Impeachment Briefing NYT

[QueEx]

​

November 16, 2019​

By Noah Weiland

Welcome back to the Impeachment Briefing. Today’s hearing featured dramatic testimony from a veteran diplomat who responded in real time to Twitter attacks by President Trump.​

Who testified today​

Marie Yovanovitch was the American ambassador to Ukraine until May, when she was removed by President Trump after a smear campaign orchestrated by Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer. In a July 25 phone call with Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, Mr. Trump described Ms. Yovanovitch as “bad news,” adding going to go through some things.” ​ Ms. Yovanovitch’s connection to impeachment​ Investigators have explored whether the president recalled her because she was an impediment to the shadow foreign policy promoted by Mr. Giuliani and other American officials. That “second channel” of diplomacy, as some witnesses have called it, pressured Ukraine to open investigations that would have benefited Mr. Trump politically.​ Marie L. Yovanovitch, the former American ambassador to Ukraine, was shown a tweet that President Trump posted about her while she was testifying in the impeachment inquiry hearings on Capitol Hill.Doug Mills/The New York Times​ What were the highlights?​ Ms. Yovanovitch described how it felt to be bad-mouthed by Mr. Trump on the July 25 call: “shocked, appalled, devastated that the president of the United States would talk about any ambassador like that to a foreign head of state. And it was me. I mean, I couldn’t believe it.” A person who saw her reading the transcript told her that the color drained from her face, she said. Asked what the words “going to go through some things” sounded like to her, she said, “It sounded like a threat.”​ As Ms. Yovanovitch testified, Mr. Trump posted a tweet attacking her record as a diplomat in many troubled regions of the world, saying that “everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad.” Representative Adam Schiff, the Democratic chairman of the committee holding the hearings, read the tweet back to her in real time. “It’s very intimidating,” she said. “The effect is to be intimidating.” Our television critic wrote that it was a “remarkable fourth-wall-breaking moment” and a “real-time meta-confrontation.”​ Ms. Yovanovitch was unsparing in her criticism of the Trump administration. “Ukrainians who preferred to play by the old, corrupt rules sought to remove me,” she said. “What continues to amaze me is that they found Americans willing to partner with them and, working together, they apparently succeeded in orchestrating the removal of a U.S. ambassador.” She went on: “How could our system fail like this? How is it that foreign corrupt interests could manipulate our government?”​ Here’s a quick video recap of some of the biggest moments. Here’s our new podcast, The Latest, on today’s testimony. And if you want to go deeper, here’s our full story on the day’s events, some more key takeaways and Ms. Yovanovitch’s opening statement.​ ​ What — and who — Ms. Yovanovitch represents​ The audience at the hearing gave Ms. Yovanovitch . I asked my colleague Lara Jakes, who wrote recently about Ms. Yovanovitch’s influence at the State Department, why she drew such a response.​ Lara, first off: Why was Ms. Yovanovitch such a striking and important witness?​ In a way, this entire inquiry started when she was removed from the embassy in Kiev, which first raised red flags about Mr. Trump’s relationship to Ukraine. We heard personally, in her own words, and very publicly, how this all went down, which helps people understand how we got here.​ We saw Mr. Trump attack Ms. Yovanovitch again today, after he said on July 25 that she was “going to go through some things.”​ Ms. Yovanovitch interpreted that as a threat from the very president she was representing in Kiev, to the very people she had been representing his administration’s policy. That’s not just unusual. It’s practically unheard-of. Today he was throwing her under the bus yet again.​ Grace Kennan Warnecke, the daughter of the famous American diplomat George Kennan, sat directly behind Ms. Yovanovitch — a public show of the support she has within the Foreign Service. Why is her testimony such a big deal in the State Department?​ She is revered particularly among female Foreign Service officers. She has mentored many of them. These career diplomats who have testified in the impeachment inquiry have collectively said much of what most active Foreign Service officers cannot say publicly, for fear of career suicide.​ Ms. Yovanovitch ended her opening statement by honoring her colleagues, the “public servants who by vocation and training pursue the policies of the president, regardless of who holds that office or what party they affiliate with.” Yet there have been a record number of retirements by Foreign Service officers during the Trump administration. What’s going on?​ People have said to me that if they feel like they can no longer be effective in that mission, then they might as well leave. It’s the State Department’s job to carry out the policy set by the White House. In this case it wasn’t even a formal policy. The diplomats say that it’s an irregular approach that is precisely what they encourage other governments not to do. When it’s their own government, they feel hypocritical if they don’t object — so many choose to leave. ​ What else we’re following​ David Holmes, a U.S. embassy official in Kiev, told investigators today about a July 26 call he overheard between Gordon Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union, and Mr. Trump. Mr. Sondland allegedly told Mr. Trump that President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine “loves your ass,” and would conduct investigations into Mr. Trump’s rivals and “anything you ask him to.”​ Mr. Holmes said that on the call, Mr. Trump asked Mr. Sondland: “So, he’s gonna do the investigation?” Mr. Sondland replied, “He’s gonna do it.” After the call ended, Mr. Holmes asked Mr. Sondland if was true that the president did not care about Ukraine. The ambassador replied that Mr. Trump cared only about the “big stuff,” like investigations that Mr. Giuliani was pushing for, because they affected him personally.​ Mr. Trump released a memorandumof an April telephone conversation he had with Mr. Zelensky that differed from a summary of the call released by the White House months ago.​ On the April night she took a phone call instructing her to take the next plane back to Washington, Ms. Yovanovitch hosted an event to honor a young anticorruption activist who had been murdered in horrific fashion. She talked about the activistin her testimony today.​ ​ You received this email because you signed up for Impeachment Briefing from The New York Times.​ Subscribe to The Times​

