claim about Rudy Giuliani.

Outlets retracted a claim that the FBI warned Giuliani he was being used to spread Russian disinformation.

Insider has amended its reporting in the light of the retraction.

See more stories on Insider's business page.

The Washington Post and other news outlets have retracted a claim that the FBI warned Rudy Giuliani that he was likely being targetted as part of a Russian disinformation campaign in 2019.

In an editor's note the Post on Saturday said it was retracting a claim in a report Thursday that the FBI had warned both Giuliani and right-wing news network OANN about Russian efforts to use them to spread falsehoods.

It read: "Correction: An earlier version of this story, published Thursday, incorrectly reported that One America News was warned by the FBI that it was the target of a Russian influence operation. That version also said the FBI had provided a similar warning to Rudolph W. Giuliani, which he has since disputed. This version has been corrected to remove assertions that OAN and Giuliani received the warnings."

The New York Times and NBC News have withdrawn similar claims.

"An earlier version of this article misstated whether Rudolph W. Giuliani received a formal warning from the F.B.I. about Russian disinformation. Mr. Giuliani did not receive such a so-called defensive briefing," reads the correction in the Times.

The reports all focussed on FBI raids on Giuliani's office and apartment in Manhattan last week, in which agents seized computers and other devices belonging to Giuliani.

Investigators are reportedly probing whether Giuliani was acting on behalf of Ukrainian officials during his search for damaging information about Joe Biden, then Democratic presidential nominee, and his son, Hunter, in Ukraine in 2019.

The Times reported that Giuliani's communications with the Trump administration over the firing of the US ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, in May 2019 were being scrutinised the federal agents.

Giuliani has denied any wrongdoing.

"I've never represented a Ukrainian national or official before the United States government," Giuliani said in an interview on Fox News on Thursday in the wake of the raids.

Read the original article on Business Insider

[politicalprof]

Today, in a call-in on FOX and Friends, Donald Trump:

1. explained that he fired Marie Yovanovitch because she did not have his picture posted in the embassy in Ukraine as fast as he wanted it posted; and

2. again insisted that the DNC/Clinton server was in Ukraine, in the possession of a company called "CrowdStrike" -- a claim invented by the Russians to convince people that it was the Ukrainians and not the Russians who systematically interfered in the 2016 presidential election, and which is completely false.

All of which is somehow perfectly normal in contemporary America.

[uncommonsunlight]

it is so hard to focus on doing anything while the world is falling apart around us and the trajectory of our society, not to mention democracy itself, is critically hanging on the outcome of the next three weeks.

so, here is the list of 50 reasons not to vote for Trump as will be presented by The Simpsons in this year’s Treehouse of Horror!

Made it okay to shoot hibernating bears Put children in cages Called Mexicans rapists Imitated disabled reporter Looks lousy in a tennis outfit Can’t get wife to hold hand Called third world countries ****holes Called Tim Cook ‘Tim Apple’ Said Jewish people who vote Democrat are disloyal Showed top secret documents at Mar-A-Lago restaurant Called white supremacists ‘fine people’ Leaked classified information to Russian ambassador Asked the president of Ukraine to investigate the Bidens Called for China to investigate the Bidens Walked into the dressing room at Miss Teen USA pageant Pressed the Australian prime minister to help Barr investigate Mueller Talked about grabbing ***** Lied about the size of his inauguration Refused to release tax returns Gutted the E.P.A. Confiscated and destroyed interpreter’s notes after meeting with Putin Tweeted classified photo of Iran missile site Called Baltimore a ‘disgusting, rat and rodent-infested mess’ Described Meryl Streep as ‘over-rated’ Leaked information to the press about the 2017 Manchester arena bombing Did not attend any White House correspondents’ dinner Said Megyn Kelly had ‘blood coming out of her whatever’ Called Carly Fiorina ‘horseface’ Ruined impeachment Brought Ivanka to the G7 summit Corrupted Congress Appointed and didn’t fire Betsy DeVos Put Jared in charge of Mideast Served McDonald’s to Clemson football team Destroyed democracy Lost Hong Kong Threatened Marie Yovanovitch Pulled the U.S. out of climate agreement Allowed bounties on soldiers Invaded Portland Withdrew from W.H.O. Bragged about knowing the date Commuted sentences Said to swallow bleach Person, woman, man, camera, TV Destroyed post office Paid $750 in taxes Wants third term Wanted to be on Mount Rushmore And we haven’t even said the worst one

