WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump launched a Twitter attack on a former US ambassador to Ukraine on Friday while she was testifying to an impeachment hearing in Congress, in an extraordinary moment that Democrats said amounted to witness intimidation.
Trump blasted Marie Yovanovitch, a career diplomat, as she explained to the second day of televised impeachment hearings how she had fought corruption in Ukraine and how the Trump administration abruptly removed her from her post earlier this year.
Democrats say Yovanovitch was pulled back to Washington to clear the way for Trump allies to persuade Ukraine to launch corruption probes into Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who was on the board of a Ukrainian energy company.
Trump's pressure on Ukraine is at the heart of the Democratic-led impeachment inquiry into whether the Republican president misused US foreign policy to undermine one of his potential opponents in the 2020 election.
As Yovanovitch testified, Trump fired off criticism on Twitter in a move Democrats labeled "real-time" witness intimidation.
"Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad. She started off in Somalia, how did that go?" Trump asked.
In the most dramatic moment of the public impeachment hearings that began on Wednesday, Rep. Adam Schiff, who is chairing the hearing in the House Intelligence Committee, asked Yovanovitch for her reaction to the tweet. She said it was "very intimidating."
"I can't speak to what the president is trying to do, but I think the effect is to be intimidating," she said.
Schiff replied: "Well, I want to let you know, ambassador, that some of us here take witness intimidation very, very seriously."
Afterward, Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell, a member of the committee, told reporters the Trump attack could be considered for a separate article of impeachment against Trump for obstruction of justice.
'MORE OBSTRUCTION'
"It’s evidence of more obstruction: intimidating, tampering with the witness’ testimony," he said.
At the White House, Trump told reporters he did not think his tweets were intimidating.
"I have the right to speak. I have freedom of speech just as other people do," Trump said.
Yovanovitch was removed from her post as ambassador to Kiev in May after coming under attack by Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, at a time when he was working to persuade Ukraine to carry out 2 investigations that would benefit the president politically.
Giuliani also was trying to engineer a Ukrainian investigation into a debunked conspiracy theory embraced by some Trump allies that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 US election.
The main focus of the impeachment inquiry is a July 25 phone call in which Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who took office in May, to open the investigations.
Democrats are looking into whether Trump abused his power by withholding $391 million in US security aid to Ukraine as leverage to pressure Kiev to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, who is a leading contender for the Democratic nomination to take on Trump in 2020.
The money, approved by the US Congress to help US ally Ukraine combat Russia-backed separatists, was later provided to Ukraine.
The hearings could pave the way for the Democratic-led House to approve articles of impeachment - formal charges - against Trump. That would lead to a trial in the Senate on whether to convict Trump and remove him from office. Republicans control the Senate and have shown little support for Trump's removal.
Many Republicans in Congress say Trump's actions regarding Ukraine are not impeachable offenses, and the president denies any wrongdoing. Republicans have offered no evidence of corruption by the Bidens.
Yovanovitch said that her removal had undercut confidence in the US diplomatic corps.
"I had no agenda other than to pursue our stated foreign policy goals," she said. "I still find it difficult to comprehend that foreign and private interests were able to undermine US interests in this way."
DIPLOMATIC SERVICE
Republican Devin Nunes criticized Democrats for launching the impeachment inquiry, calling it a political exercise based on second- and third-hand hearsay. He noted Yovanovitch was not involved in Trump's July 25 phone call, or deliberations on the pause in security aid for Ukraine.
"I'm not exactly sure what the ambassador is doing here today," Nunes said.
During their questioning, Republicans on the panel praised Yovanovitch for her long career of foreign service, a characterization at odds with Trump's description of her as "bad news" in the call with Ukraine's president.
Some people in the hearing room applauded when Yovanovitch's testimony ended after more than 4 hours.
Two other US diplomats, William Taylor and George Kent, testified on Wednesday, expressing alarm over the pressure tactics on Ukraine by Giuliani.
Taylor is acting US ambassador to Ukraine. His aide David Holmes, who Taylor said overheard a July 26 telephone conversation in which Trump asked about progress in getting the Ukrainians to launch the Biden investigations, appeared before lawmakers in a closed-door session later on Friday.