 

[QueEx]

Rick McKee Copyright 2019 Cagle Cartoons

 

[QueEx]

Today, the House Intelligence Committee will hear from the US ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland.

There's a lot of pressure on Sondland:

Some Democrats have accused him of lying in his closed-door testimony, and ​

Republicans worry he may turn on Trump once he's forced to speak publicly.​

​

 

[QueEx]

What to Watch For in Day 4 of the Trump Impeachment Inquiry Hearings

Gordon D. Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union, arriving last month for an interview with the House committees leading the impeachment investigation.Credit...Erin Schaff


New York Times

By Peter Baker
November 20, 2019


The House impeachment hearings hit a critical moment on Wednesday with the appearance of perhaps the most significant witness on the public schedule. Gordon D. Sondland, the Trump donor now serving as ambassador to the European Union, will be asked about his role in pressuring Ukraine to open investigations into Democrats and any link to American security aid.

The House impeachment hearings hit a critical moment on Wednesday with the appearance of perhaps the most significant witness on the public schedule. Gordon D. Sondland, the Trump donor now serving as ambassador to the European Union, will be asked about his role in pressuring Ukraine to open investigations into Democrats and any link to American security aid.

The basics: Who, what, when and how to watch.
Who: Mr. Sondland will appear by himself in the morning session. Laura K. Cooper, a deputy assistant defense secretary, and David Hale, the under secretary of state for political affairs, will testify together in the afternoon session.
What: The House Intelligence Committee, led by its chairman, Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California, will continue to examine the case for impeaching President Trump. The Republican minority, led by Representative Devin Nunes of California, will again work to poke holes in testimony implicating the president.
When and Where: The morning proceedings start at 9 a.m. Eastern in the vaulted, columned chambers of the House Ways and Means Committee, and could last until the early afternoon. The second set of hearings is scheduled to startu around 2:30 p.m., depending on when the morning session is finished.


How to Watch: The New York Times will stream the testimony live, and a team of reporters in Washington will provide real-time context and analysis of the events on Capitol Hill. Follow along at nytimes.com, starting a few minutes before 9.

The Impeachment Inquiry’s Main Players
Here are the lawmakers to watch as the process unfolds.

The president’s main agent on Ukraine inside government will be forced to explain inconsistencies in his account.
Mr. Sondland, who told other presidential advisers that Mr. Trump had put him in charge of Ukraine policy, faces a challenging morning as lawmakers will grill him about conflicts between his previous closed-door testimony and versions of events offered by other witnesses.

Mr. Sondland has already been compelled to amend his testimony once by saying that he now recalled telling a senior Ukrainian official that the release of frozen American security aid probably depended on a public commitment to investigate Democrats, a revision he made only after another Trump administration official told investigators about the conversation.
ADVERTISEMENT
Continue reading the main story


A favor, a phone call and an aid freeze: Sondland will be asked to explain Trump’s role in the pressure campaign.
While Republicans derided many previous witnesses for offering only secondhand accounts, Mr. Sondland was in direct contact with Mr. Trump and will be asked about the president’s instructions to him. Along with Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, Mr. Sondland was at the center of the effort to press Ukraine to turn up damaging information about Democrats.
He will be asked in particular about a telephone conversation he had with Mr. Trump on July 26, the day after the president pressed President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine to “do us a favor” by investigating Democrats. Mr. Sondland was on the outdoor patio of a restaurant in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, and the president spoke loudly enough that the ambassador held the phone away from his ear, allowing others at the table to hear, including an embassy official who told House investigators about it last Friday.
As Republicans seek to protect Mr. Trump, they may portray Mr. Sondland as acting on his own to link the security aid to the investigations without explicit direction from the president.
Ms. Cooper has said that there was a consensus within the government that Ukraine was making progress on corruption when the White House abruptly froze the security aid without explanation for a review. Mr. Hale has described pushing unsuccessfully for the State Department to defend Marie L. Yovanovitch, the ambassador to Ukraine who was targeted by Mr. Giuliani and ultimately removed from her post.

Before then, catch up on some important background on the impeachment inquiry.