Thank you Simpson’s crew, and hmm wonder whatever could they mean about the worst one?  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[dragoni]

PBS LIVESTREAM: The Trump Impeachment Hearings - Day 2

[sarcasticcynic]

“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.”

So Trump fired Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch for undermining and obstructing the “absolutely NO pressure” he put on Ukraine.

[ademocrat]

Republican Senators Tried to Stop Trump From Firing Impeachment Witness

WASHINGTON — A handful of Republican senators tried to stop President Trump from firing Gordon D. Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union who testified in the House impeachment hearings, but the president relieved the diplomat of his post anyway, according to people briefed on the discussions.

The senators were concerned that it would look bad for Mr. Trump to dismiss Mr. Sondland and argued that it was unnecessary, since the ambassador was already talking with senior officials about leaving after the Senate trial, the people said. The senators told White House officials that Mr. Sondland should be allowed to depart on his own terms, which would have reduced any political backlash.

But Mr. Trump evidently was not interested in a quiet departure, choosing instead to make a point by forcing Mr. Sondland out before the ambassador was ready to go. When State Department officials called Mr. Sondland on Friday to tell him that he had to resign that day, he resisted, saying that he did not want to be included in what seemed like a larger purge of impeachment witnesses, according to the people informed about the matter.

Mr. Sondland conveyed to the State Department officials that if they wanted him gone that day, they would have to fire him. And so the president did, ordering the ambassador recalled from his post effective immediately. Mr. Sondland’s dismissal was announced just hours after another impeachment witness, Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman, and his twin brother, Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman, were marched out of the White House by security officers and told their services were no longer needed.

The ousters came two days after the Republican-led Senate acquitted Mr. Trump on two articles of impeachment stemming from his effort to pressure Ukraine to incriminate Democratic rivals. Outraged Democrats called the firings a “Friday night massacre” aimed at taking revenge against government officials who had no choice but to testify under subpoena about what they knew.

Among the Republicans who warned the White House was Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who after voting to acquit Mr. Trump said she thought he had learned a lesson. Others included Senators Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Martha McSally of Arizona and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. The White House did not respond to requests for comment on Saturday but a senior administration official confirmed the senators’ outreach on behalf of Mr. Sondland, a donor to Mr. Tillis and other Republicans.

Ms. Collins said Saturday that her lesson comment had been misinterpreted and that she had earlier noted that she did not support retribution. “The lesson that I hoped the president had learned was that he should not enlist the help of a foreign government in investigating a political rival,” she said in a statement to The New York Times. “It had absolutely nothing to do with whether or not he should fire people who testified in a way that he perceived as harmful to him.”

The senators did not express the same concern about Colonel Vindman, who is viewed less sympathetically by the president’s allies. Republicans considered some of Colonel Vindman’s comments during his testimony overtly political and, in any case, believed it was untenable for him to remain on the staff of a president with whom he broke so publicly.

Other witnesses who testified have quietly left their positions in recent days. Jennifer Williams, a career official working for Vice President Mike Pence, asked to return early to the Defense Department. Marie L. Yovanovitch, the ambassador to Ukraine removed from her post last spring because she was seen as an obstacle to the president and his associates, retired from the Foreign Service. And her acting successor, William B. Taylor Jr., returned home as well.

Some of these witnesses may begin to speak out. Mr. Taylor has given a series of news media interviews in recent days. And Ms. Yovanovitch has enlisted the Javelin literary agency, picking the same agents who represent John R. Bolton, the former national security adviser, among others.