Democratic Representative Ted Lieu emerged from the session saying there were at least 2 other witnesses who attended a lunch where Trump was overheard asking about investigations in a cell phone conversation with Gordon Sondland, the US ambassador to the European Union.
"It was very damning for the president," Lieu told reporters.
Separately, Trump’s longtime adviser Roger Stone was convicted on all charges on Friday by a federal court jury that found the veteran Republican operative and self-proclaimed “dirty trickster” guilty on seven counts of lying to the US Congress, obstruction and witness tampering.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
WASHINGTON - A top U.S. diplomat told congressional investigators that President Donald Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani conducted a "campaign full of lies" against the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine before she was recalled from her post, according to a transcript of his testimony released on Thursday.
George Kent, a deputy assistant secretary of state, told the Trump impeachment inquiry that he was also subject to attacks by Giuliani but was told to "keep my head down" by a senior State Department official.
The Democratic-led inquiry in the House of Representatives is focused on a July 25 phone call in which Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate Joe Biden, a former vice president and now a leading Democratic rival in the November 2020 presidential election.
Giuliani, is central to the inquiry and he has been mentioned frequently in testimony by State Department diplomats who have painted a picture of the former New York City mayor running a shadow U.S. policy toward Ukraine to pressure it to carry out a corruption investigation into Biden and his son, who worked for a Ukrainian gas company.
Kent mentioned Giuliani 73 times in his testimony to lawmakers which was given behind closed doors session on Oct. 15 but only released on Thursday.
Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, was abruptly pulled from her post in May. Kent said Giuliani conducted a smear campaign against the envoy. "His assertions and allegations against former Ambassador Yovanovitch were without basis, untrue, period," Kent testified.
"Mr. Giuliani, at that point, had been carrying on a campaign for several months full of lies and incorrect information Ambassador Yovanovitch, so this was a continuation of his campaign of lies," Kent said.
Neither Giuliani nor a lawyer for him immediately responded to requests for comment on Kent's testimony.
Kent said Ukrainian officials understood when they met with Giuliani that he was not a regular private citizen and understood he represented Trump.
"Giuliani was not consulting with the State Department about what he was doing in the first half of 2019. And to the best of my knowledge, he's never suggested that he was promoting U.S. policy," Kent said.
For nearly a year, Giuliani has pursued unsubstantiated allegations that Biden pushed to fire a Ukrainian prosecutor to stop him from investigating Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company, where Biden's son Hunter served on the board.
Giuliani also told Reuters he played a role in the effort to remove Yovanovitch.
STAR WITNESSES
Democrats have been releasing transcripts of the closed-door interviews as they prepare for public hearings in Congress next week. Kent is among the three U.S. diplomats who will serve as star witnesses.
Lawmakers are trying to determine whether Trump froze $391 million in U.S. security assistance for Ukraine to put pressure on Zelenskiy to conduct the investigation, thus misusing U.S. foreign policy for his personal gain.
Trump's defenders say there is no evidence of him and the Ukrainian president engaging in a "quid pro quo" - exchanging a favor for a favor - because the aid to Ukraine was released and Zelenskiy never explicitly promised anything.
A quid pro quo is not necessary to prove high crimes or misdemeanors, which is the standard the U.S. Constitution requires for the impeachment of a president.
Kent and William Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine will testify on Nov. 13. Yovanovitch will testify on Nov. 15.
If the Democratic-controlled House votes to impeach Trump, the Republican-controlled Senate would then hold a trial on whether to remove him from office.
Senate Republicans have so far shown little appetite for ousting the president.
The impeachment inquiry met on Thursday for the first time with an adviser to Vice President Mike Pence, but former national security adviser John Bolton failed to heed a request to appear.
Lawmakers are also seeking to find out how much Pence knew about efforts by Trump and those around him to pressure Ukraine to investigate Biden and his son.
Jennifer Williams, a career foreign service officer and special adviser to Pence for Europe and Russia, was testifying to members of the House Foreign Affairs, Intelligence and Oversight committees after receiving a subpoena to compel her testimony.
Williams told investigators she found the Trump's July call with Zelenskiy unusual because it was political, not diplomatic in nature, CNN reported, citing an unnamed source. But she did not raise concerns about the call with her superiors and, when asked what Pence knew, said she never heard him mention anything about investigation of the 2016 elections, Burisma or the Bidens.