• The three witnesses have already appeared for closed-door depositions in the inquiry. Read transcripts or key excerpts from their testimony here: Mr. Sondland, Ms. Cooper, Mr. Hale.
• Mr. Trump repeatedly pressured Mr. Zelensky to investigate people and issues of political concern to Mr. Trump, including the former vice president. Here’s a timeline of events since January.
• A C.I.A. officer who was once detailed to the White House filed a whistle-blower complaint on Mr. Trump’s interactions with Mr. Zelensky. Read the complaint.

Who Are the Main Characters in the Whistle-Blower’s Complaint?

President Trump’s personal lawyer.

The prosecutor general of Ukraine.

Joe Biden’s son.

. . . are just some of the names mentioned in the whistle-blower’s complaint. What were their roles? We break it down.

Congressman: “Sir, let me repeat my question: Did you ever speak to the president about this complaint?”​

Congress is investigating allegations that President Trump pushed a foreign government to dig up dirt on his Democratic rivals. “It’s just a Democrat witch hunt.​

Here we go again.” At the heart of an impeachment inquiry is a nine-page whistle-blower complaint that names over two dozen people. Not counting the president himself, these are the people that appear the most:​

First, Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani. According to documents and interviews, Giuliani has been involved in shadowy diplomacy on behalf of the president’s interests. He encouraged Ukrainian officials to investigate the Biden family’s activities in the country, plus other avenues that could benefit Trump like whether the Ukrainians intentionally helped the Democrats during the 2016 election. It was an agenda he also pushed on TV. “So you did ask Ukraine to look into Joe Biden.” “Of course I did!”​

A person Giuliani worked with, Yuriy Lutsenko, Ukraine’s former prosecutor general. He pushed for investigations that would also benefit Giuliani and Trump. Lutsenko also discussed conspiracy theories about the Bidens in the U.S. media. But he later walked back his allegations, saying there was no evidence of wrongdoing by the Bidens.​

This is where Hunter Biden comes in, the former vice president’s son. He served on the board of a Ukrainian energy company run by this guy, who’s had some issues with the law. While Biden was in office, he along with others, called for the dismissal of Lutsenko’s predecessor, a prosecutor named Viktor Shokin, whose office was overseeing investigations into the company that Hunter Biden was involved with. Shokin was later voted out by the Ukrainian government. Lutsenko replaced him, but was widely criticized for corruption himself.​

When a new president took office in May, Volodymyr Zelensky, Zelensky said that he’d replace Lutsenko. Giuliani and Trump? Not happy. They viewed Lutsenko as their ally. During a July 25 call between Trump and the new Ukrainian president, Trump defended him, saying, “I heard you had a prosecutor who is very good and he was shut down and that’s really unfair.”​

In that phone call, Trump also allegedly asked his counterpart to continue the investigation into Joe Biden, who is his main rival in the 2020 election.​

Zelensky has publicly denied feeling pressured by Trump. “In other words, no pressure.”​

And then finally, Attorney General William Barr, who also came up in the July 25 call. In the reconstructed transcript, Trump repeatedly suggested that Zelensky’s administration could work with Barr and Giuliani to investigate the Bidens and other matters of political interest to Trump.​

Since the whistle-blower complaint was made public, Democrats have criticized Barr for dismissing allegations that Trump had violated campaign finance laws during his call with Zelensky and not passing along the complaint to Congress. House Democrats have now subpoenaed several people mentioned in the complaint, as an impeachment inquiry into the president’s conduct continues.​

• Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced in September that the House would open a formal impeachment proceeding in response to the whistle-blower’s complaint. Here’s how the impeachment process works, and here’s why political influence in foreign policy matters.
• House committees have issued subpoenas to the White House, the Defense Department, the budget office and other agencies for documents related to the impeachment investigation. Here’s the evidence that has been collected so far.
• Read about the Democrats’ rules to govern impeachment proceedings.

Peter Baker is the chief White House correspondent and has covered the last four presidents for The Times and The Washington Post. He also is the author of five books, most recently “Impeachment: An American History.” @peterbakernyt • Facebook
WRITE A COMMENT

• Common Questions About Impeachment

• • What is impeachment?
    Impeachment is charging a holder of public office with misconduct.
  • Why is the impeachment process happening now?
    A whistle-blower complaint filed in August said that White House officials believed they had witnessed Mr. Trump abuse his power for political gain.
  • Can you explain what President Trump is accused of doing?
    President Trump is accused of breaking the law by pressuring the president of Ukraine to look into former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., a potential Democratic opponent in the 2020 election.
  • What did the President say to the president of Ukraine?
    Here is a reconstructed transcript of Mr. Trump’s call to President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, released by The White House.
  • What is the impeachment process like?
    Here are answers to seven key questions about the process.
• How to Keep Up
  • Get an email recapping the day’s news
  • Download our mobile app on iOS and Android and turn on alerts
  • Listen to analysis on our special podcast series, The Latest