Donald Trump’s impeachment blockade has collapsed.
The president’s former top Russia adviser, Fiona Hill — the first White House official to cooperate in Democrats’ investigation of the Ukraine scandal — has sketched for lawmakers a trail of alleged corruption that extends from Kiev to the West Wing. In dramatic testimony on Monday, she roped in some of Trump’s top advisers as witnesses to the unfolding controversy.
And on Tuesday, a senior State Department official, George Kent, appeared on Capitol Hill to testify about his knowledge of the episode despite an attempt by administration lawyers to block him, according to a source working on the impeachment inquiry. The House Intelligence Committee issued a subpoena for his testimony Tuesday morning, and Kent complied.
It’s the latest evidence that the White House’s stonewalling against congressional requests for documents and testimony is crumbling — and Democrats are feeling a new sense of momentum.
“Thank you to patriots like @realDonaldTrump appointee Fiona Hill who chose to ignore the obstruction from Trump and gave testimony to Congress today,” said Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.). “The truth will keep coming out. And Trump cannot stop it.”
In closed-door testimony described by a source in the room, Hill detailed increasing alarm among White House officials over the shadow diplomacy efforts of Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who mounted a months-long campaign to dirty Biden on unfounded charges.
She said she shared her concerns with then-National Security Adviser John Bolton who encouraged her to report her concerns about Giuliani’s efforts to a National Security Council lawyer — which she did twice. Hill also connected Giuliani’s efforts to Trump’s acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, indicating that Bolton characterized their efforts on Ukraine as a “drug deal.”
According to a source in the room Monday, Hill said Bolton compared Giuliani to “a hand grenade who’s going to blow everybody up.”
And the flood of damaging information surely isn’t over.
As lawmakers return to Capitol Hill on Tuesday, a growing number of witnesses this week will describe their own role in the controversy, even as the White House has vowed not to engage with House Democrats’ “illegitimate” impeachment effort.
On Wednesday, Michael McKinley, who abruptly resigned last week as a top aide to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo intends to testify before lawmakers.
On Thursday, comes Gordon Sondland, the EU ambassador whose text messages revealed by lawmakers indicated he was aware of efforts to pressure Ukrainian officials to investigate Biden. Sondland is reportedly ready to deflect any blame onto Trump about whether there was any quid pro quo.
Congressional investigators on Friday will hear from Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Laura Cooper, who oversees Russia- and Ukraine-related matters at the Pentagon.
Despite the series of breakthroughs, Democrats will still face resistance from the White House to some of their high-level requests.
When asked whether Trump’s budget office planned to comply with a Tuesday subpoena deadline for documents, a senior administration official did not say, instead pointing to a White House letter last week that deemed the House impeachment probe “unconstitutional.”
But Hill’s account underscores how the president’s once-impenetrable barrier to meaningful testimony in Democrats’ impeachment inquiry has been blown apart.
“The walls are closing in. The details we are learning about the shadow foreign policy operation Trump has been running to benefit himself personally are stunning,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee late Monday. “Why have a democracy, if we allow this to happen without consequence?”
Though Hill’s testimony was the most damning to date, she wasn’t the first to put a crack in Trump’s wall.
Earlier this month, former Ambassador Kurt Volker provided text messages between himself and other diplomats in which they described concerns that Trump was using a potential White House visit for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and possibly even military aid, as a cudgel to force the besieged country to probe Biden. Volker testified for nine hours to lawmakers and aides behind closed doors. Trump has forcefully denied any sort of “quid pro quo” occurred.
Last Friday, former Ukrainian Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch testified about her abrupt removal by Trump, which came amid a smear campaign by Trump’s allies that accused her of disloyalty. Yovanovitch’s ouster in May infuriated senior State Department hands, and she testified that the ability of bad actors to engineer her removal could be exploited by foreign adversaries.
Meanwhile, Giuliani, who is facing a mounting set of legal woes, is due to provide documents to Congress under a subpoena issued by the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, but it’s unclear if he intends to cooperate.
Giuliani has been defiant and indicated he intends to be watching the third game of a New York Yankees playoff series — and possibly even attend the afternoon ballgame.
House Republicans have said little about the substance of Hill’s testimony but have complained vehemently about Democrats’ decision to hold witness interviews behind closed doors. They say a matter as weighty as the potential impeachment of the president should be conducted publicly.
Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff has countered this complaint, arguing that the secrecy surrounding the initial interviews is meant to prevent witnesses from aligning their statements.
Caitlin Emma contributed to this report.
Article originally published on POLITICO Magazine
Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/15/donald-trump-impeachment-ukraine-investigation-046915
Droolin’ Dog sniffed out this story and shared it with you.
The Article Was Written/Published By: Andrew Desiderio
! #Headlines, #ImpeachTrump, #Political, #Politico, #politics, #Trending, #Trump, #TrumpLiesMatter, #Newsfeed, #syndicated, news
No comments:
Post a Comment