Bolton, a foreign policy hawk who was fired by Trump in September, was also called to appear on Thursday but did not show, and his attorney said he would not testify voluntarily.
A House Intelligence Committee official said Bolton has threatened to take the committee to court if it subpoenas him. A congressional source said the inquiry is unlikely to go down that route.
Bolton's office and his attorney did not respond to a request for comment.
The Washington Post, citing people familiar with Bolton's views, said although he is willing, he wants to see how a court battle between Congress and the White House over the constitutionality of the subpoenas shakes out first.
The battle is likely to go to the Supreme Court and could spill into next year.
(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Additional reporting by Makini Brice, Mark Hosenball, Tim Ahmann and Karen Freifeld; Writing by Sonya Hepinstall and Humeyra Pamuk Editing by Peter Cooney and Alistair Bell)
source: news.abs-cbn.com
WASHINGTON - Witness transcripts in the impeachment probe into Donald Trump were made public for the first time Monday, with the former US ambassador to Kiev telling investigators she felt threatened by the president in his call to Ukraine's leader.
Democrats are entering an open phase of a congressional probe into potential abuse of power by Trump that has divided Washington as Republicans seek to defend him and his opponents press their effort to remove him from office.
The release of Marie Yovanovitch's deposition came as the White House hardened its opposition to the inquiry, with Trump's top national security lawyer defying a subpoena to testify early Monday.
The probe is examining how Trump pressured Ukraine to investigate his Democratic rival Joe Biden, including by withholding $391 million in military aid that had been approved by Congress to help the US ally defend itself against Russian aggression.
Yovanovitch, who had urged Ukraine to do more to fight corruption, testified last month that she was ousted in May over "false claims" spread by questionable actors allied to Trump.
According to her deposition, she was alarmed by the deepening involvement of Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani in Ukrainian affairs, and in particular his efforts to get Kiev to investigate Biden.
She said she was "shocked" when she read the summary of Trump's July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in which Trump said the ambassador was "going to go through some things."
"I was very concerned. I still am," Yovanovitch says.
"Did you feel threatened?" an investigator asks Yovanovitch in the transcript.
"Yes," she replies.
Yovanovitch said Ukraine's Interior Minister Arsen Avakov told her in February after speaking with Giuliani that it would be "dangerous" for Ukraine to become involved in US politics.
"He told me I really needed to watch my back," Yovanovitch said.
The release is the first of what House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff said would be several key depositions.
He also released testimony from Michael McKinley, a former senior advisor to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who resigned in September after concluding that the department was not defending top diplomats.
He said he asked Pompeo three times to defend Yovanovitch, eventually telling him that "this situation isn't acceptable." But the secretary was essentially non-responsive.
In his 37 years as a diplomat he had "never seen" efforts to use the State Department and its missions "to procure negative political information for domestic purposes," McKinley told investigators.
[BOLD] 'Irregular back channel'
The depositions demonstrate "the contamination of US foreign policy by an irregular back channel that sought to advance the president's personal and political interests, and the serious concerns that this activity elicited across our government," Schiff and the chairs of two other panels leading the investigation said in a statement.
Schiff said testimony would be released Tuesday from two more key witnesses, then-special representative on Ukraine Kurt Volker and US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland.
They were in text message chains in which diplomats expressed misgivings about the prospective quid pro quo of political investigations for military aid.
Prior to the release of the first transcripts, Trump sought to attack their credibility by suggesting, without evidence, that Schiff would "change the words that were said to suit the Dems' purposes."
Meanwhile John Eisenberg, Trump's deputy counsel for national security affairs, defied a congressional subpoena, a sign of renewed White House stonewalling.
Eisenberg is reported to have been on the July 25 call. But Trump said Monday there was "no reason" for witnesses to answer questions by investigators.
"This is just another Democrat Hoax that I have had to live with from the day I got elected," the president said.
Robert Blair, an assistant to the president and senior advisor to the acting chief of staff, also refused to testify.
Trump senior associate counsel Michael Ellis and White House budget office associate director for energy Brian McCormack were due for depositions too.
But Schiff said the White House instructed them not to appear, a clear signal that "their testimony would be further incriminating of the president."
source: news.abs-cbn.com