Mr. Trump on Saturday defended his decision to fire Colonel Vindman, calling the decorated Iraq war veteran “very insubordinate.”

“Fake News @CNN & MSDNC keep talking about ‘Lt. Col.’ Vindman as though I should think only how wonderful he was,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter, without explaining why he put the colonel’s rank in quote marks.

“Actually, I don’t know him, never spoke to him, or met him (I don’t believe!),” he continued, “but, he was very insubordinate, reported contents of my ‘perfect’ calls incorrectly, & was given a horrendous report by his superior, the man he reported to, who publicly stated that Vindman had problems with judgement, adhering to the chain of command and leaking information. In other words, ‘OUT’.”

Mr. Trump offered no explanation for why Colonel Vindman’s twin brother, Yevgeny Vindman, who is also an Army lieutenant colonel and who worked as a lawyer on the National Security Council staff, was fired and escorted out of the White House complex at the same time even though he did not participate in the House hearings. Nor did the president mention his decision to recall Mr. Sondland, a hotel magnate who donated $1 million to Mr. Trump’s inaugural festivities before receiving his ambassadorial appointment.

Mr. Sondland and Colonel Vindman were key witnesses in the House hearings. Mr. Sondland, who was deeply involved in the effort to pressure Ukraine, testified that “we followed the president’s orders” and that “everyone was in the loop.” Colonel Vindman, who was on Mr. Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukraine’s president, testified that it was “improper for the president” to coerce a foreign country to investigate political opponents.

Colonel Vindman, a Ukraine expert on the National Security Council staff, and his brother were scheduled to remain at the White House until July but will now be sent back to the Defense Department. Mr. Sondland, a political appointee, will return to the United States and presumably leave government service.

A lawyer for Colonel Vindman said Mr. Trump’s Twitter messages contained “obviously false statements” about his client.

“They conflict with the clear personnel record and the entirety of the impeachment record of which the president is well aware,” said the lawyer, David Pressman. “While the most powerful man in the world continues his campaign of intimidation, while too many entrusted with political office continue to remain silent, Lt. Col. Vindman continues his service to our country as a decorated, active duty member of our military.”

Mr. Trump’s tweets misstated or overstated testimony about Colonel Vindman. Tim Morrison, who supervised him at the National Security Council for just three months, told the House that he had concerns about Colonel Vindman’s judgment and believed he did not always adhere to the chain of command. But when Mr. Morrison said he had originally heard such concerns from his predecessor, Fiona Hill, she disputed his account.

Ms. Hill, who supervised Colonel Vindman for two years, testified that she had a much narrower concern that he did not have “the political antenna” to deal with matters related to domestic politics. “That does not mean in any way that I was questioning his overall judgment, nor was I questioning in any way his substantive expertise,” she said. “He is excellent on issues related to Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova, on Russian defense issues.”

In fact, Colonel Vindman read from Dr. Hill’s personnel evaluation at his own hearing: “Alex is a top 1 percent military officer and the best Army officer I have worked with in my 15 years of government service. He is brilliant, unflappable, and exercises excellent judgment.”

Democrats on Saturday denounced Mr. Trump’s actions. “By firing Lt. Col. Vindman and Ambassador Sondland like this, the Trump administration signaled it won’t tolerate people who tell the truth,” said Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island. “The fact that Lt. Col. Vindman’s brother was also removed from the N.S.C., as well as the transfer of Ms. Williams from Vice President Pence’s staff, are signals that the president places blind loyalty above all else, including testimony under oath.”

[dendroica]

A recording reviewed by ABC News appears to capture President Donald Trump telling associates he wanted the then-U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch fired while speaking at a small gathering that included Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman -- two former business associates of Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani who have since been indicted in New York. The recording appears to contradict statements by Trump and support the narrative that has been offered by Parnas during broadcast interviews in recent days. Sources familiar with the recording said the recording was made during an intimate April 30, 2018, dinner at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. Trump has said repeatedly he does not know Parnas, a Soviet-born American who has emerged as a wild card in Trump’s impeachment trial, especially in the days since Trump was impeached. "Get rid of her!" is what the voice that appears to be Trump’s is heard saying. "Get her out tomorrow. I don't care. Get her out tomorrow. Take her out. OK? Do it." On the recording, it appears the two Giuliani associates are telling Trump that the U.S. ambassador has been bad-mouthing him, which leads directly to the apparent remarks by the president. The recording was made by Fruman, according to sources familiar with the tape.

'Take her out': Recording appears to capture Trump at private dinner saying he wants Ukraine ambassador fired - ABC News

[breakingfirst]

Donald Trump Jr Returns Fire, Accuses Marie Yovanovitch Of Spying On Him And Others...

[phroyd]

KYIV, Ukraine —  

Ukraine’s former top law enforcement official says he repeatedly rebuffed demands by President Trump’s personal lawyer to investigate Joe Biden and his son, insisting he had seen no evidence of wrongdoing that he could pursue.

In an interview, Yuri Lutsenko said while he was Ukraine’s prosecutor general he told Rudolph W. Giuliani that he would be happy to cooperate if the FBI or other U.S. authorities began their own investigation of the former vice president and his son Hunter but insisted they had not broken any Ukrainian laws to his knowledge.

Lutsenko, who was fired as prosecutor general last month, said he had urged Giuliani to launch a U.S. inquiry and go to court if he had any evidence but not to use Ukraine to conduct a political vendetta that could affect the U.S. election.

“I said, ‘Let’s put this through prosecutors, not through presidents,’ ” Lutsenko told The Times.

“I told him I could not start an investigation just for the interests of an American official,” he said.

The revelations are at the heart of the House impeachment inquiry into whether Trump improperly delayed congressionally mandated military aid to Ukraine while urging leaders there to help find dirt on his political opponents to boost his 2020 reelection bid.

Lutsenko said he met Giuliani twice in person and had numerous conversations with him on the phone. He described the former New York mayor as obsessed with possible misconduct by Biden or his son Hunter.

Both Bidens have denied any wrongdoing, and no evidence has emerged to suggest they broke U.S. laws.

Lutsenko said he told Giuliani that Hunter Biden’s position on the board of Ukraine’s largest natural gas company, Burisma Holdings, while his father was involved in steering Obama administration policy toward Ukraine “could be signs of a conflict of interest” but was not illegal.

Lutsenko’s account is controversial since he is believed to have been one of the original promoters behind the unsubstantiated allegations against Biden. He also complained about Marie Yovanovitch, the U.S. ambassador to Kyiv who was recalled in May, weeks before her tenure was up.

Yovanovitch had pushed Ukraine’s government to more aggressively crack down on corruption. But the White House considered her insufficiently loyal to Trump, apparently because she resisted pressuring Ukraine on his priorities, and she became a target of conservative critics, including Giuliani.

House investigators have scheduled a deposition with Yovanovitch and four other senior State Department officials as part of the impeachment inquiry.

Among the group is Kurt Volker, who resigned as special U.S. envoy to Ukraine on Friday after the whistleblower account alleged he had helped set up some of Giuliani’s meetings with Ukrainian officials.

Lutsenko said he was eager to cooperate with Giuliani and Trump but did not have sufficient evidence to act on his own.

The former prosecutor said Giuliani dropped the Biden requests at some point last year but apparently saw a new opportunity with the election in April of Volodymyr Zelensky, a former actor and political neophyte who defeated incumbent President Petro Poroshenko.

Lutsenko said Giuliani again began contacting him to sound him out about the new president and gauge whether Zelensky might be more cooperative in going after Democrats. But Lutsenko did not keep his job and was fired in August.

On July 25, Trump spoke to Zelensky by telephone from the White House. According to a declassified memorandum released by the White House last week that reconstructed the conversation, Trump asked Zelensky for a “favor” and urged him to “look into” Biden and his son.

He linked his comments directly to Zelensky’s request to buy U.S. anti-tank weapons to help counter Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, and the new president’s hopes of securing a White House meeting.

During the 30-minute call, Trump asked Zelensky at least five times to work with Atty. Gen. William Barr in addition to Giuliani.

“I will have Mr. Giuliani give you a call and I am also going to have Atty. Gen. Barr call and we will get to the bottom of it,” Trump told Zelensky. “I’m sure you will figure it out.”

The Justice Department said last week that Barr was not aware of Trump’s comments at the time and that he had no contact with Ukrainian authorities.

Trump also asked Zelensky to look into CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity company that did work for the Democrats in the 2016 election and was the focus of conspiracy theories. The company is based in Irvine, but Trump apparently believed it operated from Ukraine.

A week before the call, Trump had ordered aides to withhold disbursement of nearly $400 million in military and State Department assistance that Congress had approved for Ukraine. He gave no reason for blocking the aid.

Previously, Trump had bragged about having secured the aid, saying it showed he was more supportive of Ukraine than President Obama had been. The funds and material were finally released this month after Congress was notified of a whistleblower complaint involving Trump’s call to Zelensky.

Giuliani has acknowledged broadly asking Ukraine to investigate the Bidens and defended the move as appropriate. Although he is a private citizen, not a government employee, he has claimed he acted at the State Department’s behest. The State Department has not commented.

“I did not do this on my own, I did it at the request of the State Department — I have a ‘thank you’ from them for doing a good job,” Giuliani said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” He said Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo “was aware of it.”

Lutsenko, 54, met with The Times at a cafe in downtown Kyiv. He spoke quickly and animatedly in Russian and English, at times contradicting his previous public statements.

He said he met unofficially with Giuliani in New York and in Warsaw last year. Other accounts put the New York meeting earlier this year, but he insisted it was January 2018. The Warsaw meeting was in March, he said.

“I went to his office and was there for several hours over three days,” Lutsenko said. “He was certainly prepared.”

Giuliani quickly raised the issue of the Ukrainian gas company that had hired Hunter Biden. Burisma is run by a Ukrainian oligarch who had been under investigation for tax evasion and lives abroad. But once back taxes were paid, Lutsenko said, the case was shelved.

“He was wondering why the case was closed,” he said. “I had to tell him how law enforcement functions here.”

He said his hands were tied and he could not reopen the case just because Trump wanted it.

Trump has suggested that one of Biden’s misdeeds was to demand the firing of Lutsenko’s predecessor, Viktor Shokin, to prevent him from investigating Hunter Biden.

But U.S. and European officials had demanded Shokin’s ouster as part of a crackdown on widespread corruption in the former Soviet republic.

“The thinking was Ukraine could do a lot more” to fight corruption, David Cameron, the British prime minister at the time, said Sunday on CNN.

Giuliani was scheduled to travel to Kyiv in May but canceled the trip when Democrats raised questions about his activities.

Lutsenko served as prosecutor general from May 2016 until last month, when Zelensky had him replaced. Both men are pivotal characters in the Trump impeachment saga.

Lutsenko has had a checkered career. He spent several years in prison on corruption charges that he claimed were trumped up. He was eventually pardoned.

Rivals have accused him of fomenting the Biden allegations in hopes of winning Trump administration support during the Ukrainian election for Poroshenko, the defeated candidate.

The picture that is emerging of Giuliani’s back-channel diplomacy suggests maneuvering that countered and ultimately undermined official U.S. foreign policy.

The U.S. Congress has voiced bipartisan support for Kyiv in its showdown with neighboring Russia, which seized the Crimea region in 2014 and has backed separatists in an armed insurgency in eastern Ukraine.

Trump has been reluctant to criticize Moscow, and last week, when he met Zelensky on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, the president appeared to startle the Ukrainian leader by urging him to settle his differences with Russia.

Loiko is a special correspondent.

Phroyd